Hack & Slash

On The Thursday Trick, The Wrong Choice

2012-03-01T03:21:00.000-06:00

The Wrong Choice Pit (Category: Pit)

Trigger:Mechanical: Tripwire or Trigger Wire	Effects:N/A
Save:None	Duration: Instant
Resets: Manual	Bypass:Special

Description: As you walk down the hall, you see the trip wire in front of you. It's hard to miss. About eight inches off the ground, it's a bit awkward to step over, but should be no trouble to jump.

Of course, when that happens, they will fall right into the pit on the other side.

Bypassing the pit is simple, triggering the tripwire will cause it to lock into place. The tripwire can of course be replaced by an obvious pressure plate, however the wire insures that they are in for a surprise when they get past it.

Detection/Disarming: The trick is obvious, but primarily relies on punishing player assumption. This is a good trap to use on the second floor, after all the straight forward pit traps, trip wire triggers and such have been encountered. Using it too early may cause too much paranoia in your players.

Detection is simply, they simply have to test the ground beyond the wire, any pit finding trick such as water on the floor, prodding with a 10' pole, or using henchmen/livestock as trap finders works.

(Inspired by the "Trip Wire That Isn't" Grimtooth's Traps)

On Why You Have Bad Players

2012-02-29T03:43:00.084-06:00

Why did I write this post?

How do I know they are bad players?

Incorrect Purposes of Play!

They spend their time in the game arguing instead of playing. In modern systems, it's about the rules. In older systems, it's about "what would really would happen here".

What do I mean by arguing?
This game continuously is put to the task of being a broad representation of fictional events. At the table I've represented everything from a massive attack action against a troglodyte village, to a literal witch hunt, to a heated battle in a beholder space craft both going to and escaping from the hive.

It is very flexible. In this situation, when do arguments occur?

It does NOT happens when a thing is described and somebody disagrees about the thing being described. There are reasons why people disagree; it may conflict with their real world experience; the thing described is not meeting their current needs; or when they have confusion over the situation. What happens in those cases is communication.*

Arguments occur when cognitive dissonance is created because of conflicting "Purposes of Play". Arguments are defined as disruptive communication that derails the engagement in play. Cognitive dissonance is defined as the feeling in your brain that drives these arguments. Purposes of Play are defined as 'What sitting in this room playing this game is about'.

Why is this happening?

When I say 'what playing this game is about' I'm not talking about playing styles, like combat as war versus combat as sport. I'm not talking about narrative games versus board games. I'm not talking about cooperative games versus competitive games. All these are stylistic differences. All of these are activities anyone can enjoy.

What I am talking about is the Purpose of Play.**

Purpose of play is the reason you choose to engage in the role playing game. Not the experience you hope to achieve in play, but the reason you choose to stand up, get in your car, and drive to go play D&D.

Unlike Creative Agenda, Unlike Playing Styles, this is NOT a situation where "I say to-may-to, you say to-mat-o". This is a situation where you can have a fucked reason for bothering. I will stand in judgment of the purpose of your play, like the Norse judged the ice giants unfit for life. Getting hit by a hammer for unacceptable Purposes of Play is an option on the table where the fornication of mothers occurs.

Here are some acceptable Purposes of Play

You want the game to be about having some fun with your friends
You want the game to be about spending some time laughing
You want the game to be about escaping to a fantasy realm for a bit, from children, work, or other stressors

Here are some unacceptable Purposes of Play

You want the game to be about catharsis for you at the expense of other players

You decide in the middle of scene to have your character urinate on another PC
In a cooperative fantasy RPG, you have your character destroy the magic item of another character

You have the expectation the game (any game) to be absent consequence and rejection.

You behave inappropriately (threaten, intimidate, use inappropriate language for your peer group) when negative events happen to your character.
You act in those inappropriate ways and others (manipulation, bribery) to intimidate people from having negative things happen to you

You want the game to be about engaging people (not characters) in power struggles so that you can 'win'.

You take the game pieces from the other players and refuse to give them back
You sit in the chair of the DM and refuse to give it up when he returns

You want the game to be about you and demand constant gratification, being disruptive when activities take place that you don't enjoy or that don't focus on you.
You want the game to be about winning to the point that you cheat.
You want the game to be about an opportunity to exert non-consensual masochistic tendencies. You wish to minimize, exploit, diminish, debase or degrade the players.

Verbally abusing, sexually harassing, or having inappropriate boundaries with other players.

Note that the above list is about the behavior of the players not their character. This article is about tabletop games. Clearly physical contact is acceptable in a sport. I am using a general definition of a tabletop games. I mentioned Creative Agenda and Playing Styles above, because it is assumed that the players all agreed to play the game and the expectation of what the game consists of has been discussed. See footnote * for clarification. If this is not done, you are likely to have disagreements which are primary based around communication issues. Are there games where character's backstabbing other characters is acceptable? Sure! That's cathartic, but not at the expense of other players. That's just the game you're playing.

Most damming, I'm not talking about joking around or the occasional odd event - this is about players who engage the game with the examples above as the reason they left their house to play.

So, why did I write this post? Because the problem with 'old school, skill light' play, the problem with 'tactic heavy character build play' isn't the rules and it isn't the game.

As my experience of having actual discussions with people about disagreements regarding gaming, I've realized that the disagreements aren't in the text - they're in the baggage the person brings with them.

It's games people have played in where these things have occurred where they are attributed to the game instead of the person.

I'm going to be writing a series of articles about my style of play, attempting to address some of the constant misunderstandings that occur on this blog.

Every post will be written under the assumption that you are playing with people who have an acceptable Purpose of Play and not a negative one. If you are playing in a game with a negative Purpose of Play, leave, or eject the player that is the problem.

*It can of course devolve in an argument if there is a poor communicator involved, or if someone is not paying attention to signals being given out, or if there is personal friction there to begin with. But in those cases, they aren't arguing in the sense we're concerned with. They are either communicating or communicating poorly. There isn't an argument, there is a misunderstanding.

**This is different then Creative Agenda. I have run a table with tons of people who had different creative agendas. I've had some players sit though games where their creative agenda is not being met where it was fine and they were well behaved. It's a super-complicated way of saying 'what am I interested in doing in this game' and hell, we all bend over backwards for each other to make that happen. Eventually the game spins back around to what you like to be doing and you get your turn.

*** By the definition above, I am a terrible player. I am guilty, not of the cause but the effect of each thing listed above. I declare unintentionally! . . . It's a good thing I'm such a good DM.

On Combat and Value

2012-02-28T14:08:00.000-06:00

Just wanted to take a second and talk about this post over on How to Start a Revolution in 21 Days or Less by Oddysey.

It's one of those important summary articles that takes years of experience with a design and distils it down into useable information that improves the play of the game at the table.

Why D&D Has Lots of Rules for Combat: A General Theory Encompassing All Editions

enjoy!

On Combat as Sport Versus Combat as War Examples

2012-02-27T11:37:00.000-06:00

Combat as War Examples:

Combat as Sport Examples:

On Combat as Sport Versus Combat as War

2012-02-27T06:28:00.000-06:00

In a similar vein, here is a post made on EN world that brilliantly summarizes the difference between playstyles of old and new school play. It's important enough that I thought it deserved a permanent home. The original article is here. The author is Daztur. The following text is written by him.

"[Very Long] Combat as Sport vs. Combat as War: a Key Difference in D&D Play Styles...
…and how to reconcile them in 5ed.

On another forum I’ve been running in circles with fans of other editions about different D&D play styles and how different editions support them, but I think I’ve finally nailed a key difference that sheds an enormous amount of light about so many disagreements about 5ed development.

Without quite realizing it, people are having the exact same debate that constantly flares up on MMORPG blogs about PvP: should combat resemble sport (as in World of Tanks PvP or arena combat in any game) or should it resemble war (as in Eve PvP or open world combat in any game).

People who want Combat as Sport want fun fights between two (at least roughly) evenly matched sides. They hate “ganking” in which one side has such an enormous advantage (because of superior numbers, levels, strategic surprise, etc.) that the fight itself is a fait accompli. They value combat tactics that could be used to overcome the enemy and fair rules adhered to by both sides rather than looking for loopholes in the rules. Terrain and the specific situation should provide spice to the combat but never turn it into a turkey shoot. They tend to prefer arena combat in which there would be a pre-set fight with (roughly) equal sides and in which no greater strategic issues impinge on the fight or unbalance it.

The other side of the debate is the Combat as War side. They like Eve-style combat in which in a lot of fights, you know who was going to win before the fight even starts and a lot of the fun comes in from using strategy and logistics to ensure that the playing field is heavily unbalanced in your favor. The greatest coup for these players isn’t to win a fair fight but to make sure that the fight never happens (the classic example would be inserting a spy or turning a traitor within the enemy’s administration and crippling their infrastructure so they can’t field a fleet) or is a complete turkey shoot. The Combat as Sport side hates this sort of thing with a passion since the actual fights are often one-sided massacres or stand-offs that take hours.

I think that these same differences hold true in D&D, let me give you an example of a specific situation to illustrate the differences: the PCs want to kill some giant bees and take their honey because magic bee honey is worth a lot of money. Different groups approach the problem in different ways.

Combat as Sport: the PCs approach the bees and engage them in combat using the terrain to their advantage, using their abilities intelligently and having good teamwork. The fighter chooses the right position to be able to cleave into the bees while staying outside the radius of the wizard’s area effect spell, the cleric keeps the wizard from going down to bee venom and the rogue sneaks up and kills the bee queen. These good tactics lead to the PCs prevailing against the bees and getting the honey. The DM congratulates them on a well-fought fight.

Combat as War: the PCs approach the bees but there’s BEES EVERYWHERE! GIANT BEES! With nasty poison saves! The PCs run for their lives since they don’t stand a chance against the bees in a fair fight. But the bees are too fast! So the party Wizard uses magic to set part of the forest on fire in order to provide enough smoke (bees hate smoke, right?) to cover their escape. Then the PCs regroup and swear bloody vengeance against the damn bees. They think about just burning everything as usual, but decide that that might destroy the value of the honey. So they make a plan: the bulk of the party will hide out in trees at the edge of the bee’s territory and set up piles of oil soaked brush to light if the bees some after them and some buckets of mud. Meanwhile, the party monk will put on a couple layers of clothing, go to the owl bear den and throw rocks at it until it chases him. He’ll then run, owl bear chasing him, back to where the party is waiting where they’ll dump fresh mud on him (thick mud on thick clothes keeps bees off, right?) and the cleric will cast an anti-poison spell on him. As soon as the owl bear engages the bees (bears love honey right?) the monk will run like hell out of the area. Hopefully the owl bear and the bees will kill each other or the owl bear will flee and lead the bees away from their nest, leaving the PCs able to easily mop up any remaining bees, take the honey and get the hell out of there. They declare that nothing could possibly go wrong as the DM grins ghoulishly.

Does that sound familiar to anyone?

Some D&D players love the tactical elements of the game and well-fought evenly matched combat within it while other players prefer the logistical and strategic elements and if only end up in evenly matched fights if something has gone horribly wrong. These two kinds of play styles also emulate different kinds of fantasy literature with Combat as Sport hewing to heroic fantasy tropes while the Combat as War side prefer D&D to feel like a chapter of The Black Company. This was really driven home by one comment from a Combat as Sport partisan talking about how ridiculous and comedic it would be PCs to smuggle in all kinds of stuff in a bag of holding so they could use cheap tactics like “Sneak attack with a ballista!” However, sneak attacking with a ballista is exactly what happens in Chapter Forty-Eight of Shadows Linger (the second Black Company book) and the Combat as War side think that’s exactly the sort of thing that D&D should be all about.

While either form of D&D can be played with any edition, it works better with some editions than others. A lot of people have played TSR editions from more of a Combat as Sport Mindset and a lot of later TSR products seem to consist of trying to frog march poor Croaker into heroic fantasy, but TSR-D&D mostly sucks at Combat as Sport. It’s not easy to gauge what would be a good fair fun fight for a given party and the same fight could end up as a cakewalk or a TPK, melee combat is repetitive, there’s one-hit kills etc. Also a lot of elements of TSR-D&D design that drive Combat as Sport people crazy, really tie into the Combat as War mindset. Things like tracking rations, torch usage, rolling for wandering monsters, etc. are important for this kind of gameplay since they make time a scarce resource, which is vital for strategic and logistical gameplay since if the players have all the time in the world so many strategic and logistical constraints get removed and without those constraints you get all kinds of problems cropping up (most notably the 15 minute adventuring day). As Gygax says, in all caps no less “YOU CAN NOT HAVE A MEANINGFUL CAMPAIGN IF STRICT TIME RECORDS ARE NOT KEPT” (DMG page 37), which sounds like crazy moon logic for people who like Combat as Sport gameplay but is a central factor in making Combat as War gameplay work.

With 3ed the game shifted a bit towards Combat as Sport and then shifted a good bit more with 4ed (although you can still certainly run 4ed as a Combat as War game with heavy use of things like rituals, but the main thrust of the game is towards Combat as Sport). In 4ed it’s easy to tell what’s a good fair fight for a given party and combat rarely goes in a direction that the DM completely didn’t expect and there’s tons of fun combat variety. However, the 4ed focus on balancing combat at the encounter level rather than the adventure level (or just not balancing it at all and running a sandbox) runs directly counter to Combat as War gameplay. In order for a combat encounter to be well-balanced nothing that happens outside of that encounter can matter too much. This means that in order to get proper encounter balance, the impact of strategic and logistical gameplay must be muted as if having stuff that happens outside of the combat make a huge difference in the difficulty of the encounter, then there’s no way to guarantee fun balanced fights. Hence Encounter Powers, hence Healing Surges (sure starting combat with half of your healing surges sucks but not as much as starting it with half of you hit points), hence not having any classes that are designed to be below par at tactical combat, hence a lack of abilities that are useless in some fights but “I win” buttons in other fights, hence a lot of Sports and War dislike for the few bits of 4ed design that don’t fit well with balancing combat at the encounter level (notably Daily Powers). Of course 4ed is not doesn’t do this 100%, but it comes a lot closer than any other edition. However, the whole line of thinking runs counter to Combat as War thinking, the whole POINT of Combat as War gameplay is to make the playing field as unbalanced as possible in the favor of the party, so mechanics that are built around balancing combat at the encounter level just get in the way. In addition, 4ed removes a lot of items from the Combat as War gamer’s bag of tricks and it’s much harder to rat the opposition with 4ed powers than 1ed spells, since they’re specifically written to be resistant to be used for rating and the lack of specific information about specifically how 4ed powers work in real-world terms make it hard for Combat as War players to use them to screw over the opposition instead of beating them in a fair sportsmanlike match since it’s hard to figure out exactly how to use 4ed powers for off-label purposes.

But probably most importantly, 4ed combat just takes too damn long for Combat as War players. If you’re going to spend your time doing sneaky rat bastard Black Company stuff before combat starts, then having combat take a long time is just taking time away from the fun bits of play. Also if combat takes a long time you just can’t have the sort of attrition-based gameplay since there just isn’t time to have 5 combats in five hours with plenty of time for other stuff aside from combat and a break for pizza as well. 4ed thrives on big flashy set piece battles and that doesn’t work well with Combat as War gameplay since the best kind of combat for those players is having the enemy die like a chump in the first round (with a good admixture of the PCs running and screaming in terror in the first round).

OK, now how can we reconcile these two different play styles in 5ed. Having the tactical rules be an add-on module for the Combat as Sport people is an important first step, this lets the people who like that have fun with it while the Combat as War people can use the simpler combat rules to get combat over quickly. But I think that the Combat as War people could use a DM-side add-on module as well with ideas to emphasize strategic and logistical thinking (the “Fantasy ing Vietnam” Module basically). How monsters are written up also matters a lot. In the getting the honey from the bees adventure, specifics of monster ecology and biology don’t matter that much for the Combat as Sport side, but just look at how much they matter in the Combat as War side (does smoke keep giant bees away? how much territory will one hive of giant bees patrol? what time of day is the owl bear at home in its cave? do owl bears love honey? will thick clothes and mud help against the bees? will the owl bear fight the bees or run away? how far will the bees chase the bear if it runs). Of course the DM will have to answer a lot of these questions, but monster write-ups can help a lot. Finally, the spells that appeal to each side are different with the Combat as Sport side’s favorite spells being boring to the Combat as War side and the Combat as War side’s favorite spells being far too quirky, situational and unbalancing for the Combat as Sport side. Hopefully some ways will be found to reconcile the two sides.

tldr:

Combat as Sport: valuing the separate roles of the quarterback, linebacker and wide receiver and what plays you can use to win a competitive game.
Combat as War: being too busy laying your end zone with caltrops, dousing the midfield with lamp oil, blackmailing the ref, spiking the other team’s water and bribing key members of the other team to throw the game to worry about all of those damn squiggles on the blackboard.

Or:

Combat as Sport:

Combat as War:

Which one you like makes a massive difference in how you play D&D and what sort of rules you want for 5ed. How to deal with this?
I think two main ideas have emerged from this thread: how to DM a CaW game and how suitable 4ed is for running a CaW game. Let’s hit those two points, sorry about the length but people made a lot of points I’d like to respond to. Apologies for not responding to people in detail by name, but if I did that I think I might crash the server...

How to DM Combat as War

Run a Sandbox

One comment upthread talks about how CaW often requires a DM to completely throw out whatever plans he has for the encounter and that CaS is much more “consistent.” Exactly! CaW tends to work better for sandbox campaigns in which the DM has no set plan for any encounter. The best way to kick start these games is often to start off with a standard railroad plan and then make no effort whatsoever to keep the PCs on the rails, the railroad gets the PCs going and then their own momentum sustains them. How I’m planning to start my next campaign is to have the PCs hired as henchmen by NPC adventurers. The PCs and their bosses march through the forest and then the NPCs leave the PCs outside the dungeon to watch their horses while they delve. Then the NPCs never come back. What do the PCs do? Night’s coming on and strange sounds are coming out of the woods and my wandering monster dice start looking tempting…Having time constraints in a sandbox/CaW game is VITAL (especially in the easy stages) as otherwise the PCs tend to faff about.

Recycle Content

In the 1ed campaign I’ve been playing in, it’s taken us about 12 sessions (about 5 hours each with breaks for pizza in the middle) to clear the 36-page B5 module (and we didn’t even kill most of the kobolds). As far as I can tell, the DM has never done any prep at all, so this kind of gaming isn’t necessarily prep heavy, you just need content that the players can interact with for multiple sessions.

Information

Information is gold in CaW games, monster ecology write-ups could answer a lot of the questions about giant bee and owl bear behavior that that scenario depends on and 1ed-style spell write-ups give a lot of information so that judging if a rat bastard dirty trick works often isn’t a DM judgment call. And as the person who mentioned Ravenloft points out, having good information makes these scenarios tick (the PCs should come across things like big scratches on the trees, giant owl pellets and the sound of buzzing in the distance). This is a great way of getting the PCs engaged with the world, since instead of information being about herding the PCs towards the plot, information is about not getting their PCs killed in horrible ways. Information also helps keep the PCs in the sweet spot between cakewalk and TPK by giving them the information they need to seek out the right kinds of challenges and avoid getting slaughtered.

An Uncaring God

As a lot of people have mentioned, DM fiat can play a much bigger role in CaW than CaS games and it can often come down to playing the DM instead of playing the game. That’s bad. For a CaW game to work, the DM should be an impartial and uncaring god, but how to do that when so much depends on DM judgment calls?

Well that’s what all of the random tables are for (and morale rules and, morale rules are worth their weight in gold)! There’s a reason there are random rolls for wandering monsters, reactions, surprise, encounter distance, weather, terrain, prostitutes, treasure! That’s why the DMG specifies that there’s a 20% chance that a harlot is or is working for a thief! Using all of these rules all of the time will drive a DM insane, but they’re there so that when the DM doesn’t want to use DM fiat there’s an alternative. For example my 1ed party ran into a group of 2 ogres and eight hobgoblins when all but the thief were still first level. In most campaigns my reaction would be “WTF?!? Why did the DM plan such hard encounters?! What a bastard!” but in this campaign we cursed our bad luck and set about slaughtering the lot of them. Giving the DM these kinds of tools makes what happens to the PCs a result of luck, game rules and PC cleverness rather than DM whim.

Google “Westmarches” for more information about the DM as an uncaring god, those blog posts are some of the best I’ve ever read.

Oregon Trail

A lot of people on this thread have talked about how CaW play flows from adversity and how this can be done by amping up the difficulty of encounters. This is certainly one way to do that, but it tends to favor the nova classes and results in a lot of TPKs. Often a better way of putting in adversity is through attrition, or what I like to call Oregon Trail D&D, which makes difficulty depend a lot more on the PCs than on the DM.

What I mean by this is hitting the PCs with constant easy fights, environmental obstacles, tracking supplies, actually using encumbrance (the Lamentations of the Flame Princess version, not the 1ed version, dear god not the 1ed version) and, yes, rolling for dysentery if the PCs drink dirty water. This slow wearing down of the PCs really keeps them on their toes and makes them be proper cunning rat bastards even when faced with fights they could easily win. What’s vital to support this style of play is to not let the players be able to easily hole up and get back to full health, limited healing (no second or third level cleric healing spells in 1ed!) and making it difficult for Wizards to get their spells back in the field (look at the specific 1ed rules for memorizing spells, they might surprise you). By wearing the players down with attrition when they’re in the field you make time a precious resource (Gygax used all-caps for talking about time tracking for a damn good reason) and avoids boring like players spending an hour searching every ten feet of hallway. You can’t do that when you’re playing Oregon Trail D&D!

