Does One D&D Fix Grappling?

At least in one major way, yes.

In 5e, to grapple someone you make a Strength (Athletics) check opposed by their Strength (Athletics) or Dexterity (Acrobatics) check, and if you win they are Grappled, meaning they cannot move, but that’s it.

Pictured: grappling (picture of a stop sign)

So imagine your party Wizard is being attacked by a melee brute, let’s call it a Bearded Devil. You’re a big Barbarian or Fighter and want to grapple the thing to get it to lay off the Wizard. You go up and succeed the opposed check, and you’re both now Grappled.

What has changed? Almost nothing. If the BD’s turn comes between yours and the Wizard’s, the BD still gets to attack the Wizard totally unimpeded. If the Wizard’s turn comes between yours and the BD’s, then they either have to Disengage or take an opportunity attack, the same as if the BD weren’t grappled at all. The only difference is that if the Wizard disengages or eats an opportunity attack and successfully moves away, then on the BD’s next turn, it has to either attack you or use its action to try to escape the grapple to pursue the Wizard.

(Spider-Man asking “Why do I even bother?”)

That is a tangential benefit that almost certainly is less useful than just hitting the thing or at least knocking it prone.

But the One D&D UA released today changes that in a good way! The new Grappled condition gives disadvantage to attacks against anyone other than your grappler. So as soon as you grapple the Bearded Devil, its opportunity attack against the fleeing Wizard is now at Disadvantage! And even if the BD’s turn comes before the Wizard’s, it has an incentive to attack you instead of the Wizard even though the Wizard is still next to it. So you instantly help out your party’s squishies by grappling the melee brute that is attacking them! Exactly how you imagine running up and engaging your companion’s assailant should help.

It’s not all good news for grapplers and bad for grapplees, though. The Bearded Devil now gets a free chance to break the grapple at the end of its turn instead of having to use its action. So if the BD’s turn is before the Wizard’s, then it will likely attack you to avoid disadvantage, and then attempt to break the grapple. If it succeeds, then the Wizard still faces a full OA when they run on their turn.

Battle of the Bearded Dudes, I suppose

In summary, there are three ways a successful grapple changes this scenario: either 1) the Wizard is able to run away and only face an OA with disadvantage, 2) the BD attacks you instead of the Wizard, but breaks the grapple at the end of its turn and still fully threatens the Wizard, or 3) the BD attacks you instead of the Wizard and fails to break the grapple at the end of its turn, so the Wizard also only faces an OA with disadvantage.

Either way, it’s a lot better than maybe sucking up the BD’s action a whole turn later after it’s already made another round of attacks and opportunity attacks on the Wizard. I’m implementing this immediately. Three cheers for One D&D!

Fantasy Cultures from the Inside Out

The Danger of Understanding Cultures from the Outside In

Imagine you’re an Englishman in the middle ages. You’ve never been to France or Sicily or the Holy Roman Empire, but other folks have, and they’ve come back and told you about the French, the Italians, and the Germans. They describe how different French cuisine, mannerisms, routines, fashion, courtship, warfare, and philosophy are, and the same with the Italians and the Germans. They don’t describe–in fact they may not even have noticed–how similar their patterns of life, their religious beliefs and traditions, their family structure, their trades, their form of government, etc., are. In the mind of a medieval Englishman, French, Italian, and German cultures are inherently alien and exotic, because all the stuff that was similar was too boring to report.

(Map of medieval Europe c. 950-1300)

Of course, the French didn’t consider the parts of their culture that were unique and different from English culture to be the critical parts of French culture. The French way of life, as defined by the French, revolved around mostly the same activities as other ways of life in medieval Europe. But when the French looked at the English, the differences stood out while the similarities blended into the background, so they also thought of the English in terms of the former, not the latter.

Cultural stereotypes, myths, and prejudices are quickly established since the number of people who directly interact with the other side are few. Both sides paint with a broad brush and in only the colors that seem strange and foreign to them. “The French wear scarves, berets, drink a lot, and smell bad,” says the Englishman (channeling modern stereotypes to make a point), and the other Englishmen nod approvingly, not knowing any better themselves.

(Depiction of stereotypical Frenchman)

Most of that is not true for most Frenchmen, and even the ones that have a basis in truth–many in France do drink a bit of wine with many meals–is not true for a huge number of the French. If you go to France, you might find a few individuals who embody a preponderance of these traits, but the French are as diverse as any wealthy culture, and the average Frenchmen bears little resemblance to the caricature. This was basically as true in medieval times as it is today.

Now swap out the English for fantasy humans and the French for fantasy dwarves. In fantasy, we accept that most, if not all individuals in a fantasy culture embody the cultural traits outsiders find unique: dwarves are all like Gimli, they all grow beards, wield axes, are smiths or miners, like to drink, and take their ancestral clan very seriously. Sure, there might be an individual or two who buck the trend, but they are the odd ducks, probably ostracized to some extent because of their un-dwarf-like behavior, the exceptions that prove the rule.

Pictured: a weirdo (Drizzt Do’urden)

That’s not really how cultures work, though.

How Cultures Work (according to me)

First, few¹ cultures assign internal significance to the physical characteristics that differentiate them from other groups. Chinese culture assigns no significance to their epicanthic folds, other than to distinguish them from other groups. It’s externally significant, but has little to no internal meaning. Dwarves may care a great deal about their beards, but the beards did not become significant internally because it marked them different from their neighbors. Rather, dwarven beard culture happened first, and then became just one of those traits other races found unique and interesting.

¹ The exception that proves the rule here, though, is an oppressed culture: an oppressed culture might just assign great significance to the biological or other signifiers that their oppressors use to identify and mistreat them, reclaiming them as badges of honor.

So if you find yourself making a fantasy cultural trait around a physical distinction, like an elven ballet tradition since elves are relatively slender and graceful, remember that elves don’t think of themselves as all slender and graceful. They think of themselves as elves, who may be short, tall, thin, bulky, stout, etc., to their eyes, no matter how other races would describe them. Elven ballet is a perfectly legitimate idea, but it wouldn’t happen because elves are graceful; the most graceful of elves would pick up ballet and it would be very interesting and memorable to other races that are unlikely to match the extremes of elven grace on display, but that wouldn’t automatically make it important to elves as a whole. Russian ballet is a world-famous style, but the vast majority of Russians have never danced ballet and aren’t suited for it just by being Russian.

Pictured: the premier danseur of the 1917 season (Vladimir Lenin)

Which leads to the second point: cultures are not monolithic. Keeping with the Russian theme, most Russians have never given more than a passing thought to Russian ballet. Or to the architecture styles of the buildings around Moscow’s Red Square. Or to the characteristics of Russian vodka compared to other alcohol. Even if a significant minority do think about them, such that they are cultural touchpoints that foreigners will encounter, most Russians do not embody these cultural traits anymore than the French wear scarves, berets, and always have cheese and wine ready. And some Russians reject Russian ballet as insultingly bourgeois, or Russian vodka as cheap and unsophisticated. They might engage in the cultural trappings of Russia, be neutral towards them, or actively reject them.

Similarly, fantasy cultures will have a spectrum and diversity of opinion, even on things that outsiders see as inherent to the culture. Dwarves live underground and their kingdoms’ wealth comes from mining, but only a minority of dwarves really consider themselves born to mine; a lot of them are just there for the paycheck or until something better comes along. Some probably hate mining, and these are disproportionately likely to be adventurers, since they would rather accept great risk on an adventure than take the relatively steady life of a dwarven miner.

