Everyone’s a designer now

My decision to write my own game has come at a time when the game I’m basing it on, 4e, is being chopped up and put into the DnDNext cooking pot. Which makes for interesting times. It means I’m having the same thoughts as every fan out there with an Internet connection and an axe to grind. I haven’t made any pronouncements on my hopes and fears for the Next project, because I haven’t entirely figured them out yet. Instead I thought it more fruitful to pour my ideas into Commando instead.

Where it gets weird is when my notes mesh so completely with some of the playtest reports coming out of the XP seminars. For instance, I decided today to strip out the skills list and go back to abilities at the core. I still want to provide bonuses, but that will be done through circumstance and discreet powers (feats for example). Seems the Next crew think exactly the same.

I’m also working at expanding combat advantage. For my game it will work in both directions, you can grant it to opponents, and you can gain it from them too. Also, I want to use it in the other pillars of the game, social encounters, infiltration, exploration, etc. I want to use the term Advantage to mean a lot, both mechanically and literally. Seems WotC are going down the same lines from the skills and abilities seminar released today.

Of course, this could just mean I’m gonna love the new edition. Happy days. Trouble is, it’s throwing me (literally) off my game as every fan posts comments in the pros and cons of very utterance. I wonder if the WotC guys will leave XP with their heads spinning like mine is? It’s hard to stay true to a vision when everyone wants to chip away at it when it’s barely started.

Haunted Temples

Without any real fanfare, there’s a nice new release from WotC just arrived through the post. It’s Haunted Temples, a map pack for playing out larger encounters. These are big double sided colour poster maps, that you’ll have seen in adventures and sourcebooks from the last few years. There’s 3 posters, of which one is completely new (that’s the temples of the title). These were showcased at the DnD site here: http://www.wizards.com/dnd/Article.aspx?x=dnd/drdd/20120111

These are genuinely useful for any game, not just DnD and not just 4e. Even the little folder is quite nice! There’s been an appetite for these, so it’s a shame they’ll probably go under the radar what with all the 5e noise.

Recommended.

Cross class

I spent a happy couple of hours transferring all the 4e Essentials martial classes into a spreadsheet. Don’t knock it til you’ve tried it. It’s amazing how many similarities they share. Maybe that’s obvious, what with them all being the same power source, but they do all have different roles. I’m not going to add in some of the newer classes like berserker and skald from Heroes of the Feywild, and see what they bring to the party. (Skald seems to be the closest we’re going to get to an essentials warlord now, shame.)

I did also get stuck into the original martial classes. I tell you what, the PHB looks really strange after 4 years. I don’t think I’ve opened it up that much in the intervening years. I was actually surprised at how cool that book still is. For the anti 4e brigade this has been an object of derision, but I think it still stands up as a great one book DnD. The fighter, ranger, rogue and warlord all have their own flavour, despite the same underlying structure. Putting them next to the Essentials classes shows up a few differences, but they still have a bunch in common. (the essentials ranger is way more magical than its classic brethren).

I’m now getting really close to a class structure for my Commando martial only game. I think the ranger will be the spine, and from there it will be free multi classing into fighter, rogue and/or warlord (tough, quick and command in Commando parlance).

There’s a bunch of reskinning to do, but not quite as much as I first thought. There’s a lot of overlap with powers, and I don’t see any mileage in that much differentiation. I’m likely to plunder the two Martial Power books for more inspiration too. There’s a lot in there to like, martial practices for one.

Now, how am I going to do grenades?

The mechanics of character

I’ve never really subscribed to the idea that rules have no place at all in roleplaying. I don’t believe they’re completely necessary, but nor are they anathema to the whole lets pretend I’m looking through someone else’s eyes thing.

When it comes to actions, games have got you covered. Especially if the action you want to take involves putting the hurt on the bad Orc. Even less violent activities like dancing, climbing and thinking are wrapped up sweetly under the skills chapter in most books.

But what about the other stuff that is literally encompassed in the word ‘character’? Not the things you do, but the way you are. How much mechanical weight should there be behind your, say, nationality? Or tastes in literature? Or favourite food?

(The poster child for this sort of thing is Aspects in FATE, but to be honest, good as that system is, it’s not what I’m looking for here)

Some traits do get system help. Take courage for example, it often gets folded into a skill check, or some sort of morale sub system. I suspect this is because it’s always brought up as part of a conflict, fight or flight. Maybe that’s the common denominator, if it can come up in a conflict, it gets mechanics.

So with my World War II Commando game, where will the rules extend to? I would very much like them to cover more than the obvious combat stuff.and I would like any mechanics to have as much rigour as the combat ones. Perhaps the nationality example i used earlier applies here. Will there be any different mechanically between an Italian and a Brit? Fantasy games have no problem here, but I’m not blind to the consequences of following that road into a real world situation.

Another way this is often handled is through advantages and disadvantages, something DnD has always shied away from. Maybe feats should extend out of the combat arena and into the character one? Of course lots already do, but there’s always a tendency to not want to ‘waste’ a feat slot by taking one that lets you, say, be a snappy dresser. So perhaps these feats should come from their own pool, so they’re an addition rather than a decision. And should there be anti feats to pay for them? ‘Heavy sleeper’ could cost you more than a missed bus in WW2, but what if you got back a benefit? And should that benefit kick in just because you have the negative trait, or whenever you use it?