Of course a lot of people don’t want to play Dungeons and Dysentery, but it’s a big part of what makes CaW games tick. Rules that make it easy for the PCs to recover from attrition like ing Rope Trick and readily-available CLW wands (I swear, the damn things have killed more campaigns than the Deck of Many Things) hurt CaW gaming badly.
In Which I Try to Avoid Edition Warring

Some people have mentioned that 4ed can be used to support CaW play and while it can certainly be used to do that (see the awesome hut of doom example) and Rituals do a great job of helping with that, I think that 4ed is less suited to that kind of play, just as TSR-D&D is less suited to CaS-play. This doesn’t mean that TSR-D&D can’t do CaS, I played a 2ed campaign as a kid in which half of the campaign was gladiator fights and the other half was going out into the wilderness to capture monsters to use in gladiator fights (my character was famous as the best Blink Dog trainer in the city and this was before Pokemon dammit), which is about as CaS as you can get. It was a great campaign, but if I were to run something like that today I’d use 4ed over 2ed in a heartbeat.

Note: if I get anything wrong about 4ed please correct me and don’t assume any ill-will on my part. I really don’t want to be one of the people who say, “hur hur, marking is just the same as taunting, 4ed is a sucky WoW rip-off.” I LIKE marking (at least in its most basic form), I just haven’t played all that much 4ed.

Here’re some reasons why I wouldn’t use 4ed for a CaW campaign:

Combat Takes Too Long

Combat takes a long time in 4ed, which means that there’s less time for everything else. The everything else is very important to CaW gameplay. Of course, you can reduce that number of combats but if you do that, it’s hard to make Oregon Trail gameplay work, which brings me to my next point…

Oregon Trail

Oregon Trail gameplay is based on wearing the PCs down with attrition. You can’t do this if you don’t have time to play out a lot of mini-encounters in one session. Also (correct me if I’m wrong), there are various ways in 4ed to heal a character without spending a Healing Surge, which means that if you have that available then anything that doesn’t make the PCs spend a Healing Surge or use a Daily Power doesn’t cause attrition. Also it’s much easier for a 4ed party to bounce back from attribution with an Extended Rest than it is for a TSR-D&D party to bounce back from attribution with eight hours of sleep.

Sandbox Play

CaW works better with sandbox play and while you can do a 4ed sandbox (see the Angry DM’s blog post about how to run a 4ed sandbox) it seems like a lot of work for me. 4ed fans always tell me that the same critter should have different stats depending on the party’s level. I read one post by a 4ed fan that said that at low levels a dragon would be a Solo monster, if the PCs gain a few levels it becomes an Elite monster, then a Standard monster and finally (when the PCs are sufficiently badass) a Minion. Does that mean I have to restat all of the monsters in the sandbox whenever the PCs gain a few levels? I’m far too lazy to do that.

Missing Rules

Look through the various rules and other game book text that I talked about as being stuff that supports CaW play in my previous post. A lot of it just doesn’t exist in 4ed (or at least not in the first three books, I know that Dark Sun added in rules for dehydration and there’s probably lots of other examples that I don’t know about) but do exist in even the thinnest TSR-D&D intro box booklets.

Less Weird

CaW often involves the weird, quirky and situational powers that TSR-D&D is chock full of but that are hard to balance for CaS. How the hell do you balance a spell that is useless in most situations but which is massively powerful in a few for CaS play? You can’t. That’s why you won’t find a lot of CaW staples in the 4ed PHB I (although a few remain like the ever-awesome Unseen Servant/Mage Hand). A lot of them have been moved off to Rituals (which are damn cool and great for CaW, but their cost means they don’t get used as often as normal powers).

For example, let’s take a look through 4ed Wondrous Items list, the traditional place for Cool Weird . The stuff on the list that would be more helpful in a CaW game than a CaS game are let you:
-Get more food.
-Carry more stuff (although it seems to say that you can’t pick up a portable hole if there’s stuff in it and no effect of putting a bag of holding in a portable hole noted).
-Keep people from warping away.
-Change what you look like.
-Portable boat.
-Flying carpet.
-Do rituals better.
-Climb better.
-Have a walkie-talkie.

Not bad, but that barely scratches the surface of the Cool Weird that the miscellaneous magic items in the 1ed DMG can do.

Process vs. Effect

Although there are plenty of exceptions, 4ed write-ups generally tell you the effect of the power, not the process that causes that effect. This is great for CaS play and for role playing (you can role play how your power has that effect any way you want!) but I don’t like it for CaW play. One of the biggest elements of CaW play is looking at what a power/ability/spell/item/whatever says on the tin and then figuring out how to make it do something completely different or how to make their character immune to it. That’s harder to do in 4ed (although there are many exceptions to this rule, especially when you get to Rituals) since the write-ups don’t give a CaW player as much to work with.

Just look at the write-up for the Warden’s marking ability. I know what effect it has, but what process happens that makes that effect take place? I have not a clue. I can use the anger of nature? Any time I want? Awesome! Now what can I do with it except for marking people? No idea. What can I do to make my character immune to it? If I fight in an unnatural area or in the vacuum of space, does that render the Warden incapable of drawing on the power of nature’s wrath? I have no idea. Those sorts of questions aren’t very relevant to a CaS player since they can come up with cool fluff that fits the situation and role play it out, but they’re very relevant indeed to a CaW player.

For another example let’s look at monsters. One of the abilities of a Succubus is Dominate: Ranged 5; +12 vs. Will; the target is dominated until the end of the succubus’s next turn. OK, that makes sense, the Succubus is vamping people and it’s a “Charm” ability. But how does it work? Is it her voice? Can I protect myself from it if I put wax in my ears? It is her sexy appearance? Does it still work if my character is dragonborn? Heterosexual female? Gay male? Is it direct mental magic attacking my mind? No idea.

Looking at the 1ed Monster Manual for the Succubus, I can see that it can vamp people with a level-draining kiss (so that won’t work if she can’t kiss me, now I just need the right mask…) and with a spell like ability that works just like the spell Suggestion. Let’s look up Suggestion. Yes! It doesn’t work unless the target can understand what the caster is saying. So, we’ll need proper wax for our ears. One problem down, now what else can we do to kill the damn Succubus…

See the difference? Sure the 4ed DM could rule that the 4ed Succubus’ Dominate ability doesn’t work if the PCs puts wax in their ears, but then the DM is put on the spot and has to decide if the PC’s plan works or not according to DM fiat. The 1ed DM can just look it up and know that, yes, the wax-in-the-ears plan works just fine (at least for THAT ability) without having to resort to DM fiat, which can amount to the DM choosing (without any information to go on) if the PC will win or lose.

There are a hundred other examples like that (although 4ed does get better about that in later books, noting that pan pipes don’t work on deaf PCs for example). That sort of thing isn’t too relevant to CaS, but the 4ed power format cuts out a lot of stuff that supports CaW play or puts a lot more stuff on the shoulders of the DM to decide.

No XP for GP

If XP is awarded for overcoming challenges then PCs will try to overcome challenges (CaS), if XP is awarded for detouring around all of the challenges and grabbing the gold then PCs will try to detour around all of the challenges and grab the gold (CaW).

The Rule Zero Fallacy

Of course a lot of the stuff I’m talking about 4ed missing can be added back in (and a good bit might be present in a lot of supplements that I don’t know about, my 4ed-fu is weak), but that line of argument comes perilously close to the Rule Zero Fallacy (it’s not broken if I can fix it with house rules) and, in any case, the difference between the support for CaW in different sets of the three core books is pretty stark (at least in my opinion).

Addendum: I Love Healing Surges

Healing Surges are such a great mechanic. Losing Healing Surges is a great way of modeling all of the little joys of Oregon Trail D&D and they fix the Fistful of CLW Wands problem (die readily available CLW wands! die! die! die!). Just declare all-out war on the 15-Minute Adventuring Day by making time a precious resource, make them be fewer, make them provide fewer HPs, make them harder to get back and easier to lose and completely eliminate all forms of healing that don’t involve spending a Healing Surge and they’d be one of the best CaW mechanics I can imagine.

On The Pause Before Papers and Pencils

2012-02-27T00:32:00.000-06:00

What I really love about role-playing is that it is a cooperative game, not a competitive one. I like competitive games, perhaps too much and therein lies the problem.

Like gaming, blogging is a cooperative endeavor, not a cooperative one. Sharing a good post doesn't reduce your blog traffic, it increases awareness and readership. It might even inspire someone to start their own blog. Also, you can't keep a good idea down, not a composite of the best blog posts, nor a search engine of the OSR.

One of our erudite contemporaries has moved his blog from it's old address at Comma, Blank_ to his new website:

Papers & Pencils!

If you aren't a reader of LS's site, you should check it out. He runs Pathfinder and provides NPC's other game resources, and theory! Check out his Succubi in Succubus Town article! Or his Disscussion on Gygax and the Jeweled Man, one of the unsolved mysteries of Greyhawk! And his post on Agency, a topic dear to my heart.

Visit, check it out, and subscribe! I look forward to his posts every day, and really so will a lot of other people once they find the blog.

On the Failure of Tactical Combat

2012-02-26T03:52:00.120-06:00

It's bad to tell other people that they are having badwrongfun.

They can play however they like.

But there's a problem with throwing around the term "Edition Warring" and somehow conflating some legitimate concern with a concrete quantifiable issue with a desire to dictate how other people should play. I have no idea, nor do I particularly care what you do at your table. (Although I do have a vested interest in making my own opinions clear and understandable).

However, If I point to the naked emperor and say that he has no clothes, then perhaps he should just get dressed, instead of having his subjects tell me why it's ok to make us look at his glory.

And before I get into this, I want to take a moment and give props to the fourth edition design team for making a game that's quick to DM - taking NPC and monster creation and making it easy. Props for giving good tools to estimate the difficulty of numeral comparisons of monsters.

Why disassociated mechanics are a serious problem.

There's a lot of talk over what dissociated mechanics are, but I can tell you why they are such a problem. Associated mechanics have an effect with a result - disassociated mechanics have a result caused by an affect!

What does this mean? Let's look at fireball.

An associated mechanic says "We are going to create a ball of fire! What are the effects of a giant ball of fire?" and then it describes a list of things that occur when a ball of fire is exploded!

A disassociated mechanic says we're going to do X damage to an area Y large, and it has fire traits and arcane traits.

Associated Mechanic: Effect => Result
Dissociated Mechanic: Result => Effect

Why is this a problem? The disassociated mechanic is only useful for it's effect - which is causing damage in combat.

Now I don't know if this is true for you, But when I game for six hours, players will fight maybe 5 different times, and only spend about 90 minutes in combat. Can we see the problem?

The associated mechanic is useful as a tool for 6 hours of play. The dissociated mechanic is useful for only about 2 hours of play.

This is a serious real problem with every power in 4th edition. People defend the elegant math, but my math equation using real actual numbers comes out much differently then whatever math is being talked about when they talk about elegance. One common response is "Most of these are magic effects! Warriors don't have access to them!". That comment is made by people who don't have fighters with armies, or charismatic characters with followers, or magic items like they used to be - filled with strange and unique effects.

One way to make this work is to only spend the time fighting battles so that the the powers are useful more often.

What a terrible thing to do.

I say this because I have never seen any argument, discussion, or statement that address this issue in a quantifiable way. It is a serious concern for me as a player and the fundamental issue with nearly every single one of the endless arguments I had while trying to play 4e. I kept asking what was actually happening, and kept being told that it wasn't important.

In the spirit of this, I'll be archiving the excellent theory written by Daztur recently tomorrow and the next day here at Hack & Slash. His article led me to understand why this was so difficult for me and what those players were looking for.

They wanted an arena battle, two equal forces facing off. A game of chess. A game of equal (or nearly equal) starting conditions - even if those conditions were geared against the players.

It was not what I was looking for. I only hope that the recognize that even under a rules system that might be NEXT that I still won't be looking for those things. And the players that are, well, I probably won't be gaming with them. Do the makers of NEXT understand that? The only question I have left is will they sell anything I can use for my LL, ACKS, OSRIC, or DCC game?

On Alchemical Items, Oil of Shadows

2012-02-25T03:57:00.026-06:00

Oil of Shadows
BSC:	15%	(R)gp:	500 gp
DC:	25	TTC:	1 days
CC:	9	CGP::	250 gp
NWP:	-6	XP:	125 xp
D100:	-10%	Weight:	- / 20
D6:	1 in 6 / Y	Difficulty:	Very Difficulty
Rarity	Rare

Materials: Powdered Gold (1 dram), Powdered Silver (1 dram), Powdered Platinum (1 dram), Rare Earths (4 drams), Almonds (10 drams), Grape Seed (10 drams), Sunflower (10 drams), Olive Oil (8 drams), Kobold Claw/Agility Essence (2 drams), Powdered Sapphire (2 carats), Powdered Copper (10 drams)

Description: When this oil is used, it coats the user like a shadow, absorbing light. This gives a bonus of 20-50% on her ability to hide in shadows (+4-+10 ranks in Stealth). If the user has no ability to hide in shadows, then this oil grants that ability. Note that armor penalties still apply.

Rules are here.

On Interesting Treasure: The Wooden Brain Mask

2012-02-24T03:54:00.016-06:00

This mask is made of wood. Dried hide of some unknown creature is stretched over and covering the face and neck, which is decorated with several black grooves. The hide has a painted line on the forehead, and then there are the five tentacle-horn projections extending above the head.

Anyone is welcome to wear this mask, the Dungeon Master is responsible for determining what heinous event occurs next. The use of a random table is suggested.

The mask sells as a curiosity ("Will you look at that thing!?") for 800 gold.

On The Thursday Trick, White Phosphorus

2012-02-23T06:50:00.031-06:00

White Phosphorus (Category: Special)

Trigger: Other: Player Greed	Effects:Onset Delay Multiple Targets Alchemical Device
Save: Rod/Staff/Wand	Duration: Special
Resets: None	Bypass: None (Avoid)

Description: Do you like your players very much? I hope not, because this one is a killer.

So there is some body of water - either a pool, or a waterfall, cascading down over a beautiful white-yellow statues with exquisite manufacture. Or perhaps a yellow-white necklace rests at the bottom of the pool. Perhaps these items are studded with gems (or what I like to call shrapnel)

What a wonderful use for magic aura!

Detection/Disarming: The thing about phosphorus is that it is extremely reactive upon contact with air. It will very quickly after being removed from the water dry off and begin to smoke. Shortly after that it will produce thick clouds of smoke only seconds before self igniting in the air, flinging large chunks of burning phosphorus everywhere. Conveniently once contacting flesh, it continues to burn!

Something small like a necklace or jewelry will do 3d8, minus 1d8 per round in a 10' radius, save for half, unless you are wearing it, in which case the funeral will be closed casket. Something large like a statue would do 7d8, minus 1d8 per round in a 40' radius, save for half.

Have fun!

On the Lost Forgotten Past

2012-02-22T06:35:00.061-06:00

Research is a melancholy experience.

Often you find what you seek, but it is the nature of the new world, the new mental space we share in this 'blogosphere' to be littered with houses half built.

For I post today, shall I post tomorrow?

Blogs have narrow focuses, and human lives are complex many storied things. We drift in and out of our interests throughout our lives and blogs that have too narrow a focus don't get updated when our focus changes. You see a blog that hasn't posted in a year, their blogroll filled with similarly failed blogs, all the hip popular blogs of the day having fallen by the wayside.

Also, here in America we are in the death throes of an empire. This isn't fear-mongering, America as a culture is having to adapt and change to a change in our infrastructure as we come to terms with the end of our political and national dominance and return to being a member on the world stage.

This type of change can be distracting, and cause a bit of a delay in updating your blog.

For now these sites remain, but I'm concerned - will the thought and value in them one day disappear? How can it be preserved?

Is there some way to comb through the blogs and weed out all the entitlement ("My blog isn't popular enough, and someone else's is so I'm going to quit."), negativity ("So and so's blog is filled with slander against very important historical figures - how dare they denigrate something that happened where they weren't.") and navel gazing ("I have such a hard time picking a game, and it's really hard to find players. ") and take the core articles and preserve them for prosperity?

What if the Rod of Lordly Might disappears? What if Sickly Purple Death Ray goes the way of the dead?

What if Kellri never updates again, and the documents disappear?

We've made strides and have many tools that help us find useful tools and rules that didn't exist before. There's the OSR search and the Links to Wisdom to help us organize what's out there.

But what about sites that are left for dead? What will happen to them if during some pogrom they all disappear? Or projects headed by just one person like megadungeon.net that languish forgotten once the original impetus has left for their existence.

I bemoan the loss of the past, and fear a future that has lost that connection.

I am open to suggestions.

On Skill Deconstruction: A Summary

2012-02-21T09:16:00.000-06:00

So, let's review the status of the various skill articles, before we discuss any conclusions. You can check out the original assessment if you wish.

Acrobatics: Other than the combat use of tumbling, the use of this skill encourages 'roll or don't get to act in combat' functions which is un-fun and not necessary.

Appraise: Eliminate this skill entirely. Any use of this skill results in the consumption of time and a non-fun game situation.

Bluff: It is functional for it's basic purpose, but too much focus is put on this skill to be a social combat mechanic when it is not.

Climb: This is an extremely complicated skill that boils down to one of two options, climb at half speed or climb at a quarter of your speed. Like acrobatics this can boil down to 'lose your turn'.

Craft: It's a skill that produces gold or some basic items. As a crafting system, it's woefully inadequate with a lot of problems.

Diplomacy: This turns into a skill tax because of the frequency of it's use and the broad applications. We do need a system for determining monster and NPC reactions. Making it a player skill is a bad idea.

Disable Device & Slight of Hand: These are minor and both functional, however Disable Device is better served using player skill. Both are reasonable.

Disguise: It hardly ever occurs, and when it does the skill roll eliminates game play.

Escape Artist: Of simply utility, better to have it be an option in the subsystem for grapples. As far as bindings go, this is better handled by player skill rather than contested use rope/escape artist checks.

Fly & Ride: Flying basically uses ranks to represent the old style maneuverability classes. I don't see the added roll and option to do slightly better or worse then flying doing much to make combat more exciting. Same with ride, being that there are three thresholds for it, unskilled, skilled and master. Taking the time to roll can really slow down combat without adding anything.

Handle Animal: This skill is fine, though I think it is rarely used in play, though the comment from the person who used it said it caused a lot of arguments. Basically it might cut down on the power level of the animal companion classes if used RAW.

Heal: If you already give up your turn, only to fail to bandage your companion as they die is that improving the game? I say no.

Intimidation: This skill does a poor job of allowing the PC's to be intimidating. It is a good candidate for inclusion in a social conflict resolution system.

Perception and Stealth: Stealth - even contested stealth is fine. Surprise is crucial and necessary. Perception can die in a hot fire.

Knowledge: Useless, even by people who use it.

Perform & Profession: You roll to get gold. The end.

Sense Motive: Two options with this, either you are allowing the players to fail to get necessary information or it's part of social conflict.

Survival and Swim: Swim is another roll to move at half speed skills. Useless. Tracking has been around for a long time and there is some utility in it.

Use Magic Device: Is a classic as good as gold.

Most of these line up with my original comparisons, and I've gotten a bunch of comments from people who echo these sentiments. What skills do these deconstructions leave us with? I.e which of these skills actually have utility in play?

Tumbling Past an enemy.
Disable Device
Slight of Hand
Handle Animal
Stealth
Tracking
Use Magic Device

1st Edition Thief Skills for Comparison.
Picking Pockets
Open Locks
Find/Remove Traps
Move Silently
Hide in Shadows
Hear Noise
Climb Walls
Read Languages/Scrolls

You need a Monster and NPC reaction system, as well as a mechanic for social conflict.

Why are the lists above so similar?

Because they weren't trying to create a unified skill system. They were only using skills for things they couldn't resolve at the table.

For our next and last post, we're going to conclude and tidy everything up in a nice little package.

On Skill Deconstruction: Fudge

2012-02-20T03:36:00.068-06:00

Fudge used to stand for Free Universal Do-it-yourself Gaming Engine, though now it just stands for Fudge. It's a user-designed role playing game.

Yeah, it's that kind of cool.

One of the most interesting role playing game products I ever remember reading was the FUDGE guide. It goes something like. . .

"These are attributes. Attributes are something everyone in the game world has. Here is a big honking list of any attribute you can think of. Pick the ones that are relevant to your game".

But we aren't here to talk about attributes. We're here to talk about skills.

Skills are not related to attributes in Fudge, they are left up to the game master and players to maintain a reasonable consistency. "Players are encouraged to design their characters logically" Fudge Rulebook. So if your character has high physical attributes, they should take a lot of physical skills.

This is in opposition to every skill system we've looked at so far. D20 skills are modified by attributes, Hackmaster skills advanced based on the advancement die, but their starting values are attributed to skills. You attributes play a role in your skills in Rolemaster also.