The same with drinking, or beards. Dwarves could have an absolutely killer alcohol culture known far and wide, but the average dwarf probably isn’t a connoisseur, he likes his local brews well enough, while the progressives are rallying in the capital for unions and *gasp* prohibition. And how would the clan elders respond to a generation of rebellious youth who started shaving their heads and beards, originally in solidarity with a revolutionary political figure whose beard was shaven for “corrupting the youth,” but which has now just become a style?

“Free the chest hair, lads!” (Male dwarf with only stubble and an open shirt)

Cultures contain multitudes, and the pressures that shape cultural values, practices, and expressions are generally internal or environmental, not comparative. They have to do with the life cycle of the race, the place they live and how they fulfill their physical and emotional/spiritual needs as individuals, families, villages, towns, cities, and nations.

Building Cultures from the Inside Out

When you’re thinking up a fantasy culture, then, avoid starting with “what will outsiders see first?” Instead, start from the inside out: what do wood elves talk about with other wood elves? How are families organized, how is labor divided? What life milestones are celebrated? How are decisions made in the village or town? What functions are essential to an elven settlement’s way of life? What does their spirituality look like? What do wood elves disagree about? How do they resolve conflicts between individuals? Between settlements?

If the culture has cities and trade and specialization, the answers to these questions will probably vary more, as different needs are prioritized for different groups, creating the potential for more conflict and drama. The spectrum of attitudes really starts to extend. Embrace it! Let the dwarven capital actually feel cosmopolitan instead of provincial. Small villages in an area may be a little more homogeneous, though you should still flesh out the conflicts in a village that will be explored, but a city should lean into the fissures in a society dealing with ever-shifting internal and external pressures. It helps you understand the facets of your culture, including what parts outsiders will see first, and it increases potential for great characters and great drama.

The dwarves of Tyr Alona, for instance, were exiled from their mountain halls by a great dragon that took up residence in the ancestral capital of Bhar Moldir and sent his draconic armies to eradicate any dwarves that dared remain underground. Now living on the surface in Kharnumok, the dwarven civilization was under extreme pressure. The more orthodox among them, including many of the clan leaders, believed that they were being punished for straying too far from the traditional faith of the forge god Rapha, and only repentance and religious renewal would restore them to their homes under the earth. In fact, there were some who took this to extremes and terrorized those they deemed insufficiently pious to encourage all dwarves to remember the old rites. While the traditionalists disapproved the extremists’ methods, some sympathized with them. Many dwarves, however, placed the blame squarely on the dragon and didn’t feel their forebears’ religion was particularly insightful on fixing that problem. Some even embraced surface life; fresh produce was a whole new dietary world, and they loved it! They saw a new chapter in dwarven society, opening untold new opportunities that weren’t working in that gods-forsaken mine.

(Dwarf in armor standing in a mountain valley)

The city of Kharnumok was ground zero for dwarven extremists and reformers. Even if the story that brings the characters there isn’t about the dwarves’ plight, it’s a background element that shows a living culture responding to extreme circumstances. That is simply more interesting than a city that emphasizes a one-dimensional set of cultural traits like a tourist attraction.

What do you think? What fantasy cultures have you found or made that are fully fleshed out and three-dimensional? What about their culture seemed most real to you?

Further Reading

• On Dothraki and House Elves: Developing Fantasy Cultures (dankoboldt.com)
• How to create fantasy cultures – AmWritingFantasy
• The Fallacy of Monolithic Culture — DISINTHRALLMENT
• 15 Tips For Creating A Fictional World That Actually Makes Sense To The Reader (bustle.com)

Prescriptive vs. Descriptive D&D

The book Art & Arcana is probably the first of its kind: a history of the art of Dungeons & Dragons. Interlaced in the text is the history of D&D itself: its creation, rise to popularity, controversy, business changes, edition changes, fall in popularity, and apparent renaissance. The first generation to grow up in an age where D&D was popular have become the first elders of a tribe, transmitting for the first time the culture of playing D&D to a generation of players that is larger than any that came before it.

But what is D&D? Defining D&D has proven difficult for a long time, because the game is played slightly differently at every table, creating a broad spectrum of experiences that each claim, with basically equal authority, to be D&D.

Some are theatrical, with improvised acting, accents, or even props/costumes, where a disagreement between the dice and the drama should be resolved in the latter’s favor. Others are tactical challenges that dare the players to plan and execute character builds and combat tactics that will keep them alive in a meat-grinder of a dungeon with little grand design behind the function of presenting the challenge. Still other games are downright goofy, where characters are named after pop culture icons and the NPCs are there to be punchlines. Most games have a mixture of these. Some are even more esoteric.

This is still the most accurate statement of “What is D&D?”

On the other side of that experience, the books those groups are using might be different editions: there have been 5 official editions, but there were certainly more forms before 1st edition, 2nd edition had optional rulebooks that vastly changed the game, there was both a 3.0 and a 3.5 edition, a 4e and a 4e Essentials, etc. Depending on the mix of books at the table, the game worked very differently. Even if two tables used the same books, house rules can change the experience extensively.

Beyond that, there are a number of games built using the same building blocks as D&D: the six attributes, armor class, hit points, d20, etc., but which have never been called Dungeons & Dragons. Some of these used the material released under the Open Game License from 3rd edition days (and renewed to some extent in 5e), like the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game, while others took the mechanical inspiration of later editions but reached back to the simpler, grittier gameplay of editions that predate the OGL, like Castles & Crusades, Lamentations of the Flame Princess, and other OSR games.

One thorny issue in defining D&D is deciding what is not D&D. Is the use of the D&D logo the dividing line? The use of the OGL?

I want to explore the proposition that, at least for some purposes, all of them are D&D, from TSR, WotC, Paizo, or Troll Lord Games.

Who Is Winning The Edition War Now?

Spoiler alert: The answer is very similar to what it was last time. But let’s have some pretty graphs!

As you can see from these graphs, absolutely everything is in a steady downward spiral except 5e. This suggests to me that the recent influx is definitely from more 5e games being started rather than games of other systems being killed, with one exception. Star Wars is in a particularly steep decline, likely due to the Force Awakens slowly fading from public interest. Now that the Orr Group and D&D 5e are officially working together, some amount of 5e’s dominance is going to be due to more prominent advertising.

In other news, if current trends hold I will most definitely need to add Dungeon World to the chart starting next time, because it is currently 0.01 percentage points away from AD&D’s position. Even with the tiny numbers we’re looking at, that’s extremely well within statistical noise. Dungeon World and AD&D are about equally popular.

Source data is here.

Who Is Winning The Edition War?

The Orr Group (those people what run Roll20) have released an industry report every quarter since Q3 2014, detailing what games have how many games and how many players according to their data. Unfortunately, there are some weaknesses in the ways they collect this data. Rather than run an Orwellian police state in which gamers are carefully monitored to ensure they are playing the game they claim they are, the Orr Group just gathers up the data on how many players have a system listed in their profile and how many games tagged with a certain system currently have at least one active player in them. This means the players metric is a list of people who say they would like to play a certain system, not the number of people who have actually played in such a game on Roll20.

