Roleplaying in the Dark Elf City

Last Saturday's session concluded the campaign (here's the session before that and this is the origin).  A succession of adventures that started with interaction, talking with non-player characters (what some people roleplaying); gradually moved towards exploration, seeing what was in the caverns; and increased the amount of combat until it seemed silly not to use some kind of large-scale map with miniatures or markers.  I wanted to bring it full circle by focusing this session on interactions with NPCs.

In return for acquiring the indigo crystal for the dark elves of Trehallvyn, their queen, Elaryss, insisted on holding a celebration in the adventurers' honor.  The party was uneasy from the start and their apprehension lasted throughout their traveling to Trehallvyn, waiting for arrangements to be made, having dinner with the Elaryss, her sister Sephir, cousins (only Senna was mentioned by name), as well as, a male wizard, Zadok, and finally mingling in the palace's chamber of celebration with Alzahn and company.

A plot between Sephir and Alzahn to overthrow queen Elaryss created a lot of juicy conflict.  Especially when only a few PCs knew what was going on (nine players that day).  With those in the know acting completely independently, it was delicious chaos!  One favored Sephir, one or two favored Elaryss, and at least one party member wanted to bring down the entire house of cards.

Eventually thrown into prison, the party was forced to leave Trehallvyn and never return.  Some were expecting to fight their way out of the dark elf city and were a little disappointed that everything turned out ok.  Except the party had to leave a large portion of their gold from the dragon's horde behind.  Trying to go back and retrieve it later proved fruitless.

But there was more!  As the adventurers already knew, there was some kind of hellish portal in the foundation of their castle.  No longer a pool of fire, they discovered winding stone steps leading a couple hundred feet down into the earth.  Whereupon, the PCs saw robed cultists and a large demon (a Balor, actually) performing a ritual before an altar with a half-naked man strapped to it.

Yes, one last epic battle.  I broke out the lava field wasteland maps (which looked awesome!) and we had just under an hour's worth of combat.  Several members of the party nearly died.  For their trouble, the adventurer's looted the bodies and are now the proud owners of a talisman of ultimate evil.  Exactly what it is and does is still unknown to them (I often change what's written in the rule books).

A very satisfying, albeit short, campaign.  Everyone leveled yet again, bringing some characters up to 6th level.  Because family vacation looms on the horizon, I'll not be Game Mastering for three weeks in a row.  The horror!  After that, I might pick up where we left off... or not.  I'll cross that bridge when I come to it.

Thanks for reading my session reports.  Hopefully, they were either entertaining, informative, or both.  I also want to thank all those who played their hearts out and kept coming back for more.  It was awesome!

VS

Frozen in Time with D&D

This time, the game was four hours long.  Didn't feel like using an adventure I had published.  Maybe something really old school, I thought.  Perhaps even something I've never run before...

Rummaging around my desk for a suitable AD&D adventure, I came across a slim Dungeon Crawl Classics book called Frozen in Time.  I started reading the introduction and was intrigued enough to keep going.  That's a good sign.

Suitable for 1st level characters, science-fantasy, and big on exploration.  This fit the bill.

Since I had given 5e a try RAW [rules as written] a couple weeks ago, I felt free enough to try it without so much of the dot-circling.  Tried melding the provided backgrounds with my own tables from Liberation of the Demon Slayer.  Successfully, I think.

A few of the players either knew the D&D rules already or had them printed out / on some kind of tablet device.  So, at times it was difficult to rule one way while a couple of players were telling their neighbor the "real" ruling.  But that's ok.  It happens.  Especially with a fresh group all set for a one-shot game that hasn't even been released yet.  Sure, we have the basic version and stuff from the Starter box but let's face it - all the really good stuff has yet to come out.

Old school time!  3d6 in order.  Sure, there were some sad sacks in the bunch, yet nothing catastrophic.  I went over the pros and cons of making your own character.  Hopefully, some kind of personal attachment was forged by all the dice rolling and picking of race, class, motivation, etc.

Anyways, after making characters without worry about skills, racial bonuses, which saving throws get to add the proficiency bonus, as well as, a lively discussion about proficiency bonuses and initiative... the adventurers climbed up that glacier.  I'm not going to give away anything.  Just know that Frozen in Time did an admirable job.  Sure, I simplified one thing over here and added complexity to that other thing over there... that's just how I GM.

Since we were deep into DCC country, I used the mercurial magic system.  Fiona was playing the sole wizard; an Elf, no less.  When casting detect magic, six duplicates appeared for a round before vanishing again into the dimensional aether.  One player imaginatively suggested that each doppelganger was testing a potential magic item in a different way so as to determine exactly what that item did (assuming it was magical).  On the spot, I said "Yes!" and we went with it.