The second thing that is important is that Fudge is a skill based game. The GM decides the level of skill depth, such as "Social skills," or more specific skills like "Inspiration, Oratory, and Mercantile" or very specific skills, such as "Barter, Seduce, Fast-talk, Persuade, etc.".

Then there is a large list of skills (that is described as brief), with a caveat to change what you want.

There are several things that are nice about this. Since skills are how you resolve actions, it forces you to think about what sort of actions you want skills around to resolve. It allows a great deal of player customization, because any skill the player can think of can be added. You receive experience points to raise individual skills and attributes since Fudge is not a level based system allow you to improve skills independently of artificial thresholds.

The other thing to note is that skills are rolled using Fudge dice. You roll 4 dice, each are essentially d3's. One result is positive, one negative, and one neutral. You total up the values and get a result between -4 and +4. These dice produce a nice bell curve, meaning that for the majority of the time, you will perform at or around your skill level.

It has a fairly broad granularity, and skills are ranked to one of seven levels: Superb, Great, Good, Fair, Mediocre, Poor, and Terrible. Difficulties are either set or rolls are opposed. When rolls are opposed the important information is the relative difference in the rolls.

Fudge is a great game, and this may be the most important part of the post, the first RPG I ever played where you can have characters that don't have superpowers.

The skills system is simple, straightforward due to the word titles, and produces results consistent with the stated skill level of the player.

Oh, and it's free, so worth checking out.

On Alchemical Spells, Burning Blood

2012-02-19T07:23:00.020-06:00

Burning Blood
Necromancy (*Alchemy*)
Range: 6”/level	Duration: 3 rounds
Components: V, S, M	Area of Effect: 1 creature
Casting Time: 4 segments	Saving Throw: Negates

Description: This spell allows the alchemist to turn the blood of the target into burning acid.
The alchemist selects one living creature. That creature must have exposed wounds. This means that they must have taken damage from an edged or piercing weapon. If this is the case the exposed blood of the target is turned into burning acid.
The target may make a save versus Spells each round at -4. Any success indicates that they resist the damage for that round.
The burning blood does 2d4 points of damage +1 per level of the alchemist. The alchemist does not need to touch or see the target, they simply must be within range.
The material component for this spell is a pinch of salt and sal petrae.

On Alchemical Items, Dust of Dispelling

2012-02-18T03:57:00.033-06:00

Dust of Dispelling
BSC:	20%	(R)gp:	3000 gp
DC:	24	TTC:	1 days
CC:	8	CGP::	1200 gp
NWP:	-5	XP:	250 xp
D100:	-5%	Weight:	- / 20
D6:	1 in 6 / 6	Difficulty:	Very Difficult
Rarity	Uncommon

Materials: Rare Earth (4 drams), Sulphur (4 drams), Powdered Silver (1 dram), Powdered Gold (1 dram), Powdered Platinum (1 dram), Rust Monster Scales/Entropy Essence (2 drams), Angel’s or Dragon’s Heart/Magic Essence (1 drams), Powdered Amethyst (20 carats), Powdered Silver (50 drams)

Description: Spreading this dust breaks all magical effects that are occurring where the dust is spread. All magical effects are dispelled as if affected by a Dispel Magic cast by a level 15 caster. It can be dusted over the caster, a magical trap, or over an item. If dusted over an item it simply suppresses the magic for a short while.

Rules are here.

On Interesting Treasure: The Simple Copper Helm

2012-02-17T03:53:00.029-06:00

This is a simple old copper helm, notable for two things.

Its age makes it appear to be worthless, and may be discarded by a callous delver. However, any armorsmith will note the repousse from the peak, and the bands around the base.

Extremely observant characters will note that the helm has been damaged and then later repaired.

Scholars will note that this style of helm design is from the legendary Godforge (Goddtaalomar) dwarf clan, said to have descended from Moradin himself.

Sold as a damaged rusted helm: 1 copper piece
Sold as an ancient dwarven helm: 10 gold pieces
Sold as a representation of forging techniques from the Godforge clan: 6,000 gold to an interested smith.
Sold as an ancient dwarven artifact to a dwarven smith after a long discussion about how you are sure you didn't steal it and are just trying to return it to their rightful owners: A favor from the dwarves.

On The Thursday Trick, Sliding Wall Dungeon

2012-02-16T06:50:00.040-06:00

Sliding Wall Dungeon (Category: Special)

Trigger: Mechanical: Pressure Plate Mechanical: Timed	Effects:Never Miss Onset Delay Multiple Targets
Save: None	Duration: Special
Resets: Automatic	Bypass:Special

Description: One more dungeon conundrum, that of the sliding walls. These work best with what are truly four way intersections, but each exit of the intersection has a hidden sliding wall.

The first time the players visit, the wall may be a 90 right turn. They take the turn and travel away. Once out of sight, the walls reconfigure. When they return instead of finding the passageway turning to the left as they would expect, they find another right hand turn!

There is no end to the fun of sliding walls. Doors become dead ends. Corridors have new options. It can take the standard dungeon and both confuse and terrify your players, who's first thought is - how is what I'm looking at different from what I expect!

Detection/Disarming: Thankfully for the astute party their are multiple means of detecting these things above and beyond the natural ability of the dwarf.

First, each of these must have a detecting trigger such as a pressure plate or latch to start the timer. These can be detected in the standard ways.

Secondly, there must be a timer and this will be detectable in some manner also.

There is also the matter of the sliding wall. If it drops in from the ceiling or rises up from the floor there will be some sign on the wall of its passage. The same is true if it slides out from the side of the corridor. Also it will not be as thick as a normal wall, allowing a determined party with a mining pick to break through it. The wall takes up physical space when hidden and this can be detected also.

Another excellent foil is using the timer - which is designed to wait until the party is out of hearing and sight range - to confirm the existence of sliding walls by triggering the walls and not advancing and waiting for the walls to activate.

Finally, this too can be part of a puzzle, just like rotating intersections.

On Skill Deconstruction: Skills: The Middle Road

2012-02-15T03:36:00.000-06:00

So, what about some DIY options? There are obviously issues with whatever system you use for games, surely the blog sphere has come up with something useful.

It has. In the all too short lived blog A Rod of Lordly Might by Benjamin David he came up with something called Skills: The Middle Road.

I could talk at length about these skills, but he's already done so. He even has his own analysis of skills here.

Some pertinent quotes below.

The extensive rules for dealing with non-combat skills in other systems, both classic and modern, speaks of the desire of players to be able to know in some quantitative sense what their characters are good at. However, if we are to come up with any such system as a house rule for OD&D, it has to meet several basic parameters:
"Having" a given skill, NWP, or whathaveyou should not, as a rule, be a requirement for attempting any adventure-related action or for having a reasonable chance of success.
The system must be scalable, allowing for characters to improve existing skills by the expenditure of time and wealth or as a reward for a successfully-completed adventure (as described in my previous post),
And yet it must be simple enough that no OD&D product must be significantly altered to employ it (i.e., the referee should not have to go through every adventure and install DCs for every challenge or create a complete set of skills for every goblin) and that any referee can easily ad-hoc it during play.

. . .

Ramping Up the Dice
This is the system that I've implemented and described back in Skills: The Middle Road. It basically developed when I noted how often the d6 is used to resolve action in play (hardly a surprise given D&Ds pre-polyhedral Chainmail origins). For example, surprise is determined on a d6, with a roll of 5-6 indicating surprise. Getting lost is rolled on a d6. A roll of 1 or 2 on a d6 indicates successful foraging for food. And so on.

From there, it was a simple step to invert some of the rolls as given in a simple fashion: High is always good, low bad. And from there, it wasn't hard to imagine characters with relevant backgrounds and/or learned skills using something other than the ol' d6 to determine success. Instead of needing to roll a 1 or 2 on a d6 to find enough food, one had to roll a 5 or better--only it didn't have to be a d6; it could be on a d8, d10, or d12, depending on the skill of the character.

Unskilled
Skill Die: d6
No bonuses to die rolls

Skilled
Training: 1 month and 100o gp
Skill Die: d8
+1 bonus when making skill-related rolls with a 1d4, 1d6, or 1d8
+2 bonus when making skill-related rolls with a 1d10 or 1d12
+3 bonus when making skill-related rolls with a 1d20
+15% on making skill-related rolls with percentage dice

Expert
Training: 3 months and 300o gp
Skill Die: d10
+1 bonus when making skill-related rolls with a 1d4
+2 bonus when making skill-related rolls with a 1d6 or 1d8
+4 bonus when making skill-related rolls with a 1d10 or 1d12
+5 bonus when making skill-related rolls with a 1d20
+25% on making skill-related rolls with percentage dice

Master
Training: 6 months and 10,00o gp
Skill Die: d12
+2 bonus when making skill-related rolls with a 1d4
+3 bonus when making skill-related rolls with a 1d6 or 1d8
+5 bonus when making skill-related rolls with a 1d10 or 1d12
+8 bonus when making skill-related rolls with a 1d20
+40% on making skill-related rolls with percentage dice

I have little to say other then I am a big fan of this simple skill system, and that I am very sad that the blog The Rod of Lordly Might is no longer updated.

On Questions Answered, What Kind of Player to Have?

2012-02-14T07:42:00.001-06:00

What kind of player do I want at my table?

The good kind.

I want a player that sings a song of his tales.

I want a player that opens the door even after being told "You didn't check it for traps, are you sure you want to open it?"

I want a player that tries to bend the rules in his favor, but can accept the word of the DM ruling.

I want a player that when presented with a problem, looks to his mind instead of his sheet.

I want a player that doesn't forget the basic abilities of his race.

I want a schemer and a planner and builder and a thinker.

I want players without cell phones or tablets. I want players who are active with their own ideas. I want them to be engaged even while other people are playing.

I want a player who doesn't complain about the rules. I need one who's mature enough to play without stupid widgets like skills and feats.

I want someone that is gonna show up - and if they won't, they'll call or write or text the day before to let me know the score.

I want someone to have some goals, and bring them to my game. I want the game to be directed by the players, not the Dungeon Master.

I want someone that bucks the walls, tries to knock anything they perceive as a train off the rails and makes the game their own.

I need a player who acts like an adult. Grown up with a collegiate degree and children doesn't stop someone from acting like a child.

On Skill Deconstruction: 4th Edition Dungeons and Dragons

2012-02-13T05:19:00.088-06:00

4e skills have always had problems. This is why the DC tables were released and changed how many times? Three? Five? Thirty? (Hint: Which one of these is not like the other.)

There are mathematical issues with the way skill challenges presented. If you have to roll an 8 or higher, it's always to your advantage to avoid being part of the challenge. There's one section where Kieth Baker comments that it isn't broken because of his house-rules to 4e. He has several bizarre comments in that story like it's supposed to be broken for first level characters because first level characters suck. These problems were ones of math, and eventually were fixed to the point where the Skill Challenges were mathematically playable.

The reason the skill challenges were a problem is that they are binary success or failure. Your party rolls a number of times to and the only thing that matters is hitting that success threshold. When you succeed or fail you stop rolling. So that creates a situation where the only concern is rolling the good skill against the easy challenge, regardless of the actual situation in the game. Attempting to engage in the challenge in a way that is not optimal contributes to the entire party failing. Some excellent cogent discussion is here. Some numerical analysis on the earlier broken mechanics is here. The Alexandrian talks about a lot of the problems with the math and design here near the bottom of the page. Note that these aren't problems, but analysis of the math showing in what ways it does the exact opposite of it's intended goals. Here is a list of skill challenge articles about how to make them function.

Personally, as I've stated, tossing dice in turn around the table to get something done on a pass/fail basis is a waste of time.

But there are good things about the 4e skill system itself. Like that it has one?

4e has a skill system! Let's talk about it.

Ignoring skill challenges, 4e does do some things to try and address problems.

1) Everyone increases at skills that they use and don't use due to the 1/2 level bonus. This addresses the problem of the high level character who can't meet a skill check along with the rest of the party.

2) The skills are condensed and focused towards the combat tactical game. This means that in areas where you are not in combat it plays a lot more like old school play.

3) You do not have to spend a long time picking skills. You can just select whichever ones you are trained in, check them off and go.

Yay!

However, the skills are broad, only increase at level, have binary successes and failures and don't providing a feeling of individuality or customization. Barring the skill challenge fiasco, and the ridiculous state skills were described at release (It's a DC 20 Nature check to know that bears attack with their claws) these improvements are in the spirit of moving in the correct direction.

They are good! I like them!

On Questions Answered, Illustrator For Shame!

2012-02-12T13:48:00.000-06:00

Not once did I see this mentioned.

Russ Nicholson.

Who's the perfect RPG Illustrator?

That's right.

Check out the hobbit in that picture, and you'll see why he is without question the best.

Some more pictures of his. . .

Any questions?

On What to do With the Orc Children?!

2012-02-11T08:10:00.001-06:00

For the edification of all players throughout time everywhere, I have written the definitive alignment document on what to do when you find the children of evil humanoids. Simply find your alignment on the following chart and follow the directions when you find evil non-combatants.

What to do with the Orc Children?
Lawful Good: Kill Them!
Neutral Good: *Hangs head*, kill them!
Chaotic Good: Kill them!
Chaotic Neutral: Uh, maybe we shou-nahh Kill 'em!
True Neutral: Look at what you did to my garden! DIE!
Lawful Neutral: Eliminate them!
Lawful Evil: ENSLAVE THEM!
Neutral Evil: Run free to die in the wild!
Chaotic Evil: KILL THEM!

Go shake your head here.

On Alchemical Items, Elixir of Anesthesia

2012-02-11T03:57:00.040-06:00

Elixir of Anesthesia
BSC:	15%	(R)gp:	450 gp
DC:	25	TTC:	1 days
CC:	9	CGP::	80 gp
NWP:	-6	XP:	150 xp
D100:	-10%	Weight:	- / 20
D6:	1 in 6 / Y	Difficulty:	Very Difficulty
Rarity	Rare

Materials: Purified Water (1 ounce), Rare Earths (1 dram), Ogre's Heart/Body Essence (10 drams), Trolls Blood/Healing Essence (1 drams), Powdered Pearl (10 carats), Powdered Jade (10 carats),
Description: This wonderful elixir has many useful properties. The first and most useful is that it gives a +10% bonus to system shock rolls (+2 alchemical bonus on constitution checks).

The second effect is that while under the effects of this potion, the user acts as if he has taken half the physical damage he receives. The user takes 50% of his hit point total and adds it to his hit points. At the end of the potion duration, these hit points disappear. They are lost last (i.e. a character with 37 hit points drinks this elixir and gains 18 more hit points raising his total to 55. Then she takes 41 points of damage, leaving her with 14 hit points. Then the potion expires and the 18 hit points are lost. She then drops to -4, dying instantly) .

The third and final effect is that this elixir affects the user as a Slow Poison spell. For the duration of the potion any effect from poison is delayed until the potion expires at which point it takes effect.

Rules are here.

On Interesting Treasure: The Jewel Box

2012-02-10T03:53:00.023-06:00

Lying in a small chamber, coated in dust on a low pedestal sits a small coffer. It is made of metal, latched, and covered thick with dust. It is not trapped and if opened, is empty except for the tail of a rat and several small spheres of what appear to be dirt.

The tail is the tail of a dead rat. The spheres are balls of rat shit.

If the coffer is dusted off however, it begins to gleam. The body is made from silver, and the entire lid is made from gold. It is studded with Lapis Lazuli, Turquoise, and coral. It is studded with several small but valuable rubies, emeralds, and aquamarines.

There are several ancient motifs, 12 dancing human figures, a naga, and even monkeys.

If anyone tries to sell the tail or the rat droppings, they are worthless. The coffer is worth 8,500 gold pieces to any buyer.

On The Thursday Trick, Rotating Intersection

2012-02-09T06:50:00.046-06:00

Rotating Intersection (Category: Special)

Trigger:Mechanical: Latch or Switch	Effects:Never Miss
Save:None	Duration:Varies
Resets: Automatic	Bypass:Special Or Disarm

Description: I've talked a little bit in the past about sliding and elevator rooms, but this isn't a room that moves from place to place, but instead one that moves in place, changing the options of where you can go.

Simply when the players enter/leave a room/intersection, there is a latch or switch triggered. It can be from a pressure plate, or a door, or even be triggered by an item, puzzle or key in the room (after all - how are the original owners supposed to get around inside this place).

Once triggered the central area rotates aligning with new corridors and halls.

Detection/Disarming: This can work subtly, like the elevator room, but it instead works much better as a central feature. If the players are unaware the dungeon is moving around them, then they may become quite confused when their map starts to make less and less sense. But if the players are presented with some sort of puzzle or key that changes how the dungeon rotates, they are engaged in solving a very physical puzzle.

The same advice for agency in discovering the latch or noticing the shifting rooms goes as for before. I.e. feeling a shaking or vibration, hearing a mechanical noise, or feeling other internal sensations.

The real challenge is figuring out the trigger and the correct layout.

A truly nefarious GM blocks their only way out with such a corridor.

On Skill Deconstruction: Rolemaster

2012-02-08T07:11:00.001-06:00

We're nearing the end of these posts. Going to cover a few more skill systems and then do a final overview and conclusion piece for the series.

Rolemaster, for those who like to take a skill system overboard. (This article is about the generic Standard System rules RMSS, not the setting specific skills which are more limited)

This is the core of rolemaster. You have a 'bonus' to each skill that you add to a 1d100 open ended die roll. The final total you get determines your degree of success. You need over 100 for a total success. Though you start achieveing partial successes at 70%.

Note that this is different from the Hackmaster style 'roll-under' system, because here it is an advantage to roll high.

Of note is that Rolemaster allows you to increase all skills in a category at once. It limits skill increase by restricting what you can spend per level based on your class. It is rather inventive and coherent, if not a little crunchy.

So, how do they work? Well, much like D&D, it is a unified system, meaning any action, from attack to running to attempting to open locks uses the same open ended resolution system. Since we're focusing on the 'skill system' here, I'm only going to talk about 'static maneuvers' which are what Rolemaster calls their skills.

First, the Gamemaster always assigns a modifier from +30 to -70. Since 100 is the minimum needed for a total success, we can equate that to a basic success DC of 20.

This means for every roll you are adding a modifier from -6 to +14 to the roll. Or conversely setting the DC from 14 to 34. Sounds pretty similar to the D20 system, no?

So in what ways is this different then the Dungeons and Dragons system?

Partial Success.

There is little guidance in the rulebook about when to use skills, and the indicators certainly point towards using the skills for all activities.

Don't believe me?

"Blackfire has strained his shoulder after trying to shave his back. . ."
"Solrac has managed to injure himself reaching for the toilet paper. . . "
"Snidepucker the rogue dies after eating a poisoned bagel. . ."

So, it's complicated, requires constant book reference, has the same universal mechanic for everything, and wants you to roll skills for everything.

This seems like a list of things I hate. Why would I be ok with running this system, whereas I find the D20 system dull? (And, no it isn't because I have some twisted compulsive love of tables).

It's because the system takes specific factors, resolves them abstractly, and returns a degree of success, making for interesting play.

Player skill is taken into account by trying to stack specific factors, limited by the length of time in a round. The complexity of skills encourages you to hand wave them if not in a time crucial system. The fact that these specific factors are resolved into an abstract result consisting of degrees of success allows it to be applied to play in an entertaining manner, setting up more entertaining systems.

TL; DR? Because it works as a boon to our creativity!

Why? Let's look first at something I deem a useful skill, and then something useless like knowledge skills and why they both work for me in Rolemaster. . .

Results table for Camouflage, Disarming Traps, Disguise, Counterfeiting, Forgery, Hiding Items, Picking Locks, Setting Traps, Trap Building, Using/Removing Poison. . .

Some selected results:
-26 and down: You are convinced that you must be simply a character in some macabre game. The worst possible result occurs. You may not try again. This only happens in stories, doesn't it? Perhaps you should get a day job.

91-110 Partial Success: You believe you have finished, and sign off on your work as complete, but d5 rounds later, you realize you have forgotten one key element. If it is possible to return to your work with your tools you may make the necessary adjustment for normal operation with a roll modified by +10. If not, your attempt will fail. At least you know what went wrong.

And now for one I don't like as a skill, but which Rolemaster empowers me to make interesting.

This is a result table for Culture Lore, Fauna Lore, Flora Lore, heraldry, History, Philosophy, Religion Lore, and Religion.

-26 or lower: Disaster! If researching a topic, you have accidentally damaged or destroyed your study materials with the beverage you upended on them. Those materials that can be salved require a full day of careful tending, or they will be useless. Regardless, they will offer a permanent -10 modification to future skill rolls which utilize them even if they are saved from destruction. If you are attempting to remember a topic, you find your mind a blank. Due to your mental block on the subject, you will suffer a -30 (non-cumulative) modification to all attempts to recall this subject until you achieve an Absolute Success on this table.

76-90 Partial Success: You uncover/remember some of the details of the subject. . . but no specific ones. Another hour of analysis might reveal more information, but for now, you have only the barest sketch of the topic as relates to your current search.