The games number, on the other hand, uses the system tag from the LFG system. Players looking for a specific system in LFG search by tag, and the dropdown to select the system tag to attach to your game is a necessary part of LFG listing creation. This means it is safe to assume that a strong majority (I would posit at least 70% and likely 90%+) of Roll20 games have an accurate system tag attached to them. This is why the Orr Group uses games rather than players to rank their current most popular systems from any given quarter, it’s much more accurate. This method also has a drawback, however, because a game listing created at Roll20’s inception in September of 2012 and abandoned before the end of October is treated as an active game just the same as one that just started last month and is still ongoing, provided that at least one person wanders into the game during the quarter when the data is collected, even if it’s just the GM looking up what battle music he had in the jukebox. Since RPG campaigns have a half-life of something like 3-6 months but the games remain full of assets that their GMs may want to review or recycle for other games (which will require him to access the game, thus marking it as active even if he only comes in once every three months), an equally important measure of the game’s actual popularity is the change in percentage between quarters, which indicates how many new games are (or aren’t) being created.

At the time of writing of this paragraph, I haven’t yet seen what the results of the data are, and have only looked at the data from Q3 and Q4 2014, so I’m going to state in advance a couple of limitations in this data collection. The data covers roll20 users only, which means people who play primarily offline are not counted, and decisions made by the Orr Group regarding roll20 can affect the numbers in a way that won’t be representative of the market in general. The Orr Group runs YouTube videos and podcasts and in these they talk about some games and not others, and while I suspect the affect this has on the numbers is small, it is certainly going to be much greater on roll20 than in the market in general. That Lost Mines of Phandelver is now available on roll20 is likely to artificially inflate the prominence of 5e quite a bit for no other reason except greater availability, whereas in meatspace 5e D&D shares shelf space with 4e and Pathfinder, an effect we should take into account starting from Q2 2016 (the data for which hasn’t been released at the time of writing, but should be soon, and may be released while this is sitting in the queue).

EDIT FROM THE FUTURE: The data totally was released while this was sitting in the queue. I’m too lazy to extend my graphs for now, so I’ll run an update post sometime. Also, statistically speaking your favorite game is probably losing (nobody has a majority of players, only a plurality). Let’s all try to avoid the very tiresome and predictable flipping out over this.

CIP Ep. 2: Carefully Avoiding Controversy

Stubbazubba & Chamomile proudly present the Critical Insignificance Podcast, Episode 2, attack of the new age music, in which we carefully avoid a few controversies that are simply too significant for this podcast. More importantly, we plug a little-known but much-loved RTS game with a unique twist called Majesty (see Cham’s prior heads-up on the Steam sale), and Cham briefly reviews Gone Home.

We also lay out how GMs can engineer better pick-up games online, which should be a boon to anyone running a play-by-post, play-by-email, or virtual tabletop a la roll20.net game. The tl;dr version is:

It’s not what you think.

I’m going to leave this a little ambiguous, because 1) who ever understands Bane perfectly the first time? And 2) because you should listen to the podcast, though I will say this discussion starts at 14:55.

Finally, we talk about what’s going on with the D&D movie rights; Hasbro and Sweetpea Entertainment (the studio behind this, this, and this) have concluded the trial over the future of the rights, and…well we’re still waiting for either a last-minute settlement or a decision from the judge, but either way, something is going to happen on that front. We talk about why that is and what it means for D&D fans in the near future.

Listen here:

Or download.

Like the show? Please Like and Subscribe! We love positive feedback! Have some criticism? Let us know, too. Criticism is essential to this getting better, tell us what’s not doing it for you.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Dungeons & Definitions, Part I

John Wick penned a controversial article, “Chess is not an RPG,” purporting to define role-playing games, which is only slightly easier than rhyming with “orange,” if the blogosphere’s reaction is any indication. He says that having a working definition helps Game Masters focus on the right elements of play. Here I agree, though I think it’s really more important for game designers than GMs. Either way, to help GMs, Mr. Wick defines role-playing games as games “in which the players are rewarded for making choices that are consistent with the character’s motivations or further the plot of the story.” From this he concludes that the focus many games and players have on elements of balance is misplaced, since weapon tables, for instance, have little to do with character motivations or story and don’t advance those elements of the experience. On both counts, I respectfully disagree.

Announcing the Critical Insignificance Podcast!

Podcasts seem to complete blogs. Sometimes, there are interactions that you can’t really capture in an essay or article. Sometimes people don’t have the time to sit down and focus on words, and would much rather listen to a discussion while they do something else. As of today, Chamomile and I are proud to announce that Matters of Critical Insignificance will now cater to both sides of the information-consumer coin. It is my privilege to unveil the Critical Insignificance Podcast, a biweekly (that’s once every two weeks) romp between Chamomile and myself discussing, creating, and critiquing movies, games, and any other critically insignificant topic.

Our first episode, below, probably sounds like a first episode. Bear with us, we are fast learners and it will get better. That said, our first episode explores the line between evocation and conjuration and “telling” in both computer and table-top role-playing games. We take the film and fiction adage “show, don’t tell” one step further for interactive media: “evoke, don’t tell.” Whether that’s in creating a character in a video game or in creating an adventure for a Dungeon Master to run, designers/writers need to stop writing where the interactive player can pick it up on their own and run. Or do they? There’s also a side order of Cham channeling his inner Poe in more-than-a-decade-old The Sims. Yeah, we’re that kind of premium.

Without further, ado, then, and for your listening pleasure, I give you: the Critical Insignificance Podcast!

…Or Download Here


Critical Insignificance Podcast by Matters of Critical Insignificance is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Based on a work at http://k007.kiwi6.com/hotlink/6zhz1wuby1/Episode_0001_-_Evocation.mp3.

The Noise Before Defeat

Sun Tzu once said, “Strategy without tactics is the slowest route to victory. Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat.” I assume, then, that strategy with tactics is the quick, noisy way to victory, but I guess that wasn’t poetic enough for Sun Tzu to say directly.

Sun, I am disappoint.

I’m not going to try and improve on the Art of War, but you know what does need improving? The tactical positioning system used in D&D-style RPGs. Currently, D&D’s positioning system is plagued with legacy issues only a 2,500-year-old general could love. No disrespect to Mr. Sun, but this town deserves a better class of elf game, and it starts with updating one of the core fundamentals of the combat engine: the battle grid.

A New Hope for Combat

Over the past two days I’ve had a bit of a break-through, or at least an idea that has captured my attention and hasn’t collapsed in on itself yet, so I consider that pretty good.  It’s a new take on the very basic premise of combat in RPGs.

Over on this thread on RPG.net’s forums, the OP asked why people seem to think that “do damage or do something interesting” is a worthwhile trade-off.  He was confused that someone would find damage uninteresting and “other stuff” interesting.  That, along with talking to people about FFG’s new Star Wars game, Edge of the Empire, and it’s…interesting…dice mechanics made me realize something:  Damage isn’t interesting.

And that’s not just because damage is the “default” effect that you do all the time, so you’re now numb to it.  No, it’s even more meaningless than that.  Damage, as an effect, doesn’t change anything.  Your raging barbarian swats away the puny enemy’s shield and swipes across the Orc’s chest with his battleaxe leaving a red (or black!) gash an inch deep…and the Orc, unphased, just gets back in his “on guard” position, totally unchanged from before the exchange.

There’s no opening to capitalize on, no opportunity to take advantage of, no new tactical information; you totally hit the Orc and it actually did nothing for you that you can tell.  When was the last time that was ever the case in a movie, TV show, comic, or book?  In fact, what does happen in the source material is usually a lot of positioning, a lot of harmless going back and forth, maybe one or two solid connections which draw blood, which finally ends in a decisive and sudden death for the unlucky one who must die to serve the plot.

