Hey, if you're interested in my normal day-to-day goings-on and in my writing projects outside of the old school community (fiction, other gaming writing, etc.) check out my personal blog at The Whole Wide World:
http://grey-elf.blogspot.com/
I tend to split posting between here and there, so following both will give you more frequent postings from me. Plus, I'd like to have more than 29 followers over there.
Wednesday, May 8, 2013
Thursday, March 14, 2013
Concerning Alignment
Erik over at Tenkar's Tavern has a blog up about alignments, and whether folks prefer the AD&D 9-alignment system or the OD&D/BX/BECMI 3-alignment system (which ignores the Holmes 5-alignment system, but we'll let that pass for now).
This got me thinking about how people actually use alignment in their games. I mean, yes, we have alignment restrictions on certain classes--Paladins have to be Lawful Good, Thieves cannot be Lawful, Druids must be Neutral, etc. But what exactly does this mean?
I have a really good friend who abhors alignment. He hates the entire concept of it. He uses it in games that I run, because I use it, but he very often questions things like the disallowance of a good assassin. "How," he asks, "can a skills set be good or evil?" My take on it insofar as the assassin goes, and I've laid it out, but he still disagrees, is that when one's skills set is murder, it's impossible to call oneself good, unless you have foresworn the use of said skills set...in which case you're no longer an assassin.
In some cases, however, I agree with him--there's nothing inherent, for example, to the Ranger class that requires a good alignment, and so there should be no reason to disallow evil rangers. The only reason the alignment restriction is there is that Aragorn is the source material for the Ranger. I could go on, but the point, I expect, is made. For some classes alignment restrictions are somewhat justified. For others they seem arbitrary.
But the real question I'd like to examine here is, how do you think alignment should be used in game? Is it a restrictive set of behavioral conditions within which characters must operate? Is it a broad set of guidelines for governing your character's actions? Or, is it best applied as a descriptor of the character you have in mind?
In short: does alignment define your character, or describe him?
There's room for many shades of gray in the interpretation here, but in my games I prefer not to force hardcore restrictions on my players based upon one or two words on their character sheet. What is more important to me is that players are consistent in the way they play their character--that is to say, your fighter shouldn't rail against wholesale slaughter one session, then the next kill a bunch of orc children while justifying it as, "well, they're orcs," unless there's some pre-established reason for him to have such an abiding hatred of orcs as for it to be reasonable for this to be a sudden exception to the, "wholesale slaughter is wrong" rant.
So for me, alignment is an important tool, but is a descriptor. It tells me, as DM, what to expect out of your character until I get to know the character. At some point, however, that designation has to fade into the background in favor of the fact that yes, you've played your character in a rational, logical and consistent way which has shown growth and evolution, but not outright contradiction.
The rules, in many cases, seem to point towards the opposite intent, and I can understand why this rankles some folks. A lot of character requirements revolve around alignment--should a Paladin, for example, behave in a way that is not lawful and good, he loses all the benefits of Paladinhood and becomes a fighter. Okay, I'll grant that this is an extreme example, since the entire point of Paladinhood is to be a paragon of goodness and law: Paladins are the Superman of D&D. But others see similar restrictions: Rangers lose some of their abilities if they become non-good. Druids cease to be druids if they ever fail to behave as a True Neutral. It goes on and on, and in some cases one can see the rationale behind the behavioral restrictions, but still--the main thrust seems to be towards treating alignment as a definer rather than a descriptor.
AD&D is an interesting step in the development of role playing, as it really represents a sort of transitional period between the pure gamesmanship of OD&D and the more open and epic character-based play of second edition (which then struck an odd sort of balance with mechanically-defined character-based play in third ed). In OD&D, for example, the onus was more upon the players than the characters. It was the players who used their brains to solve puzzles and traps, regardless of the numbers on their character sheets, which in OD&D meant very little BESIDES being in-game descriptors. In AD&D, with ability scores taking on a more important role, the character you created took on a more personalized and important position in play. It was in AD&D that you likely would first hear a DM say, "I don't know that your character's bright enough to think of that."
Things like alignment functioned as rigid descriptors of this character idea. Gygax seems to have felt that DMs needed these sorts of player restrictions to help them maintain control of their game, lest the players run amok. Could this be an early example of the "bad player vs. bad DM" issue that seems to constantly find its way to the forefront of game design these days? The "how many rules do we need to make sure DMs don't screw players and vice-versa," debate? In any case, I feel that keeping too tight of a reign on alignment as a descriptor results in an exceptionally limited number of character concepts. At very least there needs to be a broad range of behavior within each of the alignments, which is probably why in later publications TSR came out with a number of different systems for tracking alignment--my personal favorite had overlapping spheres with Neutral in the middle, Law and Chaos on the sides, and Good and Evil at the top and bottom. But in the end I never used any of these tracking systems, because as I said, what was more important was that you were consistent in the way you played your character.