Now there are things about the Rolemaster system I don't like - advancement is tied to levels, so you can't improve in skills without gaining levels. However, allowing increases in both categories and specific skills, abstract results allowing partial success and encouraging player skill are all things that the D20 skill system lacks.

On Questions Answered, Pride

2012-02-07T06:08:00.000-06:00

Some questions were asked recently, and I cannot think of anything more boring and trite then just posting the answers on my blog.

Seriously, how many of those that were posted did you read?

However, as discussion topics, I think several of them are ripe for exploration themselves.

Let's talk a bit about my inventions that I am proud of!

First, welcome to my blog!

There's the Interesting Treasure Document, which I use to insure the players in my games never 'just' find treasure but instead find engagement. It allows me to provide flavor and color to non-magical and magical items. It has a companion on this blog covering Interesting Treasures that can be found. Each is a little bit of entertainment on its own. I've really outdone myself on these.

Next, you might check out Tricks, Empty Rooms, and Trap Design. What's that you say? Well, it's the tool I use to move away from the boring play of the skill check. It is the tool that allows me to create limited, interesting environments that players can use their own skill to explore. It also has a companion piece on this blog called the "Thursday Trick" highlighting not only tricks and traps, but also how to present them to encourage agency. Also: it's free.

If any of this is sounding good so far, please follow, subscribe, or share my blog right now. This isn't about some narrow focus, I make tools for gamers. There's no reason someone playing 4e couldn't get as much or more use out of those two things above that an OSR player can get. So, if you like 'em, share this post around.

Did I mention it's free? And we're nowhere near the end of this post?

In my perfect old school game, there are five classes. Fighter, Thief/Expert, Mage, Psionicist, and Alchemist. Let's talk a a bit about my resource for psionicst.

The rules for psionic 1e style play are spread out everywhere. The complete psionics guide for second edition is good, but broken mechanically (disintegrate by level 3) and has the downside of rolling to activate powers as well as an overly complicated power combat system.

So, with some help, I wrote a full, professional classbook with 44 pages, many original art pieces, and a complete power list that added 1st edition style psionics to the OGL. It also contains background and training tables for Hackmaster 4e players, magic items, monster indexes, kits for second edition players, and quick reference sheets.

Psionics, unlike wizard spells, carry danger in their use and are more flexible as to their results requiring the player to depend on their mental creativity at the time of use, fitting into the AD&D associated mechanics model outlined here at The Mule Abides. It requires that the player be both cautious and creative, much like an actual psionicist must be.

Professional. Free. Share this blog now.

I've written a critical hit system for D&D that models war-hammer that's fun with OD&D, provides a bit of extra survivability while still horribly maiming characters. I codified Zak's quick Key and Lock system into something more in depth for adventure preparation allowing the ability to use player skill on locks and traps. I maintain a couple of lists of random and non-random tables and links, as well as a 'most essential of the OSR' link page.

And, well, their are the daily blog posts covering art, items, traps, alchemy, theory and more!

But the best thing I've ever done I think - the thing I'm most proud of, is the coining of the Quantum Ogre and the assorted articles that follow. Not because of anything that is particularly brilliant about what I added - it's just a crystalization of some of the talk that's been happening about gaming for years.

But because it clearly and quantifiably puts to bed dozens of long held misconceptions about RPG's. Rules light games are DM Fiat. False. If you don't have skills you end up pixel bitching. False. If you roll low stats you're supposed to act dumb, strong, or weak. False. Player skill means you have to subjectively convince the DM of something. False. The DM decides if things work or not. False.

I hope everyone finds these as useful as I do and that you have as much fun reading about them as I have writing about them.

On Ignorance of Skill Based Play

2012-02-06T07:12:00.143-06:00

Many of you don't even understand what skill based play means.

Why do I think that? Here are some comments made on my blog that make it pretty clear many of you might be in the dark about it.

"We have players who want to have fun and be part of a story, but are perhaps not well-spoken enough to role-play social encounters. . ."
"This system also relies to a great extent on the ability of individual players to convince the DM."
"If not, why would you tell a player 'I'm sorry; you're not charismatic enough in person to play a smooth-talking rogue'?"
"Fiat success on the first try is not RPing or puzzle-solving; fiat failure isn't either, and is frustrating to boot; it feels like the GM is arbitrarily making you play a guessing-game to find the proper solution."

I AGREE WITH ALL OF THE ABOVE BEING NEGATIVE BECAUSE THEY HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH SKILL BASED PLAY.

So what is skill based play?

I've already discussed about Pixel Bitching, and DM Fiat, and how they have no place in skill based play. And while I cover a lot about what is and is not pixel bitching and DM Fiat, I haven't discussed what skill based play is.

Two things to get out of the way first.
ONE Character skill play is about how well you build a character before throwing him into conflict to see how well your build fares. (Did you account for will saves, perception checks, etc.) There is an element to 'reading your DM' so that you don't put points into skills he doesn't favor. (Don't put points into Ride if he doesn't like mounts.) The primary skill you exert is rules mastery when creating your build.

TWO Narrative or 'Story' play that many people are conflating with 'player skill based' play involves intangibles I'm not interested in when playing D&D. These include 'is the player being entertaining', 'what is the story arc for the character', and 'what tools does the player have to set and control conflicts and the world'. I'm down with those types of games (Mouse Guard, Dogs in the Vineyard) but I'm not interested in trying to turn Dungeons and Dragons into that.

What is player skill based play?

It isn't punishing people who are anti-social or poor at social interactions.
It isn't based on convincing a capricious GM of anything.
It isn't arbitrary playing a guessing game to find the "proper" solution.

Well, What is player skill based play then!?

Simple.

It's playing a game about your ability to gather information and make decisions to survive and succeed at both planned and random encounters.

You don't roll a die to determine if you find and open a secret door, you gather information by asking questions and using your personal smarts to make choices to test the situation to discover the door. Then you make choices about how to open the door.* There is one specific way to open the door. There isn't a 'proper' solution to the encounter because there is no reason you are entitled to find the secret door and no reason it is necessary to find the secret door..

When you encounter an NPC you need to convince, you don't just judge the players on arbitrary and capricious standards. You present the NPC as a puzzle like any other. He has needs, traits, and desires that investigation (i.e. talking, to him, other people, or context clues) can discover. Then the players make choices about how to handle the situation - choices that if the investigation is done properly they will have a good idea about the results. You present these choices explicitly to the players.

When you encounter a monster, you use your skill to try to avoid being surprised by making choices about how you travel through the dungeon, how you use your light sources, and your marching order. If you discover the monster before it discovers you, you make an effort to destroy it by overwhelming force or avoid it to get its treasure. All of these things are choices that the players are making, and making good choices is representative of their skill.

Each situation in the game is an "Encounter". An encounter is constructed**. It has hidden information and open information, explicit choices and consequences for those choices. The information is given to the players based on their choices: in play, in the past, how they describe or customize their character, and because of which races and classes they have selected. A game is a series of encounters. A series of games is a campaign.

There is no 'performance' in player skill based play.
There is no predetermined outcome in player skill based play.
There is no requirement for the player to be a master at something the character is good at - just that they be skilled at gathering information, problem solving, and making choices. And that's what D&D is about.

Caveat I
*But what about searching for secret doors, talking with monsters, and bashing doors? Situations that are common but just use some random game system to determine the result? How is that player skill?

Unlike modern systems where there is no consequences for failure, each of those is a choice that must be made. Do we risk one turn searching and increase the chance of running into a monster? Do we give up surprise to attempt to parley with the monsters? Do we risk the chance of monsters hearing us bash this door? Each is a choice, weighed with consequences for the attempt and for failure. That is why those are examples of skill based play.

Caveat II
** But what about improvisation? How can an encounter be constructed if the scene is improvised?

Singers often improvise, but that doesn't involve some hideous warble - they are still following certain structures and playing notes! You are constructing the encounter in real time! It doesn't change the fact that it's constructed.

Any questions?

On a Question of Mastery

2012-02-05T07:49:00.002-06:00

Had a friend ask me a question about fantasy.

The logical and rational thinking of the modern world is a literal inhibitor to our ability to imagine a fantastic reality. It crowds out fantastic ideas and results in an incredible sameness to the large numbers of fantasy settings out there. More damaging it makes us unwilling to engage in something that pushes the boundaries of the fantastic due to the frustration of attempting to assimilate a new world order.

The question was, "Where does all this gold come from?"

My first response was from the fantastic realism angle.

Consider a world that's been through countless Aeons. Not just one roman empire, but thousands of empires. Cities built upon cities built upon cities. Mega-structures built and long forgotten beneath the ground. Every kingdom, nation, and realm minting their own coin, toiled, extracting it from within the earth, or from within the confines of another civilization.

So there's that.

I then mentioned that this doesn't even begin to touch upon the realm of the fantastic. Perhaps there are portals deep within the earth, perhaps it is the excrement of giant purple worms that have very cities in their interior, perhaps earth spontaneously cycles through different types of materials.

How many fantastic origins of gold and coins can we list?

On Alchemical Items, Oil of Magical Backlash

2012-02-04T03:57:00.043-06:00

Oil of Magical Backlash
BSC:	0%	(R)gp:	350 gp
DC:	28	TTC:	1 days
CC:	12	CGP::	60 gp
NWP:	-9	XP:	200 xp
D100:	-25%	Weight:	- / 20
D6:	0 in 6 / 7	Difficulty:	Formidable
Rarity	Very Rare

Materials: Powdered Gold (1 dram), Powdered Silver (1 dram), Powdered Platinum (1 dram), Rare Earths (4 drams), Almonds (10 drams), Grape Seed (10 drams), Sunflower (10 drams), Olive Oil (8 drams), Zombie Flesh/DecayEssence (10 drams), Naga Scale/Protection Essence (4 drams)

Description: This oil coats a person lasting up to a full month, or coats an item lasting up to a year. During this time if any attempt to break or disjunct magic occurs the attempt is resisted. Spells such as Dispel Magic fail outright and stronger effects such as disjunction either give a save if none is given or provide a +5 bonus to a save.

Rules are here.

On Interesting Treasure: The Plated Skull

2012-02-03T03:53:00.014-06:00

It appears to be a skull made from some rare colorful stone, covered in silver plates with fine engravings. The metal jaw of lead is attached to the base of the irregular sphere.

The fine work and craftsmanship give this high value, and initial delvers will assume that this is some sort of art or artifact created by whatever long dead society once lived among these halls.

However the Vordoz, specifically Larnik the Insufferable, begs to differ with their assumption. His crystaline body, deprived of a head, but not of life, still endlessly searches for where his head is hidden.

If it is somehow removed from the protective wards in the chamber that it lies in, he will surely have a much easier time locating it.

Gold piece value: 4000 gold pieces to an interested party, 800 gold pieces as a curiosity.

On The Thursday Trick, A Pit, Slick

2012-02-02T06:50:00.043-06:00

A Pit, Slick (Category: Pit, Restraints/Hazards)

Trigger:Mechanical: Proximity	Effects:Never Miss
Save: Dexterity Rod/Staff/Wand	Duration:Special
Resets: Automatic	Bypass: Special

Description:Pits are a Dungeon Master's arms race. As player navigate the simplest pits, the following pits must become more and more complicated in order to trap the players. This pit itself is a third order pit.

First you have the simple wall to wall open floor pit. No problem as the players just jump across.

Second, you have a pit designed to stymie jumpers. The ground in front of the pit slopes down towards the pit and is covered in a slick greasy substance. This welcome is mirrored on the other side as well. Take a flying leap over the pit, and you'll slip and whoops! Even if you do manage to make the jump successfully, you'll not be able to maintain your footing on the slick, sloped other side.

So how do they solve this second pit? By using pitons, ropes and other tools to safely climb across the pit so they can reach further areas of the dungeon.

So what's the next tool in the Dungeon Master's arsenal? A Pit, Slick.

This is very simple. The walls are either shoddily constructed, designed to give way and release any pitons or climbing equipment attached, or they contain a deadly and dangerous volatile substance, that will explode with force, preferably somewhere over the slick pit.

Detection/Disarming: A key component of this trap is the wall, their must be something different about it. A good time to mention this in the description is before the threat of the pit is described.

If the players do examine the wall, there must be something different about it - the surface will appear compressed or grainy (ready to crumble), or will be a literal cover over a substance that will not support weight.

It may be more difficulty to ascertain if a substance is planted behind a wall, but anyone examining the stonework should be able to tell that something has changed or replaced the stone walls on either side of the pit.

On the Pixel of the Titan's Mean

2012-02-01T09:51:00.009-06:00

If you haven't seen Tiny Hack, it's an awesome little roguelike.

If you have time to click this post, you have time to click this link and then give the window focus. Do that and tell me it isn't pretty cool. You are seconds away from a pretty cool adventure.

On the Costal Wizards

2012-01-31T08:23:00.000-06:00

You know what's awesome?

Lamentations of the Flame Princess
OSRIC
Swords & Wizardry
Labyrinth Lord
Adventurer Conqueror King

Why? They are thought out - done for love, and amazingly playable. Each one makes you want to grab some dice and head into the depths.

I've rewritten this post a dozen times.

The problem with Wizards, isn't a problem with Wizards. It's the problem with corporations in America. And it can be summed up in two short phrases. Capitalism is a problem and Industry isn't. Because if the only goal of a company is to make money, then it's a bad company. (Henry Ford, Industrialist)

That said, I can move on and talk about more interesting things then the slow painful death of what used to be the Free United States of America!

A company is only as good as their latest product or service.

I wanted and have asked for years for the copyright holders of Dungeons and Dragons to reprint first edition Advanced Dungeons and Dragons.

They are going to reprint first edition.

This is awesome. I spend money on gaming, and the 1e re-release is the first time in about five years Wizards of the Coast will get a dime of it.

There is nothing that can be done to prevent me from having fun at home with my friends. And if wizards is a financial failure and D&D goes the way of the Dodo people will still role-play and someone else will engage the market. The death or life of Wizards has little to do with role-playing at this point.

How do I know this?

People are doing it now for free, someone will make paying products for what clearly has a market.

I like games with built characters and boards, but I'll take them like Arkham Horror. For my RPG's I will continue to play what I'm playing now. The whole D&D next thing is really a non-starter, you know? It's a game, if it's good I'll play. If not, I'll play it and then stop.

Hasbro has done terrible things. These things that they do - ostensibly for money - drive me away from the company and make me wish to not spend money there. Natural consequences. Their questions about the input they are gathering for 5e so far (Holy or Radiant damage, do you want to fight skeletons, goblins, etc.) are so galactically functionally retarded as to virtually guarantee my non-participation. As such, it is doubtful they will get much of my future money.

Natural consequences.

As of now? Until some concrete rules emerge with perspective to understand how they will work in play, there is nothing else to say.

Now we continue with our regularly scheduled programing.

On Skill Deconstruction: Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 2nd Edition

2012-01-30T08:30:00.000-06:00

My father, who like all fathers in our later years are wise where once we found them foolish, had this to say about the release of second edition.

"Just because it's new doesn't mean it's better,"

Upon reflection I'd say that pretty much sums up my lifestyle.

Current Analysis

Second edition skills are simple and straightforward. There are three options, in true second edition style.

Using what you know. This option allows your character to know what you know. There is some grade school primer text on what using this option means. ("Some players and DMs enjoy doing this. They think up good answers quickly. This method is perfect for them, and they should use it.") This is all to common in the "Zeb" books.

Secondary skills is another option, providing a suite of abilities - a broad area of expertise. There is about a 15% chance to end up with two sets of secondary skills. After determining the secondary skills the player and the DM are left to work out what to do with this knowledge.

Non-weapon proficiencies are the third option provided. You get a number of slots dependent on class, and select from a list of very specific skill like proficiencies. The base success of the proficiency is dependent on the relevant statistic with a proficiency specific modifier.

I find these following comments particularly insightful given the last 20 years of play.

"Secondly, using this system increases the amount of time needed to create a character. . . Novice players may be overwhelmed by the number of new choices and rules."

Note that they are discussing the time it takes to pick 3 or 4 skills. Once.

What is it we gain by having this skill?

Speaking to the Non-weapon proficiency system, you gain a simply player directed way to give your character a few skills that he will be competent at. Having the target number being equal to the statistic makes your character good at the skill as soon as it is selected. In other respects, since the Dungeon Master can adjust the chance of success, it works similarly to the D20 system with all the positives and negatives that implies.

What do we lose?

Well, at the time, the system was thought almost too complicated for use. There's no way to raise a skill independently of level gain and the skills are somewhat specific and useless at the same time. Also, a critical point is that skill proficiency is tied to your statistics, which leads to slow growth of proficiency at the skill.

Conclusions & Suggestions:

There's a lot to like about this system, not much to track, simple rules, gives some depth to characters - but there are a lot of problems using the system as is. I imagine many Dungeon Masters made quite a few modifications and house rules to the use of these non-weapon proficiencies, not the least of which was a better method for improving proficiency at the skill.

On Classic Imagery: A Wizard Smoker on a Die and a Unicorn

2012-01-29T06:12:00.039-06:00

Two small images that I never thought much about till I played Hackmaster. Now I think they are quite lovely. These are original scans, so feel free to click to enlarge.

The first is a Wizard (or druid) sitting on a D6. I believe this is by Trampier, but since there is no signature it is just a guess.

Unknown, by D. A. Trampier, Unknown Date
Title Plate, Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Player's Handbook
Ink on Unknown Medium, Unknown Size

This Unicorn occupies the same place in the Dungeon Masters Guide. It is by Darlene Pekul.

Unknown by Darlene Pekul, Unknown Date
Title Plate, Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Dungeon Masters Guide
Ink on Paper, Unknown Size

The parody pieces are below, the first is by Ed Northcott.

Unknown by Ed Northcott 2001
Title Plate, Hackmaster Player's Handbook
Ink on Unknown, Unknown Size

I assume this one is also, though it also lacks a signature.

Unknown by Ed Northcott, Unknown Date
Title Plate, Hackmaster Gamemaster's Guide
Ink on Unknown, Unknown Size

On Alchemical Items, Philter of the Bifurcated Mind

2012-01-28T06:59:00.041-06:00

Philter of the Bifurcated Mind
BSC:	0%	(R)gp:	3000 gp
DC:	28	TTC:	6 days
CC:	12	CGP::	800 gp
NWP:	-9	XP:	250 xp
D100:	-25%	Weight:	- / 20
D6:	0 in 6 / 7	Difficulty:	Formidable
Rarity	Very Rare

Materials: Pure Clear Water (1 ounce), Rare Earths (1 dram), Ettin Eyeballs (4 drams), Intellect Devourer Brain/Mind Essence (4 drams), Angel's or Dragon's Heart/Magic Essence (2 drams)

Description: This powerful filter enhances the mind of the imbiber allowing them to focus on two actions at once. It does not increase the number of limbs or the speed of the imbiber, it simply allows them to focus on two completely seperate mental actions at once. This could include activating a psionic power while fighting, or possibly casting a spell with no somatic components while performing a shield bash. One could use a wand while climbing a rope - or any other combination of activities that you are physically capeable of performing, but require concentration.

Rules are here.

On Interesting Treasure: Sliver Ring of Amon

2012-01-27T10:58:00.001-06:00

The double crossed ring of Amon, deity of purity are often found. The rings are pure silver, and would be worth about 10 gold if not for their special qualities.

The first is as the bearer becomes more physically unclean the ring produces a burning sensation for the user, reminding penitents of Amon the virtue in cleanliness.

If touched to less then 3 cups of water, it will purify them of any foul humors once per sun cycle.

Finally, it has been said that those who remain both physically and spiritually pure may sometimes be protected by the ring. Anyone meeting the criteria may be given a warning before any imminent harm threatens the wearer. (Once annually against an unexpected attack or effect the wearer may roll 2 twenty sided-dice for a saving throw and take the better roll).
Gold Piece Value, 120 gold coins

On The Thursday Trick, Curtains!

2012-01-26T06:52:00.071-06:00

Curtains! (Pit)

Trigger:Mechanical: Latch or Switch	Effects: Liquid Multiple Targets Alchemical Device (possible)
Save: Dexterity or Rod/Staff/Wand	Duration: Instant
Resets: Manual	Bypass: None (Avoid) Disarm

Description:The hallway in front of you is blocked by a curtain.

When the curtain is disturbed, a latch is released. Two things happen at this point. 20' behind you there is a pivot in the ceiling. This allows the ceiling to rotate, quickly swinging down 5' behind you. It hits the floor with a resounding "THOOOM" as the gallons of oil are suddenly freed.

The second thing that happens is that the struts maintaining stability on the 10' square where the curtain is located are released, and the floor suddenly becomes slightly wobbly, tilting down towards the curtain.

Those that are not crushed by the falling ceiling must make a dexterity check to maintain their footing. If they fall through the curtain they need make no roll to detect the pit.

Torches dropped or held have a tendency to ignite the oil fumes so feel free to apply 2d6 burning damage per round till the fire is put out.

Anyone standing underneath the ceiling 5'-10' away from the curtain must make a save vs. rods or take 8d8 crushing damage. Those that save take half. Those standing 11'-15' away must make a save vs. rods or take 2d6 damage. Those that save take none. Small adventurers like halflings and such get +4 to their save.

Once one turn has passed, the ceiling slowly winds itself back up into place, and the oil refills from a reservoir of oil.