The fight between Aragorn and Lurtz from the Fellowship of the Ring is pretty much one of the most intense battles in fantasy cinema, and has a lot of injuries/blows landed, but I think there’s a grand total of 7 actual hits exchanged, and that includes Aragorn’s tackle at the beginning, and both his running Lurtz through and decapitating him right at the end.  Most of what they end up doing is disarming, dazing, grappling, and knocking down (actually, those mostly all happen to Aragorn).  There are, AFAICT, 2 instances where damage is directly dealt for its own sake, and not along with another effect.  See for yourself:

Now I’m going to approach this from another topic, raised in this thread, which is that missing is also intrinsically boring.  Tactically, nothing has changed from before you attempted.  I’ll bet Aragorn wished he had that option!  The only fights where I can imagine nothing happening like that is a saber duel between two masters, like this:

And that included a lot of testing the other guy out and sportsman-like restraint (also note the complete lack of “damage”).

Posters in that thread claimed that tactics did change since you’ve spent your turn and that’s a resource.  That’s very true, and that argument is also technically true.  However, I think that is the most boring option available.  It doesn’t work that way in most games; even in Chess or Checkers, you can’t fail to achieve any change in the game on your turn.  I think RPGs, and in particular, After Next, will be helped by discarding the old Whiff Factor paradigm for one in which combat is far more dynamic, fluid, and full of effects.  Combat where failing is fraught with danger, and the tables can turn very quickly.

To that end I’ve got a rough working design, a very barebones framework that I have to expand upon and probably retool in the future, but so far the results excite me:

1. No HP or any kind of health, at least not in the traditional sense
2. Armor is rolled actively by the defender, but only when a Wound is triggered
3. Wounds are triggered when the attacker’s attack total is at least 5 greater than the defender’s defense, and a Mortal Wound is triggered when the attack total is 10 greater
4. If, however, the attacker’s total is 5 less than the defender’s defense, then the attacker triggers a Wound, and a Mortal Wound if 10 less
5. There are other effects, based on weapon or character abilities, that can be activated depending on the margin of success that you roll (0-4 above, 5-9 above, or 10+ above)

So what this means is that if you have a +10 attack, and your target’s defense is 15, then if you roll a natural 20, you trigger a Mortal Wound, where they have to roll what is essentially an “Armor save” against a DC set by your weapon, or receive a mortal wound and die.  If you roll a 15 or higher, you trigger a regular Wound, which they still roll against the same way.  Once the target sustains one Wound, a second Wound counts as a Mortal Wound.  Wounds and Mortal Wounds happen in addition to another effect.

Now, I really want to avoid additive bonuses in After Next.  I’d rather situational modifiers and bonuses and such be represented by stacking Advantage or other non-additive mechanics.  So, so far I have a short list of effects available for the three categories of 0-4, 5-9, and 10+:

• Tier I (Margin of Success = 0-4) –
  • Knock Off Balance/Feint/Stun (gives Advantage to next attack against target)
  • Jab (gives target Disadvantage on their next attack)
• Tier II (MoS = 5-9) –
  • Knock Back (Disengages the target from you, moves them away from you)
  • Grapple (Neither you nor the target can attack until ended)
  • Dis-Shield (Target loses any Shield bonus until they spend a turn to retrieve it)
• Tier III (MoS = 10+) –
  • Knock Down (Target is knocked Prone; all attacks against the target get Advantage, and the target’s attacks take Disadvantage until he uses a turn to get up)
  • Disarm (Target cannot attack with that weapon until they spend a turn to retrieve it)

OK, so, besides the fact that Knock Back and Grapple need a little more context to be very useful, that’s a good starting list.

In case you got bored.

Shall we run a sample fight to see how it would go?

First, some rules contexts here;

• Weapons
  • Longsword (Wound DC 14, +1 Defense)
  • Spear (Wound DC 15, Reach weapon)
  • Battleaxe (Wound DC 17)
• Armor & Shields
  • Leather Armor (+2 Armor)
  • Chain Armor (+5 Armor)
  • Plate Armor (+7 Armor)
  • Buckler (+2 Defense)
  • Shield (+3 Defense)
  • Tower Shield (+4 Defense)
• Offense
  • Expert (+7 Attack)
  • Average (+5 Attack)
  • Poor (+2 Attack)
• Defense
  • Expert (+6 Defense)
  • Average (+3 Defense)
  • Poor (+1 Defense)

So, let’s put 2 heroes against 4 villains, 3 of which are mooks, 1 of which is their captain:

• Hero 1 (the Knight)
  • Spear, Shield, Plate Armor, Average Offense, Average Defense
  • Attack = d20 + 5, Defense = 16 (10+3+3), Wound = 15, Armor = d20 + 7
• Hero 2 (the Barbarian)
  • Battleaxe, Shield, Chain Armor, Expert Offense, Poor Defense
  • Attack = d20 + 7, Defense = 14 (10+3+1), Wound = 17), Armor = d20 + 5
• Bandits (3)
  • Longsword, Leather Armor, Poor Offense, Poor Defense
  • Attack = d20 + 2, Defense = 12 (10+1+1), Wound = 14, Armor = d20 + 3
• Bandit Captain
  • Longsword, Shield, Chain Armor, Average Offense, Poor Defense
  • Attack = d20 + 5, Defense = 15 (10+1+3+1), Wound = 14, Armor = d20 + 5

All right, I’m going to run this simulation.  Initiative is as follows: the Knight, the Bandit Captain, the Barbarian, then the Bandits.

Round 1)

The Knight attacks the Bandit Captain (d20+5 vs. 15 = 13, MoS = -2), but the Captain evades and knocks him off balance (Advantage on next attack against Knight).  The Captain then attacks the Knight, instead (d20+5 w/Adv vs. 16 = 6, MoS = -10), but the Knight easily counter-attacks (Armor roll, d20+5 vs. 15 = 20), and though the Captain is thrown to the ground, his armor protects him.  The Barbarian seizes the opportunity and attacks the Captain, as well, (d20+7 w/Adv vs. 15 = 25, MoS = 10) (Cap’s armor d20+5 vs. 17 = 21), but it only disarms the Captain, who is able to evade his attacks.  Bandit 1 attacks the Barbarian (d20+2 vs. 14 = 9, MoS = -5), but the Barbarian counters (B1 armor d20+3 vs. 17 = 5), leaving a painful gash on the bandit’s forearm.  Bandit 2 attacks the Barbarian, as well (d20+2 vs. 14 = 13, MoS = -1), but the Barbarian is able to knock this one off-balance (Adv on next attack on B2).  Finally Bandit 3 attacks the Barbarian (d20+2 vs. 14  = 15, MoS = 1), and is able to knock the Barbarian off his balance (Adv on next attack against Barb).

