My friend sent me this the other day, and it perfectly encapsulates what a lot of online RPG discussion sounds like, and why I'm happy not to be part of it. I'll just keep plugging away at this blog that only a select awesome few bother to read.
Happy New Year, one and all!
It's my blogiversary yet again. Seems like not that long ago that I was posting last year's blogiversary.
Well, I guess I didn't get all that many posts up in the past year. I've been a bit more productive in the past few months, but most of this year I just didn't have that much to talk about, game related, other than occasional posts about Flying Swordsmen 2E.
Speaking of that, I still don't have anything ready for play testing. Lots of other stuff going on. And the urge to work on other projects is strong. The Chainmail/Gauntlet table top skirmish dungeon crawl game idea of mine is chief among them. And part of me wants to scrap my current TS&R Jade campaign to run Gamma World instead. That's not gonna happen, but I may put the Jade game on hold to play test FS2E. It may be the only way to force myself to prepare content for it.
We should be planning the Busan Tabletop Gaming Con soon, too. Scott needs a bit of time to recover from the Online SummerCon, and Justin said he's got some stuff to take care of that is keeping him busy for a few weeks. But we should get to that in the near future.
Oh, and I should check DriveThru to see if my last post actually did lead to some sales, or if all the extra hits I'm getting the past couple of weeks are just bots.
Hey, I've been doing this for 15 years!
And yes, I'm way behind on posting. I've got actual play reports, movie reviews (Alien: Romulus and Beetlejuice Beetlejuice), and thoughts on Pendragon to write about. But it's the start of the semester so I've been kinda busy.
I'll try to get some posts on gaming and gaming related media (or propane and propane accessories?) up soon.
Thanks for putting up with my oddball posts for a decade and a half!
So my last post, I was complaining that I just wasn't feeling it with RPG stuff, and hadn't been for a bit. Part of the reason I wrote that and posted it publicly was to see if it would jump start my motivation to game/work on game stuff. And I think it did. Also, thanks to JB and Dick McGee for sympathizing with me. I think it did what I hoped it would, but not completely. A few things that happened over the weekend got me fired up again.
My son started Korean high school this month, and hates it. I wasn't surprised. Korean high school is three years of suffering in order to get the highest possible score you can on the Korean version of the SAT test. Lots of stress, lots of late night cramming, lots of competition. So he asked if we could move up or scheduled plan for him to study in the U.S. My parents agreed, so we spent last week making arrangements. At the start of April, he and I will fly to Illinois and I'll get him set up to live with my folks for the next couple of years and finish high school there. Kinda stressful, but kind of exciting, too.
And I was so busy with those arrangements on Friday that I completely forgot that I was supposed to get on Discord to make a new Call of Cthulhu character with the guys for Richard's new adventure. Luckily, Richard texted me, and after getting Steven ready for bed, and finishing up the translation of Flynn's high school class schedule, I joined up.
I had no real idea what sort of PC I wanted to make, but everyone else did. I rolled for my abilities instead of using the standard array, and I'm glad I did. I rolled horribly overall, but Education was really good, so while my basic abilities are not good, I've got good skills for my super nerdy 1920s version of an FBI forensics/CIA analyst guy. And discussion with Richard about character generation and OD&D during the session gave me inspiration for my next blog post, about whether to roll and figure out the PC, or figure out the PC then try to build them.
On Saturday, I finally got to watch Godzilla Minus One, and really liked it. Good film. It makes you actually care about the people in the film, while having some great (if not quite enough) monster smashing Tokyo mayhem. And that's tickling a few ideas that I might also be able to work into some game-able material. And possibly a blog post.
Oh, and some of you may have heard that NASA put out a D&D (5E-ish) adventure! I downloaded it, read through it briefly, and unfortunately I don't think I'll be using it after all.
On Sunday, I had my TS&R Jade session coming up, so I got off my ass in the morning and wrote up another location on the map, and have been working on some ideas for another one. I want to do a fairly Jacquaysed map, with lots of verticality and multiple pathways for this second location, so that may take a bit of time to do. But I'm hyped by the possibilities of that map and location. The location I did add is fairly simple, a barbarian encampment that could be attacked (type A treasure, after all!) or could become a resource since they specialize in animal training. If the party makes good relations with them, they could buy trained animals from them, or capture animals to take to them for training.
And then the session was Flynn's final session before he heads to the U.S. We've got other things planned for the next two Sundays, so no more D&D. Going into the session, he was thinking of trying to go out with a bang, and get his PC killed in a fun and memorable way. But then in the game, he changed his mind and did his best to keep his PC and henchman alive, so that he can keep playing them whenever he comes back to visit. And after the session, we discussed some of the ways he could use the down time to improve his character (martial arts training, spell research, etc.) which we can do via emails or whatever while he's away.
So, yeah, I've got my gaming groove back. I'm looking forward to getting some content up here on the blog, as well as working on the campaign and my TS&R GM book this week.
I was reading the new post on Raven Crowking's Nest, and saw that he had stats for a monster from a poster of a Minneapolis ska band that my cousin had introduced me to. I thought, that's funny, I know I've posted that poster on my blog way back when. Is Raven also into ska?
