The post you haven't been waiting for

So, it's finally time for me to talk a bit about the 5E/Next playtest documents.  I've got them.  I've read through them.  I've found a few interesting things, a few things I don't like, but in general, nothing really horrible enough to make me NOT play the game and nothing cool enough to make me WANT to play the game.  Of course, this is just an early playtest, and things will change. 

I still think it's important for myself and other old schoolers to take part.  If nothing else, we can show that we're not just haters to WotC, and maybe get some more perks like the AD&D reprints thrown our way in the future.  And maybe some of the old school vibe will remain in the new edition, which will make it that much easier to recruit the kids who start on 5E into our OSR games.  My biggest problem (OK, time is the biggest, but if I weren't working full time/in grad school/teaching private lessons/raising a trilingual son/etc. it would be the biggest problem) with me getting an OSR game going here is that most of the player base in Busan want to play 3E/Pathfinder or, to a lesser extent, 4E.  Or some other game than D&D.  If 5E comes with more of an OS philosophy behind adventure creation, GMing advice, and all that, I think it would be much easier for me to get people to try Labyrinth Lord.  And this is in no way intended to be a slight to Justin, who's running an awesome game via G+ Hangouts, but there's just something better about a face-to-face game.

Anyway, enough blather about my gaming woes.  What did I think of the first public unveiling of D&D Next? 

The basic "universal" mechanic is that of the d20 system (3E).  There are a lot of places where the text has just been cut-and-paste from their 4E documents.  Hopefully they'll clear some of this up.  For a game that patently DOESN'T rely on a grid/battlemat, to say that moving in any sort of non-standard fashion "costs an additional 5 feet of movement" makes my brain do funny things.  I noticed a few of the 4E powers have become either "feats" or spells.  Laser Clerics, Fighters who do damage when they miss, Wizards who shoot mini-fireballs all day long like the one in Gauntlet -  all still there from 4th.

Advantage/Disadvantage is interesting.  Having run into "disadvantage" in the short-lived 4E game I played last year with one of the Paizo adventures, it can be a real pain in the butt.  Advantage is basically just the standard "luck" bonus that's been around for several editions. 

Hit points?  Mook monsters are alright.  Any sort of "boss" monster or "tough" monster, though, looks WAY too high.  We'll see how it goes in play, though, as damage dealing capacity looks fairly high (although the playtest Fighter does have one of the highest damage weapons in the game - switch out that great axe for a longsword and we may have a different story).  Now, this may have an unintended benefit.  Those who like 2 hour tactical combats can really enjoy finding the correct puzzle to whittle down each big beastie.  Those who like combat-as-war will want to find ways to circumvent having to grind those big monsters down.  But still, an ogre or troll shouldn't have 100+ hit points.  How many will dragons and giants have? 

And healing?  Don't like it as written.  I've always been of the "high hit points mean you're just that hard to kill" school (too many Schwarzenegger movies as a kid, perhaps?), rather than "it's all luck and reflexes and getting tired out" school. 

Backgrounds and Themes - Backgrounds seem OK.  Basically 2E kits that give you a few set 3E skills and maybe a feat or two.  Themes are basically just the 4E roles (from the five they've listed) given a makeover.  I don't hate either, and could see maybe using Backgrounds but not Themes if I were to run a game of 5E beyond the playtest phase (which I'm admittedly not likely to do at this stage of the rules).

General tone of the rules - I like it.  Give a solid set of mathematics to run the game, but give plenty of advice and use a tone that makes those numbers not so set in stone.

Making all sorts of checks keyed to ability scores is good (and Old School).  Making the saving throws tied to ability scores means that lots of people are still gonna want to run "super-charged" characters where an 8 (-1) represents "a significant flaw" and DMs will be hounded if they don't allow point buy or some ridiculous rolling scheme to insure high ability scores across the board. 

Finally, monsters.  Lots of them seem to have some sort of "tactical" special ability for no other reason than to have a "tactical" special ability (in other words, 4E leftovers).  And several of them are what Justin Alexander terms dissociated mechanics. 

We've got a couple people interested in giving it a try.  I've been nominated to DM.  After I finish my grad school stuff, I'll be happy to do so.  Then we'll see how it plays when the rubber hits the road (or the shit hits the fan, depending on how old school I take it).  I'll go ahead and just run it the way it is, to get the most accurate depiction of how it plays.  If I had my druthers, though, I'd scrap the healing mechanic (or at least heavily modify and tone it down), scrap the monster tactical abilities (the whole point of the move to ability score based actions was to be able to do improvisational stuff like in Flying Swordsmen, right?), and keep Backgrounds but drop Themes for the characters.  Probably a few other changes here and there.