But then, I always favored Good vs. Evil over Law vs. Chaos, and I never used alignment language, either.
What about you? What are your thoughts on how (or if) alignment should be used in D&D?
This got me thinking about how people actually use alignment in their games. I mean, yes, we have alignment restrictions on certain classes--Paladins have to be Lawful Good, Thieves cannot be Lawful, Druids must be Neutral, etc. But what exactly does this mean?
I have a really good friend who abhors alignment. He hates the entire concept of it. He uses it in games that I run, because I use it, but he very often questions things like the disallowance of a good assassin. "How," he asks, "can a skills set be good or evil?" My take on it insofar as the assassin goes, and I've laid it out, but he still disagrees, is that when one's skills set is murder, it's impossible to call oneself good, unless you have foresworn the use of said skills set...in which case you're no longer an assassin.
In some cases, however, I agree with him--there's nothing inherent, for example, to the Ranger class that requires a good alignment, and so there should be no reason to disallow evil rangers. The only reason the alignment restriction is there is that Aragorn is the source material for the Ranger. I could go on, but the point, I expect, is made. For some classes alignment restrictions are somewhat justified. For others they seem arbitrary.
But the real question I'd like to examine here is, how do you think alignment should be used in game? Is it a restrictive set of behavioral conditions within which characters must operate? Is it a broad set of guidelines for governing your character's actions? Or, is it best applied as a descriptor of the character you have in mind?
In short: does alignment define your character, or describe him?
There's room for many shades of gray in the interpretation here, but in my games I prefer not to force hardcore restrictions on my players based upon one or two words on their character sheet. What is more important to me is that players are consistent in the way they play their character--that is to say, your fighter shouldn't rail against wholesale slaughter one session, then the next kill a bunch of orc children while justifying it as, "well, they're orcs," unless there's some pre-established reason for him to have such an abiding hatred of orcs as for it to be reasonable for this to be a sudden exception to the, "wholesale slaughter is wrong" rant.
So for me, alignment is an important tool, but is a descriptor. It tells me, as DM, what to expect out of your character until I get to know the character. At some point, however, that designation has to fade into the background in favor of the fact that yes, you've played your character in a rational, logical and consistent way which has shown growth and evolution, but not outright contradiction.
The rules, in many cases, seem to point towards the opposite intent, and I can understand why this rankles some folks. A lot of character requirements revolve around alignment--should a Paladin, for example, behave in a way that is not lawful and good, he loses all the benefits of Paladinhood and becomes a fighter. Okay, I'll grant that this is an extreme example, since the entire point of Paladinhood is to be a paragon of goodness and law: Paladins are the Superman of D&D. But others see similar restrictions: Rangers lose some of their abilities if they become non-good. Druids cease to be druids if they ever fail to behave as a True Neutral. It goes on and on, and in some cases one can see the rationale behind the behavioral restrictions, but still--the main thrust seems to be towards treating alignment as a definer rather than a descriptor.
AD&D is an interesting step in the development of role playing, as it really represents a sort of transitional period between the pure gamesmanship of OD&D and the more open and epic character-based play of second edition (which then struck an odd sort of balance with mechanically-defined character-based play in third ed). In OD&D, for example, the onus was more upon the players than the characters. It was the players who used their brains to solve puzzles and traps, regardless of the numbers on their character sheets, which in OD&D meant very little BESIDES being in-game descriptors. In AD&D, with ability scores taking on a more important role, the character you created took on a more personalized and important position in play. It was in AD&D that you likely would first hear a DM say, "I don't know that your character's bright enough to think of that."
Things like alignment functioned as rigid descriptors of this character idea. Gygax seems to have felt that DMs needed these sorts of player restrictions to help them maintain control of their game, lest the players run amok. Could this be an early example of the "bad player vs. bad DM" issue that seems to constantly find its way to the forefront of game design these days? The "how many rules do we need to make sure DMs don't screw players and vice-versa," debate? In any case, I feel that keeping too tight of a reign on alignment as a descriptor results in an exceptionally limited number of character concepts. At very least there needs to be a broad range of behavior within each of the alignments, which is probably why in later publications TSR came out with a number of different systems for tracking alignment--my personal favorite had overlapping spheres with Neutral in the middle, Law and Chaos on the sides, and Good and Evil at the top and bottom. But in the end I never used any of these tracking systems, because as I said, what was more important was that you were consistent in the way you played your character.