Turns out, he was reblogging the comment he'd made on my old post about the poster.
Anyway, if you need stats for a cyclops Deep One boxer, check it out (either link).
...may become a grognard when the dice are rolled, and the gaming mood is right.
Oh, wait, that's not the way that rhyme is supposed to go. Anyway, I'm going to do something today that I haven't done in quite a while, but should get back to doing semi-regularly. I've got a newish blog that I want to promote.
Savage Lair of the Weregrognard
It looks like Weregrognard started the blog last year for the Dungeon23 challenge, and now that that has wrapped up, he's been blogging about his take on old school gaming. So far, I've found his posts on the topic to be interesting and entertaining.
I haven't read through all of his Dungeon23 posts, but of what he's written since then, I'm the only person who's left a comment. And I think he deserves more feedback on his Lessons from the OSR series. It's good.
I've been seeing all sorts of blog posts, YouTube videos, and memes re-examining Third Edition D&D, and especially 3.0 as compared to 3.5. Having played some d20 Modern with my son over the past year or so, and having dived into an aborted attempt at a d20 Star Wars game on RPOL (and currently into a Saga Edition Star Wars game on RPOL), I'm not really feeling the 3E nostalgia. Those games have reminded me of just how needlessly cumbersome the skill/feat system is in d20 games, and the limits of a "roll d20" for any task resolution is still with us in 5E today.
But there seem to be a lot of gamers who started on 3E, or started on 2E but found their jam with 3E who are feeling that nostalgia. It does make sense. It's been almost 24 years since the game was released, 21 since the 3.5 revision.
I've even had some people tell me that 3E is old school D&D.
Personally, I think "old school" is more about play style than age, but I may be biased.
Is it time to lump 3E, and the resulting d20 system boom games, in with the "old school" banner? Make it part of the OSR? Or is it "old school but not OSR"?
Peanut gallery, sound off in the comments!
A couple of recent posts by other bloggers got me thinking. Specifically, we're talking today about rolling ability scores, and the modifiers that you get from those scores depending on the system you use.
It's probably no surprise that the first post that got me thinking about this was one by Alexis over at Tao of D&D:
As a DM, I see AD&D's combat/survival structure relying on characters possessing at least two stats above 14. There are no benefits for any stat less than 15 with regards to strength, constitution and dexterity, upon which the combat system depends. And though spell-use can mitigate the need for these somewhat, a good mage or illusionist really needs a +1 dex bonus at minimum (in my experience), while a cleric whose going to wade in and fight needs at least some bonuses in strength or constitution. A cleric who won't wade in hasn't a good enough spell arsenal, and is therefore useless; which is part of the reason why clerics who tried to style themselves as "healers" and not "holy fighters" ended up crying for more healing potential, as the original list doesn't allow this specialisation effectively.
Thus, adding that extra die to 3d6 increases the chance of rolling above 14 sufficiently to hit that window of "practical" character. I know that many, many voices refuse to believe there is such a thing; that the game needs to adjust for the character, and not the reverse. Of course I could run a softer, more gutted game for those players with mediocre stats, but having experienced the lessened potential and drooling dullness of such a game, I'm not sold on the concept. If the reader wants me to go into that, I will, drop me an email, but for the present I'll assume most people here are aware that having bonuses makes players happy, and I like happy players.
Too, the 3d6 alternative produces too many "culls," my term for the selective slaughter of players whose stats are too obviously likely to get them killed. The penalties for stats of 7 and less can be tolerated if they appear with rarity ... but when they're scattered among multiple players in a party, sooner or later the randomness of unfudged die rolls takes its toll. I see no reason to roll up characters en masse for the purpose of creating an inferior stock. No, I prefer the alternative. A nice collection of characters whose stats average around 73 or better makes a party more likely to survive, thus producing a sustainable game.
Up front, yes, I'm one of those DMs that Alexis talks about who thinks that high scores aren't absolutely necessary for an effective character. I like it when my players roll well for their characters. I like for them to have competent characters. But I've also played enough average characters in my life to know that while that extra 5% chance to hit or avoid being hit, or the extra hit point or extra point of damage on each attack can matter, it's perfectly feasible to run a character without them.
And this is slightly off topic, but I find it funny that a commenter on a previous post thought a 5% or 10% XP boost is really meaningless. Granted, we're talking a vastly different scale between a d20 roll to hit and the thousands of XP needed to gain levels, but a percentage is a percentage.
Anyway, back to the topic of ability scores and how we roll them. Alexis prefers AD&D's ability modifiers which, at least for combat bonuses, don't start giving bonuses until a 15 or 16. But scores of 15 or higher are really rare on a flat 3d6 roll, so he needs to use 4d6-L to give players a decent shot at getting not just one, but two scores with bonuses, and radically reduce the number of scores that get a penalty.
I have no problem with this. I use 4d6-L in my game these days, after experimenting with a few other options over the past few years.