Fill the pit with whatever terror you wish.

Detection/Disarming: Curtains are wonderful. Sometimes they cover alcoves, sometimes they conceal treasure, and sometimes, sometimes they crush you to death while setting your companions on fire before dumping them into a pit filled with poison spikes and hungry monsters.

The first thing that players might notice is the smell of oil. Though not strong it is just above their heads. A close inspection of the ceiling will reveal the pivot spot, and there will probably be discoloration from oil leakage where the ceiling falls.

As they near the curtain, they may notice it is singed (for the curtain itself is flameproof). It should also be clear the the floor is darker and stained and possibly a little slick from the oil that has been spilled down its surface.

There may be the recent or not so recent remains of a corpse where the ceiling slams into the floor. On the other hand, perhaps not, being the loud noise the trap makes when set off tends to attract many of the larger predators in the dungeon.

On Skill Deconstruction: Hackmaster Skills

2012-01-25T07:30:00.083-06:00

This post is about Hackmaster 4e, the older version, which is a truly excellent game. It is basically 1st Edition Dungeons and Dragons with a truly excellent set of additions.

Current Analysis

Skills in Hackmaster are percentile based where you roll under. Your skill number is modified by situational circumstance. Gem cutting may be at 47% and in a gem cutting studio with exellent tools and good lighting you'll get a +40%. You'll need to roll under 87% to succeed.

Skills are purchased with building points. They increase at different rates based on die sizes. Their initial development is equal to the relevant statistic plus a die roll. You may purchase as many die rolls as you can afford.You can also use these during character creation to raise stats and purchase other abilities. After character creation something rather excellent happens.

You can raise your skills by going to school or by use.

Granted, you can raise them at level up also, as part of training for the next level. But the ability to raise skill independently of level is great.

The other things to note is that skills are very very fiddly. Some examples of skills:

Art Appraisal: Subset: Painting
Art Appreciation: Subset: Sculpture
Cartography: Dungeon
Cartography: Hasty Mapping
Cartography: Overland
Coin Pile Numerical Estimation
First Aid: Cauterize Wound
First Aid: Sew Wound
First Aid: Sew Own Wounds

Now at first glance, this may seem like a terrible thing, until you become aware of two facts.

Skills are much like magical powers.
A successful Military: Battle Sense roll will give you +2 to hit and damage in a set-piece battle, but not in single combat and brawls.
A successful Military: Operations roll will give everyone under his command +1 to hit and damage
A successful Dirty Fighting roll gives -2 to AC, but +2 to hit and damage with criticals on 19-20.
A successful Establish Ambush Zone roll gives double chances to surprise.
A successful First Aid: Cauterize wound can stop bleeding (by doing 1d4 damage)
A successful First Aid: Sew Wounds skill allows you to double the natural healing rate.
A successful Cartography: Overland skill roll allows the character ask the GM a question about where he is or where he needs to go.
A successful Cartography: Dungeon skill roll allows the character to ask the DM where he is or how to get out, or how far he is from the exit, or how far from a level he is.

The other wonderful thing is that with such a bizarre, descriptive, and situationally useful set of skills that can be raised independently of levels is that players become very vested in raising those skills to useful values. And it is very, very, expensive to raise skills resulting in extremely . . . motivated players.

What is it we gain by having this skill?

A great method of customizing characters. A great motivator for player adventuring. Skills that don't negatively impact play or attempt to subvert role-playing or the play of the game. Having a set value the character knows and being able to modify that target situationally is a good tool for both the player and the dungeon master because it allows the player through skillful play to seriously affect their chances. Allowing skills to develop independently of leveling is a great aid to constantly giving the players the feeling of progress and advancement without constant increases in level and absurd amounts of power.

What do we lose?

The character creation is a game in itself, done correctly sometimes taking a few hours per PC. The complexity in the skill choices requires a lot of work from players for reading and decision making. Tracking all the totals of the skills and schooling requires a fair bit of time (one session out of five was wrapped up in tracking all the ephemera of Hackmaster)

Conclusions & Suggestions:

Using this skill system was a lot of fun, but had some serious drawbacks in terms of time and paperwork required. It also requires a lot of the players and there was quite a bit of complaining when first playing Hackmaster over the many, many instances of exception based design and the general complexity of the skill system.

On Dissatisfaction

2012-01-24T06:05:00.048-06:00

So have you published your fantasy heartbreaker yet?

My first reaction at seeing a new set of core rules? Annoyance, disgust, eye rolling derision.

Most people are much worse writers then they think they are, and that goes to a hyperbolic degree more severe for game designers.

There are some that are excellent game designers but most are terrible. Also, we already have games that we play! As far as I'm concerned *Advanced Dungeons and Dragons 1st Edition by Gary Gygax* is the best game ever! (Insert your own version between the stars). Other games are a waste of time - pointless!

And yet. . .

You see, I love AD&D, but my players - some just won't traffic with ThAC0 - even if the equation is hidden from them, races restrictions and level limits may bother them just too much even if they never actually end up happening in play, and truthfully as I run with more girls and fewer guys the intense subsystems can be a little overwhelming and more then they like to deal with.

So when you start trying to fix things and houserule, you find yourself having a difficulty with making this an environment that is conducive to reference (Yes, those are on the internet, we're using this from this book, and here's a new weapon price list) and one that is extremely intimidating for new players.

So you might set out to find something simpler. And then you start looking and nothing seems quite right. So you make a few changes, and since you're doing all this work anyway. . .

So, that's how it happens. Me? What am I looking for? Something simple for new players. A easier division of classes of warrior, mage, and specialist hybrid.Within those categories an infinite number of "classes", limited only by your imagination. Or my idealized five class system Fighter, Thief/Expert, Magic-User, Psionicist, and Alchemist. Though I'm set against creating or publishing a heart breaker I do have some things I'd like to see. Most of them hearken back to an earlier day in gaming history. . .

Any interest in a write up of some of these ideas?

On Monster Weakness

2012-01-23T07:50:00.000-06:00

Recently over on Gothridge Manor, Tim asked "Why don't monsters get a strength bonus to damage!?"

Sigh

Ok, let's pretend for just one moment that we don't have actual proof of the effects that stating out every monster has on actual game play. Let's assume that we haven't seen how much longer and more complicated things get when you have to figure out all the little bonuses and track a ton of stuff for something that's only going to be alive for a few minutes. Try to forget all the endless hours of prep that were necessary to prepare for a 3.x adventure.

Let's just answer the question, why don't monsters have a strength bonus.

So this argument is from realism, right? The players are swinging a sword and Harthgar Snigglepants the dwarf does a minimum of 3 damage, so how come a monster can end up only doing one? It doesn't make sense. It isn't realistic.

Well, that's not the intent.

Generally without strength, monsters are designed with more attacks and larger damage ranges than players. Olden times, you would see an entry that would say 2-8 or by weapon type (as gnoll), or perhaps you might find another entry saying 1-12 damage (as mummy). What are these creatures attacking you with? A slam? Their claws?

You know how much you do with your fists? One point of damage.

The second and more important point, is that these are monsters fighting the heroes. In mighty tales the monster often makes a vicious attack and due to the fortitude, luck, skill, and majesty of the heroes only does a light scratch.

The damage isn't supposed to be some realistic physics model of damage, it's supposed to abstractly represent the tales of heroism from youth.

So stop worrying about trying to get monsters to work realistically and start having more fun.

On Classic Imagery: A Paladin in Hell

2012-01-22T12:53:00.007-06:00

A little discussion of iconic imagery and it's history in Dungeons and Dragons.

When I was a youth, my father took me to the mall to pick up his own personal copy of the 1st edition Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Players Handbook by Gary Gygax. He was in a gaming group and was buying one for himself. I don't remember him purchasing it from Waldenbooks, but afterwords we walked a little way and sat down in the pizzeria and sat down to look at it.
I'm sure I asked a lot of questions that day, but I have one clear memory that stands out among all others. It still resonates with me to this day.

"A Paladin in Hell" David C. Southerland B&W
Page 23 of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Players Handbook

Click it to appreciate it.

The thought of that faceless man, entering a Bosch-like hell, surrounded by a blinding aura of good is haunting. Alone, with courage he takes on inhuman monstrosities. It spoke to me of adventure and sacrifice.

To this day paladin is one of my favorite classes.

One of the wonderful things about the OSR are the large number of homages to classic art. Here are a few of the best.

My personal favorite homage is the Hackmaster one:

Hackmaster Player's Handbook,
Unknown Artist Page 55

Homages are nothing new, here's a second edition homage by Fred Fields, with an entire accompanying module. The module is written by Monte Cook and has an old school deadliness. It even features Emirikol the Chaotic!

A Paladin in Hell, 1988 Fred Fields, 13"x15-1/2"
Oils on artboard

An unknown piece from a book I do not have. Appears to be a color homage.

A Paladin in Hell, Unknown, Page 91
Advanced Dungeons and Dragons 2nd Edition Dungeon Master's Guide

Here is the Homage from the Fiendish Codex II by Carl Frank.

A Paladin in Hell, Carl Frank,
Fiendish Codex II

Here is an Unintentional Homage by Craig J. Spearing.

Dragon #388 Cover by Craig J. Spearing

And before we leave, Daddy Grognard did some number crunching on this piece. His Saturday Night Fight Club link is worth a read if you're curious how the paladin does.

On Alchemical Items, Dust of Decay

2012-01-21T07:59:00.046-06:00

Dust of Decay
BSC:	15%	(R)gp:	250 gp
DC:	25	TTC:	1 days
CC:	9	CGP::	80 gp
NWP:	-6	XP:	25 xp
D100:	-10%	Weight:	- / 20
D6:	1 in 6 / 6	Difficulty:	Very Hard
Rarity	Very Rare

Materials: Rare Earths (5 drams), Salt (4 drams), Powdered Silver (1 dram), Powdered Gold (1 dram), Powdered Platinum (1 dram), Zombie Flesh/Decay Essence (10 drams),

Description: This dust causes non-living material to age and decay. When a pinch is applied it affects up to 3 cubic feet of material. This non-living material then rapidly ages approximately 300 years. If 2 pinches are used objects will age up to 1000 years. Each bag of dust is found with 1d12+8 pinches available, newly crafted dusts will have a full 20 doses.
This will cause stone to weather, crack and weaken and in most cases will dissolve wooden and less sturdy supports. A full bag will affect 600 cubic feet of building for 300 years, or half that for a millennium. Specific effects are left to the adjudication of the Dungeon Master, a safe damage range for a collapsing building is 10d6.
This will also rust and destroy armor, destroy rope, rations, iron spikes, doors and other equipment. Note that this has no effect on any sort of living organism, such as a tree, grass, animals, a human being or fungi. It causes no damage to undead, but naked vampires are usually not very happy.

Rules are here.

On Interesting Treasure: The Golden Bee

2012-01-20T09:58:00.001-06:00

This treasure is always comes in a pair. First, inside a small crystal case, an intricate golden bee rests on red velvet. It is made from some golden alloy and set with rubies for eyes.

Any close observer of the bee will soon notice that it is not still. Occasionally it turns its head and its wings flutter intermittently as if testing the air.

Those who find one of these had best take care to locate it's companion. Always nearby there will be another crystal case, this one of blue velvet and inside rests a bee.

As with the first case, close observers will note that although the bee remains perfectly still and does not move it does appear to be a living bee.

If either of the containers is moved too far away from the other, the treasure is ruined. For the still living bee shudders and falls over, instantly drying out and rests leaving a dessicated corpse, while the golden bee thrashes about as it slowly turns into gold dust. The velvet bottoms of both crystal cases then fade to grey, becoming thin and worn.

No one knows the original purpose of the bees. It is believed that they were created by the ancient lost Meleckstchuppin (Me-lek-stuppin) gnome clan, long ostracized by accusations of Dwarven interbreeding.
Gold piece value for the pair: 800gp

On Why You're Not Smart Enough to Play

2012-01-19T08:09:00.003-06:00

Player skill does not have anything to do with ability scores.

I've been playing Dungeons and Dragons for over twenty years. Even today I see the same tired arguments that were in Dragon Magazine.

Let's leave off any sort of post 2000 edition discussion; clearly scores became divorced from actual character representation when the game shifted to a tactical encounter based mode. I doubt anyone is going to resolve any thesis about their Intelligence 28 Wizard.

But what about in older games, where the bell curve distribution is meant to be representative?
Isn't player skill unfair to players who aren't as good at playing the game?
Why rely on skill when you don't rely on their physical statistics?
Why rely on their personal Charisma to resolve problems?
After all, If you don't ask the players with an 18 Strength to lift a sofa, then why would you ask your players with an 18 Charisma to come up with something witty to say?

What an excellent Strawman!

Player skill does not have to do with anything subjective. I don't require my players to be witty or convince me at the table. If they do come up with something witty I'm sure to reward them, but at no point is it ever required for success in play.

Having a low intelligence or a high charisma or a percentile strength has nothing to do at all with the player. Each of these stats has specific in game mechanical effects and the player is under no stipulations to act in any way differently then he chooses to act, no matter what his ability scores.

The problem comes with the conflation of the term 'role-playing'. What is meant by the term is that you take the role of a person in a situation and make decisions as if you were them. Let me say that again.

What is meant by role playing is that you 'take the role' of a person in a situation and make decisions as if you were them.

This is the setup of a 'Player Character' and all the associated character creation verbiage in each edition of Dungeons & Dragons. Somehow this has become confused somewhere along the line with thespian aspirations.

Is their any part of the Character Creation chapters in the Dungeons & Dragons Player's Handbook where it talks about what voice to use to portray your character? In the core books is there a section outlining what behavior you can portray at the table for each level of the stats? Am I just thinking I'm too familiar with the books and I've missed that section in the dozens of editions and retro-clones that I've read?

The ability score statistics already represent themselves in play. Their charisma determines the reaction adjustment and number of henchmen (or spell save DC's for charisma casters - whatever). I no more expect someone to bench press weights then I expect someone to go see how many people they can hire. This is the purpose of the stats.

Now I am aware that the referee is explicitly given the option of limiting player behavior based on statistics, but this has nothing to do with player skill, nor does it or should it limit the behavior of the player in any way. While the player is under no proscription of his ability, the referee is free to describe things poorly to the dumb characters and veto actions.

I want to make it clear, I'm not saying acting like your character isn't fun or that you shouldn't do it. I'm not saying it's bad in any way, or that you can't have a lot of fun with a much higher degree of 'role assumption'. I'm just saying it's not explicit in the rules that you must do so and that doing so has nothing at all to do with player skill.

Player skill is about choices and ideas, not subjective behavior.

On The Thursday Trick, A Corridor, Separated

2012-01-18T08:06:00.001-06:00

A Corridor, Separated (Special, Restraints/Hazards)

Trigger: Varies, Mechanical: Pressure Plate Mechanical: Tripwire or Trigger Wire Mechanical: Proximity Mechanical: Light Detection Magical: Proximity Magical: Sound Magical: Visual Magical: Touch	Effects:Never Miss Multiple Targets
Save: None	Duration: Instant
Resets: Automatic	Bypass: Disarm

Description: This is a classic dungeon trap of separate and destroy.

In a long 10' wide hallway there is a trigger at the end. Behind the right (or left) wall in the hallway is an empty area where monsters reside, also about 10' wide and as long as you wish.

When the trap is triggered, each 20' section of wall pivots in the middle, 90 degrees clockwise. Now, instead of a hallway, you have a number of 10' long, 20' wide rooms, each with one or two individual adventurers and their very own monster.

The monsters can be non-living or non-moving monsters such as undead, constructs or plants, or their could be different exits or ways for the monsters to enter the feeding chambers. Also once the trap is sprung it could be that the only exits from each new chamber lead to different areas.

Detection/Disarming: Since this trap is usually sprung at the end of a long corridor there are many clues that could be found by astute adventurers.

The first and most obvious is the scrape marks on the floor and ceiling from the walls turning. Over time they could cause what would appear to be a pattern of quarter-circle shaped marks where the walls shift.

Players could also notice dark splotches that end in sharp lines on the floor and walls. Blood would clearly be spilt and it would land on the floor, but when the walls move back into place it would leave a sharp demarcation where no blood would be.

It may also be possible to hear the monsters behind the wall, and the characters may see broken arms and armor littering the hallway ahead.

On Skill Deconstruction: Use Magic Device

2012-01-17T06:40:00.000-06:00

Use Magic Device is a skill reflecting activating magical items. It uses the Charisma stat as a modifier

There is a long precedent for this skill both in literature (re: Cudgel) and in the game. A D20 resolution works fine, but it could be improved by having some tables or ability to produce partial successes.

Thank everyone for staying with me and commenting. Up next, a quick glance at some other skill systems and how they handle various things.

On Skill Deconstruction: Survival & Swim

2012-01-16T16:40:00.057-06:00

Survival is a skill reflecting your ability to survive in the wilderness. It uses the Wisdom stat as a modifier. Swim is your ability to uh, man, seriously?

Ok, Swim is useless, for the same reason Climb is. I should have put this with that. Go back and read climb for my thoughts on swim.

Survival is a bit more interesting, because it has actual function uses, but it is totally pointless to put any points into the skill relatively quickly, making it more like a class feature.

What can you do with Survival and which of these are useful?
You can use to to both move and not starve to death at the same time. Pointless as hell!

You can improve your ability to resist severe weather like Heavy winds and Blizzards and Thunderstorms. Useless!

You can avoid getting lost and navigate around natural hazards. Of some utility for hexcrawls!

You can predict the weather! How is this useful enough in a role playing context to be a skill?

You can track! Totally functional!

Let's call the Survival skill the Tracking skill!

Current Analysis

A lot of these skills have been around a long time - tracking since 1e. So obviously there is some ground here for use. The problem is, excepting tracking, all of these "Skill functions" are really "abilities". You are either able to intuit direction or you cannot. Also, player skill can be used for this instead of a character skill. Weather prediction is so rarely useful that being able to predict the weather with any certainty is pointless.

Fortunately due to the ways skills work, these functions basically become automatic at the expenditure of 1 skill point.

Tracking though, works, i think, just like it should. However it has the same problem tracking always did - the ease in the campaign that someone can overcome or supersede it with magic.

Conclusions & Suggestions:

I remember all these skills from second edition there, and they were for flavor. Simply letting someone do these things is such a non-issue that it seems strange anyone willing to spend 1 point on a class skill can do them trivially.

I'm fairly certain tracking works as it always has. Although, you might be able to come up with a fairly simple mini-game to replace the skill that might be cool.

On Alchemical Items, Oil of Acceleration

2012-01-15T07:59:00.067-06:00

Oil of Acceleration
BSC:	30%	(R)gp:	800 gp
DC:	22	TTC:	2 days
CC:	6	CGP::	200 gp
NWP:	-3	XP:	150 xp
D100:	+5%	Weight:	- / 20
D6:	2 in 6 / 5	Difficulty:	Hard
Rarity	Very Rare

Materials: Powdered Silver (1 dram), Powdered Gold (1 dram), Powdered Platinum (1 dram), Rare Earths (4 drams), Almonds (10 drams), Sunflowers (10 drams), Grapeseed (10 drams), Olive Oil (8 ounces), Pegasus Blood/Speed Essence (2 drams), Powdered Sapphire (5 drams)

Description: This oil when applied to the skin grants the user increased speed. Air seems to flow around them, armor moves with less resistance, and the user becomes much faster than normal. One application of this oil will increase the users speed by 50%. Users with a base speed of 12" will move at 18", a speed of 9" will move at 13.5", and a base speed of 6" will move at 9" (Increase base speed by 50%, 20' or 4 squares per move becomes 30' or 6 squares and 30' or 6 squares per move becomes 45' or 9 squares per move action). Note that this oil bypasses restrictions to speed from armor, the armor restriction of weight and bulk is applied, and that movement value is increased by half. Moving at this speed is as tiring as moving at whatever rate you are moving would normally fatigue you.

Although normal oils last 4+1-4 turns, due to the extreme speeds the user travels at, this oil tends to dry out quickly. It lasts for 1 turn.

Rules are here.

On Interesting Treasure: The Wooden Child

2012-01-14T13:15:00.000-06:00

It is said that the wood elves know no art but that of archery and death, and yet like all elves they leave traces of their passing.

Seeking an earlier age of innocence and youth, a wood elf will often craft a wooden child. These 1'-3' intricate wooden sculptures often seem to take on a life of their own. Indeed it is said the soul of a wood elf can be viewed through the eyes of these children.

If that is simple allegory or if one is able to see through the eyes of the Silvan people using this item or even if this grants control over their forest creators is unknown.

In an unrelated fact, these remain rare and tend to disappear due to the frequency of mysterious and coincidental death of the owners.
Gold piece value: 1200 gp
Weight, 80-350 lbs.

On the Analysis of Useless Race Data

2012-01-13T09:11:00.001-06:00

So the polls are closed, and weirdness.

First Poll: 165 responses

Second Poll: 97 responses

What happened to 68 people between the first and the second!

Ok, so Does your DM allow non-standard races?

