So we returned to our regular 4e game, a conversion of the Pathfinder AP, Serpents Skull.

It’s been rumbling along for a while now. The first part, Souls for Smugglers Shiv, was superb. Like a modern day Isle of Dread. Loved running it, and 4e was a great fit. The second part Race to Ruin, wasn’t so hot. I don’t blame the scenario particularly, but it wasn’t a great fit for 4e, and by this time I’d been running that system non stop for five years. Even I, a huge fan of 4e, was starting to see some of the cracks that the internees edition warriors had been shouting about. For me, the straw that broke the camels back was that we just weren’t getting through the adventures at a fast enough pace. Two set piece encounters pretty much filled our sessions, and at that rate it would be a month or more per level.

Add to that the fact that my least favourite part of DMing is combat. Don’t get me wrong I still love it, but I love exploration more and interaction, when it flys, is a thing of wonder. My players had long ago defaulted to playing out their combats by laying down their power cards and talking through their discreet actions in pure rules language. I DMed exactly the same. The game demanded it for clarity’s sake. Yet I missed the more casual freedom of ‘say what you want to try, I’ll tell you what to roll’

And then we had a chance to reboot with a couple of personnel changes in our weekly group. So I told the guys about my growing sense of dissatisfaction, and they were good enough to go with me.

We changed to Next, the packet before the most recent one.

The players generated 6th level characters independently, with pen and paper. It was straightforward enough, and they enjoyed the race/class/background/speciality framework very much. It helped having to produce your own character sheet, as it gave them a chance to see how it all fit together. Having to work up your own spell reference was a bit of a pain.

We played a few sessions, and they went down pretty well overall. From my perspective it was great. Combats went along at a decent clip (I prefer 20-30 mins for a big fight). I adored the skill rules. I loved asking for an ability check, and having the player retort with a specific skill. The skill dice made an ordinary roll something to look at for all. I really enjoyed not feeling like I had to roll out the battlemat for every fight. We did some in our heads, some with tiles, and some sketched out. They all had a place. In fact, we had a couple of encounters that would have been very hard to replicate on a grid at all as they were very three dimensional. I liked the flow of the sessions, with the exploration element of the game coming more to the fore.

From the players point of view, I think they did miss the full on tactical combats, and the feeling of choice that a range of powers gave them previously. I have sympathy for that view, and would like to see what WotC will deliver on a module for this. They also found martial damage dice to be effective but dull. Resource management over the round would have been better than by turn.

My negative aspect was all to do with encounter design. The xp values were all over the place, and I really missed the variety and ease of encounter building from 4e. The monsters themselves were easy enough to run, if anything too easy. I could have stood a bit more complexity in them. I also struggled to convert a PF stat block. I like that it could be trimmed right back, but the bounded accuracy of Next was at odds with 3rd edition expectations. Especially with treasure and spells.

The latest packet brought lots more goodies online for us all, and after a single session, the changes have gone down very well. The new fighter and rogue stuff is better suited to us. I can’t speak much of the spell casting unfortunately as no one is playing one! But, after a death this week, we will have a paladin to try out next time.

Overall, I enjoy DMing Next and that must be coming across in the way the sessions go. Yes, my players could stand for more options, but I know they’re coming down the track. Right now, the test is as good as its ever been, though far from perfect. I’m really optimistic, and I’m back to looking forward to our sessions.

Can’t ask for much more than that!

First of all, I’ve gotten a game of Dungeon Crawl Classics going over G+ which is really fun. I recruited three players from UK Roleplayers, Richard, Martin and Nick. Never played with these guys before, just had conversations on fora. Obviously a bit apprehensive about how it would all go, but I needn’t have worried.

We used the character generator from Purple Sorceror to give each player a pool of four villagers to start with. You get a surprising amount of characterisation out of six stats, an occupation and a belonging. It felt like the kind of characters you get from Warhammer but without all the setting baggage that goes with it. (Note, I like all that setting stuff, but it can be intimidating to a new campaign).

I had read through the rules on PDF pretty thoroughly, enough to know that the only rules you need for 0 level would probably fit on 10 pages. The rest would come in if we got that far.