But before I go on, I need to introduce the other blogger that spurred this post, Anders H. of the Mythlands blog, who was writing about not just discrete mechanics for different tasks, but discrete bonuses for different ability scores being a feature not a bug of AD&D design:
AD&D in general however, revels in lack of homogeneity. There's a ton of derived stats from ability scores and they are all different, with different progressions and determining the math behind the curve of progression is not at all transparent.
I suspect there is none and that Gygax et al used a more powerful tool than mathematical progression - Deciding on modifiers based on gaming impact. And this one of the great virtues of game design that are lost with streamlined mechanics.
Modern games, I posit, suffer from a tyranny of number harmonies and easy calculation. Everything must be transparent, easy to calculate and preferably limited to a few basic methods the recur throughout the whole gaming engine.
But does the game actually play better when STR gives the same bonus to hit as it does to damage? Or CON an equivalent bonus to hit points? Does it yield the desired results at the actual game table or simply look pleasing in the rulebook and easy to memorise? Harmonies do not necessarily equal better game play.
I've gone on record before saying that I'm not a fan of the way AD&D does ability score bonuses. They are inconsistent across the different scores, there is way too big of a doughnut of scores with no adjustment up or down, and then there are things like Fighters getting percentile strength bonus on an 18, or only Fighters getting more than +2 hit points for a high Constitution, or the needlessly fiddly % to Know spells Int modifier for Magic-Users or Chance of Spell Failure for Clerics.
Exactly the things Anders is praising are the things that annoy me about AD&D ability scores. I do agree with him on most of his other points, though. Clerics and Magic-Users don't need identical spellcasting power. Different rates of advancement for different classes is a good thing. Categorical saving throws are cooler and more interesting than just rolling against your ability scores. And any complex calculation that can be boiled down to a simple hard number on a not overly complex character sheet is a good thing.
And again, let's get back to ability score adjustments and how to roll those abilities.
Anders makes the case that the diversity of adjustments in AD&D are due to the different roles that those abilities play in the game. Alexis makes the case that a playable character should have at least two scores with a positive adjustment.
This made me curious to compare the probabilities of rolling 4d6-L for AD&D adjustment bonuses vs. 3d6 flat for BX/BECMI adjustments. The website AnyDice.com gave me the percentage chances to roll X or higher with each rolling method (yeah, I can do the math myself, but this was faster). And this website has an ability score calculator that can show you the probabilities of getting certain scores or higher on sets of six ability scores, which is handy.
So to recap:
In order to get a +1 bonus to any score in Classic D&D, you need a 13 or more in that ability. That's a bonus to hit in either ranged or missile combat, a bonus to damage in melee combat, a bonus to AC, or bonus hit points per level.
In order to get a +1 bonus to any combat relevant score in Advanced D&D, you need a 15 or 16 depending on the score and the variable being adjusted.
To get a -1 (improvement) to AC, or to get +1 hit point per level, you need a 15 to Dex or Con, respectively.
To get a +1 to damage in melee combat or to hit in ranged combat, you need a 16 in Str or Dex, respectively.
To get a +1 to hit in melee combat, you need a Str 17.
According to the die rollers, if you roll flat 3d6, to get a score of X or higher on any particular score, your chances are:
13+ 25.93% [+1 to any variable in Classic, no adjustment to any variable in Advanced]
15+ 9.26% [+1 to any variable in Classic, +1 to HP or -1 AC in Advanced]
16+ 4.63% [+2 to any variable in Classic, +1 melee damage, +2 HP, +1 ranged attack, -2 AC in Advanced]
17+ 1.85% [+2 to any variable in Classic, +1 melee attack, +1 melee damage, +2(3) HP, +2 ranged attack, -3 AC in Advanced]
18 0.46% [+3 to any variable in Classic, +1 melee attack, +2 melee damage, +2(4) HP, +3 ranged attack, -4 AC in Advanced]
So about one in four rolls will get you a bonus rolling 3d6, on average you can expect one or two scores to be above average.
If we roll 4d6 and drop the lowest, to get a score of X or higher on any particular score, your chances are:
13+ 48.77% [+1 to any variable in Classic, no adjustment to any variable in Advanced]
15+ 23.15% [+1 to any variable in Classic, +1 to HP or -1 AC in Advanced]
16+ 13.04% [+2 to any variable in Classic, +1 melee damage, +2 HP, +1 ranged attack, -2 AC in Advanced]
17+ 5.79% [+2 to any variable in Classic, +1 melee attack, +1 melee damage, +2(3) HP, +2 ranged attack, -3 AC in Advanced]
18 1.62% [+3 to any variable in Classic, +1 melee attack, +2 melee damage, +2(4) HP, +3 ranged attack, -4 AC in Advanced]
The 13+ on 3d6 and 15+ on 4d6-L are highlighted because they have more or less equivalent values. You've got about a one in four chance of getting at least that number on any ability score roll in either system. And while AD&D does grant a few bonuses better than 3 IF you're a Fighter and put that 18 in Con instead of Str or any character with 18 Dex, or you're a Fighter type and put that 18 in Str and roll well on the percentile dice, the Classic system is really more generous.