I/we only allow humans	13 (7%)
I/we only allow humans, elves, and dwarves	18 (10%)
I/we allow all 3.x core races (Human, dwarf, elf, gnome, half-orc, halfling)	42 (25%)
I/we allow all 4.x core races (dragon people)	8 (4%)
I/we allow weirdness (Warforged, kobolds, changings etc.)	84 (50%)

So loyal readers, lets look at what this doesn't tell us. It looks like nearly half of everyone is playing with a non-standard race, with a full quarter running the standard 3.x suite of races. A handful of people play 4e (Isn't that the truth!) and the remaining votes go to either human only, or basic old school campaign race selection.

Which of the following types of games is preferred?

Humans only	25 (25%)
Core races (human/elf/dwarf) only	22 (22%)
Standard AD&D/3e/4e races only	17 (17%)
Anything goes!	33 (34%)

What's really interesting with this last poll, is in contrast to the other useless data, this useless data doesn't tell us that the preferred type of game is nearly an even split. Slightly more people prefer anything goes, but it is a quarter want human only, and a quarter want core races only.

Well I hope everyone didn't learn anything today and I look forward to talking about more exciting stuff tomorrow!

On The Thursday Trick, Falling Cage

2012-01-12T07:52:00.000-06:00

Falling Cage (Restraints/Hazards)

Trigger: Mechanical: Pressure Plate or Mechanical: Latch or Switch or Mechanical: Tripwire or Trigger Wire	Effects: Never Miss Multiple Targets
Save:None	Duration: Instant
Resets: Manual	Bypass:Disarm

Description: This trap has spelled the doom of more than one adventurer in its day. Perfect for your dungeon environs populated by intelligent beasts. They simply have to walk down the hall and check in the cage to find out what's for breakfast.

The trigger for this trap is most often a pressure plate, but once triggered there is little chance of an escape. The cages tend to be large, covering a 10' x 10' area at a minimum, and fall from the ceiling quickly.

If anyone triggering the trap insists on trying to duck out of the way, let them try. If they fail a Rods, Staves, and Wands check at -15 they have been trapped underneath the falling cage. Do 6d8 damage to an appropriate limb, spine or head.

People adjacent or nearby the person who triggers the trap have it easier, they can make a Rods, Staves, Wands save at -4 to determine if they are inside the the cage or not. If they make or fail the save within 4 points then they take 1d6 damage from the falling cage.

Detection/Disarming: This trap is easily detected by those who know what to look for, because in order to trap anyone, it must fall from the ceiling. If it has no top, then the cage itself must run nearly to the ceiling, and it can be detected by the long narrow slots in the ceiling where the cage resides.

If it does have a top, then there must be ample room on the ceiling to hold the entire cage.

Though this trap can be camouflaged either by low light, similar coloring, rags, weeds and leaves, dark paint, or even magical efforts such as invisibility and illusion it still requires a large area and is often easily detected simply by looking up. Since the cage usually has manual reset, there is often little sign of the trap near the ground. Some of the stone may be cracked and broken from the force of the cage slamming into the ground, and there may be metal shavings or bent pieces of metal where someone tried to escape.

Most of the Denizens nearby should be familiar with the noise of the cage triggering, so there is usually little opportunity to escape before the arrival of some hideous netherworld creature.

On the Superiority of the Railroad Method Over Sandboxes

2012-01-11T07:35:00.002-06:00

Oh, you read that correctly loyal readers.

Man, do sandboxes suck. Oh, What's that, you don't agree with me?

Then why are there so many threads about BBEG*'s? Why is there so much focus on 'My Precious Encounter' adventure design? Why are tens of thousands (hundreds of thousands?) of people running railroaded games where there's a plot to be followed, leaving just us few hundred people fighting the good fight.

Maybe you've sold one or several on your friends on running a sandbox game. Did it not live up to expectations? Did the game for some reason get boring after the constant questioning of "What are you doing this week?"

Clearly this is because sandboxes suck! Or wait, maybe that isn't it.

Maybe it's because people are lazy and shallow and don't wish to exert themselves. Perhaps it the players who are responsible for making a sandbox fun! Maybe that's why they just aren't working. Sure - the players create the adventure, and it's their fault each session after lackluster session ends up in covering the same ground, killing the same monsters on the same random encounter table, with nothing exciting happening.

Oh, you were a player in one of those games? Well if it's not the DM, and it's not the Players, what is it?

An incomplete adventure design.

Aren't we looking for how to make this thing work? Here's how.

Step One:

The Passive Campaign: Why U Haz One?

The Passive campaign: Don't have one.

Go ahead, give your players total freedom and watch them do nothing.

Option Paralysis is a real quality in human beings, so avoid it. Do not assume because you have a map and hexes and dungeons that going 'here's a dungeon, have fun' is enough to create an engaging campaign.

You want an engaging campaign - every week engage the players as if you were running a railroad.

Give up the desire to locate me,
your suffering will end.

Step Two:
Your Aspirations, Literary or Otherwise: Give them up.

But if you're running the campaign like a railroad - what if they don't do what you want?

Give up what you want.

Yes, you need to engage the players with linear adventure in the form of quest-lines and dungeons, mystery plots and character arcs.

But, you have to accept failed and ignored quests and dungeons, mysteries left unsolved and death and misfortune preventing the end of development arcs, suddenly.

Yes, you need to engage the players with space structure by creating interesting sites and places to go, detailing towns, castles, dungeons, and camps.

But you have to accept ignored towns and people being dismissed, and long forgotten tombs and ruins remaining distant memories.

Yes, you need to create a dynamic world with time structure, including random encounters, plans that engage and happen if the players fail to intervene, dungeons that restock, and events that move regardless if the players are their or not.

But you have to accept that they will miss some of these events arriving late or early, fail to recognize when some are happening, and engage in events in orders that will change your carefully structured plans.

Yes, make each of your scenes as if it was a 'my precious encounter'

But have plenty of 'empty' rooms and allow them to miss or bypass as many of your precious encounters as they can manage.

Yes, you need to create a great power structure, with many influential forces and NPC's with plots and plans that influence the players and the world.

But you need to stop passing judgement on what is right and what is wrong, and let the players make their own choices and align themselves with however they feel is best. Get rid of the big bad evil guys and good heroes and make the plotters, movers, and shakers a little more complex and dynamic characters, rather then just 'evil because'.

Buddha says: Create game in railroad style, let go of railroad desire. Railroad desire is the root of all suffering.

*BBEG is Big Bad Evil Guy

On a Happy Belated Solstice to Me!

2012-01-10T12:54:00.000-06:00

On Skill Deconstruction: Sense Motive

2012-01-10T09:40:00.057-06:00

Sense Motive is a skill reflecting your ability to assess situations. It uses the Wisdom stat as a modifier

I am not a big fan of this skill. I wrote a little bit about a certain ogre that existed in many places at once.

The point of these posts was that games are most fun when players can make choices that matter. To do this requires information.

Sense motive is a skill that exclusively exists to give players information about what is going on around them. Since this is a skill, you roll it to succeed at a task. Meaning in a game with sense motive I can be forced to withhold information from players if they fail their skill roll.

But shouldn't there be some things player's shouldn't know? More on this in a second.

What can you do with Sense Motive?

It opposes Bluff. You can get a "gut assessment" of the social situation. You can detect when someone is under an enchantment and you can interpret secret messages.

Which of these have ground for use?

None of them.

Current Analysis

This was the most dreadfully misunderstood point of the whole Quantum Ogre argument. Justin Alexander over at The Alexandrian made the point:

Players making a choice without having relevant information is only a problem if they don’t have the ability to gain that information. The choice to not get that information is a meaningful choice.

I 100% agree with this assessment.

However, when you are dealing with people, as people they may have needs that cannot be easily met from the in-game information they can acquire. If they are all tired and just want to kill some stuff for a few hours and not do any heavy role-playing - then forcing them to acquire that information in character is a dick move. You can go ahead and tell them, you know - there's a lot of killing to be done here.

But that's not the problem with sense motive. Sense motive is rolled to determine something the characters would know, and yet they have a chance to fail. As a DM you are handing out a lot of information during a game and people are talking, and grabbing snacks and going to the bathroom, and could just misinterpret a variety of things you are doing that have nothing to do with the encounter or the game.

When a player just wants to understand the context of the situation his character is in, then he should not have a chance to fail.

Conclusions & Suggestions:
Turn the social conflict into some kind of mini-game. Let players use sense motive to get a 'gut feeling' only ignore the die roll and clarify whatever their confusion is. Allow them to use player skill to uncover enchantment effects or decipher secret messages.

On Skill Deconstruction: The Fluff Fallacy, Perform & Profession

2012-01-09T15:40:00.043-06:00

Perform is a skill reflecting your ability to entertain, Profession your ability to complete a task. Perform uses Charisma, Profession uses Wisdom

Hey! I have an idea! Let's take something awesome, and find a way to make it really really boring.

Conclusions & Suggestions
Allow players to write down whatever profession/perform skill they want. Have them describe what they do, when they do it. Give them a increasingly random amount of gold based on the entertainment value of the description. Also: You could have them get better the more they do it! (note that this is opposed to "I roll a 7" "You get 7 gold")

Fluffing up the skill
This is a great opportunity to disscuss the Fluff fallacy.

This is the argument that if a shitty thing is entertainingly presented, then it is magically no longer shitty. The logic for this is understandable. If we see a curvy girl next to a whale (I'm not being sexist here, I MEAN AN ACTUAL WHALE, GEEZE) she will appear less significant.

If we hear someone make an entertaining comment or describe something well, we are likely not to be bothered by the anti-climax of rolling some dice.

How is my suggestion in the conclusion different from the roll? It frees you from the static d20 roll, and allows you to make the description an actual entertaining interaction between human beings. You can push forward more dice to be rolled for gold as the entertainment value increases. It rewards player skill and creates a fun environment for players.

Can't you entertainingly describe it anyway? Sure you could - and it will have the same effect as any non-die rolling action you take in the d20 system - NONE.

Could you just roll a die and skip all of the above? Sure - but why is rolling a die to skip having fun of value?

On Sheer Idiocy

2012-01-09T07:54:00.003-06:00

Image courtesy
the New York Times

New York Times can't keep a secret.

This is a sad day for mankind.

"We can't write a game good enough for people to want to buy, so why don't you tell us how?"
-Wizards of the Coast

I've got too many good games to play. Thanks though.

On Alchemical Items, Dust of Deliquescence

2012-01-08T07:59:00.056-06:00

Dust of Deliquescence
BSC:	30%	(R)gp:	150 gp
DC:	22	TTC:	1 days
CC:	6	CGP::	50 gp
NWP:	-3	XP:	50 xp
D100:	+5%	Weight:	- / 20
D6:	2 in 6 / 5	Difficulty:	Difficult
Rarity	Uncommon

Materials: Rare Earths (5 drams), Lye (4 drams), Powdered Silver (1 dram), Powdered Gold (1 dram), Powdered Platnium (1 dram), Rust Monster Scales/Entropy Essence (2 drams)

Description: This dust, when spread over once living material that is no longer alive, produces a thick, dark, mist for several moments. This mist contains streams and wisps of sparkling silver smoke, and a soft ominous hissing sound can be heard. Several moments later, the dust clears and the corpse disappears.
This dust has no effect on any living creature, and does not affect plant life - only animal. It will destroy dead bodies, leather armor, and other dead organic matter in one round leaving no trace. Most undead are unaffected by this dust, though it will do 3d6 damage to corporeal undead that have fewer than 3 hit dice.
Rules are here.

On Interesting Treasure: Marriage Chair

2012-01-07T06:58:00.022-06:00

This 3' relic of the Yate people is highly sought after and difficult to find.

During their marriage ceremonies the headpiece of the bride was removed and doused in the blood of her other suitors. Once this headpiece was placed upon the marriage chair the bride was said to be unable to refuse any wish of her husband.

The back is of pure soft gold and polished sliver. The cushion is covered in the skin of the rare purple mushroom of the Yate. It is decorated with the polished bone spheres of infant nightingales. The bottom is set with pearls and more polished steel.

Is is unknown if the legendary subservience of Yate wives was due to this enchantment or the aggressive highly dominate nature of their men. Regardless, the legend causes high demand for such a treasure by nobles. Few remain in existence and those that do are so delicate as to be at constant risk of destruction.

Gold piece value: 8400 gold

On Skill Deconstruction: The Travesty of Knowledge & Linguistics

2012-01-06T07:37:00.000-06:00

Knowledge is a skill reflecting what your character knows. Linguistics is a skill reflecting what languages your character knows. It uses the Intelligence stat as a modifier.

Let's skip the usual format today and talk about what exactly you are doing at your table.

I am confused by the purpose of this skill. Pathfinder has a nice little write up that allows you to use this skill to determine the abilities of monsters you encounter. Roll well enough and you can ask "What's this monsters AC?" or "What type of Damage Reduction does this monster have?"

I am even accepting of the traditional uses listed in the table for this skill (determine aura type, depth underground, common plants or animals) as useless as they are.

I just fail to understand how this is supposed to be used in play. Here are the situations I can imagine.

There is a piece of information. It is either trivial and of no importance, or it is interesting providing some depth and background to the game and not vital, or it is a crucial piece of information.

In any possible conceivable case is the game improved by withholding any of the above information?

The erudite LS of Comma, Blank_ proposed an example in which a knowledge check was made for background information about the crown, when pressed about the benefit of using random chance to determine the item, replied with this:

The benefit is the opportunity for the player to choose their own level of involvement. Setting aside the die roll for a moment, the system you outlined doesn't seem to allow for much flexibility beyond class.

As discussed recently nearly every edition has some sort of system for allowing customization outside of class. It is totally possible for any class to be a scholar of religion, either using the customization options within your game or simply allowing the player to describe their character. While discussing it, he mentions the same root problem with many of the 3.x skills:

In honesty, though, I will admit that the randomization element isn't very useful for knowledge skills. It can easily be explained, but it's not particularly exciting and the roll doesn't really drive the game forward the way an acrobatics check to dodge a pendulum blade might. I tend to think that there's only a dice roll attached to it because otherwise there would need to be a secondary skills system which didn't require dice. Even I would admit that would be needlessly complicated.

It is convenient to use in 3.x because you're getting all these skill points anyway, but the system sucks.

Should players be allowed to determine their specialties and what their characters know? Yes.

Are there any arguments for the roll improving the game in any way?

Not to be forgotten, languages have always sucked in Dungeons and Dragons. Did anyone ever choose to learn Xorn? How about Elven Cat? There is one stellar improvement in the 3.x system regarding languages from Advanced Dungeons and Dragons, being that they are almost identical systems - it is that in 3.x you have a system for automatically acquiring new languages.

Every time you level up and get skill points.

Even if it only takes you a week.

Regardless it's still an improvement over having no system for increasing the number of languages you know; though I am fond of having a maximum number of languages knowable instead of being able to speak 20+ languages.

Am I being sarcastic here? I don't even know.

(Here's a hint - you can learn a new language by taking the time in game to learn a new language).

Now I know there are some players out there who are just under some compulsion to think a game should model reality - they will try to tax your money in monopoly, politically influence you in chess, and require players to chant and swing their arms to cast spells while playing magic.

So yes, people have varying fluency in language (or crafts. or professions, or etc.). You can represent that using some sort of partial skill system - but in what way does that improve the experience of play?

In spite of my tone, I'm really looking for some sort of spirited defense, some insight about how to make skills tons more absorbing at the table. These d20 skills are certainly my very most least favorite things during play, to the point where 90% of the time it's irritating to even have to roll. I want to be shown what I'm doing wrong and how I'm just not looking at it the right way.

On The Thursday Trick, Bear Trap

2012-01-05T06:52:00.000-06:00

Bear Trap (Restraints/Hazards)

Trigger: Mechanical: Pressure Plate	Effects
Save:Dexterity	Duration: Instant
Resets: Manual	Bypass:Disarm

Description: This is a bear trap, for bears. Spring powered, sometimes called an ankle biter, these can use food as a lure or be concealed in some manner - possibly even magically.

If not discovered by searching, checking the characters reflexes with a dexterity check can help them avoid the trap. This check covers both catching sight of the trap at the last minute and ducking out of the way.

Failure means taking 2d8-1 damage. If the character is not wearing leg armor (i.e. leather) or both dice come up 8, then the leg is broken. They are also trapped.

If the bear trap is loose, the player character can still move with the trap attached to his leg. his moved is reduced by 4", he gains no benefit from his dexterity to his armor class which is further lowered by 2, and the character continues to bleed. You may assign damage from this as desired, but the real danger is the delicious trail of blood left through the monster infested dungeon.

For a trap that is somehow static or chained in place the character is trapped and must work their way free before they starve or something worse happens.
Few characters starve.

The player can also attempt a bend bars/lift gates roll to escape the trap. If the player and his companions can apply more than 22 points of strength combined to the trap it will also be possible to pry open, but the character's strength is at -14 for these purposes, both for the pain caused to the leg and the poor angle they will have at opening the trap.
You can also smash the trap apart it will take between 20 and 50 points of damage to break apart, and it will ignore the first 5-10 points of damage based on material.

There is fervent debate on the efficacy of loudly banging a large metal weapon against a metal trap and associated survival rates.

Detection/Disarming: Disarming these is simple. Trigger them with something that is not your leg. These are often camouflaged in several ways, covered by leaves, or underneath cloth. When used to bait animals, there is often food in or near the trap. For adventurers gold or other treasure works well. They are particularly effective in areas where the floor is poorly lit.

It is usually placed near a desirable object, and is generally considered an error to bait the center of the trap. The trap is generally situated near where a person would stand to acquire the desirable object.

The Epic Failure of Perception and Stealth, A Skill Deconstruction Post

2012-01-04T09:37:00.005-06:00

Perception is a skill reflecting your ability to notice detail. Stealth is your ability to avoid detection. Perception uses the Wisdom stat as a modifier, Stealth uses the Dexterity stat as a modifier.

Again, I'm going to skip the usual format because of how much of a clusterf&*k these skills are. I'm also going to preface this with the fact that my experience with these skills is with 3.0 using listen and spot and stealth, and Pathfinder with perception and stealth.

These skills are so broad and complicated, I would like to separate out one important thing before focusing on their secondary function. Surprise has been a part of the game for a long long time and is a crucial mechanic. It and the randomized distance between the monsters and the players is one crucial factor in setting up random encounters, and can change a few weak monsters into a deadly threat. Modern editions did much to neuter the critical game play widget, removing much of its former power.

First lets deal with hiding. Any character in any edition can hide. Everyone has always been able to hide, under a bed, in a barrel, what have you. What thieves used to do is to be able to hide in shadows. This allows them to hide where someone can actually see them and then move to strike an unaware opponent with a back stab. Some of this was offloaded in modern editions on to sneak attack, turning the thief from a poor combatant who was an opportunist to a heavy burst damage dealing striker. A terrible change in my opinion - after all, isn't that what the grey mouser is known for; hitting for heavy damage? No? How about Cudgel? He always cut down his enemies by doing massive damage, right?

Maybe I'm missing something.

Ok, so the problem with stealth is this. There is no facing in pathfinder. And you must have cover or concealment in order to use stealth.

This effectively means you cannot sneak behind a guard unless there is a path of concealment; as soon as you step into a lit square you are being observed and can no longer use stealth. Their perception DC to notice you becomes 0.

Now if you don't think this is accurate, you may be right - it's much more complicated then I have presented here. (That 157 post thread is one of the shorter and more useful ones. Don't go looking for the thief trying to sneak past the chicken).

Some players may have a problem with the lack of facing. Well buddy, you better not be playing Pathfinder, because them's the rules and that's the way it works. Pathfinder has rules, and those rules contain no information about facing anywhere.If you want to play with facing rules, AD&D is a pretty brilliant game.

This isn't even the worst thing about Perception.

Ok, let's assume you rule 0 stealth, or just accept the way it works and find some way to create concealment everywhere or whatever. Then there is the other thing perception does. This is objectively a terrible thing. Why is enumerated in the following points.

First, It's a skill tax skill. Someone is always required to keep this maxed. This usually goes to the rogue or the character with the most free skill slots, but it is so important to avoiding surprise, finding treasure and insuring that you are not killed by a trap that it cannot be ignored. Sometimes multiple characters max it out.

Secondly it is terribly time consuming and difficult to manage at the table. You have to ask for perception rolls when there is nothing to find in order to obfuscate if there is something there. I've seen some solutions for this, such as taking the passive values, or rolling for perception behind the screen. This simply offloads the problem, into the party sitting and staring at the DM until he figures out which of them see which things.

Third, I ran several games with perception skills and observation skills for years, and upon reflection and analysis of when I called for a roll, it was when I wanted them to have a piece of information. I realized that I wanted them to know it because it was either interesting or enhanced their experience of play in some way. I never asked for a roll to find hidden information.

Hidden information universally has some way of taking an action in character in order to uncover it. The chance to just discover it because of a random roll literally removes the player skill necessary to discover the hidden information. Rolls that remove game play are bad design. After all, if they can just get it when they roll, then I've taken away their current choice and play and offloaded it on some decisions made when leveling the character.

Since I'm setting all the DC's anyway, what is gained from having a 80% chance of finding something versus finding it for sure. Something might be gained, but I can't imagine what it is (remember, someone is maxing this skill, unless any pathfinder/3.x players want to volunteer an example of someone in a group where no one maxed this skill). If you are using their take 10 perception values then you are just deciding what they are aware of anyway.