At the halfway mark, I let the characters hit 2nd level.  We quickly rolled hit points, more tablet searching for feats and whatnot commenced, and I dolled out a couple more spells for the wizard and cleric.  Man, that mercurial magic is like an instant awesome-ifier!  Just that table alone and a party of two or three magic-users could be an adventure in itself.

Oddly, very few players used their inspiration to gain advantage on a role.  Though, I still saw plenty of roleplaying take place.  The session was a bit light on combat (two) and interaction (the barbarian at the beginning and some dude with amnesia at the end).  I could have dropped more encounters in... probably needed a boss fight with some hot gypsies thrown in for good measure.

Alas, no session is perfect.  There were a couple missed opportunities, besides the aforementioned.  I should have had the rogue's cyber forearm do something useful by the end - maybe tie into the ship's computer [not really spoiling anything since that part I made up on the spot]?

First time around, it's difficult for a module to feel like home.  There are growing pains.  Fumbling.  Discrepancies. Hunting for details.  A halting narrative.  Oh well, there's always next time.

All in all, everyone had fun.  The 5th edition rules held up, just as customizable as they seemed during its maiden voyage.  Obviously, having the PHB and DMG in hand will smooth out the rough edges.  Frozen in Time could also do with some sanding; however, that's 99% of adventures, in my book.  Without the GM's input, it's just words on a page.


VS

p.s.  Here are some aftermath quotes from the players...

"Had a great time, great GM and group. Fun one shot I'd not seen before! You've inspired me to try to run some of my own!"

"You might be happy to know that I am now the proud owner of a fifth addition starter set. I had a great time. Thanks again for DMing [Venger]!"

"I went and bought some dice today. I am getting corrupted. :)"

Conversational D&D: The Living Game

A new proclamation, a new controversy...

Yesterday, there was a panel with Mike Mearls and Rodney Thompson at the Origins gaming convention.  They were talking about 5e, of course. At one point, they said "D&D will be more of a living game and a conversation rather than Wizards dictating what the game should be."

Does this mean DMs can dictate their own house-rules, be empowered to run the kind of game they want, influence how D&D evolves through surveys, playtests, and advocacy (bitching on forums)?  Will there be D&D lobbies like Thieves and Assassins Guilds to join in the post-edition apocalypse which is surely coming?

At least on the EnWorld message board, this brought up the subject of constant updates as opposed to an entirely new edition of D&D every 5 years or so.  Assuming this is the case, some saw it as a positive, others a negative.  In such a scenario, the rules might be continually tweaked and refined a little bit at a time, as needed, online.  Like a spam or malware program that does its thing in the background, always making sure (well, most of the time) your machine is protected from the latest outbreaks of virus, hackers, or unwanted products latching on.

Those who saw this as a positive like the idea of never having out of date rules or playing an obsolete game.  Similar to those massive multiplayer online games such as World of Warcraft.  The guys who have played that from the beginning are essentially playing the same game, possibly with the same characters - it's just that the game continually updates itself around them.

Those not in favor of this would prefer one massive overhaul to a thousand tiny changes implemented over half a decade - or better yet, reassurance that 5e is it, that they got it right this time and the 5th Reich shall reign for a thousand years!

Those invisible adjustments require time and energy to notice and implement because, after all, paper & pencil tabletop roleplaying games are not the same thing as computer RPGs.  Also, if 5e becomes someone's favorite edition, what about 2 or 3 years from now?  The game could look different enough where you have inter-edition wars - a tribe of gamers who love 5e from early 2015 while a competing tribe prefers 5e from the last half of 2016.  Are we supposed to keep track, a la 5.02 vs. 5.33?

And what would this mean for the actual hardcover rulebooks many of us are purchasing this summer and fall?  Should we anticipate buying all new books with 5% changes a year from now?  Do we limp along with the same books even though 7% of the core rules have been fixed (or merely altered)?  And how does this news jive (or jibe, whatever) with the digital tools of Codename: Morningstar?

Or, perhaps, the inferred constant update thing is totally bogus.  Perhaps treating this new D&D like a conversation and living game means something completely different...


VS

p.s.  Seriously, they need to fix the trident.  The excerpt just does not do the trident justice!  As written, it's far too weak.  Very little difference between it and a quarterstaff... WTF?!?

p.p.s.  The above picture was the ONLY image I could find on the internet after hours of googling Community + D&D.  Sorry, guys.  :(

Purple in Print!

This is your first chance to obtain The Islands of Purple-Haunted Putrescence in softcover.  It should be up on amazon and DriveThru in about 5 days, but it's available right now via CreateSpace (amazon's e-store and affiliate link for self-published authors).