If it's imperative to have multiple ability scores with bonuses for characters, you're better off going with the Classic D&D style ability score adjustments, even if that takes away from the bespoke nature of what each score represents, or specialized bonuses for certain classes and not others as in AD&D.
One more thing. Looking at rolling an entire set of ability scores, according to the Ability Score calculator website linked above, rolling 4d6-L six times gives you a 9.34% chance to roll an 18, so about one in 11 characters should have one. If you need at least two scores of 15 or more, you have a 42.16% chance. To get at least one score of 15+ you have a 79.4% chance. So most AD&D characters rolled this way will be minimally viable, with only one in five not meeting Alexis's minimum threshold, but only 2 in 5 meeting his preferred threshold of two scores qualifying for a bonus.
And remember, that's looking at the score of 15, which in AD&D only affects hit points and AC, not chances to hit or damage inflicted.
Rolling 3d6, but needing only a 13+ on a single score, we get an 83.48% chance to get at least one of the six rolls to give a bonus, just slightly better than the chance to get a 15+ on 4d6-L. To get two scores with a bonus, we have a 48.79% chance, that's roughly half of all characters generated. It's not a big difference, but the difference does, I think, matter. One in two suitable characters compared to two out of five. Oh, getting at least one 18 has a 2.75% chance, or one in thirty-six characters.
Obviously, 4d6-L provides much higher chances of rolling the numbers above the threshold for a bonus, but if you're only concerned with getting at least one or two scores above the threshold, you've got roughly even odds either way, but with a slight edge to rolling 3d6 against the lower threshold of 13.
The biggest advantage to Classic characters, though, is the regular array of bonuses. Because you need at least a 16 or 17 for certain variables in Advanced, you really NEED to roll 4d6-L (or one of those crazy bucket-o'-dice methods from Unearthed Arcana). And for me, rolling 4d6-L but with Classic bonuses to rolls, most characters are going to turn out fine.
As an example: Last Sunday, Jeff, who plays in my online West Marches and Star Wars games and is visiting Busan for the month, joined my face-to-face game. His highest score, rolling 4d6-L six times, was a 13. He made a Fighter, and did just fine in the session... although it was one without a lot of combat. But he didn't complain, and he put his usual effort into characterization and had a good time.
Yeah, it's blog-versary day again. I started the blog 14 years ago. Recently, my posting has been erratic. Life is just too busy, and sometimes I feel like I've pretty much discussed all I need to discuss. But I want to keep plugging my games, and talking about my process for developing them. And I enjoy talking about my campaigns. And every once in a while, I think of something that might actually be useful to my readers.
So I'm going to keep at it. But no promises about consistent posting.
Yesterday, my TS&R Jade campaign had a session. It went well. The party realized they could follow up a rumor and also get close to an area of the map where one PC could try to achieve a personal goal, so they did both. They followed up the rumor and got some information about how to deal with a problem, and the player got part of what they wanted for their personal vanity project. So I think the players were happy. And with the "quest" lined up for next session, I think there will be some anticipation for it. But we've got to wait maybe 3 weeks for the next session.
My PbP Gamma World game also started over the weekend. One or two players are much more frequent posters than others, and the slow posters took a while to get their characters created. But now we're off and running...well, it's PbP so not really running. But we're off.
And my boys and I are enjoying Star Wars: Ahsoka, so that will likely get me to work on the Star Wars campaign soon. But real life is not giving me much time for that.
Last week, noisms of Yoon Suin fame wrote a blog post about a "single class paladin campaign" except he's not really talking about a single class paladin game, he's talking about how to operationalize honor for RPGs in a way that will facilitate and motivate a game built around honorable heroes doing honorable things. He admits that various character classes could be used in such a game, as long as the game revolves around matters of honor and correct, heroic behavior, rather than typical D&D "adventuring" or "murder-hoboing" or what have you. Instead of everyone being the Paladin class, they all are behaving by a code of conduct and in service to some greater power.
I was definitely interested in what he had to say, as it's something I've had to deal with with only limited success in Flying Swordsmen and Chanbara. Yes, FSRPG includes notes about the xia code, and what is expected of a wandering martial hero in Chinese stories/movies. But that's it. The XP system is still revolving around defeating enemies (of any type) to gain XP, and doesn't stipulate that the combats need to be won honorably. And granted, there are anti-heroes or those that skirt the line in wuxia fiction, and they don't necessarily need to be penalized.
I think I got a step closer with Chanbara. I re-conceptualized the carousing rules from Arneson's original campaign. But instead of saying you're spending your hard earned treasure on drunken debauchery and flashy displays of wealth until you're broke and need to go adventure again, it's explained as donating that hard earned treasure to your various lords, patrons, and clan to aid them in their endeavors. That's a step up from "hey, just role play it!" but I admit it still leaves something to be desired. Collecting the treasure is still a necessary step in play. If we're really wanting to make our campaign seem like the legends of King Arthur and Charlemagne, or of honorable samurai loyal to their lords and so on, "getting the treasure" seems out of place.
So, what sorts of rewards could we offer in a game that would encourage players to play Captain America instead of The Punisher? Galahad and Percival instead of Fafhrd and the Mouser? That's not an easy question to answer.