Round 2-

The Knight goes to finish off the Captain (d20+5 w/Adv vs. 15 (sans Sword bonus) = 25, MoS = 10) (Cap armor d20+5 vs. 15 = 14) and plants his spear into the Captain’s chest.  The Barbarian attacks Bandit 2 (d20+7 w/Adv vs. 12 = 17, MoS = 5) (B2 armor d20+3 vs. 17 = 5) and leaves him wounded, in addition to a little dazed (Dis on B2’s next attack).  Bandit 1 attacks the Barbarian (d20+2 w/Adv vs. 14 = 14, MoS = 0) and is able to keep him off his balance.  Bandit 2 attacks him, as well (d20+2 (Adv and Dis cancel out) vs. 14 = 17, MoS = 3) and manages to keep him off balance.  Bandit 3 attacks him, as well (d20+2 w/Adv vs. 14 = 13, MoS = -1), but the Barbarian turns the tables and leaves him off balance.

Round 3-

The Knight attacks Bandit 3 (d20+5 w/Adv vs. 12 = 23, MoS = 11) (B3 armor d20+3 vs. 15 = 10) and spears him in the gut.  He falls to the ground.  The Barbarian attacks Bandit 1 (d20+7 vs. 12 = 14, MoS = 2) and gets a jab to his face (Dis on B1’s next attack).  Bandit 1 attacks the Barbarian (d20+2 w/Dis vs. 14 = 5, MoS = -9) (B1 armor d20+3 vs. 17 = 17), and though the Barbarian counter-attacks, he is only able to knock him off balance (Adv on next attack against B1).  Bandit 2 attacks the Barbarian, as well (d20+2 vs. 14 = 19, MoS = 5) (Barb armor d20+5 vs. 14 = 11), slashing him deep across the arm.

Round 4-

The Knight attacks Bandit 1 (d20+5 w/Adv vs. 12 = 19, MoS = 7) (B1 armor d20+3 vs. 15 = 7) and similarly manages to spear him through the chest.  The Barbarian attacks Bandit 2 (d20+7 vs. 12 = 9, MoS = -3), but the Bandit is prepared and leaves the Barbarian off-balance.  Bandit 2 makes a last ditch effort against the Barbarian (d20+2 w/Adv vs. 14 = 21, MoS = 7) (Barb armor d20+5 vs. 14 = 12), and scores a penetrating blow into the Barbarian’s side, leaving him on the ground.

Round 5-

Enraged at his friend’s demise, the Knight attacks the Bandit (d20+5 vs. 12 = 8, MoS = -4) but the Bandit is able to turn it around and knock the Knight off balance (Adv on next attack against Knight).  The Bandit attacks the Knight (d20+2 w/Adv vs. 16 = 22) (Knight armor d20+7 vs. 14 = 15), which leaves him shield-less, but unhurt.

Round 6-

The Knight again attacks the Bandit (d20+5 vs. 12 = 18, MoS = 6) (B2 armor d20+3 vs. 15 = 18) but only manages to land a jab (Dis on B2’s next attack).  The Bandit uses his turn to pick up the Knight’s discarded shield!

Round 7-

The Knight attacks the Bandit (d20+5 vs. 15 = 21, MoS = 6) (B2 armor d20+3 vs. 15 = 4) and despite the shield’s help, is able to run the Bandit through.  It’s over!

Wow, that took an obscenely large number of rounds.  Bandit 2 was way too lucky, I gotta say.

But this helped me realize one glaring flaw in this system, and that is when it’s more likely that less-powerful enemies will hurt themselves rather than hurt their target, their optimal choice is indeed to not attack, which I don’t want.  I mean, I suppose that’s a good time for a flee mechanic to come into play, but even that would mean once the captains (the ones supposedly keeping the weaker ones fighting the heroes) are gone, everyone flees, ergo killing captains is all that matters.  I suppose that’s an option, but it isn’t something I initially planned for.  That and the non-damage effects are a little weird.  Those need some serious work.

I’ll continue to tinker with this idea, but I do feel like it makes for far more tense combats, and more cinematic ones (if I ever manage to figure out how to do the non-damage effects right).

Save or Dies in After Next

Hey, folks.

My work on After Next (and this blog in general) has been completely side-lined this semester, and I apologize for that.  Hopefully I’ll have more time to devote to it in the future, but until I’m more sure, I’ll try to keep posting shorter things that arise out of what I see on forums or my thoughts on network TV shows or who knows what.

Today I want to talk about Save or Die/Lose spells in games like D&D; an ability (often a spell) which takes out a target in one shot, usually with a lower probability of success than a less lethal ability.  In D&D the target rolls a Saving Throw to try to avoid some or all of the effects of spells, hence the name.  The classic example is the Medusa’s gaze attack which turns on-lookers to stone.  These tend to be somewhat controversial in game circles.  I want to briefly consider some different implementations thereof and talk about the issues they raise for designers and some theoretical implementations that would address some of those issues.

In older editions of D&D as I have come to understand it*, powerful magic, including SoD spells, had a chance of backfiring or otherwise harming the caster.  This dramatically increases the risk associated with using such magic, with the payoff being dramatic, powerful effects like instant death or petrification.  In addition, due to their lower save DCs and higher save bonuses for many classes, SoDs were a large gamble to cast and likely to fail regardless of the risk of backfire.  This about evened-out their utility to casters, PC and NPC alike.

D&D 3.5 ported over the spells from AD&D 2e without much alteration, but changed both the way spell DCs were set (now based on the spell level and caster’s stats) and the risks associated with casting powerful magics; namely, it was all removed.  Casters in 3.5 had the risk removed and the chance of failure increased so that SoD spells were superior to almost any other choice of spell.

So, many people advocate simply going back to the AD&D paradigm, where casting spells was risky and the enemy made their save and negated the attack entirely more often than not.  While that would be a step forward, balance-wise, I think it’s kind of missing the point.  Casters didn’t like how that worked in AD&D, hence 3rd Edition changed it.  By focusing on just the spell’s odds of success/backfiring, we’re either putting arbitrary mechanical frustrations on the caster, or, by removing them, on the targets of those spells.  There’s an alternative way of looking at this problem, which I believe solves all of those problems while simultaneously making the game actually more interesting to boot.

The inspiration for this train of thought came from Extra Credits, which did an episode on a relevant topic a few weeks ago, called “Counter Play.”
The main thrust of the idea is this:

When designing an ability or a mechanic, you can’t only be thinking about how to make that ability or mechanic interesting for the player who gets to use it, you also have to think about how its interesting for the players its used on. And on a more rigorous level, it’s the idea that a mechanic or ability in a multiplayer game should increase the number of meaningful choices available both to the player using it and the player its being used on.

TTRPGs are not considered multiplayer games, but the psychology and importance of this principle is true because at the combat round level, they function exactly like one; the DM is one player controlling a single monster on any given turn (mostly), and the player is controlling their one character, and they are slinging these abilities back and forth in a way that is essentially indistinguishable from a competitive multiplayer game.

This tactical genius leaves grown men crying. Don’t ask about the grown elves.

EC goes on to make the point that abilities that are an interesting tactical option for the user but not for the target is a good way to create frustrated targets. However, when you consider both sides of that equation, you create a richer play experience for both. So the question of whether or not SoDs are cool for the SoD-user is not the only consideration we have to take into account when designing SoDs. We also have to account for the SoD receiver’s experience and what options SoDs provide to them. Obviously, the only tactical implication of a traditional SoD for a target is “jack up that save modifier in your build!” That is one-dimensional (it’s not really a choice if it’s the only way) and irrelevant in combat (the decision is made outside of combat and nothing in combat will change it). This is not an enriching option as-is.