But then, I always favored Good vs. Evil over Law vs. Chaos, and I never used alignment language, either.
What about you? What are your thoughts on how (or if) alignment should be used in D&D?
Wednesday, March 6, 2013
A Petition to Congress - Getting Political for a Minute
I have created a petition at whitehouse.gov.
It calls for an immediate and permanent reduction in congressional
salary and benefits to bring Congress back to the level of their
constituents and take away their right to vote themselves raises.
You can go here to read and sign it.
This petition has been created with the intention of (in the best of all worlds) forcing Congress back to our level so they're no longer so divorced from what they do to us on a daily basis, and at the very least showing the level of discontent the people have in no uncertain terms.
I have no real hope that the White House or Congress cares about the welfare of nor will listen to the voices of the people they are supposed to serve, but at least they'll have to SEE this one, so I'd appreciate the support.
And no, I'm not looking for a political debate here. If you don't agree--don't sign. It's that simple. Don't tell me why you don't agree, don't tell me you won't or didn't sign, and don't tell me I'm wrong. I don't care and will delete such responses. This link is intended for support, not debate or detraction. So if you support the idea, feel free to comment.
You can go here to read and sign it.
This petition has been created with the intention of (in the best of all worlds) forcing Congress back to our level so they're no longer so divorced from what they do to us on a daily basis, and at the very least showing the level of discontent the people have in no uncertain terms.
I have no real hope that the White House or Congress cares about the welfare of nor will listen to the voices of the people they are supposed to serve, but at least they'll have to SEE this one, so I'd appreciate the support.
And no, I'm not looking for a political debate here. If you don't agree--don't sign. It's that simple. Don't tell me why you don't agree, don't tell me you won't or didn't sign, and don't tell me I'm wrong. I don't care and will delete such responses. This link is intended for support, not debate or detraction. So if you support the idea, feel free to comment.
Thursday, February 21, 2013
The Foundations of Geek: A Blog Challenge
I have a blog challenge I'd like to issue.
I am a geek because geekdom has been with me as far back as I can remember. Here are some formative experiences:
At the age of 3 years old, I saw Star Wars in the theater. That was 1977. I have never, ever forgotten that and have very much been informed by that experience. Star Wars has been with me as long as I can remember, and that's why I'm such a rabid fan of it now. Star Wars was probably the single biggest, most important influence on my geekdom.
At the age of 5, I played in my first AD&D game, sitting in my grandma's basement with my uncle's group who wherein high school at the time. That was 1979 and was the second biggest geek influence on my life. Our DM, Alan, would create dungeons with the random generator at the back of the DMG. At the time I mostly rolled dice when I was told to, as I barely understood the idea behind the game (though I could totally get behind pretending to be a half-elf fighter). I've since gone on to professionally design tabletop RPGs, so that tells you how important that experience was. Ironically, my uncle stopped playing D&D by the time he graduated high school. I never did.
1980 (or so) through, well, ongoing: Star Trek. My aunt Darla (who was my godmother, may she rest in peace) was a rabid fan, so I became a big fan, too.
Also 1980 (or so): got the chance to play Gamma World (again, with my uncle's group). I made a mutant wolf that shot lasers from his eyes.
Also 1980 or thereabouts (1980 was a banner year): Got our first Atari 2600. Grandpap Vey worked at Sears, who carried the licensed clone of the Atari, and as such we had every single game that came out for that thing for years.
1981, 1983: Empire Strikes Back, Return of the Jedi. Around 1981 I got to meet Darth Vader at a department store (I think it was Kaufmanns) downtown for a promotional event for Empire. Now I dress up as a Jedi with the Rebel Legion and watch other little kids' faces light up at charity events when they get to hold my lightsaber and take a picture with me.
1983-1985: V (the original miniseries, the Final Battle, The Series). Still one of my all-time favorites. I even enjoyed the revival, which ironically ended in just as big a cliffhanger after being canceled as the original series did. Back in 85 that was probably my first encounter with geek rage.
1984: At ten, I discovered Conan the Barbarian through the movie Conan the Destroyer, and the Ace Paperbacks, as my dad had the entire series and was a big fan. That led to other fantasy novels--the Hobbit, for example, and later, the Dragonlance Chronicles, the Dark Elf series, and other D&D-related fantasy books. And of course, it turned me on to Robert E. Howard, who to this day is one of my favorite authors.