So what's been done before? Marvel Super Heroes, the old 4 color resolution chart game from TSR, had a huge list of dos-and-don'ts that could earn you Karma points, or take them away. The 1E OA book also had a big long list of "honorable and dishonorable" actions, which earned or reduced honor points.
I'm not a big fan of this method. For one, it's fiddly and arbitrary. It also requires everyone to be paying attention to a level of detail in the game that can hurt immersion. Finally, it polices play, rather than encourages it. XP for gold and fighting monsters encourages play. It tells players what the goal is, but not how to go about achieving the goal. Lists of "Thou shalt not..." doesn't give you a goal, it just mediates your choices in game. And giving a goal of "be honorable" doesn't spur action the way "get gold" does.
I don't have a lot of history with the Palladium or White Wolf systems, but from what I remember, Palladium has a lot of strictures for keeping your alignment a la the MSH Karma and OA Honor systems, but I don't remember if that had an effect on XP or not. It's been a while since I've done anything with that system.
For White Wolf, I haven't played Vampire, Werewolf, Mage, or Changeling. I've played Trinity and Street Fighter. In both of these games, at the end of a session (and the end of an adventure that takes place over multiple sessions), certain criteria are given or questions asked, and determine how much XP each character earns. This, I think, may be a better way to handle XP for the sort of "all paladin" game noisms wants to run.
For those that don't know, players get 1 xp just for taking part in the session, and then additional points if they can demonstrate that their character learned or matured in some way, a point for good role play, a point for sticking to the character concept well, a point for heroism (at least in Street Fighter, which I have). If I remember, for Trinity there was one criteria for using your powers to aid the mission.
This seems like the way to go to quantify honorable behavior to me. Make a list of criteria. The Chivalric Code. Bushido. The Way of the Jiang Hu. The Cowboy Code. Klingon Batlh. Probably best to keep it to under six tenets (the Cowboy Code as often shared on the internet these days has lots of pithy sayings that basically boil down to the same few concepts). At the end of a game session, go through each tenet and ask each player how they felt they upheld that tenet. Award chunks of XP for each tenet they upheld.
Of course, WW games use XP as a spendable currency to develop skills and abilities, rather than a measure of progress in class level, but that can be adjusted. If someone wants to keep the D&D class & level paradigm, either adjust XP values needed to level up down (divide by 100, maybe?) or tie the amount of XP awarded by the criteria to the level of the character.
Yesterday, I received my print copy of Joseph Bloch's Swords of Wuxia for his Adventures Dark & Deep retro-clone system. I've had the PDF since I ordered it, but I've only barely skimmed through it so far. Now that I've got the physical book in hand, I intend to dive into it in detail. I really prefer printed matter over screen reading. However, I don't have time to get into it today or even over the weekend. So a review of the content will have to wait. Oh, and if you didn't know, this is Joe's attempt to re-imagine what the old OA book would have looked like if it had take inspiration from Chinese myth and cinema instead of mostly Japanese inspirations.
I will say for now, that this book is well designed. It's got that orange spine that makes it look pretty good alongside the later printings of 1E books. It's a bit darker, but all of my older books are faded to differing degrees so it doesn't look out of place. The print size is a little different, though, with Swords of Wuxia being just a tad taller than the old TSR books. The cover is a nice painting of Sun Wu Kong (the Monkey King), looking like he's about to spring into action to beat down some demon or other. The back cover is text only, with a gradated turquoise (darker at the top, lighter at the bottom) background, similar to the trade dress of the old books.
The interior is nice and cleanly laid out, with two column text and a sans serif font (Futura like the originals, I assume), and is easy to read. The book contains a lot of tables, and most alternate between three lines unshaded, three lines shaded. At least one table contains quite a bit of information in each cell, so alternate lines are shaded. The interior illustrations are all black and white, but look pretty good. There's a big list of artists, so there are quite a range of styles, some simple line art, some more detailed, a few just silhouettes. I don't find the mix of art styles jarring, but art is always subjective. Most of it looks good, in my opinion.
The book contains races (two types of human, two demi-humans), three completely new classes plus extensive notes and conversions for all the other classes in Adventures Dark & Deep. There are rules for combat and martial arts, for creating families, Asian-style societies and organizations, and lists of spells and equipment, of course. There are campaign guidelines including wuxing (Taoist 5 elements) elemental planes. There are also lists of magic items and monsters. All this takes us up to page 128. Beyond that, there are some very extensive random encounter tables. Finally, there are some tables for weapons vs armor and the like if you use those rules in your AD&D games, and some inspirational sources.
I'm happy to see that a lot of the inspirational sources are not only things I've read or viewed, but also listed in Flying Swordsmen. There are a few I'm unfamiliar with, which is always nice. New things to check out!
So that's my initial impression (unboxing) review. After I've had some time to read through it, I'll of course provide more detailed thoughts, and how I think it compares to my own ideas in Flying Swordsmen and TS&R Jade (maybe Chanbara, too!).