So SoDs need to be counter-able by the party, whether that’s by beginning an SoD at the end of one turn and then casting on the next and where taking any damage in-between either negates or greatly diminishes its effect if cast, SoDs only working on targets below a certain HP threshold, or something else that gives the opposing party/character an actual tactical option it can take in the midst of combat to attempt to prevent or counter it.

A third consideration for these mechanics in a TTRPG, I would say, is how it interacts with the user’s allies. You want abilities that interlock with the roles/actions of others, and gives them interesting options on their turns, too. The mundane half of the party’s contribution to the battle can’t be meaningless with one successful SoD. The mundanes have to contribute to SoDs somehow, whether that’s as simple as protecting the caster from having their concentration broken during casting, or contributing to meeting the necessary HP threshold for the spell to work, or some other combination of tactics.

Also, giving mundanes SoD abilities certainly couldn’t hurt, either. At some point a rogue should be able to just sneak up and stab a guy through the heart, and the fighter should be able to cut off the monster’s head with one mighty blow, so long as those have tactically interesting mechanics backing them up.

I’ll come out with some samples, but first I think I want to talk about the tactical mini-game. Grid-less tactical mini-game, as has been described previously.

*My understanding of the specifics of older D&D editions, I admit, is pretty lacking, so this is going off of what I have come to understand from others.

After Next Core

I know last time I said I was going to go into some resource management systems, but I realized that in order to do that, I need to lay down the ground rules of how the basics of the game work. Don’t worry, they’re coming. But first, the core mechanics of D&D After Next:

Like all d20 games, AN will primarily use a d20 + modifiers to resolve actions. I’m going with the standard 6 Abilities, with their modifiers as-is. The three familiar saving throws are joined by a fourth, Perception, which keys off of Wisdom. I’m still debating if these will be rolled every time or be a static 10+ Ability mod defense value. Both of these approaches have their advantages; rolled saves make it more interesting for the PCs and helps them feel like they have ownership over their fate, while static defenses help speed things up and make things easier for the DM. My first instinct is to go with the latter, but I’m starting to fear that I haven’t given players much reason to pay any attention on other’s turns, and this is one thing that will keep them engaged throughout the combat. I’ll keep stewing on that one. Feel free to leave a comment and share your thoughts.

Going one step further into new territory, Healing Surges will be renamed Stamina, and be equal to your Constitution score for now. These are not recovered after a night’s rest and serve as a long-term, strategic-level resource (you might recover 1 per night’s rest, I’m thinking). As in 4e, expending Stamina allows you to heal outside of combat, trigger a second wind, and also powers certain abilities. One ability is to expend Stamina to replace a natural d20 roll’s result with the relevant Ability score value*. So if you roll a 4 on your Stealth check, you can spend one point of Stamina to replace that nat 4 with your Dexterity score, likely 10 or more. I’m still not sure if using this ability will trigger, say, a critical hit on an attack roll. If you have an opinion on this, leave a comment. This mechanic helps to mitigate the effects of using the d20 as an RNG: You can get lucky and roll high, but if you find yourself on the other end of that probability distribution, you can spend a Stamina to do better when faced with a situation that’s too dire for failure.

After Next will use a version of the popular Vitality/Wounds variant rule. Instead of having HP, characters and monsters have Vitality Points and Wound Points. Vitality Points represent your ability to avoid the worst of a blow, as well as shake off minor bumps and scratches, while Wound Points represent your tolerance of more serious injuries. Vitality is easier both to lose and to recover than Wounds. Normal attacks only deal Vitality damage; only crits deal Wound damage. When a character runs out of Vitality, they pass out but are not in danger of bleeding out unless they have less than half of their Wound points remaining. Any damage they take like that is dealt in Wounds. A full night’s rest completely restores your Vitality, but only 1 Wound (possibly 2 or more with a successful Healing check). Right now Vitality is calculated by class (max + 1 HD at level 1) + CON mod, while Wounds are equal to your CON score.

OK, now the larger steps away. I’m going to break AC into Defense and Armor. Defense is the static number that represents your ability to parry, weave away from, or otherwise stop or avoid your opponent’s blows. Armor, on the other hand, is what helps absorb some of the blows that hit and protect you from hits that connect solidly, aka critical hits.

Here’s what I mean; Defense is equal to 10 + Base Attack Bonus + Dex modifier + Shield bonus. The BAB is added to represent a skilled fighter’s ability to parry or otherwise use his weapon to protect himself. Also, it means that a fighting-type’s defense scales along with its offense, something missing in previous editions. When your attack roll overcomes your target’s Defense, you deal a static amount of damage based on your weapon, + STR modifier. If you roll much higher than your target’s Defense, you can increase your damage. Medium and Heavy Armors typically soak some of this damage. If you roll a successful crit, your target makes an Armor check; d20 + Armor bonus + Fortitude, against a DC set by your weapon. If they fail the Armor check, then you roll your weapon’s crit die (d4, d6, d8, d10, or d12), and add your STR modifier; this is how many Wound points the target loses. Again, their Armor’s soak applies (unless they fail their Armor check by a lot).

This is the core chassis that this game will be running on, combined with the ideas talked about last time (Areas, static initiative, active defense, simultaneous action, etc.). Very soon I’ll be able to put up the resource management systems I’m fiddling with, which will begin to shed some light on what different classes will look like. Leave a comment if you have any suggestions or see any glaring issues with the above.

*If this proves to be too limited in use, or too easy to abuse, I can just make it a re-roll, take the better result. I guess I could just add 10 for a point of Stamina, but I’m trying to avoid temporary arithmetic modifiers as much as I can.

Devil in the Die Rolls

So, previously I talked about what I want to see in a new D&D, which I’m calling D&D After Next. One of my primary goals for After Next is to speed up play; I want to be able to run a full mid-size adventure in a single 2-3 hour session. D&D will never be a party game, but I want it to be something you can convince your friends to try once and actually show off how an adventure goes, complete with an ending. I don’t want D&D to necessarily be an entire evening’s project. I want gamers to play an adventure in D&D, but then still have time to play an hour or two of Smash or Halo or some other game. The TTRPG demographic tends to be a bit older; we have a lot going on. School, work, friends, family, watching hours upon hours of syndicated television on Netflix, getting on the internet and complaining about games, etc., etc. Anyways, enough of the why, let’s talk about the how.

How do you make D&D a 2-hour affair? The answer is simple; combat. Combat in D&D came from table-top wargames, and was born in era when hobby games didn’t have much competition. So combat in D&D looks and feels like a wargame, complete with complex turns, measurements that need to be accounted for, and a long list of specific effects which must be learned independently. While much of the industry has moved away from this, the poster boy for the entire genre, Dungeons & Dragons, languishes in the past because it is convinced that it just needs to recapture some elusive, mystical quality from its glory days by going back to those mechanics. I disagree; the real secret to D&D’s early success, besides the absolute lack of competition, was Gary Gygax’s salesmanship. I will save more on that for another article about marketing your game, but for now here’s my brilliant theory; what makes D&D familiar is not what makes it fun. D&D needs to be willing to re-examine some of its fundamental assumptions and discard ones that don’t help it get where it wants to be. One of those old assumptions is the complex combat, which focused on tactical decisions to the point that it takes a very long time to kill 5 kobolds.