An aside, here: my mother and father were very big on encouraging us to read. I can remember many times as a kid, screwing up and being in trouble of the "Go to your room" variety, and while we were at those times forbidden TV, phone calls, or to leave the room, the one thing we were never forbidden to do was read.
Also 1984 or so: My best friend at the time, Adam, and I got really into our TRS-80 CoCo Model 2's. Hunt the Wumpus and King's Quest FTW. Several years later that led to our 286's and 1200-baud modems that connected us to BBS's all over the world (and got us in lots of trouble for exorbitant phone bills).
Yet ALSO 84 or so: G.I. Joe, Transformers, and He-Man.
At the age of 12 or 13 ('86, '87) I discovered comics through friends at school, particularly the original black and white TMNT from Mirage Studios, and the X-Men. I became a big fan of Wolverine, as did many comics-reading boys that age in that time. Around the same time, I discovered the TMNT RPG from Palladium. Became a big fan. Ran my first game around that time, and moved into AD&D second edition, various Palladium games, Star Wars, Twilight 2000, Marvel Superheroes, and a few others. Also, around then I got my first Iron Maiden albums (Somewhere in Time and Seventh Son of a Seventh Son).
Around 1989 I decided I wanted to learn to play bass guitar and for my 15th birthday I got my first bass. By the time I hit high school, I was pretty much enmeshed in geekdom, and I never looked back.
Now here's the challenge: I'd like other sci-fi, fantasy, and gaming blogs to post this same thing: The Foundations of Geek. Tell us YOUR formative experiences, and what brought you to the wonderful world of Geek culture! How far can this spread? Let's see.
I am a geek because geekdom has been with me as far back as I can remember. Here are some formative experiences:
At the age of 3 years old, I saw Star Wars in the theater. That was 1977. I have never, ever forgotten that and have very much been informed by that experience. Star Wars has been with me as long as I can remember, and that's why I'm such a rabid fan of it now. Star Wars was probably the single biggest, most important influence on my geekdom.
At the age of 5, I played in my first AD&D game, sitting in my grandma's basement with my uncle's group who wherein high school at the time. That was 1979 and was the second biggest geek influence on my life. Our DM, Alan, would create dungeons with the random generator at the back of the DMG. At the time I mostly rolled dice when I was told to, as I barely understood the idea behind the game (though I could totally get behind pretending to be a half-elf fighter). I've since gone on to professionally design tabletop RPGs, so that tells you how important that experience was. Ironically, my uncle stopped playing D&D by the time he graduated high school. I never did.
1980 (or so) through, well, ongoing: Star Trek. My aunt Darla (who was my godmother, may she rest in peace) was a rabid fan, so I became a big fan, too.
Also 1980 (or so): got the chance to play Gamma World (again, with my uncle's group). I made a mutant wolf that shot lasers from his eyes.
Also 1980 or thereabouts (1980 was a banner year): Got our first Atari 2600. Grandpap Vey worked at Sears, who carried the licensed clone of the Atari, and as such we had every single game that came out for that thing for years.
1981, 1983: Empire Strikes Back, Return of the Jedi. Around 1981 I got to meet Darth Vader at a department store (I think it was Kaufmanns) downtown for a promotional event for Empire. Now I dress up as a Jedi with the Rebel Legion and watch other little kids' faces light up at charity events when they get to hold my lightsaber and take a picture with me.
1983-1985: V (the original miniseries, the Final Battle, The Series). Still one of my all-time favorites. I even enjoyed the revival, which ironically ended in just as big a cliffhanger after being canceled as the original series did. Back in 85 that was probably my first encounter with geek rage.
1984: At ten, I discovered Conan the Barbarian through the movie Conan the Destroyer, and the Ace Paperbacks, as my dad had the entire series and was a big fan. That led to other fantasy novels--the Hobbit, for example, and later, the Dragonlance Chronicles, the Dark Elf series, and other D&D-related fantasy books. And of course, it turned me on to Robert E. Howard, who to this day is one of my favorite authors.
An aside, here: my mother and father were very big on encouraging us to read. I can remember many times as a kid, screwing up and being in trouble of the "Go to your room" variety, and while we were at those times forbidden TV, phone calls, or to leave the room, the one thing we were never forbidden to do was read.
Also 1984 or so: My best friend at the time, Adam, and I got really into our TRS-80 CoCo Model 2's. Hunt the Wumpus and King's Quest FTW. Several years later that led to our 286's and 1200-baud modems that connected us to BBS's all over the world (and got us in lots of trouble for exorbitant phone bills).