We played Sailors on the Starless Sea, and I think it’s fair to say we got the real deadly pulp fantasy experience. The first PC died within 15 minutes with his first die roll (ha!) and others soon followed. The guys had plenty of respect for the adventure, but were happy to throw caution to the wind where needed. In fact, the beastman enemies died just as swiftly as the pcs, so it seemed a level playing field from a deadliness point of view.

The guys did a marvellous job of bringing their index card sized characters to life. Even those who succumbed to various death traps or axes had something to remember them by. The adventure itself hit all the right notes for me. Even the bits the party missed out on can be easily recycled into future adventures. Out of 12 starting characters, only 4 survived, and they are now fully rounded characters, with personalities, and most important, a shared history (of loss!)

It may have taken 6-8 hours of play, but we’ve ended up with a party of first level characters that I know really well, and they know each other. They’re much more precious to the players as a result.

We’re now a couple of sessions into People of the Pit, and even with the addition of another layer of rules, the flow of the game is really sweet. It’s old fashioned exploration and bickering, with occasional explosive combat. I’m loving the feel of GMing it. It’s easy to make a ruling, and the players are really responding to the situations put in front of them. As we go we’re filling in little bits of the world setting, a god here, a guild there. That’s fun.

I’m loving our DCC game, and it is absolutely delivering the feel and atmosphere I was hoping for. Is it old school? I suppose so, but all the really sweet bits have come from the players rather than any charts or tables. Actually, that’s not true. The charts and tables have been a really good springboard for the imagination. When your only possession is a … (Roll)…. Goose, then I defy you to not bring that into play somehow.

So yeah, good times, with good players and good tools for the job. Highly recommended.

I was about to throw out some packaging from my kids yogurts, when I noticed these on it.

I would not need much more for a playable character. My kids definitely wouldn’t. I’ve seen indie games with less!

Tempted to investigate kids consumer stuff further.

When I’m prepping a game, I do it by level. By all means drop in a mini index alphabetically if you like, but rule books need to be useful please.

You know what I dislike most about A-Z? The D section. You get Devils, Demons and Dragons, all in one big chunk. Does my head in.

The only fantasy level based game I can think of that takes a different approach is Dungeon World where they’re listed by theme. I like that.

Told you it was a minor moan.

Like a hairier, shorter, beerier Charlies Angels. .

What did I learn?

• Monsters pretty much roll to hit at +5. A bit more if they’re good.
• Damage is approx level x 4. Look out for multi attacks though, loads of monsters have them.
• Hit points are all over the place. I can’t fathom a pattern.
• The highest AC is 18 (Fire Giant)
• Average AC is 13

Spreadsheet attached here for you. Enjoy! Next monsters

It’s an adventure supplement, and I’ve written it to be inspirational and a fun read. You could easily adapt it to your favourite fantasy setting or system.

What do you think?

http://rpgtreehouse.files.wordpress.com/2009/06/knee-deep.pdf

Making a system switch is a big deal, and might not cure every ill. In fact, it might make things worse! I don’t want to make everything we’ve played over the past few years redundant. So, we agreed a decent compromise I think.

From next week we’re moving to the Next rules. They appear to be in a much more stable state than when we tried them out at the start. I’m hoping it allows us to get more adventuring done, but still allows for big set piece conflicts too. We’re using some of the NPCs from our current campaign and playing them alongside our regular 4e campaign. That way one session can affect another, and we haven’t dumped our main game entirely.

I’m quite excited by the idea. Feels fresh. Feels right. We will see.

http://www.ukroleplayers.com/columns/baz-king/this-gaming-life/

There’s three there now, and it’s planned to be a monthly feature. It’s a kind of memoir, all about me and my gaming history, but it seems to have tapped into a lot of folks memories. I love that. Hope you drop by and comment (here or there, not precious)

I love the 4e cosmology, and the Astral Sea treatment in particular. WotC really never got behind epic tier play, not really, and there’s no chance at all now. So, confident my stuff won’t tread on any toes, or get superseded, I’m going to write in this space.

Tonight, a close read of the book, with notebook in hand. I will let the ideas drip feed out and see what makes sense in the morning.