The major contributors to D&D combat’s sluggish resolution time are as follows;

• Initiative; rolling it and keeping track of it (or more, forgetting it and having to remember whose turn it is, and ‘oh, we skipped so-and-so, let’s go back,’ and such)
• Turn structure; between movement and combat maneuvers and spells and free actions, swift and/or immediate actions, standard actions, full-round actions, you are going through 5-6 lists of stuff you can do and choosing one from each list to make the optimal combination. Keeping track of all these actions and phases is not difficult, but it does take time.
• Die rolls; A bog standard attack takes at least two rolls – to-hit and damage – and a crit takes many more than that. That’s not counting Opportunity Attacks, or multiple attacks on a turn, or grappling.

These have largely remained untouched for decades of D&D’s history, and I don’t think that’s healthy.

After Next’s combat system will not be grid-based, initiative order will not be so quickly forgotten, it will have a simplified turn structure, and it will reduce the number of dice you have to roll. Let’s take these each separately.

Non-grid-based Combat

The grid was a perfectly fine way to make D&D for wargamers who had the stuff to make grids handy. That is a much smaller portion of the D&D-playing populace now, though, so we need a new way of seeing the combat. Many modern RPGs have highly abstract location systems, where there is literally no objective way to tell how far one thing is from another; it’s entirely based on how the player/GM is imagining it. When those two disagree, though, confusion and sometimes conflict ensues. So, we need an objective way of seeing everything; Areas.

Areas just mean that the environment is chopped up into different regions or zones or whatever you want to call them, and that is the finest level of positioning detail we care about. Not all areas will be the same size; an area may be as small as a narrow staircase or as large as a spacious field, and that’s OK. The borders of an area will be based on the features of the map; walls, hallways, possibly furnishings or other stones, anything that breaks up an even surface.

A character in any given Area will be able to melee against any target in that Area, no matter how many people he might walk by in doing so. The idea is that the characters in an Area are not at fixed, stationary positions, but rather are moving around in reaction to the other combatants, so you can attack who you like. Now, you still need the idea of a front-line and a back-line, so let characters in melee form up and essentially hold the aggro of a number of foes. As long as there aren’t more melee enemies on the Area than that formation can hold, the enemies can’t attack the ones the formation are protecting.

For instance, if a Wizard, Paladin, Barbarian, and Ranger are in one party, and they’re fighting a bunch of goblins, then the Paladin and Barbarian could form a line, protecting the Wizard and Ranger, and prevent goblin attackers from being able to attack the latter two. For now I will tentatively set the limit that N number of melee characters in a formation can prevent 2N-1 enemy attackers from targeting the back line. In layman’s terms, the front-line can hold off anything less than twice their own number, but more than that can get past them. So a 1-man line can hold off 1 opponent, a 2-man line can hold off 3, a 3-man line can hold off 5, etc. Of course there would be feats or abilities which increase this. That’s enough for formations now, but I have more ideas for them later.

Initiative & Turn Structure

Rolling up new Initiative every fight is really just a time-waster. It randomizes the slight tactical advantage that going first brings with it, but I don’t think it’s worth the time we waste rolling it, figuring out the order, and then forgetting it and figuring it out again multiple times per fight. So, to keep it simple, we could just make Initiative a static number. Then suggest that the players would sit in order of initiative, so we can just go around the table. That’s an option, in case you really want to speed up play. Your total initiative bonus is now just your initiative, so if Bob goes before Sally and after Paul in one fight, the order is still Paul, Bob, Sally in the next fight.

As for turn structure, we’ll lay the ground rule that a round is not 6 seconds of combat, it’s a single narrative beat, which might be 2-3 seconds or 30 seconds or more. During this round you typically get 1 significant action. Whether that’s an attack, a spell, or breaking down a door or climbing up a rope or moving into a new Area, you can do one thing this turn. Now, there’ll probably be several ways to cheat on this rule, and that’s fine; if you Charge you can move into a new Area and attack, for example. Anything less than that – switching weapons, moving around in your Area, grabbing an item (if uncontested), talking, etc., are simply free actions.

On your turn, you first resolve any on-going effects, like taking poison or environmental damage, rolling to resist a charm or other debuff, etc., then take your action, attacking or moving or whatever it may be. This way there is only one phase of the turn where you have to remember what conditions are affecting you, and the exciting part of your turn, the action, is also the climax.

Rolling the Dice

All the above is nice, but it still falls short of really bringing a typical combat down to the 15-minute benchmark. When I’m late for something and I need to cut down on transit time, I try to speed, even though I know that the # of lights is a far greater indicator of how long it takes to arrive. If I really want to cut out chunks of my travel time, I need to cut out the number of lights on my route. Similarly, in After Next, to really cut down combat time, we need to cut out die rolls.

The easiest thing is to do away with separate to-hit and damage rolls. I don’t think damage rolls contribute that much in the first place; yes, it’s kind of exciting to roll max damage, but it’s also really frustrating to only get a 1 or a 2 on your d8 or d12. So, I think moving to fixed damage values for weapons, +STR mod, works just fine. Now this isn’t the whole story, as I plan to implement degrees of success; beat the enemy’s AC by enough and you deal more damage, so there is still some variance to how much damage you deal, but it only requires one roll.

Another problem is critical hits. I have a critical hit system that changes some fundamental aspects of the game, taking a hint or two from The One Ring, the latest Lord of the Rings RPG, which I’ll explain in the next article in this series, but suffice it to say that crits won’t take 4-6 rolls (attack roll, crit confirm roll, damage roll, damage roll 2, damage roll 3, etc.) anymore.

Those two things will cut down on resolution time, but there’s two more larger changes that will have far-reaching implications for the combat engine. First, allow what I call ‘Active Defense.’ When you are attacked by an opponent, you have the option to sacrifice your next turn to roll an attack against your assailant, opposing their own attack. These two attacks are rolled simultaneously and whoever wins deals damage and whatever else their hit does as normal, and play proceeds. This will go through 2 turns in 1, It changes the dynamics of the combat somewhat, but I think it’s a solid idea to build on.

The second game-changer is the option to jointly attack a single target. If everyone is going to attack the big troll anyway, just have them roll it all simultaneously. There are a few strings attached, namely that you can only do this on the turn of the last participating character in initiative order. So if Paul, Sally, and Bob all want to attack the dragon, they can all do so, acting on Sally’s turn (the last in the initiative order established previously), and resolve their actions simultaneously. This way you can resolve three turns in the space of one (give or take).

In addition, attacking with others will bring more added benefits. Has anyone ever played Chrono Cross? In that game, each character had special abilities that only they could perform, and when they were in the party with certain other characters, those special abilities were converted into Dual or Triple Techniques, for a big boost in power. After Next would give little incentives for attacking with other characters, since you have to use the lowest initiative score. These would be class-based, and you’ll be able to purchase different effects. For instance, a Fighter might be able to add his STR bonus to the damage of characters attacking with him, or a Warlord might give companions a bonus to the attack roll, a rogue might get an automatic sneak attack, a sorceror might change the damage others deal to fire damage or simply add fire damage on top, and a Cleric might bless or heal those who attack with him. Of course the lower level effects would be the weaker ones, and the higher level effects would be more powerful. This would accelerate combats, as you’re basically folding a lot of buffs and things into an attack action.

It sounds pretty impressively powerful right now, and it would require a lot of number-crunching in order to find the right balance points for these things, but I think that these two things would actually help the party feel like it’s working together, give a more visceral, action-packed feel to combat, and most importantly, cut down the time it takes to kill a Minotaur or a Medusa in half.