Yet ALSO 84 or so: G.I. Joe, Transformers, and He-Man.
At the age of 12 or 13 ('86, '87) I discovered comics through friends at school, particularly the original black and white TMNT from Mirage Studios, and the X-Men. I became a big fan of Wolverine, as did many comics-reading boys that age in that time. Around the same time, I discovered the TMNT RPG from Palladium. Became a big fan. Ran my first game around that time, and moved into AD&D second edition, various Palladium games, Star Wars, Twilight 2000, Marvel Superheroes, and a few others. Also, around then I got my first Iron Maiden albums (Somewhere in Time and Seventh Son of a Seventh Son).
Around 1989 I decided I wanted to learn to play bass guitar and for my 15th birthday I got my first bass. By the time I hit high school, I was pretty much enmeshed in geekdom, and I never looked back.
Now here's the challenge: I'd like other sci-fi, fantasy, and gaming blogs to post this same thing: The Foundations of Geek. Tell us YOUR formative experiences, and what brought you to the wonderful world of Geek culture! How far can this spread? Let's see.
Tuesday, February 19, 2013
OD&D Premium Edition Reprint!!!
So at long last, WotC is really listening to their D&D fan base--I don't mean the "4e uber alles" fanbase, I mean the vast fanbase that was alienated by 4e and way outnumbers the 4e fanboys base.
Now that I've undoubtedly (and deliberately) ruffled some feathers with that little D&DINO reference, on to the real news:
THEY ARE REPRINTING OD&D.
And now of course begins the wailing and gnashing of teeth about the $150 price tag. To those people who are whining about how it's overpriced, I have a couple basic things to say to you:
1. Don't buy it. Nobody said you have to.
2. It's not targeted at you
3. Guess what? It's objectively and demonstrably not overpriced. I'll elaborate:
Consider that I could sell my 5th print plus all supplements tomorrow for probably around $500 ($300 on the low end) and it doesn't include a really nice actual wooden presentation box, plus a $15 set of premium dice. Also consider that to get all of the monsters and content therein--including all the character classes, psionics rules, deities and demigods, planar rules, etc.--you'd need SEVERAL books from 3.x or 4e (that OD&D took less words to present the same amount of stuff is really moot).
Let's examine what you'd actually need from 3rd edition (because I'm not as familiar with 4th):
1. PHB - $35
2. DMG - $35
3. Monster Manual - $35
4. Deities and Demigods - $30
5. Psionics Handbook - $35
6. Manual of the Planes - $30
7. 1 Adventure module - $10
8. Slipcase - these average $20
(http://www.printfile.com/premium-albums.aspx)
9. Custom dice from Q-Workshop: $15
10. GM Screens: $10 (this is effectively what the reference sheets are)
GRAND TOTAL: $255
To be fair, we could remove Manual of the Planes from that list as planar info in OD&D is sketchy at best. So even still, we're at $225.
If you want to be TOTALLY accurate, knock 5 cents off from each of those rounded prices above. Subtracting $0.45 from $225 is $224.55.
All that considered, $149.95 looks like a pretty good price to me. I'm in.
The only thing that sucks about this--and I hope WotC re-thinks this before the November release--is that the box includes neither the original Chainmail rules or Swords & Spells, which while not officially numbered as such is generally considered to be "Supplement V." One or both of these should be included in the set. If the choice is between one or the other I'd go for Chainmail, as the OD&D books repeatedly reference it. But in a perfect world they'd reprint both.
I also wonder what they plan to do about the Conan and Melnibonean mythoi in Gods, Demi-Gods, and Heroes. My assumption is that they'll just omit them and we'll get an abridged version of Supplement IV, but it would be interesting to see them hammer out the rights to include these in some manner.
So between the 1E reprints (including Unearthed Arcana, which admittedly was a bit overpriced), the hardcover AD&D A-series upcoming, the forthcoming hardcover S-series, the forthcoming 2E reprints, and this, WotC's been hitting it out of the park lately. Keep it up, WotC! Next up, how about a reprint of the D&D Rules Cyclopedia, followed by the Moldvay/Cook B/X rules?
Now that I've undoubtedly (and deliberately) ruffled some feathers with that little D&DINO reference, on to the real news:
THEY ARE REPRINTING OD&D.And now of course begins the wailing and gnashing of teeth about the $150 price tag. To those people who are whining about how it's overpriced, I have a couple basic things to say to you:
1. Don't buy it. Nobody said you have to.
2. It's not targeted at you
3. Guess what? It's objectively and demonstrably not overpriced. I'll elaborate:
Consider that I could sell my 5th print plus all supplements tomorrow for probably around $500 ($300 on the low end) and it doesn't include a really nice actual wooden presentation box, plus a $15 set of premium dice. Also consider that to get all of the monsters and content therein--including all the character classes, psionics rules, deities and demigods, planar rules, etc.--you'd need SEVERAL books from 3.x or 4e (that OD&D took less words to present the same amount of stuff is really moot).