Fourth, it is the single worst offending skill at removing player skill and bypassing game play. I've read several arguments that indicate that this would require players to make decisions about what to look at and search and since there is tactical infinity (and baskets and boxes and hallways and junk) they wouldn't be able to search everything.

Well no shit.

The unspoken assumption is that player characters shouldn't need any personal skill in order to avoid missing something. I don't agree with that entitled assumption.

Fifth, the roll can be used against the players. When it is written that a lockbox has a secret bottom that requires a DC 25 search check to find, and then I tell the DM that I pick up the lock box and search the bottom for a secret compartment by tapping it and looking for a way to open it, he is completely within his rights to tell me that I can't roll high enough to find it! In fact, if he doesn't, then he's screwing the player who did put the points into perception, because I'm getting the benefit of having the skill without spending the points!

Lastly and most damming, the process of 'we search the x', 'roll search', 'you don't find anything' is one of the most mind-numbingly boring things one can attempt to do with friends!

What's the fix?
Well, for the last year and a half, I've been running with no perception skill at all. A large portion of that time I ran Labyrinth Lord and never felt the loss of any skill check at all.

It was some of the best dungeoneering I've ever done. It was more fun then I could have remembered having, and I found that the players remained engaged in spite of themselves at times. How did I address the lack of rolls?

First, rooms were designed as encounters as described in my Empty Rooms, Tricks, and Trap Design Document. Every room was either empty, contained a monster, a trick, a trap, or treasure or some combination of the above.

If so, traps were designed to not be bad traps there was always some sign of their effects. Secondly secret doors were no longer designed in the abstract. Each door had a mechanism that physically existed in the room that the players could activate. The same with traps and locks, using mini-games to simulate their opening and disarming.

Then I filled all the rooms, with the stuff that goes in rooms.

Suddenly there was no more dice rolling or looking at the sheet, just selections of choices - that looks dangerous should we touch it? Why is this statue in the alcove facing the wall? Is there anything in that chest? How much do we think this tapestry is worth?

And when the game became a collection of interesting choices, rather than just rolling dice for pass/fail results often when there was no 'pass' to be found, everyone started having a lot more fun.

Interestingly enough, the common vehement complaint of limited time versus tactical infinity is nicely handled by the fact that they are in a literal dungeon which provides a unique environment for limiting that infinity. Often there were areas where they could exhaustively search, at the cost of wandering monster checks of course.

But the feeling of lowering the visor on the statue and describing the slow rumble as a secret door opened into a room filled with treasure was infinitely more satisfying for them and for me than the other option of them simply stating they search for secret doors and telling them they found one, no matter how flowery the description that accompanies the roll.

If you're interested in more thoughts on the subject, I've talked a little bit about this before.

Hope this post wasn't too long. Thanks for reading this far.

On Skill Deconstruction: Intimidate and Customization Options.

2012-01-03T08:36:00.082-06:00

Intimidation is a skill reflecting your ability to frighten or taunt an opponent. It uses the Charisma stat as a modifier.

What can you do with Intimidate?

Not much that is useful. You can force someone to act friendly for one to six turns (seriously the text says 1d6x10 minutes).

You can also give them the Shaken condition as a standard action (an attack).

Which of these have ground for use?

I don't think there's anything wrong with the effects, but there are some caveats. It only uses charisma, and doesn't take into account strength or appearance, leaving that up to the individual to implicitly assign.

Current Analysis

So this isn't tied into just your class. Clearly any class can be intimidating - a high level anything can be pretty scary. But with it entirely dependent on charisma, where's this modeled? This skill is doing the opposite of modeling game play from reality, it's allowing you to spend a few points to accomplish a specific effect. There is nothing wrong with this.

So what if we want a wizard that's good at jumping, or a cleric that can mess around with locks. I don't see how modern gaming is really a leap forward with its design. In the most simple incarnation the thief class didn't even exist and players just handled everything with description - but that isn't the edition most of us play.

One of the issues raised with customization without mechanics, i.e. "the say what I'm good at" method was that players could say they were good at everything! Now I've offered this to the players before and never found it to be the case. But even if assuming it is, nearly any game you play is going to have a method for how many of these you can have - secondary skills, non-weapon proficiencies, proficiencies, skills, etc.

My metric is - first and most importantly is the skill method prohibitive to new players? Is the mechanic fun to actually use? By that I mean does the skill increase or decrease the enjoyment of the players at the table. I have no problem with class boundaries being stretched out as players customize their characters, nor do I feel that you necessarily have to limit that.

For all the fans of character builds out there - wouldn't it be nice to have a fully functional 'build' right at first level instead of waiting till you get enough feats and skill points?

What is it we gain by having this skill?

A mechanic for handling intimidation

What do we lose?

There is some annoyance in needing to take a feat to use intimidation with Strength.

Conclusions & Suggestions:

Players enjoy feeling powerful and getting the opportunity to scare NPC's. This skill gives that feeling very poorly. It is nice to have as an option in a redesigned social conflict situation.

On The Post With The 10 Best Videos

2012-01-02T08:20:00.000-06:00

I know it's Monday and back to the grind. I hope you had a safe and fun amateur night. It's a new year!

Remember that you're living life today, right now.

What we do is so awesome - some of it sounds trite, but it is done so well with laser swords, ray guns, magic rings, wizards and dragons. Enjoy your life today, and check out a selection of the best videos in the past.

Who knows what awesome geekery awaits.
1. Ahh Majesty.

2. Ahh, beauty.

3. Can they be in my party? Also, it's awesome that this song is better then the song it parodies which is about getting drunk on cough syrup. Good job Texas.

4. We need a backup queen of the universe if something happens to Elizabeth Warren.

5. Too wonderful, worth a listen every few weeks or so.

6. Classic gaming advice

7. Skyrim, but a fantastic rendition of the theme.

8. NSFW, but funny.

9. More Skyrim, but also thematic and exciting.

10) A video and song from the Dorkness Rising crew.

11) Funny Stuff

12) And a little low budget bonus. Love!

May these inspire a great gaming year in 2012!

On What You Dread to Hear

2012-01-01T06:07:00.050-06:00

Happy new year!

Without further todo, things you don't want to hear at the gaming table!

"Yiff!"
"She's about a 36C." from a male describing his character.
"I rolled to hit the king because I'm chaotic neutral!"
"I roll to seduce the prince."
"My character is 12 years old."
"I check to see if the horse is female."
"Females have -4 Strength."
"I want to play an elf who was violently raped."
"My character is a vampire that doesn't need to drink human blood."
"This build allows me to take infinite standard actions."
"Your character would never do that, here's what you do instead. . . "
"You aren't allowed to know that."
"Your opponent anticipated that you would try that and stops you."
"Your character is out of commission, but don't worry, you can use a new character I rolled up."
"Well, obviously you weren't supposed to do THAT."
"You can't do that, there are no rules for it!"
"I don't think the game is realistic enough, so. . ."
"Can we use any third edition supplement?"
"PvP is allowed in this game, right?"
"Ok, let's split up!"
"Your character is black so I don't trust him."
"You're rolling better than me, so stop cheating."
"Hey, why does this die have two twenties on it?"
"They are beholderhydras - each hydra has beholders on the end of its heads."
"None of your cleric spells work because there are no gods and religion is a lie."
"Well how do we unsummon the demon lord?"
"I'm invincible."
"The DM would never do that."

And the number one thing you don't want to hear:

"Roll for anal circumference."

Alchemical Posts to return next week!

On Alchemical Items: Powder of Deathsight

2011-12-31T06:10:00.025-06:00

Happy new year everyone!

Powder of Deathsight
BSC:	80%	(R)gp:	15gp
DC:	12	TTC:	1 day
CC:	0 (-4)	CGP::	3 gp
NWP:	+3	XP:	10xp
D100:	+55%	Weight:	- / 20
D6:	5 in 6 / 2	Difficulty:	Easy
Rarity	Uncommon

Materials: Rare Earth (1 dram), Absinthe (4 drams), Cyclamen (1 dram), Henbane (2 drams), Nightshade (3 drams), Gypsum (1 dram), Calx Viva (2 drams)

Description: When this dust is inhaled or consumed it causes the target to perceive all living creatures as walking corpses. Flesh appears to be rotting and sloughing off, gait is unsteady, and the process of decay has set in on every living creature the target sees. The target is under no compulsion to act hostile towards the visions and perceives all other visual and auditory stimuli as normal, i.e. he hears their speech and sees their reactions as normal.
The powder tastes like bananas and cumin and will flavor food and drink accordingly.

Rules are here.

On Interesting Treasure: Patchwork Raptor

2011-12-30T06:12:00.024-06:00

The Patchwork Raptor made by the long dead ancient master smith Glimzig Dalkor was said once long ago in legend to be a living bird.

Anyone who discovers this strange creature made from silver, pearl, and quartz will be surprised to discover that the pieces are not merely attached, but are in fact interlocking and fit together as a puzzle.
Woe to anyone brave enough to dissasemble the bird for the interlockings are so complicated to stymie the attempts of even the wisest sages to attempt to understand how they interact.
It is said that the raptor still is missing a few crucial pieces, lost over the ages. What is to happen if those pieces were returned remains unknown to this day.
Gold Piece Value: 650gp
Gold Piece Value to a Gnome or sage aware of its status as a work of Glimzig Dalkor: 1280gp

On The Thursday Trick, The Hostile Enclosure

2011-12-29T03:43:00.048-06:00

The Hostile Enclosure (Restraints/Hazards)

Trigger:Magical: Proximity	Effects:Multiple Targets
Save: Strength Armor Class	Duration:Varies
Resets: Automatic	Bypass:Selective Trigger Special

Description: While traveling down a corridor with strangely uneven walls, hands suddenly erupt and grab a hold of the players. They are then restrained until the eventual occurrence of a wandering monster at which point they can beg for help.
The hands strike out attempting to grab any PC along a stretch of corridor. They attack with a ThAC0 of 12 (Attack bonus +8) and 2-4 hands strike each player, each attempting to grab a different limb. The walls are stone and have 40 hit points each and ignore the first 8 points of damage from any strike. A PC may make a opposed strength check each round to break free from one of the hands. The stone hands are considered to have a strength of 20. Once grappled, each PC is attacked 2-4 times a round until each limb is securely held by three hands or 3-9 rounds pass (2d4+1). Each additional hand raises the difficulty of the strength check to escape by 4.

Detection/Disarming: The hands can either be seen as protrusions on the wall, or in a more magical place may actually extend out from a smooth unmarked wall. The hallway will likely be littered with equipment, skeletons and gear.
Once trapped, which is fairly likely the walls deactivate for all new entrants in the hall for 12 turns. This is to allow plenty of time for the wandering monsters to show up and accost their prey. The players may wish to beg or plead for safety at this point, though they may not have much to bargain with.
Any PC's with a limb free or only held by 1 hand may attack at a -2 penalty. They lose whatever advantage dexterity gave them to their armor class and are treated as prone for all attacks against them.

On Skill Deconstruction: Heal

2011-12-28T07:46:00.071-06:00

Heal is a skill reflecting your ability to tend wounds and ailments. It uses the Wisdom stat as a modifier

This skill focuses on dying rules and aiding people afflicted by poison/wounding.

What can you do with Heal?

This skill allows you to stabilize the dying and increase the number of hit points recovered from rest. You can also alleviate certain conditions such as movement reduction from spike stones, caltrops and spike growth.

Once per day you can use this to restore hit points to damaged creatures, 1 per hit die, + your wisdom modifier if you roll a 25 or greater. You can finally use a successful heal check to increase a poison or disease save by +4.

Which of these have ground for use?

If you are going to allow healers to improve the save chance by +20% I can see the chance of success of the skill being useful for that - but as far as giving up your combat round to bandage someone who is bleeding out it is annoying to have the possibility of failure. Is what we are doing here simulating realism? Regardless, the check for first aid is just 15, which means this is another skill where a first level character with any wisdom bonus at all with heal as a class skill can just take ten to succeed which for all intents and purposes turns this into a function of class role.

When recovering hit points during resting, do you want the player to roll every day for greater hit point gain? Does anyone play that way?

Current Analysis

There are people who would make the argument of game design from realism - perhaps they are too badly wounded to staunch the wound. Perhaps they might not succeed at stopping the bleeding. Again, I am not concerned for realism in games, I'm concerned about having fun with my friends. I don't consider a situation where one person is already out of play waiting for the combat to be over improved by taking another person out of play for multiple turns because the rolled low.

What is it we gain by having this skill?

Primarily a method of allowing non-cleric/druid/paladin/rangers to fulfill their roll by level 5.

What do we lose?

The mini-game of 'give up your turn to keep another player from dying' win/lose dynamic can increase tension and interest, but I remain unconvinced it's actually fun. It reminds me of streaks where I miss in battle and the associated frustration, except now it sucks for the player who can't do anything while they are bleeding out as well as the person who for some reason can't stop their bleeding/poison.

I also do not see any advantage in tracking these rolls and increasing resting hit points. It is less fun then other activities that can be taking place.

Conclusions & Suggestions:
I would eliminate this skill entirely, and simply allow PC's to give up their turn to bandage their fellows when they fall in battle. I allow anyone with a character trait focused on healing or first aid to provide that aid to those that are poisoned or wounded at the cost of an turn either in combat or out- more then enough of a cost to justify the benefit.

On Skill Deconstruction: Handle Animal

2011-12-27T07:46:00.069-06:00

Handle Animal is a skill reflecting your ability to calm and train animals. It uses the Charisma stat as a modifier

Handle animal is a simple mechanic for interacting with animals. The class ability to diplomance an animal (and improve it's reaction to the party) remains the purview of rangers.

What can you do with Handle Animal?

This skill allows you to both train and prompt animals to perform tricks. You can handle an animal, causing it to perform a trick it knows, or push an animal to perform a trick it doesn't know. You can teach an animal a specific trick, or train an animal for a general purpose giving it a suite of skills or even domesticate a wild animal. You can teach an animal to attack, come, defend, flee (down), fetch, guard, heel, perform, seek, stay, track and work. An animal can be trained for combat, fighting, guarding, heavy labor, hunting, performing and ride.

Which of these have ground for use?

This seems more like a profession then an individual skill. I believe it's been moved over into the territory of an individual skill because it has applications in combat. Most of the skills and their subsystem seem reasonably applicable as a system for training and using animals in a campaign.

Current Analysis

This skill really comes down to frequency of use. Do you use or command animals enough to be useful? In every campaign I've participated in, this skill was never used for animal companions and there were rarely other animals in the game besides that.

The general idea is that a character gives up his move action to convince an animal to do a trick, and can spend his whole round trying to get the animal to do a trick it doesn't know. Druids and Rangers get an advantage in allowing tricks as free actions and the ability to push an animal as a move action.

I've played Druids before, many times, and have never recalled being asked to roll a handle animal check. The animal was just treated as an adjunct to the player, performing whatever task I as the player decided. How many DM's just hand-waved the skill and let the Druid or Ranger use the animal as a secondary weaker PC? All of them.

Is this not how most tables ran druids and rangers?

What is it we gain by having this skill?

A method for interacting with and training animals.

What do we lose?

I am not certain that this is a particularly effective way to demonstrate the vaunted 'character differentiation', but the d20 roll and the use of this skill works just fine as a model for training and commanding animals. Even though the roll is a pass/fail roll, the fact that you're influencing animals allows you to treat failures as partial successes, leading to interesting game-play.

Conclusions & Suggestions:
I think this system for animal control is fine. If actually used, it could mitigate some of the 'I have an animal companion so I get two turns on my turn' issues with Druids and Rangers.

Alternately, being that I've never had it used when playing a Druid, Ranger or Mounted Knight, I could also just eliminate the skill entirely.

On Skill Deconstruction: Fly & Ride

2011-12-26T07:46:00.132-06:00

Fly is a skill reflecting your ability to maneuver aerially. Ride is your ability to ride and control mounts. They use the Dexterity stat as a modifier

Fly is another one of those skills that's been around in the system since long ago, when it was known as maneuverability class. It is especially relevant for modern games like Pathfinder, because around level 10 the majority of a party gains access to flight. In the last Pathfinder campaign I played in very much resembled a team of supers all moving to their destination, where some had access to flight and others did not, leading to some carrying the others. Pathfinder is actually an improvement because it pushes back total party flight to level 10. Even this ceases to become an issue around level 14 when the various teleport spells become available.

Ride is a more recent addition to the game, the first rules I can recall coming from Unearthed Arcana. Rules were given for cavaliers to avoid certain dire fates if their horse die or rear up. This skill effectively allows you to ride a mount. I have used this in certain specific setups geared around players on mounts, but not only does this situation come up rarely, but the skill in play turns out to be not that enjoyable. It's another "Roll the Die to avoid the crappy outcome" skill which doesn't seem to be increasing anyone's fun, but is added under the auspices of realism.

What can you do with Flight?

This is a system for resolving flight maneuver. Normal flight is assumed and these maneuver are used and based on a pass/fail resolution. You may attempt to move half your speed, hover, perform a steep turn or even a 180° turn, or fly up at an angle more than 45°.

What can you do with Ride?

Well, use a horse. It's assumed that if you don't have the skill that you need at least 1 hand to guide the mount, that you have a 70%+ chance to stay in the saddle if you get hit, you take a move action to mount or dismount, and that if the mount attacks you will lose your attack. The rest of the selections are tricks like use your mount for cover, take no damage when falling off a mount, getting the sucker to jump or go faster than normal, use a non-combat trained animal as a mount in combat or get on or off the mount as a free action.

Which of these have ground for use?

Minimal uses. The entirety of this system was covered in first editions by giving you a flat maneuverability class that dictated which of these maneuvers you could perform. Is this skill improved by making it a random possibility of the advanced maneuvers?

The problem with the ride skill is that for anyone who does end up taking the ride skill you have to manage controlling the mount in addition to your normal combat actions, slowing down each turn as you roll dice to check and see if you accomplish your goals. Anyone who is a mount user better print out the Ride section because you'll be referring to it a lot.

Also: let's hope we get to have a fight somewhere that isn't a dungeon, mountain, swamp or castle. Uhhh, how often does that happen again?

Current Analysis

I am unconvinced that the method of rolling versus a DC adds enough to the game to be worth the time it takes to roll the extra die during movement. After all, player characters on the ground certainly do not have to roll to move their full movement, or do an about face or other maneuvers. This is clearly an example of a desire to have some realistic differentiation between differing types of fliers and the skills of riders - one that 1st edition addressed by simply having a category for each type of flyer or assuming everyone who is an adventurer could, you know, ride a horse. The flip side of this is the desire for improvement - can a human caster get better at flying? Is that really something we wish to model with character creation?

Who will be taking fly? Wizards. And monsters with natural flight, leaving us with the same categories we used to have based on their base fly skill + 10. Casters themselves get a bonus from the spell equal to 1/2 their level, meaning they need not put any points into it.

What is it we gain by having this skill?

A randomized method of resolving aerial and mounted combat maneuvers. Determining flight results in pathfinder is a much larger issue in pathfinder where after level 6-8 most casters are in combat while flying and invisible.

What do we lose?

Time. Is the added complexity of tracking aerial or mounted combat worth the benefit the skill provides?

Conclusions & Suggestions:
Flying is difficult enough without adding more complexity. Ditch the skill and go back to maneuverability classes - if running pathfinder, assume that every monster and character can accomplish whatever taking 10 allows them to do.

Why not simply allow people to either know how to ride or not? This is almost what the skill does already. Put 1 point in ride, +3 class ranks, +1 stat means that with a take 10 you can do all the mount skills without chance of failure except for using non-combat mounts and fast mounting and dismounting.

On A Happy Holiday

2011-12-25T06:21:00.035-06:00

So, I don't celebrate Christmas. I'm not a fan of lying to children, I'm a minimalist and don't believe in consumerism, and as an atheist and skeptic the religious aspect is more than a little annoying. After all, if you lived with people who thought Zeus was real, you'd think they were pretty silly with their pagan rites and such.

(Hope that gives you some interesting reading on a Christmas morning)

However, you shouldn't let my personal views stop you from enjoying the blog. I hope everyone has enjoyed my 31 days of posts, and that the skill posts haven't become to interminable.

Remember to be thankful and live with present mindfulness!

Be here now!

Here's hoping everyone plays and participates in more games in 2012!

On Alchemical Items: Jasper Catagamma of Aegis

2011-12-24T07:12:00.041-06:00

Happy Holidays everyone! Some Mineral Alchemy today!

Jasper Catagamma of Aegis
BSC:	0%	(R)gp:	900 gp
DC:	28	TTC:	4 days days
CC:	12	CGP::	200 gp
NWP:	-9	XP:	100 xp
D100:	-25%	Weight:	- / 20
D6:	0 in 6 / 7	Difficulty:	Formidable
Rarity	Rare

Materials: Jasper (200 gp value), Rare Earths (4 drams), Powdered Platinum (5 drams) Bulette Shell/Armor (8 drams),
Description: When this catagamma is rubbed into the skin, it acts as shield that absorbs damage. It will reduce damage by 2 points per die, until a total of 80 points of damage has been absorbed (DR 2/- for a total of 80 points) or six turns have passed, whichever occurs first.