Hat tip to Tedankhamen for the link. Here is a big repository of links to Old School RPG blogs. Many of these I've read, some I read regularly, but many are new to me. I wanted to post the link here on my own blog mostly so I can find it easily again.
I'll be exploring many of these links when I've got time.
Thanks to Ramanan "funkaoshi" Sivaranjan for creating and maintaining this list.
Much angst in the RPG online spaces these days. Much spleen being spilled about the new OGL 1.1 document leaks. Many predictions of the end of all but WotC product for D&D.
Bullshit.
While I'm not a lawyer, it has been clearly established that game mechanics cannot be copyrighted. Write your own presentation of a set of rules, and there's not much that a big giant corporation trying to squeeze every penny out of the player base can do. Sure, a few smaller companies and individual people may refrain from publishing for "OneD&D" after the release (assuming the text of the new OGL doesn't change between now and release), but if they really want to get their material out, they can find ways to do it.
Besides, all these games already exist. They will continue to exist after the OGL 1.1 comes out. Some may become harder to find, but they'll still be out there. And you can still play them.
It may be scarier for small publishers to put out their stuff. And while little guys like me have no chance of battling WotC in court, I can see a class action suit from places like Drivethru and the smaller publishers, plus people like you and me, having a chance to defend the legality of OGL 1.0 and 1.0(a) products in court. If that never happens, or it fails, that will suck for a lot of small publishers. But we can still make our works and put them out for free, or try to make a bit of money under the radar.
Gygax's words from way back in the 70s (at the end of the Greyhawk supplement? I forget where he said it) still ring true. Once the game has been released, YOU do not need a game company. The game company needs you! Why should you let them do any more of your imagining for you?
Thanks to bhyeti for requesting my old Star Frontiers module The Derelict, a bunch of stuff I used to give away for free here on the blog is now back up and available for you to download. There's a new standalone page link at the top there for them.
I had originally posted them to another blogger's hosting site (and it was so long ago, I forgot exactly who it was), but something happened and they let the site go down. And no one was clamoring for those files, so I just let them sit on my hard drive for years.
Anyway, you can now get that SF module mentioned above, my Unique Magic Items series (weapons, armor/shields, wands/staves/rods), the compilation of my old Beast of the Week series, and some supplemental stuff for Flying Swordsmen or old school D&D games for free. Everything's hosted on my Google Drive now, so unless something happens to me and my family decides to scrub the web of my presence, they shouldn't be any more hiccups with hosting.
I've been really siloed from the greater RPG community, and even the OSR the past few years. There are a handful of blogs I read regularly, and a bigger handful that I read occasionally. I'm not active on any forum sites, and don't watch a ton of RPG YouTube content. Actual gaming with my friends have been enough to scratch my gaming itch for the most part. Yeah, I blog here occasionally. I tinker with my house rules document for a potential public release. That's about it.
I've been using Treasures, Serpents & Ruins (TSR) as the name for those house rules for several years now. I thought it was clever to have a game title that abbreviated to the same acronym as the original company. And the name is fitting, as well. Dungeons & Dragons is a great game name, but it leaves out the most important part of the game - finding treasure! My name has all three! So clever, right? [Yeah, I know, I know...]
Anyway, thanks to Pauli Kidd's post on Facebook, linking to this video (also Pauli) and also to screenshots of social media posts they posted, I learned about just how terrible the "new" "TSR" group (TSR3 some are calling it) really are.
Tenkar's Tavern has been posting about them from mostly a legal-ish standpoint. Or at least what I've seen has been. Apologies to Erik, but since he appointed himself the Kickstarter Police many years ago, I don't follow his blog as closely. But I have read some of his posts exposing Justin LaNassa's attempts to steal the TSR trademark. So I knew they were sketchy grifters, but I didn't know anything else about them.
Thanks to Pauli, I know now just how disgusting some of the people LaNassa is working with really are. Seriously, the guy who wrote their version of Star Frontiers is a blatant white supremacist, often posting Nazi symbology and slogans on social media.
I want nothing to do with that crowd, and as was suggested by Donjondo a while back, it's probably confusing enough having two companies trying to be TSR already. With one of those companies being blatantly white nationalist, I need to find a new name for my game if I plan to release it to the public.
This is probably a dumb idea, but reordering it to Ruins, Serpents, & Treasures would abbreviate to RST (alphabetical order!) and would be in the order that these elements are usually encountered within the game. Or maybe I can just call it something else entirely and stop trying to be clever/cutesy with the name.
Riffing off of this old post from Jeff Rients, some initial fodder to get my Gamma World setting going. Posting just the questions for now. I know the answers to some of these for my setting, but not all.
Recently, I've read a few blogs or seen comments saying basically that people are leaving the OSR because the scene is toxic. No, I'm not going to link to them because that would likely draw extra unwanted attention to these people. But they exist. And there are people within the OSR scene that are happy to make these people feel unwelcome. I'm NOT one of them.
I just want to state up front: This is a blog about D&D (and other geeky stuff). I don't care who you find attractive. I don't care about your gender*. I don't care about your race or ethnicity. Not to say that none of these things matter. I think they matter. But it makes no difference to me if we're going to discuss elf-games.