Let's examine what you'd actually need from 3rd edition (because I'm not as familiar with 4th):
1. PHB - $35
2. DMG - $35
3. Monster Manual - $35
4. Deities and Demigods - $30
5. Psionics Handbook - $35
6. Manual of the Planes - $30
7. 1 Adventure module - $10
8. Slipcase - these average $20
(http://www.printfile.com/premium-albums.aspx)
9. Custom dice from Q-Workshop: $15
10. GM Screens: $10 (this is effectively what the reference sheets are)
GRAND TOTAL: $255
To be fair, we could remove Manual of the Planes from that list as planar info in OD&D is sketchy at best. So even still, we're at $225.
If you want to be TOTALLY accurate, knock 5 cents off from each of those rounded prices above. Subtracting $0.45 from $225 is $224.55.
All that considered, $149.95 looks like a pretty good price to me. I'm in.
The only thing that sucks about this--and I hope WotC re-thinks this before the November release--is that the box includes neither the original Chainmail rules or Swords & Spells, which while not officially numbered as such is generally considered to be "Supplement V." One or both of these should be included in the set. If the choice is between one or the other I'd go for Chainmail, as the OD&D books repeatedly reference it. But in a perfect world they'd reprint both.
I also wonder what they plan to do about the Conan and Melnibonean mythoi in Gods, Demi-Gods, and Heroes. My assumption is that they'll just omit them and we'll get an abridged version of Supplement IV, but it would be interesting to see them hammer out the rights to include these in some manner.
So between the 1E reprints (including Unearthed Arcana, which admittedly was a bit overpriced), the hardcover AD&D A-series upcoming, the forthcoming hardcover S-series, the forthcoming 2E reprints, and this, WotC's been hitting it out of the park lately. Keep it up, WotC! Next up, how about a reprint of the D&D Rules Cyclopedia, followed by the Moldvay/Cook B/X rules?
Thursday, January 10, 2013
Amazing Adventures Support Materials Coming!
I'm happy to announce that I came to an agreement with Troll Lord Games to produce support materials for Amazing Adventures. These will consist of a second adventure module entitled "Temple of the Red God," followed by regular brief e-book offerings. Our first module, Day of the Worm, has garnered several five-star reviews at DriveThruRPG.
If we build enough of a sales base, e-books could be followed by print materials. Which means, if you want to support me and Amazing Adventures, buy the materials, but don't stop there--get OTHERS to buy them as well! Talk about the game and get others to talk about the game! Let's make this thing a success!
Some of the support materials I have in mind:
- A supplement covering the aircraft of World War II, as well as one covering the armored vehicles of World War II. These could include expanded vehicle combat rules, but I haven't decided if that's needed yet.
- More weapons! Pulp scenarios cover many eras, and I want to do a supplement that will provide guns from the matchlocks of the 1600's all the way through the Taurus Judge of the modern day, separated by era. Full stats plus descriptions.
- A "thinking outside the box" supplement on altering Arcanists to make them more "horror" oriented--that is, incorporating such things as corruption and madness into the use of magic. Will provide a lot of new, dark spells.
- A supplement discussing "thinking outside the box" with Gadgeteers--how to use the Gadgeteer to mimic street-level (or even higher) superpowered characters, and guidelines for the creation and modification gadgets beyond just choosing spell effects as-is. Spell effects will still remain the focus, but I'll discuss making alterations to existing effects to personalize and build more effective and flavorful gadgets. Will include sample gadgets.
- "Thinking outside the box" for Gumshoes--how to use the Gumshoe to create such things as ace reporters instead of Private Dicks.
- "Thinking outside the box" for Socialites. Have you ever wondered what Marion is, in the Indiana Jones movies? She's a socialite! This article will break down how to handle this type of character and others.
- I want to do "thinking outside the box" supplements for each character class. I'm jotting down notes as I go.
- New Generic Class Abilities
- Mini-adventures. These 5,000-word scenarios will be good for a single evening's play, or can be expanded to be something much greater. Though not as detailed as your typical 12K-20K module, these will nevertheless be complete and playable with little to no prep work on the part of the GM. Most will likely be location- or object-based.