Rules are here.

On Interesting Treasure: Golden Statue of Sor-Pathis

2011-12-23T01:55:00.015-06:00

Found in an ancient snake man temple, this sculpture is of the demon Sor-pathis. It depicts his two wheeled chariot and the barrel of hearts.
Every winter solstice Sor-pathis would travel among the creches of the snake men young and distribute his barrel of treasure.
The barrel was filled with the bloody hearts of the slave races who had escaped the yoke of serpent man rule. They were tracked down by Sor-pathis and slain, their hearts gleefully collected and returned to all ophidian-kind as a symbol of their eternal dominance over the mammalian slave folk.
This statue represents the physical aspect of Sor-pathis, who has long been banished to a sub-world far from the prime material where he has lain long dormant.
Perhaps this statue's recovery will change that. . .
Gold Piece Value: 450 gp

On The Best Way to Ruin Your Game

2011-12-22T07:31:00.003-06:00

I said:

"So there is nothing wrong with smarter more social people being better at play, and players who are not social or creative or intelligent being worse and losing or doing badly on their own merits."

J. Michael Matkin writes in and says:

"If I have any misgivings from this otherwise wonderful series that you are doing, it's this. At what point does adventure gaming allow me to step outside my own limitations and enable me to accomplish things that I could never do in real life?"

What a fantastic question.

My response is below.

I hesitate to reply to your comment, because I am absolutely certain you will not like the answer.

In an adventure game you can step outside of your limitations and slay princesses, rescue dragons, and subject a kingdom to your peaceful or terrifying rule.

Just because it is possible to do these things does not mean that you are entitled to get to do them.

It is a game, and it is one you can lose. What makes it worth playing and worth winning is that you can fail.

If you can't fail, if you just get the game handed to you on a silver platter, if there is no challenge, if there is no game to speak of, then it is just one person telling another how cool what they just thought of is. It is social masturbation. Affirmations.

Though that may feel good temporarily, it pales in comparison to actual victory where the possibilities for failure are real and the consequences are dire.

There when you succeed, you know you have accomplished a thing of worth. A thing that was accomplished because you were able to accomplish it, and another man might have failed.

This is why not fudging is important. This is why agency and player freedom matter. Because anything else removes any meaning from your victory.

On The Thursday Trick, Trapdoor Loft

2011-12-22T03:17:00.040-06:00

Trapdoor Loft (Restraints/Hazards)

Trigger: Mechanical: Pressure Plate	Effects:Liquid Never Miss Multiple Targets Alchemical Device
Save:Dexterity Poison/Death Rod/Staff/Wand	Duration: Instant
Resets:Manual	Bypass:Disarm

Description: Somewhere in the ceiling ahead lies a deadly toxic substance. Upon triggering a hidden pressure plate a stone or wood door in the ceiling drops open and dumps entertaining substances on the party!

Detection/Disarming: Detect this as any trap door - it could be hidden or even secret. Also the trigger must be locatable, and the ceiling may show some signs of the existence of a trap door.

Signs may be present on the floor of the various kinds of things that can be dropped from the trap door.

Flaming Oil will leave scorch marks
Green Slime, Black Pudding or various other oozes, slimes and jellies will leave scarring and other signs of their presence.
Falling Rocks will leave dust, cracked stone and scrapes and scratches on the floor work
Garbage and Offal will leave stains and there may be a terrible stench depending on the ventilation.
Sand and Water can be released filling the space below. Both will leave telltale signs of their presence.

On why Realism and "Making Sense" are Terrible

2011-12-21T06:29:00.081-06:00

I don't think I've talked about this before.

It's one of the most important things.

Making things more realistic ruins games. Changing things to have them "make sense" destroys fun.

I've written and designed computer games before and the most important lesson I learned from those experiences was to design fun mechanics and make the game about that fun. Jeff Vogel talks about it here.

Every time someone suggested a way to make the game 'more realistic', it never failed detract from the game. Add armor damage and wear and tear on weapons causes tedium. Make the monsters fight each other causes endless messages and rooms full of dead creatures. How about at a table? Making people remember to eat, go to the bathroom and feed horses? You've insured that the players recite a list of items at various intervals. Sounds super fun, right?

Why is it when people sit down to play or run role playing games they forget that they are playing a game? Is Jenga less fun because you don't use a crane? Is Monopoly less fun because you can't buy stocks or put your money in a bank? Is Risk less fun because you don't use supply lines?

Games have rules and mechanics. These are supposed to generate fun on their own merits. Over and over again I see people change games for the sake of 'realism' or to 'make sense', resulting in something that isn't fun just for its own sake.

Take a game like Old School Hack. Not only is a beautiful piece of work, it's also super fun to play. It is not a traditional play the same character forever type of RPG, and the turn structure is certainly different then normal. When a friend of mine ran it, she wanted to change it because it wasn't what she was used to, because the new system didn't make sense to her. Trying it out we found out it was fun on its own merits.

Ask yourself, devoid of setting and flavor, is what I'm doing an enjoyable activity? This is not a subjective question. In a game, an enjoyable activity comes from making choices with significant consequences. I've been talking at length lately why combat is an enjoyable activity and rolling for skills is not. If you blocked out the pictures, flavor text, and names on the cards in Dominion, the game would still be mind-blowingly good.

Realism in game design is an easy trap to fall into, but it invariably results in poor, boring games. Ask yourself why you are making any change, and if the answer isn't "this is objectively more fun because it provides either more choices or choices with more significant consequences resulting in more interesting play for the players," then don't make the change.

How will you ever know if you like something new if you just change it into what came before?

On Skill Deconstruction: Escape Artist

2011-12-20T06:30:00.080-06:00

Escape Artist is a skill reflecting your ability to free yourself from bindings. It uses the Dexterity stat as a modifier.

What can you do with Escape Artist?

This is a skill that is used to replace other mechanics - it allows your training to replace your combat maneuver defense for grapples and your ability escape from binds and chains.

Which of these have ground for use?

If you're doing this, it does what it says on the tin.

Current Analysis

This is a classic example of both a skill that is not needed and one that is often valued under the auspices of character customization.

The argument was presented that an auto-escape is the only method of handling this skill without a skill roll. I should point out that this is the way the skill works currently in a non-time critical situation. Either you can take 20 and your results succeeds or you can't - and since the DM is setting the DC and knows the value of the Escape Artist skill of the players he just decides if they can escape or not. This is just as unfun as the DM just deciding you can or can't get free without the skill.

So what's the solution?

Assume that no matter the bonds they can free themselves in 2-4 turns, unless the bonds are the imprisonment spell or a force bubble in which case you should fast forward to the point when the characters can do something.

In a situation where the result is time limited, you again have the problem of skills bypassing play.

"Only if I fail this roll do I actually have to play the game," the player thinks.

Perhaps this is what you want, perhaps you want players playing rogues to be able to just escape quickly without having to detail how they do it. I don't think that there is anything wrong with this approach, but to me it's just another way to bypass an interesting situation.

How is it an interesting situation? From the post of Confanity himself, he says: "I treat it as an opportunity for problem-solving. Do they search for something sharp to rub the rope against? Dip it in their plate of prison slop and offer it to the rats? Simply wait for rescue? Ignore the bonds and mock the prison guard? Why would you want to steal this storytelling opportunity from them?"

Why would I want a roll to bypass all that?

What is it we gain by having this skill?

Well, it only applies in two situations: One, when you're replacing your normal defense to avoid grapples and pins; Two, when you have a limited amount of time to escape from bonds. Given enough time you'll be able to take 20 to attempt to escape from bonds.

What do we lose?

An opportunity to foster player creativity. When found in one of these situations "player characters are trapped", it seems more enjoyable to allow the players to attempt to think their way out of the situation. The other option: the player says "I take 20."

Conclusions & Suggestions:

Is the idea to allow certain classes (thief/rogue) to be better then it would otherwise seem at dealing with grapples and pins? Then simply allow them to do so. If they are captured, let them come up with a solution to get free.

On Skill Deconstruction: Disguise

2011-12-19T06:48:00.047-06:00

Disguise is a skill reflecting your skill at changing your appearance. It uses the Charisma stat as a modifier

What can you do with Disguise?

It is your ability at changing your appearance. When you do you make the check once, and everyone then uses that as their perception target number.

It is assumed most people are taking 10 on these checks, which is another example of the elimination of randomness among the use of the skills.

Which of these have ground for use?

I think this skill is one that clearly falls under the 'no skill is necessary' category. It comes up rarely enough that we probably don't need a system for dealing with it.

Current Analysis

What is it we gain by having this skill?

The ability to give a target number that once passed means the skill is seen through.

What do we lose?

A good deal of play. If we work from the assumption that the skill provides, that most characters with a minimal skill or a first level spell will be able to disguise themselves beyond cursory detection, then we create a situation where the only time an actual roll is called for is when the character does something suspicious.

Why are we bothering to roll the dice at all? What benefit to play does it provide?

If we assume that the players are competent heroes, and that they are disguised against inspection, then they simply have to do in character research to avoid being suspicious. Then if they fail, let their actual skill at explanation replace their die roll. Both processes of doing the research and fast talking yourself out of the situation are more interesting then just rolling the die and adding modifiers. At this point it seems a function of whatever social interaction / combat system you use. It doesn't even have to be up to the Dungeon Master - the party could take a vote or perhaps expend some sort of social resource.

Some people might complain that certain players might not be as good at these things as others. That is a core feature of games - not a bug. They require skill, not just luck. So there is nothing wrong with smarter more social people being better at play, and players who are not social or creative or intelligent being worse and losing or doing badly on their own merits.

This, I think, people need to realize applies to life.

Conclusions & Suggestions:

My preference is to eliminate the skill and simply assume the player can disguise themselves effectively. Then I would allow the players own skill at research and fast talking to represent their success.

On Skill Deconstruction: Disable Device & Slight of Hand

2011-12-18T13:46:00.035-06:00

Disable Device is a skill reflecting your mechanical ability. Slight of hand is a skill reflecting your ability to take action secretly. They uses the Dexterity stat as a modifier.

What can you do with Disable Device & Slight of hand?

These are more skills that have existed for a long time in the game - though in older editions it was called Pick Pockets, Open Locks, and Remove Traps.

Disable Device allows you to disable or sabotage devices or open locks. Classes with trapfinding (rogues) can disable magical traps. Slight of hand allows you to palm objects or remove object from people without them noticing.

Which of these have ground for use?

I am not personally a fan of Disable Device, though by the assessment there is nothing wrong with it.

Pick Pockets, er, Slight of Hand is a case where a skill is almost certainly necessary because of the nature of conflict. It takes place under time constraints, against an opponent, has a serious consequence for failure, can't be modeled at the table and can model a partial result.

I have currently been running games where this Disable Device is not used, and disarming traps and opening locks depends on player skill adjusted for class almost exclusively. For an example of the system I've been using you can check out the Locks and Keys .pdf which is Zak Sabbath's system for opening locks with modifiers for thief skills and using the reverse of the system to disable traps..

Current Analysis

Disable Device is another skill that can easily turn into a skill tax skill. The systems usually are only able to use traps to great effect till about level 8. It's mostly dependent on the ability of your DM to continue to scale the DC's correctly.

Slight of Hand works as is practically with no modification

What is it we gain by having this skill?

A quick simple way to determine the ability of a character to open a lock or disable a trap and a mechanism for picking pockets.

We also gain quite a bit of role protection for the thief type classes.

What do we lose?

As I've handled it in my games before, there is space for an interesting mini-game to replace this that relies on player skill. I also find that allowing each trap to instead work as a trick with various intractable parts can lead to much more entertaining results then simply getting it out of way with a roll. Allowing the characters to attempt to trigger a trap so they can pass or allowing them to disable it by clever thinking seems more interesting than a quick roll.

For those that have some anxiety about describing how traps might work, there are plenty of resources on-line. Not only my Empty Room, Tricks & Trap design supplement but other bloggers discussing trigger mechanisms and more. There are also plenty of ways to allow class selection and level to provide relevance to your ability to open locks and disable traps.

Very little in the case of Slight of Hand. The skills existence may cause the players to do things they otherwise wouldn't, but in the long run that may be a positive influence on the game.

Conclusions & Suggestions:
Either keep this skill as is, or develop an interesting mini-game regarding this skill that your players enjoy. Suggestions are welcome.

On Alchemical Items: Elixir of Unguis

2011-12-17T06:59:00.033-06:00

Elixir of Unguis
BSC:	40%	(R)gp:	300 gp
DC:	20	TTC:	1 day
CC:	4	CGP::	75 gp
NWP:	-1	XP:	150 xp
D100:	+15%	Weight:	- / 20
D6:	3 in 6 / 4	Difficulty:	Difficult
Rarity	Very Rare

Materials: Pure Clear Water (1 ounce), Rare Earths (1 dram), Mimic Flesh/Transmutation (4 drams), Moonstone (5 carats), Powdered Gold (2 drams)
Description: This elixir causes the imbiber to grow terrifying and powerful talons in place of their nails. Her fingers lengthen and extend and sharp hard claws extend from the tips of her fingers. For the duration of the potion she may make two claw attacks each round doing 1d6 + Strength points of damage.

Rules are here.

On Interesting Treasure: Copper Key

2011-12-16T09:51:00.013-06:00

This strange key is made from copper. It is on a silver chain and bound with silver thread. Attached to the bow are 12 platinum chain links leading to a unique copper gear.
The origin of this key is uncertain - is it simply decorative or does it actually function? If it does, do the extra gears and attachments serve any purpose?
Gold Piece Value: 35 gp

On The Thursday Trick, The Door of Subtle Demise

2011-12-15T08:15:00.037-06:00

The Door of Subtle Demise

Trigger: Magical: Proximity	Effects:Never Miss
Save:None	Duration:1d8+2 rounds
Resets: Automatic	Bypass: None (Avoid)

Description: This door differs from the rest of the doors in the complex. It will have deceptions of death or some sort of death imagery on the door.
Any living creature may pass through the door without effect, excepting a minor chill as if experiencing the first winter wind.
Anytime any non-living creature is carried or falls through the door instantly become animated as a zombie created from the animate dead spell for 1d8 +2 rounds. They immediately lash out at all nearby targets, clawing and attacking for the duration of the effect.
Creatures that become zombies gain one more hit die of the type they had in life and their armor class improves by 2. They also become resistant to slashing weapons. They gain a slam attack that does 1d8 damage plus one more than their strength bonus to attack. (i.e. if they had a +2 damage bonus from strength, their slam does 1d8+3) They also always attack last in the round. (+1 HD, +2 AC, Slam attack 1d8 + 1 + Strength, always attack last or in pathfinder, staggered condition)
This door should be located near the entrance to the dungeon to insure that any bodies leaving are hacked to pieces before they can be resurrected.
Detection/Disarming: The door is not hidden, and any living creature can detect the magical effect by the chill that passes over them as they walk through the door. Wizards can note the taint of necromantic magic, and thieves can easily detect the magical nature of the door.
Determining what the door does on the other hand can be a much more complicated task, requiring either divination magic or testing by the player characters.

On Why Your Race Data is Useless!

2011-12-14T06:59:00.012-06:00

If you haven't noticed, over to the right is a poll. I've got several hundred readers, so go ahead and click through to vote people!

Free yourself from your RSS feed and come tell me what you think. It's been too long since you visited the blog anyway!

How else am I going to collect useless data!?

Let's waste our time and navel gaze together! Do it now before you forget.

On Skill Deconstruction: Diplomacy

2011-12-13T07:35:00.066-06:00

Diplomacy is a skill reflecting your ability to influence opponent reactions. It uses the Charisma stat as a modifier

What can you do with Diplomacy?

It allows you to alter the reaction of another living creature. It also replaces gather information in pathfinder.

It is very important to realize that this exact skill (though with a better bell curve implementation of it) has been in the game for over 30 years, making it crucial to the way the game plays.

Which of these have ground for use?

All of it.

It is necessary to have a DM independent method of determining the reactions of non-player characters and monsters.

The problem comes from this being a skill - the original table served as a tool to determine monster reactions - the vast majority of which were neutral or uncertain. A certain rare number would automatically attack, and rarer still would be helpful.

This was one of the most powerful uses of charisma in the older games, the other being allowed henchmen once second level - extra first level fighters are nothing to sneeze at. The die roll being a bell curve allowed charisma to have a powerful influence on the result making a much greater percentage of monsters helpful then they would be otherwise.

This skill contains a subtle conceptual difference from earlier editions. In earlier editions this roll was used to determine the monster reaction. In modern editions the monster reaction is pre-decided and this roll influences the monster reaction.

Current Analysis
This roll is one of the core elements of Dungeons and Dragons. There is an encounter, and for every encounter a 'reaction' is rolled for. Many people ignore or house rule this - but it is a core element of game play on par with Armor Class and To Hit rolls on d20s.

The problem is with this not being tied to the power of charisma and instead built into a skill it allows power gaming the system, how so? At 10th level a summoner could have (10 ranks, +5 Charisma, +5 magic item, +2 spell buff, +3 class bonus, +6 feat bonus) 31 ranks in bluff allowing him on a roll of 1 to turn hostile creatures to unfriendly and on a roll of 4 to shift it to indifferent the maximum allowable shift. This could literally provide a way to overcome every single combat encounter - simply diplomance them away.

You could of course do the suggestion most people make when you talk about the problem with the skills - create situations to specifically neutralize the skill, but it's pretty clear why that's an unacceptable solution.

EDIT: I've reviewed Rich Burlew's diplomacy skills and he's identified several problems and proposed some D20 solutions. He notes the roll being too easy, the indeterminate nature of the target like a master wizard being influenced the same as a potato farmer, the lack of any sort of definition of what the terms such as 'friendly' and 'indifferent' mean, the results of the check being vague, and the lack of any sort of failure.

His solutions include adding two sets of modifiers and clarifying the results of success more quantitatively. This is creating a whole new subsystem, but continuing to use the D20. Although I'm not a fan of the randomness curve, this is a potential solution to this conundrum.

What is it we gain by having this skill?

We gain a D20 compatible method for determining monster reactions.

What do we lose?

We need a monster reaction solution for this game - I just don't know that a player skill is the way to go.

Diplomacy can turn into a skill tax skill.

It isn't used to determine monster reactions, only influence them, and it's possible to break an old school type game by level 10, which is two through four levels past when it normally breaks anyway.

Conclusions & Suggestions:

I think that this would be better handled by it not being a skill. I have no problem with someone being skilled in diplomatic relations giving them a flat one or two bonus to a bell curve roll to influence monster reactions. But as a skill tax skill, I don't really see the benefit.

On Skill Deconstruction: Craft

2011-12-12T10:40:00.000-06:00

Craft is a skill reflecting your ability to make things. It uses the Intelligence stat as a modifier

What can you do with Craft?

Make stuff.

There is a flat mechanic in craft for producing half your check result in gold pieces per dedicated week of work.

If you actually wish to craft an item, there is a fairly complicated process involving taking it's value in silver pieces. You then make a check and multiply by the DC of the item and that is your 'progress' in silver pieces in making the item.

Which of these have ground for use?

I have mixed feelings. I can certainly tell you that after a certain level of proficiency I've never failed to complete a drawing. Some have not turned out the way I like, but it wasn't due to random variance in skill. It was due to either a lack of skill, or a new technique.

With something like alchemy or baking, a certain random element is good, because there are vagaries of temperature, air pressure, and other variables that are outside of control.

I have never been a blacksmith or a fletcher. Perhaps a trained blacksmith (1 rank + 3 class bonus + 1 Intelligence) fails and ruins 25% of the longswords they make.

Current Analysis

What is it we gain by having this skill?

It is a quick system to generate an earned integer of gold pieces every week. It allows characters to produce basic equipment at a reduced cost. It also allows characterization, defining a character beyond class roles or things they can do in combat.

What do we lose?

I'm not sure - no, wait, I am sure that no dungeon master anywhere ever has tracked silver pieces per day multiplying them out to determine when the item is completed. If you ever have, please let me know

Also, I'm having difficulty seeing the system as one that intends to determine the goodness of a product with high granularity. An argument was presented recently that in this or in a profession skill the degree of the roll indicates the goodness of the result.

This is objectively incorrect.

The system clearly intends the roll to indicate the speed at which the task is accomplished, and the goodness of the task is set by the creator.

I'm going to create a masterpiece of a painting - I set the value at 10,000 gp and the DC is 20 (for highly complex) and then I'm off. Even with one rank in craft if I keep plugging away at it long enough it will be accomplished (even if I waste a metric ton of materials)!

Making a bunch of arguments over whether that's accurate to real world examples is pointless. The real question is:

How is this implementation of the skill improving my game?

I do not believe that it does so.

Conclusions & Suggestions:

The granularity is too high. Also, it doesn't represent how actual craftsmanship works (in that you are not likely to fail in many cases).

I am fond of a 'non-weapon' proficiency system for such things - allowing a level of proficiency, and then further focuses of mastery and grand-mastery.

Most systems run such a skill as a great/pass/delayed/failed/disaster system which is something I find perfectly workable for alchemy, but as far as forging and other type of craft activities, I much prefer two to five levels of granularity and not forcing checks in order to produce - just requiring the time and materials seems to be enough.