Where’s all this coming from? Well I like to think of games in terms of their character sheets. For my game I really want a double sided sheet, one for firefights, one for out of combat. I can see the sheet literally being flipped over as you move from one scene and roll initiative. As such, I want there to be more on the non-combat side of the sheet than just some prose and a portrait. I also don’t want to have two distinct games. I want similar mechanics for chases and seductions, for infiltrations and assassinations, for drinking and sniping.

Commando skills

Here’s my first draft of a skills list for Commando

Athletics str
Camaraderie cha
Command cha
Endurance con
Education int
Interrogate cha/str
Insight wis
Gymnastics dex
Larceny dex
Mechanics int
Medic wis
Fieldcraft wis
Perception wis
Scrounge cha
Stealth dex

Current Commando thinking

The announcement of dnd next has kind of overtaken everyone’s thoughts in the community. It’s difficult to see beyond it, and increasingly difficult to look back at the current game without wondering what will become of it. I’m not going to speculate on that right now. Instead I’m using this as a great opportunity to get people’s opinions on hacking the base 4e engine, and taking those ideas to my nascent game, Commando.

I’ve been back and forth on a central issue about characters. Class? Or not class? I doubt very much that dnd will ever NOT have classes, they’re legacy, and they work. For that reason alone, I think I want them in my game.

Given that I’m only using the martial part of 4e, it’s interesting what that leaves me class wise. It’s fighter, rogue, ranger and warlord. Four classes, just like the old school! I find that pleasing. Perhaps the easiest thing to do is simply reskin everything in the PHB and be done with it, but I think I want to do something a bit different.

It seems to me that your class should really only be the flesh of your character rather than the spine. It’s important story defining stuff, but it isn’t necessarily character defining. Ie it tells you what you do, and (broadly) how you do it, but not why you do it. I think what I’m interested in is a big old pool of generic martial powers (exploits). As you level, you pick from here, but you also get a class specific pick. It’s like themes from 4e, but in reverse. That is, you’re all soldiers (a single class) but as you progress you pick from themes, like a fighter theme, or warlord, or rogue.

Here’s my starting suggestion: everyone plays a ranger from the off.

The ranger is really the ranged soldier, and in Commando everyone needs to have those core abilities. It’s basic training. After that, you could specialise in close combat (fighter), infiltration (rogue) or command (warlord). It’s a nod to 3e free multiclassing really.

So that’s where I’m at right now. It’s subject to change, but I really like the idea of generic martial power pools that eventually lead to more specialised characters over time.

Will this do?

Sorry all, I know it’s all been a bit quiet round here. It’s crunch time at work for the next few weeks. In the meantime rest assured I’m still working on plenty of new content behind the scenes. Keep yourselves busy with speculation on dndnext, and while you’re doing that, how about this as a cool version of a tiefling?

Commando

This year I plan to write a game. I’ve never managed to get beyond the daydream phase in the past but this year I’m feeling confident. Confident enough to publically commit!

The idea came from me assembling my favourite parts of gaming and seeing what those jigsaw pieces looked like as a whole. This is different to the normal way of having an idea and then building a game around that.

I like: skirmish rules, cinematic physics, heroism, mission based adventures, all the dice, Minis and kit, combat, party based play, martial powers.

The answer was obvious. Use the 4e system and World War Two as the setting.

2011 in review

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2011 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

The concert hall at the Syndey Opera House holds 2,700 people. This blog was viewed about 16,000 times in 2011. If it were a concert at Sydney Opera House, it would take about 6 sold-out performances for that many people to see it.

Click here to see the complete report.

4e as a skirmish game

Last night we played a one off special for the holiday season. Instead of our normal 4e campaign we played out some skirmishes between monster war bands. It was a nice change of pace, and the guys seemed to enjoy it. Here’s how it worked.

I cracked open the Compendium and looked up all monsters from levels 1 to 3 in the Monster Vault. From there I picked out 500 xp worth of loosely themed monsters. I also had a look at Threats to Nentir Vale and did the same. (I went with these books on the basis that I knew I’d have the correct tokens for them, you could easily go to other books depending on your minis resources). A bit of cut and paste later and I had eight war bands ready to go. These are exactly like generating an encounter, using similar guidelines.

The players grabbed some tiles (we used Icewind Dale tiles for the snowy scenes) and set up the war bands ready to fight. And that was it! Really simple, and I think we needed to think about two rules call all night (could a monster use a healing surge? What damage would a healing surge count as against a monster?) both easily answered. (no, and a quarter of hit points)

It was interesting to see my players running monsters, and actually getting really involved with the narrative that emerged from the interaction of powers and systems. We had a white dragon pulled down into the snow by zombies. That same dragon froze and then shattered a water elemental. And loads more.

We all voted to give it another run out soon. We’ll go for more points (probably 1000 xp, with anything from heroic allowed) and we can prepare some elaborate battlegrounds in advance. It’s low maintenance, beer and chips D&D and I recommend it.

Makes me wonder though, the new official skirmish game is in play test now, and it’s in production next year. What will it do that we didn’t get from our amateur version last night?