- Articles on styles of play, each with a new character class, tweak on an existing class, generic class abilities, or other fun toys. For example, what if you want to run a game in the 1600's about a swashbuckling Puritan adventurer out to battle evil wherever it shows its ugly face, or one where the PCs are members of the King's Musketeers? What about adding Steampunk trappings to your Pulp? I'll provide tips, advice, and necessary rules for doing so.
Friday, January 4, 2013
Reading Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, Part 39
CONDUCTING THE GAME
Now we get to the meat of the DMG--only 110 pages in! Actually, that's a bit misleading, as I do feel (as I've said) that the DMG is a treasure trove of invaluable information for running any game, let alone AD&D. I still to this day will defend it as one of the greatest RPG supplements ever made, particularly if it is read and viewed in the proper light, which is to not consider everything herein as rote gospel for running the game.
This section deals with practical advice for dealing with common and problematic occurrences in an AD&D game and while it's a bit heavy-handed (as Gygax tends to be), it should be considered a must-read for burgeoning DMs, in my opinion.
Rolling the Dice and Control of the Game
I've expressed issues with certain newer-school games, particularly those that deal with dice pools requiring the GM to penalize or grant bonuses to checks by adding or taking away dice. Why is this sort of thing a problem? Gygax explains herein:
In many situations it is correct and fun to have the players dice such things as melee hits or saving throws. However, it is your right to control the dice at any time and to roll dice for the players. You might wish to do this to keep them from knowing some specific fact. You also might want to give them an edge in finding a particular clue...You do have every right to overrule the dice at any time if there is a particular course of events that you would like to occur. (DMG, p.110)
Gygax goes on to spell out situations in which dice rolls should always be made secretly: listening, hiding, trap detection, sneaking, secret door detection, etc.
In systems wherein the players are always aware of what they're rolling (the new World of Darkness comes to mind), they will always know exactly how difficult a given task is based on the penalty or bonus dice granted to their pool, and how likely they are to succeed (and indeed, if they succeed at all). Taking control of the dice as GM allows you to moderate this and return a semblance of mystery to the game. Even when my players roll dice (which let's face it, is the vast majority of the time), I don't always tell them if they're penalized or getting a bonus to their check. Thus, the dice might indicate success or failure, but the task's difficulty (set secretly by me) might indicate the opposite.
This section also briefly discusses using dice to aid with GM rulings in situations where the rules do not cover an instance. That is to say, instead of feeling trapped into making an on-the-fly ruling, you can simply set a probability for the situation to play out a given way, and then let the dice fall where they may. This is an exceedingly fair method of DM ruling, so long as your players are amicable to the probabilities you set. Again, remember in any roleplaying game there has to be a degree of trust between the players and DM.
There is a school of thought in gaming these days that we need reams of detailed rules to cover any situation, in order to moderate the apparently ubiquitous horrible GMs running around looking to destroy everyone's Friday nights. I disagree with this line of thought. It's akin to giving the entire class detention because one student farts. Personally, if I have a really shitty GM, I tell him about it, and if the situation doesn't fix itself, or if I seem to be in the minority opinion in the group, it's time for me to find another gaming group. That is to say, I don't game with GMs whose GM style doesn't match my play style, and I wouldn't ask any player whose play style doesn't mesh with my GM style, to play at my table. For any good game, trust between players and GM is paramount and necessary.
Next up, Gygax discusses death as caused by a "freakish roll of the dice." His take on this is that while the player may have done everything right, if the dice randomly result in the character's death, it should probably be let to pass. His rationale is that there will probably be many times when players achieve victory through freakishly high die-rolls (indeed, I've seen this recently in some games of mine), and so really in the end it's not that unfair. He says, however, that if this is not your preferred choice, there's no reason you can't alter the result to be unconsciousness with a lingering injury--a severed limb, loss of a few ability score points, losing an eye, deaf in one ear, etc.
The only roll that he says should never be tampered with is the System Shock Roll used when a PC is raised from the dead. This is because without such a risk, the players never feel any sense of danger from true death. I agree with this. If a resurrection or raise dead spell is always just around the corner, the need to play smart flies right out the window in many cases. If a player has put a lot of work and care into their PC, and knows that even a resurrection spell could feasibly fail on a bad system shock check, they will tend to be less reckless, less foolish, and more careful in how they portray their characters. The game, as Gygax points out, becomes rather boring when player characters become effectively immortal through the use of magic.