As a special incentive, forward your CreateSpace order confirmation to me and I'll email you the PDF for free!


VS

The Enthusiasm War

Something strange is brewing just below the surface of D&D's upcoming 5th edition.  I don't know if it's a backlash or some kind of mutant rebound backlash reverberating through the RPG echo-sphere.  Anyway, the effects are being talked about even though only a few people are addressing the problem itself.  And it is a problem, in my estimation.  Not because I have a particular view and others aren't agreeing with it, but that many gamers are fighting some invisible edition war over a set of rules which doesn't even exist yet.  It's not even a war of editions - it's a war of enthusiasm (or lack thereof).  Why?

Below are the eight camps I've seen.  Chances are, you're in one of the categories below or a hybrid of multiple categories.  Again, I don't care who is where or why... I would just like everything on the table so that maybe some civility can prevail, if not transcendent introspection.


1.  So, we've got people who are loving the promise of 5e and what it represents.  

2.  People who are tentatively optimistic but skeptical.  

3.  Those who just don't care.

4.  Those who think 5e is doing far too little, too late and are unhappy about one thing or another.

5.  A few cranks who absolutely loath 5e and what it represents.

6.  5e lovers who are sick and tired of what they perceive to be 5e hating trolls.

7.  Those disenchanted by what they've seen of 5e who just want the 5e lovers to shut up already.

8.  Cautious, intrigued skeptics who feel harassed or threatened by all the 5e love.

9.  Oops, forgot this one: individuals who are mad that 5e isn't being heralded as the awesome-est version of D&D ever!


Maybe the gaming community just needs to work this stuff out on its own by constantly arguing back and forth.  I don't know.  However, I will say that in certain corners of the internet, the trolling, flaming, petty bickering, and "threadcrapping" looks pretty ugly.

Perhaps we can agree on a few things... our very own Geneva Convention?  If one side refrains from using the phrase "OSR Taliban" and projecting that the other side "hates 5e" even though they're only skeptical or ambivalent, the other side can stop this: "Your 5e super-fandom is threatening my cautious appraisal of what I've seen so far; now I'm going to go off on it - and you!"  Sound fair?

Even though I'm pleased about what I've seen from all the articles, interviews, forum discussion, and playtest documents regarding 5e (yes, I've done the research), that's not why I'm on the + side of the debate.  Just to be clear, I'm not against debate.  In fact, I love it... when it's constructive.  Another reason I'm pro D&D is because our hobby is shrinking and could eventually die off if we're not passionate about its progression.

Now, there are many routes to rejuvenation.  5e isn't the answer to everything and, for you, it might be the wrong answer.  But at least it's something.  A step in the right direction.  Want to go a different route?  Awesome.  Do it.  Grow paper & pencil tabletop roleplaying in your own way. Just know that if you decide to do nothing, then 5e might be the only reason ordinary people know what a roleplaying game is five years from now.  "You know, like Dungeons & Dragons."

As a community, we can be critical while still being supportive; we can like what we like while understanding those who don't.  I propose we approach further discussion consciously.  Hopefully, that's not too much to ask.


VS

Purple PDF is live!

Yes, the PDF of The Islands of Purple-Haunted Putrescence is up on DriveThruRPG (and RPGNow probably).  It may take a few hours before a title search will pull it up, so use the aforementioned link.  Or click on the image over on the right-hand side of this blog.  If you're interested in the dead-tree version, that should be available next week sometime.

This book has a little bit of everything - useful tables, optional rules, a monk character class, history, a short piece of fiction, tons of encounters, new magic items and spells, etc.  As with Liberation of the Demon Slayer (again, see right), your Purple campaign is about 85% finished for you.  The remaining 15% is for the GM to flesh out, adding his own signature elements according to personal taste.

As system neutral/agnostic as possible, it clocks in at 108 pages, lots of illustrations from a variety of amazing artists.  Ed Wedig did a great job of laying everything out.  Plus, there were many people who provided worthwhile feedback, including playtesters!  All in all, I think Purple turned out well.

For those curious, the hexes can be whatever you want... one mile, three miles, five miles, etc.  Just depends on how large you'd like the purple islands to be in your campaign world.

Also, if you'd like the giant 50mb sized color map, it's available here.  You won't be able to see it as a preview or simply click on it; however, you can download the file via dropbox and then save it onto your computer.

Sure, this means that you can pretty much have Alyssa Faden's gorgeous full-color map of the islands for frizzle (free).  Consider it a gift, a thank you, or maybe a teaser to whet your gonzo sci-fantasy appetite.  Enjoy!

If you have any questions, concerns, or problems, please let me know.


VS

Unification Through Diversity

Can you imagine a two year delivery?