So nothing to hate in 5E for me, but nothing to love either.  Some interesting ideas, some things I don't think are good for the game. 

Score so far: C+

Ya load 16 tons, whadda ya get?

Had a rare Sunday game of Justin's Vaults of Ur campaign last night.  This week, our lineup consisted of Ripper the Orc (Jeremy/Oxide), Elder Karl the Cleric (Dean/Tallifer), Mork the Magic-User (Josh/Anonymous) and of course Thidrek the Sleestak Crossbowmaster (yeah, 3rd level baby!  I'll likely be dead soon.)  The stone fist we found last session was tried on by Elder Karl, who found that it gave him excessive strength in his arms (but not the rest of his body), and he couldn't take it off.  The statue's large mace seemed to enhance the power, though.  We're still not exactly sure what it does.

Thidrek bought a cart and of course instead of mules, Ur has six-legged triceratopsian beasts to pull them.  A pair of teamsters also were included in the package.  Blasko, our NPC Beastman crossbowman, came with us as well.  Our mission was three-fold.  First, get the iron statue we defeated last time up and out, and sold.  Second, get the alchemist's tower fixed up to be our new base.  Third, try and get the Hive lined up on our side to fight the Spiked Circle bandits/cult.

We got to the Hive without incident, and found a new faction apparently in control.  Mork's ESP came in handy as Thidrek snorted bug powder to talk to them.  The political strife is rampant, and "outsiders" are interfering.  We're obviously one interfering group, but apparently there's another.  Thidrek suspects Oogliata's Amazonian Legion (orcs). 

Anyway, we headed down and found no signs of new monsters, and our statue where we left it.  There's still more to explore down there, but we may save it for later.  We hauled the statue up, and it took most of the day.  We camped just outside the Hive, and Ripper saw a strange light show up in their tower during his watch.  Early the next morning, Zizik (the leader of the friendly faction) showed up with some of his men and a dried "brain beetle" husk that he said would help with communication between the Hive and Fort Low.  We're to present it to the authorities, he says.  Again, Mork's ESP showed us that Zizik had no malicious intent.  So we headed out with four Hive Tribesmen as honor guards to the beetle husk.

We got to a square and as we crossed it, two buildings on the opposite side collapsed, blocking our path.  And just then, three ape-like monsters with tentacles for arms attacked.  A Sleep spell, a set spear against a charge, a few crossbow bolts and flail swings, and another Sleep spell ended the encounter with no damage to us.  Mork was out of memorized spells, but had a scroll of magic missile and some flasks of acid.

Obviously, the Spiked Circle wanted us to head south (north was the Zoo, Thidrek's in no hurry to return there), and it would take maybe the entire day to clear rubble.  Thidrek suggested scouting a path through alleys and ruined buildings, and while he did so, he found a path with minimal obstruction and a two story building with movement in the windows.  It was decided that Thidrek and Ripper should sneak to the building and ambush the ambushers while the rest of the group went through the alleys.

There were two beastmen archers waiting, and they had spread oil out along the street to the south.  We managed to take them, but not before one blew a warning on his horn.  No reinforcements arrived, luckily.  Thidrek found two wicker baskets, and opening one, let loose some flying leeches with bat-like wings.  Luckily, his sword went snicker-snack before they could snack upon Sleestak.  He then called for Ripper to light a torch and burn the oil, and tossed the baskets into the blaze.

By this time, Father Karl, Mork and the wagon team had cleared the alleys (Father Karl using his new magical stone guantlet to bash through a wall Luke Cage style).  Father Karl expected us to meet them at the far side, and not seeing us, went south to find what happened.  Mork decided to get the wagon moving rather than wait.  He ran into another ambush, this time led by several Spiked Circle spellcasters.  Blasko went down to arrow fire, and the Hive warriors and triceratops were put down by sleep spells.  Mork took some damage while waking up the Hive warriors, and the teamsters also were killed before the rest of us could arrive.  Luckily, the Hive warriors were fanatical about defending their Brain Beetle, and we were able to put down all of the attackers but one archer, who fled.  There were two demon-faced magic-users, and two helmeted guys, one a human (Cleric we think) and another an Orc Magi (Justin's palette swapped Elf class).

With no other encounters (and it pushing 1am), we made it back to Fort Low without further incident.

So we didn't even get close to objectives two and three, but we had a ton of fun with objective one, and next session I think we're up for a bit of political wrangling within the Hive. 

Justin also let us know that the night's events had been inspired by him seeing the trailer for The Road Warrior during the week.  And it did make for a fun night, I have to say.

In other news, some of the Busan Gamers may be trying out the 5E Playtest soon.  I'll keep you all posted.

Beast of the Week: Shrieking Eel

"You hear that, Princess?  Those are the shrieking eels.  They always get louder just before they feed on human flesh!"