You are welcome here. You are wanted here. You are valued here.
Unless you're a hateful troll. Keep it to yourself, or go somewhere else. The internet is a big place. And there are plenty of places that will welcome you.
This little corner of the OSR welcomes diversity and inclusion. This tiny voice in the chaotic void of cyberspace is about spreading the love of games, and YOU MATTER.
Peace
*I don't care about your gender, but I will do my best to respect your pronouns if you care to share them.
Many years ago, way back in 2016, I read a book on (primarily video) game design called Game Design: Theory & Practice, 2nd Edition by Richard Rouse III. It was a good read, and I had a lot of insight into RPG design and play from it, not only that of computer based games. I even mentioned wanting to blog about it in this post. But with academics, family life, actual gaming, designing Chanbara, and what not, I never got to it. At the time, I only had an ebook copy, but I ordered a hardcopy either last year or the year before. It's been sitting on my shelf waiting for a reread (or for my son, who is getting into coding and thinking of computer game design, to read).
Then JB at BX Blackrazor wrote this post, in response to Adam of Barking Alien. And the conversation is relevant to another post I've barely started writing in response to Alexis's recent world building posts (which I'm enjoying quite a bit, although I'm a little behind on reading them).
The question Adam raised was, why world-build when character backstories aren't encouraged? And JB, instead of answering directly, started off by musing on why bother playing D&D at all? And that reminded me of Rouse. So I grabbed my copy off the shelf, and re-read his first chapter, where he talks about what players of (video) games want, and what they expect. Rouse makes the strong assertion that interactivity is what sets games apart from other forms of entertainment, and that computer games have the most interactivity. I disagree. An RPG has much more interactivity than even the most carefully crafted computer offerings. So his points on what players want and expect do seem to have transferability to RPGs.
According to Rouse, players want the following in their games:
1. Challenge
2. Socializing
3. Dynamic Solitary Experiences
4. Bragging Rights
5. Emotional Experiences
6. To Explore
7. To Fantasize
8. To Interact
He of course elaborates on all of these things. And of course not every player is equally desiring of each of these elements. But if you think about the people in your play group, I bet you can pick out two or three of these that fit each person in your group.
According to Rouse, players expect the following in their games:
1. A Consistent World
2. To Understand the Game World's Bounds
3. For Reasonable Solutions to Work
4. Direction
5. To Accomplish Tasks Incrementally
6. Immersion
7. Some Setbacks
8. A Fair Chance
9. Not to Need to Repeat Themselves
10. Not to Get Hopelessly Stuck
11. To Do, Not to Watch
Again, Rouse of course elaborates on these points. Most of them are pretty self-explanatory, I think, but Expectation 4. Direction might need a bit more explanation. Even though most computer games are railroads that take you along a linear story (I recently started replaying Final Fantasy VII on my emulator box, and so much of the beginning is just a linear story without any real choice in where to go or what to do), Rouse isn't saying players expect to be railroaded.
He means that players expect the goals of the game to be obvious. And players need some clues about how they might achieve those goals. When he talks about the goals of the game, he doesn't mean completing the story. He means playing the game.
Translated into D&D terms, it doesn't matter if it's a megadungeon, a hexcrawl, the GDQ series, or even the railroady Dragonlance modules. It doesn't matter if the BBEG is a dragon, a lich, a vampire, or the gods themselves. It doesn't matter whether or not there is even a BBEG. That's all window dressing.
What is the mechanical goal of the game? In D&D, it's (like it or not) gaining levels. Possibly becoming a ruler or even an epic hero or immortal (depending on edition). How do you achieve that goal? Fighting monsters and accumulating treasure.
This, I think, is why so many players prefer D&D over other game systems. And why it's often easier for DMs to create a satisfying long-term D&D campaign when they struggle in other systems. Some people, like Adam D. have no problem creating satisfying games with other systems. And there are other systems in which the mechanics lead naturally to the in-game story the way D&D's do. But for most people, D&D is just much clearer, EVEN if there isn't a lot of world building done in the campaign (yet). Is there a dungeon full of monsters and challenges and treasure? Great, we can explore it and if successful, gain levels.
Writing this post has helped me to clear up in my mind exactly why I'm dragging my feet preparing for my next Star Wars d6 game. I'm having fun running the game. The players are having fun playing the campaign. But the mechanical goals of the game (increase your skills) don't necessarily lead to specific in-game fictional goals the way D&D easily does. Should I just focus on combat with the Empire or criminal elements? Should I have exploration or social adventures? How does a desire to improve Technical skills, for example, translate to in-game goals that are challenging and exciting?
It's not as clear as in D&D. And games like Star Wars or White Wolf's Vampire or what have you require a bit more world building up front than D&D. Granted, well-known IP like Star Wars take some of the heavy lifting from you, but they also come with baggage that may not always suit the style of games you want to run. With D&D, the goal is to get treasure to level up. I'm a Fighter. He's a Thief. She's a Magic-User. They're a Cleric. The dungeon is over there. The treasure is in the dungeon. Let's go!