OK, this one was pretty long, but hey, resolution time is a beast right now. I wanted to cut down as much as I possibly could to leave time for role-playing and socializing, while still having relatively in-depth combats. I think these designs will achieve that. Leave a reply telling me what you think, ideas to use these new approaches in interesting ways, or problems you see rising from them. In my next After Next article I’ll be exploring alternative resource management systems for different classes, to create a unique feel for different types of characters which are all fun, not just picking a place on the spectrum between ‘Gouge my eyes out boring’ and ‘Casters: the Accounting.’

D&D After Next

Continuing on from this post.

So, what design goals do I think would help the D&D After Next (D&D AN) be a better game? First, a note on what I mean by ‘better.’ I want a new edition of D&D to lower the barrier-to-entry of the hobby, to expand the market, to make new gamers, not just pander to old ones. I want it to get at the core of what makes D&D fun, not what makes it familiar.

My mantra for this project will be; does this idea make the experience cleaner, faster, or richer? If it doesn’t do one of those things, it’s not going to make it into the game.

Cleaner-

I want the game to be simpler than some of its editions, and not simply by relying on the DM to make up most of it. I want a reasonable first-time player to feel fairly comfortable playing after their first session. I want to make the DM’s job as easy as possible. I want the rules to be clear and concise, and I want them all very easy to find; preferably all in one place, or in extremely handy places – no more flipping through chapter upon chapter of text trying to look stuff up. So, I want a simpler, streamlined D&D, in both presentation and content.

Faster-

My ideal session of D&D AN would last about 60-150 minutes, and cover a complete mid-sized adventure without feeling rushed. I don’t want to have to choose between spending time with family and friends and playing D&D; besides the obvious possibility of doing both simultaneously, I want to be able to do both in the same evening. Resolution time needs to be cut down by a significant margin; combats need to be shorter without being much more lethal. I aim for a combat to take between 10-25 minutes, not 30-40. I want less die rolls per action wherever possible. I have a lot of ideas for this that you’ll see in the next post.

Richer-

At the same time, I want a richer D&D: I want tools that emphasize the story-telling aspects, and meaningful, yet balanced character options. D&D AN needs to play to its strengths, considering the competition from other hobbies, and I think the story-telling aspect is one of the big ones. D&D AN will strive to help you craft and live your character’s story, with all the thrills, disappointments, and achievements that come with it. But besides story-telling, there needs to be a great amount of depth and range of character options. I will use the principles described here and here to make balanced, situationally beneficial options. No more trap classes or feats! No more pigeonholing race + class combos! No more identical class mechanics! And not just in the dungeon; I will make meaningful non-combat rules that have depth while keeping everyone able to participate (more on that soon).

Those are my broad goals. Specific benchmarks and ways to achieve them will be brainstormed and hashed out right here, for your entertainment/enrichment. My next article will focus specifically on how much faster it needs to be and how to get there.

Please leave a reply with your comments, ideas, or criticisms! Agree or disagree? What do you think D&D AN needs to be?

D&D’s Next Mistake

My first post on Dungeons & Dragons-

For those of you who know Dungeons & Dragons and D&D Next, skip the first 2 paragraphs.

For those of you who don’t know, Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) is the quintessential table-top role-playing game (TTRPG).  I’ll save the details for an RPG Primer in the future, but the fundamentals are as follows:  In D&D, you create a character and team up with the other players’ characters and go on adventures.  You can do pretty much whatever you want, using your character’s statistics and die rolls to determine success or failure.  You explore cavernous dungeons, evade cunning traps, and fight ferocious monsters, all to either get rich or rescue the princess or whatever else you can imagine.  It’s a free-form game, and one player must be the Dungeon Master (or Game Master, more generically), who designs the dungeons or adventures, and plays all the enemies and other non-player characters (NPCs).

Since its first release in 1974, it has been through many changes in system and rules, all of which have encouraged slightly different ways of playing.  When each new edition is rolled out, many players remain ardently attached to their older, favorite edition, while new players are attracted to the features of a new edition.  Currently, Wizards of the Coast – the company who owns D&D – is making a new 5th edition of D&D, currently called D&D Next.

To be honest, I’m not sure how excited I am for it.  The approach that the designers are taking is, in my opinion, a recipe for failure.  Let me explain what I mean:  Beginning in early 2011, Mike Mearls, the senior manager for research and development of D&D Next, began writing about a new take on some key features of D&D.  He talked about getting back to the basics of D&D while utilizing all the best innovations of later editions.  Polls were used, asking you which ‘option’ you would prefer.  If there weren’t several options discussed in the article, then polls asked how much you agreed with the idea presented in the article.  Then they announced that they would be making a new edition (in case there was anyone who hadn’t figured that out already), and started asking if X idea or Y idea feels more like D&D.  After the first playtest documents were released and tested, they sent out a questionnaire asking you to identify the most iconic spells from a list, again, asking which ones feel most important to your D&D experience.

OK, so what’s the problem?  The problem is, simply, that they are attempting to crowd-source their design goals.  They want the fanbase to tell them what they think will make a good D&D,  which means they are not pursuing any single vision of a good game.

In a nutshell, this:

This approach, I fear, will lead to a smattering of features and rules that are all over the place; the designers have even said themselves that the feel of the rules must trump the math of the system.  I don’t even know how you can choose between a feel and the math, since it seems to me that the math creates the feel, but that attitude, that non-commitment to a solid rule-set, combined with the idea that fans on the internet will give them a good vision for where the next edition needs to go, is terrible leadership on display.

Businesses need visionary leadership.  Steve Jobs was opposed to market research because he thought “People don’t know what they want until you show it to them.”*  While not everyone can, like Jobs, be right about that, the lesson to be learned is that customers don’t necessarily know what will make a good product:  Customers can identify issues, but rarely can they accurately identify solutions, and certainly not unanimously.  It’s up to Mike Mearls to listen to his user base and then have the knowledge and intuition to know how to solve those problems – possibly in ways no one on the internet has even thought of – and lead his team to execute those ideas.

But before you even get to that point, you need a clear foundation of goals you’re attempting to achieve.  The current generation of D&D, 4th Edition, actually had those; execution was very spotty, and some of their goals were incompatible or ill-advised, but they at least had a clear vision for the game.  So far, 5e has asked people on the internet to build its foundation while the team develops bits and pieces before it’s even in place.  I think that’ll end up as bad as it sounds.

That being said, 5e has already come out with some interesting new mechanics; Hit Dice, Advantage/Disadvantage, and the Fighter’s new Combat Superiority mechanic are all good starting places for great ideas.  But they are just means to no apparent end; WotC is on a wild goose chase, trying to satisfy all fans of all editions. The key rhetoric they’ve been using in promotional events and interviews is that this edition will unite the splintered fanbase by making it all things to all people. As Bill Cosby said, “I don’t know the key to success, but the key to failure is trying to please everybody.”

With that in mind, I’ll be dedicating some of these posts to what my design goals would be for a new edition, and talk about ways to achieve them.  Some of these will be good, some won’t.  Much of my game design philosophy and knowledge comes from The Gaming Den, so feel free to check that place out, but be warned; it can be an unfriendly place.  As I go forward, please comment with your perspectives and ideas; your thoughts may inspire me or others to make great things in the future.

*That’s an extreme example, where he had the best creative minds in the world creating whole new products and platforms, making disruptive innovations, so market research wasn’t really that applicable.  WotC is not in that position with D&D Next, but compared to what’s happening, I’d welcome some managerial risk-taking.