Yes, turning to The Princess Bride for this week's Beast.  Enjoy!

Shrieking Eel
AC: 8 (12)
HD: 5+1*
Move: swim 120 (40)
Attacks: 1 bite
Damage: 2d6
No. Appearing: 1-8 (1-8)
Save As: F3
Morale: 8
Treasure Type: nil
Alignment: Neutral
XP: 400 
Shrieking Eels are 30' long serpentine fish.  They produce a keening wail as they close in on their prey.  Those that hear the shriek must Save vs. Spells or become paralyzed with fear.  Panicked creatures stop swimming but continue to tread water, and may not attack or cast spells.  There are both marine and fresh water varieties of Shrieking Eels, and they have been found in water-logged sections of dungeons as well.

WTF WotC?

OK, I've been trying to download the 5E Playtest documents. 

Keep getting errors and redirects and messages telling me I'm sending scripts over unsecure lines.

And this is AFTER making sure I still had a Wizards.com account, signing the little agreement, having to wait another hour to get the email with the download link...   If they really want people to playtest their stuff, why do they make so many hoops to jump through to do it?

Anyway, I'll try it again after work.  If it doesn't work, screw it.

Zombies? Bring em on!

Gamquistu - Games, Quizzes and Stuff.

I hear that train a comin'

It's rolling round the bend.
And I ain't seen the sunshine
Since I don't know when.
I'm stuck in Folsom Prison
And time keeps dragging on.
But that train keeps a rollin'
On down to San Antone.

So, for those of you who have been living under a rock or on a desert island with no internet access, WotC is releasing their public playtest of "D&D Next"* tomorrow.  Well, for me it will likely be the day after tomorrow, due to the funny time warp known as the International Date Line. 

And I'm likely going to download it.  When they announced it, I was curious.  I was hoping they would reverse their current direction and bring the game home.  At first, their stated goals were hopeful.  Overly optimistic, certainly, but they gave me hope that the new game might at least be a good compromise game for those that like Old School, New School, and whatever school it is that 4th belongs to.

More recently, it's been pretty obvious that the game is not headed that way.  But I figure I at least need to take a look at what they've got and give my feedback to them, even if my voice is not heard.  If I don't, then I'll be just another grumbling guy when the game is released.  Like someone who doesn't vote, then spends the next 4 years complaining about the president.

Yeah, that's right.  It's our civic duty to go to the polls and vote for more Old School in our D&D.  We aren't likely to win the election, but if we don't make our voices heard then we've got no right to complain about the results after the dust settles.

*They're still calling it this?  Come on!  5E is of course just as bad.  You think they'd have had someone with a bit of marketing sense come up with something better.  I just keep thinking of Pepsi Next when I read that.  And Pepsi Clear, Pepsi Blue, whatever.  Yeah, I'm a Coke drinker when it comes to colas. Currently drinking a Mt. Dew, though.

The God in the Bowl

Getting behind in my Conan story reviews.  Sorry about that, folks.  I'm still reading, just haven't had much time to sit down, consider the stories, and write.  At this pace, I'm gonna have to re-read them again before writing.  Or just post a bit more often.  We'll see which happens.

Anyway, on with the review.  The God in the Bowl is the third Conan story that Howard wrote, and like The Frost Giant's Daughter, it didn't sell.  We have another young Conan story here, with him a thief in Nemedia.  The entire story takes place within a rich merchant's store-house, and is a murder mystery story with a supernatural element, rather than an action story.  Until the end, Conan is less the main character than just a participant in the action, being accused of murdering the merchant and questioned by Demetrio the Inquisitor and his police backup.

The story really puts Howard's theme of corrupt civilization vs. noble barbarism in focus.  Demetrio (who is really the main character until the last couple pages) is a decent enough fellow, but the rest of the police, especially the leader, are simply brutish thugs who abuse and terrorize the citizens.  The young, effeminate noble that hired Conan to break into the store house is pretty much Conan's exact opposite, being a weak, deceptive and soulless bastard.  Minor spoiler if you haven't read the story (but probably not unexpected), Conan decapitates him.

The real murderer is of course the supernatural element, and Conan in the end is the only one who faces it.  The "bowl" in the title is a large sealed urn from a Stygian tomb, and the contents of the "bowl" leave even Conan awash with horror.

Overall its a pretty good story.  It's well done, but it might have been the wrong sort of story for the weird fiction magazines Howard was trying to publish his work in.  The hero is sidelined for most of the story, there are no women (in distress or otherwise), and the one fight scene is cut short by the second murder caused by the mysterious creature.  This is all just speculation on my part, of course.

I'll likely be using "The God in the Bowl" in a future Beast of the Week post.