My Star Wars group include (current and former members): a Camaasi Force Adept seeking knowledge, a Smuggler trying to earn enough to improve his ship, a Mandalorian looking to improve his beskar armor, a Minor Jedi seeking training, a Young Jedi looking for romance (go figure!), a Duros Pilot who likes to instigate trouble, a Failed Jedi seeking redemption, a sentient Battle Droid (not a Separatist model) looking for bigger guns and explosives... No where near as cut and dry as with D&D.
So, you've been DMing for decades. You know how to create a dungeon, wilderness, city, or whatever sort of adventure. But are you able to organize that process you have in a way that would make a good teaching tool for new DMs? Can you film a video tutorial of your process? I bet you can.
Check out the first (hopefully annual) AUTHENTIC ADVENTURES TEACHING CONTEST.
I'm one of the judges. Impress me!
First Prize $800 US
Second Prize $200 US
Third Prize $50 US
Plus one Honorable Mention to be awarded
______________
If I hadn't been asked to judge, I really would have joined this contest. One of my players is thinking of branching out into GMing for the first time ever (at 55!). My older son is every now and then considering if he'd like to DM a game or not. Having my thoughts organized in this way would be helpful for them. But since I'm judging, I'm relying on all of you!
Today, I want to take a look at the first numbered axiom laid down by Prince of Nothing, in which he enumerates what, to him, makes old school D&D superior to a lot of the stuff being put out under an OSR label but is really more avant-garde than old school (again, according to Prince).
1. The greatest DnD is neither a slavish imitation of the past nor a wholesale rejection thereof (conscious or unconscious), but a continuation of that old craft, with syncretic improvements from other areas.
I simplified this statement to:
1. Some parts of D&D can (and sometimes should) be changed, but a core essence of "D&D" must remain.
I can't disagree with the sentiment in general. My own frankenstein-edition, titled Treasures, Serpents, and Ruins, is very much a Classic D&D base with elements of AD&D, 3E, and even some 5E inspiration in it. And a few things from other OSR games or blogs that I like.
So yes, I've taken D&D to a place that I think is a continuation of the old craft while incorporating syncretic improvements from other games.
But MUST it be this way? I mean, it works for me and my players. And every table back in the original days was tinkering with the rules, adding, subtracting or modifying things to suit their own tastes. That's about as "old school" as you can get.
But the statement as written would actually invalidate some old school play styles. There are people who run things as by-the-book as possible. Sometimes, because of gaps in the rules or because of incoherent explanation or because of different sections of the rules providing different mechanics for the same subsystem, there's no way to be 100% by the book. But there are games that seek to do that.
Is it wrong to try to run OD&D (or any edition) in a way that follows as closely as possible what is in the books? I don't think so. There's definitely value in that. I've read plenty of blog posts and forum threads over the years where people do just that, and come out of it with a deeper or changed perspective on the rules as they have been presented. Sometimes, it's exactly that which helps people to understand why the rule was that way to begin with.
Other times, it helps show people why the rules have been changed. In order to understand what we're modifying and changing, I think it's a good thing to have a solid understanding of the rules before they get changed.
And of course, there is no accounting for taste. Some people like the quick and easy recovery of 4E and 5E. Some people hate Vancian casting. Do I even need to bring up demi-human level limits?
That's why I modified my version to read "can (and sometimes should)" because I don't necessarily agree that a Frankenstein edition is necessarily the "greatest" form of D&D. I'm constantly tinkering with mine, and never satisfied. How can that be the greatest?
Obviously, that is simply Prince stating his opinion, one in which I more or less agree with, at least for the first half.
The second half is of course where things get tricky, and untold gigabytes of blog and forum and G+ posts and YouTube commentary and whatnot have been spent debating just what exactly is the line that demarcates "continuing" the old craft and where have you moved on to "wholesale rejection" of the old ways?
I don't have the answer to that. Except as it applies to me and my table.
In my previous post about Prince's 0 Statement, people got into this discussion in the comments. I put forth the proposition that GP = XP is the key tenet of that "old school continuation", and plenty of people whom I respect disagreed. And reading their arguments, I can concede that perhaps it's only one of the tenets of old school play, not the key one.
So we have here a statement I'm happy to agree with on a surface reading, but the more I think of it, the harder it becomes to give full-fledged support to the idea. I definitely agree that you can "go too far" and make a game not feel like D&D (for example, I feel the Black Hack line of games lose the essence). But what exactly does it? It's like the Supreme Court definition of porn - I can't describe it, but I know it when I see it. Or play it, as the case may be.
And here's the thing -- while I haven't perused all of the ArtPunk scene's offerings, a lot of the things I have seen, like say Ultraviolet Grasslands, still feel very D&D to me. I'd say UVG feels more D&D to me (on a reading, I haven't played it) than Black Hack does. But again, your mileage may vary. And I may be a bit predisposed to like UVG since Luka is a friend and played in my West Marches game back when he lived in Busan a few years ago. Personal biases shape a lot of how we will determine these things.
So, final thought on this axiom: An idea I can completely understand and sympathize with, but don't fully embrace.