I wanted this to be longer, but I'm doing it on my lunch break, and am running out of time, so that's all for today. Next up: HANDLING TROUBLESOME PLAYERS, INTEGRATION OF NEW OR EXPERIENCED PLAYERS INTO AN EXISTING CAMPAIGN, and MULTIPLE CHARACTERS FOR A SINGLE PLAYER.
Last Installment
Index
Now we get to the meat of the DMG--only 110 pages in! Actually, that's a bit misleading, as I do feel (as I've said) that the DMG is a treasure trove of invaluable information for running any game, let alone AD&D. I still to this day will defend it as one of the greatest RPG supplements ever made, particularly if it is read and viewed in the proper light, which is to not consider everything herein as rote gospel for running the game.
This section deals with practical advice for dealing with common and problematic occurrences in an AD&D game and while it's a bit heavy-handed (as Gygax tends to be), it should be considered a must-read for burgeoning DMs, in my opinion.
Rolling the Dice and Control of the Game
I've expressed issues with certain newer-school games, particularly those that deal with dice pools requiring the GM to penalize or grant bonuses to checks by adding or taking away dice. Why is this sort of thing a problem? Gygax explains herein:
In many situations it is correct and fun to have the players dice such things as melee hits or saving throws. However, it is your right to control the dice at any time and to roll dice for the players. You might wish to do this to keep them from knowing some specific fact. You also might want to give them an edge in finding a particular clue...You do have every right to overrule the dice at any time if there is a particular course of events that you would like to occur. (DMG, p.110)
Gygax goes on to spell out situations in which dice rolls should always be made secretly: listening, hiding, trap detection, sneaking, secret door detection, etc.
In systems wherein the players are always aware of what they're rolling (the new World of Darkness comes to mind), they will always know exactly how difficult a given task is based on the penalty or bonus dice granted to their pool, and how likely they are to succeed (and indeed, if they succeed at all). Taking control of the dice as GM allows you to moderate this and return a semblance of mystery to the game. Even when my players roll dice (which let's face it, is the vast majority of the time), I don't always tell them if they're penalized or getting a bonus to their check. Thus, the dice might indicate success or failure, but the task's difficulty (set secretly by me) might indicate the opposite.
This section also briefly discusses using dice to aid with GM rulings in situations where the rules do not cover an instance. That is to say, instead of feeling trapped into making an on-the-fly ruling, you can simply set a probability for the situation to play out a given way, and then let the dice fall where they may. This is an exceedingly fair method of DM ruling, so long as your players are amicable to the probabilities you set. Again, remember in any roleplaying game there has to be a degree of trust between the players and DM.
There is a school of thought in gaming these days that we need reams of detailed rules to cover any situation, in order to moderate the apparently ubiquitous horrible GMs running around looking to destroy everyone's Friday nights. I disagree with this line of thought. It's akin to giving the entire class detention because one student farts. Personally, if I have a really shitty GM, I tell him about it, and if the situation doesn't fix itself, or if I seem to be in the minority opinion in the group, it's time for me to find another gaming group. That is to say, I don't game with GMs whose GM style doesn't match my play style, and I wouldn't ask any player whose play style doesn't mesh with my GM style, to play at my table. For any good game, trust between players and GM is paramount and necessary.
Next up, Gygax discusses death as caused by a "freakish roll of the dice." His take on this is that while the player may have done everything right, if the dice randomly result in the character's death, it should probably be let to pass. His rationale is that there will probably be many times when players achieve victory through freakishly high die-rolls (indeed, I've seen this recently in some games of mine), and so really in the end it's not that unfair. He says, however, that if this is not your preferred choice, there's no reason you can't alter the result to be unconsciousness with a lingering injury--a severed limb, loss of a few ability score points, losing an eye, deaf in one ear, etc.
The only roll that he says should never be tampered with is the System Shock Roll used when a PC is raised from the dead. This is because without such a risk, the players never feel any sense of danger from true death. I agree with this. If a resurrection or raise dead spell is always just around the corner, the need to play smart flies right out the window in many cases. If a player has put a lot of work and care into their PC, and knows that even a resurrection spell could feasibly fail on a bad system shock check, they will tend to be less reckless, less foolish, and more careful in how they portray their characters. The game, as Gygax points out, becomes rather boring when player characters become effectively immortal through the use of magic.
I wanted this to be longer, but I'm doing it on my lunch break, and am running out of time, so that's all for today. Next up: HANDLING TROUBLESOME PLAYERS, INTEGRATION OF NEW OR EXPERIENCED PLAYERS INTO AN EXISTING CAMPAIGN, and MULTIPLE CHARACTERS FOR A SINGLE PLAYER.
Last Installment
Index
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