The creation of fifth edition was like childbirth.  I imagined those frustrating early stages, glimmers of hope and dread, small victories but miles and miles to go before anyone gets to sleep.  The screams, crying, shouting, pain, blood... everything.  Where in the fuck is my wife's epidural?  I wanted to be a part of it, to be there from beginning to end.  I wanted to know, and yet I didn't want to put myself through all that.  Not for two or more years.

So, that's why I only started paying attention these last couple months, finally allowing myself to get excited about what was just three pushes away from arrival.  Dungeons & Dragons s is coming!

Just to recap, this has been the OSR consensus regarding fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons, based on the feedback from my last couple blog posts...

• The OSR had an enormous impact on 5e.  This makes sense because there probably wouldn't have been an OSR (as we know it today) without the missteps of 4th edition.
• The OSR isn't going anywhere.  It still has meaning and value.  It's a type of gaming, a style, an aesthetic... a feel.  It's many things to many different people.  A new version of D&D isn't going to eradicate it, but 5e will undoubtedly have an influence.
• Since 5e is pretty darn old school (at the very least, OSR compatible) the majority of OSR gamers plan on trying 5e at some point (especially since the basic version will be available for free online) and from there will decide on one of the following:  1) incorporating bits and pieces from 5e into their established RPGs (like S&W, DCC, LotFP, AS&SH, etc.).  2) adoption: switching over to the point where their primary RPG of choice is 5e (while possibly incorporating bits and pieces from the aforementioned OSR games).  3) decide against continuing with 5e in any form. 

My personal belief is that roughly half the gamers who try 5e will fall into one of the first two camps.

For those who ask, "Why would I want, let alone need, another edition of D&D if I'm happy with what I already have?  Isn't 5e supposed to be like AD&D 2nd edition minus Thac0, plus feats?"  Good question(s).  If you haven't been keeping on Next news, it's easy to be swayed to one side or the other based on rumors and hearsay.  

I've been reading Mike Mearls' articles on the game design process for Next / 5e.  This new version of the game will be radically different than what we've known while still feeling like home. Sure, it incorporates a lot of things that we love about all the previous editions (yes, including a few bits from 4th) while ditching odds and ends that hold the game back.  And 5e does a great job of that.  However, it brings a lot of fresh, innovative choices to the table (choices, options, and support for DM cherry picking are huge in 5e).  Things that D&D fans have never seen outside of home-rules and Dragon magazine!

Here's a brief rundown of what I've found...

• Magic item attunement.  Appendix N readers may recall some of their favorite fantasy characters possessing magic items which are somehow tied to them.  That's in 5e.
• Backgrounds.  Character history, including contacts, ties to places and NPCs, ideals, and flaws was an important part of the 80's 90's gaming sessions I was involved with... but a small part, unfortunately.  From a rules-standpoint, backgrounds were definitely in the background (no pun intended).  Writing out a personal history on the backside of a character sheet isn't the same as having options hardwired into the core rules.
• Armies battling.  D&D has its roots in miniature wargaming.  Admittedly, I don't know too much about how D&D handled large forces fighting each other on the battle field in the last couple of decades but its being addressed now.
• A smarter, more intuitive option for leveling the party.
• Rolling 2d20 and taking the lower of the two when at a clear disadvantage and the higher when at a clear advantage.  This replaces all the +1 bonus for this, -2 penalty for that, and +3 bonus for the other thing.
• Concentration for magic-users (it's cool, but I'm not going to explain it here).  And an option for using spell points instead of the traditional Vancian magic!
• Apprentice feel for 1st and 2nd level characters for either campaign introduction or system noobs, as well as, rules for starting established characters and veteran players at 3rd.
• Inspiration:  in-game bonuses for good roleplaying!

There will be more, of course, when 5e is released.  This is just a taste based on Mearls' Legends and Lore column.  A fascinating read!  I'm still waiting on a friends' last playtest material for more info on how 5e will look and feel.

Am I excited for D&D?  Oh, Hellzzz to the yeah!  It means I can easily run or play in an old school kind of D&D session which can handle a Tiefling alienist sorcerer or a Warforged warlock/fighter who loves tactical combat while accommodating a Halfling thief who performs shadowy murders for the city's high priest of K'tulu because of his sordid past. Or keep things as fundamental as possible by allowing only wizard, rogue, fighter, and cleric.  All this without having to remember what true roleplaying is about from a prior edition or slavishly adhere to a thousand fiddly rules that are supposed to counterbalance each other into infinity.

Those who don't share my eager anticipated are free, as always, to hate (or simply ignore what's coming).  It's cool.  Alternatively, those who want to bathe in the afterbirth may do so as well.  Either way, I'm interested in reading whatever it is you want to say.  Speak!

VS