I have never been very happy with the madness rules for roleplaying games, be they the "gotta catch them all" of the Cthulhu games, or White Wolf's terrible derangement system. They are neither horrible nor interesting, or are social penalty window dressing --always a poor game mechanic choice. Insanity ought to be macabre as fuck in most games.
Below is a short in the dark at what I'm more interested in. I would have these be caused by particular monsters or encounters if a saving throw is failed, or possibly arrange for a table of them. Though I hate the idea of insanities that are completely disconnected from their cause.
I also considered having a Willpower save version based on the disease rules from d&d 4e, but am essentially too lazy to stat that, though the mechanic would better suit insanity than disease -- the latter is too boring to be the focus of much of a game session, and therefore there is no need for such a sophisticated mechanic. The former, however, is interesting enough to have a sliding scale and so forth.
Hallucinations
These result in some constant penalty or semi-permanent effect.
Formication: You sense what feels like a swarm of writhing insects underneath your skin. You start each encounter at a maximum of half your maximum hit points because of self-inflicted wounds from scratching and attempts to dig them out.
Maliced Hand: Your hand does not obey your commands, but rather does its own thing. It cannot be used helpfully and, left unrestrained will use weapons or spells (as appropriate) to attempt to harm your friends. The hand can do anything you can do, and uses your skills and abilities (including make escape artist checks).
Otherworldly Nightmares: You suffer from torturous nightmares that subject you to alien locales and mindsets, and prevent you from effectively resting. You do not heal naturally, and if applicable, memorize one less spell of the highest level that you can cast.
Anhedonia: You cannot experience pleasure. This prevents you from benefiting from spells or effects that impart morale bonuses. Alas, you are all too capable of experiencing suffering, and penalties of that sort affect you normally.
Dark Urges
Each day that you do not indulge in these, you suffer -1 to attack rolls and spell DCs, until your bonuses reach 0.
Dark Hunger: You must feast upon your own kind. One average human-sized body will sustain a character with this madness for three days.
Morbid Fascination: You want to make art out of fresh human body parts, bathe in gallons of human blood, or otherwise indulge yourself at the expense of freshly dead enemies. One human will sustain a character with this madness for a day.
Alien Limb: You become convinced that one of your major limbs or body parts is not a part of you, and must be removed. Left to your own devices, you will take all appropriate measures to sever the limb or organ. Roll on the following chart (d6): 1-3: Leg, 4: Secondary Arm, 5: Eyes, 6: Primary Arm.
Compulsions
You follow some terrible rule, like never entering a sunlit area. A Willpower save may be attempted to temporarily suppress these for an encounter, with the DC of the effect being the same as the thing that caused the effect.
Clinical Lycanthropy: You believe that you are afflicted by lycanthropy. On nights when the moon is visible and not overly occluded, you will must make a Will save or enter a form of sleepwalking in which you will attempt to kill a member your own species. While in this state you will not respond to language and will especially brutally. If damaged while at less than half your maximum hit points, you may make a Willpower save to shake off the effect for the remainder of the night. In any case, you will remember nothing about your time spent sleepwalking.
Solar Horror: You cannot bear the light of the sun, and will not willingly enter a sunlit area. If you are forced to (or force yourself to), you suffer a -5 penalty to your attack rolls and spell DC. As a variant, one might have a lunar horror.
Dread of Magic: You cannot stand to have spells cast upon you, even beneficial spells. You automatically attempt saving throws against all spells, including things like cure spells.
Piquerism: You refuse to use a weapon that does not deal piercing damage because you crave causing piercing injuries. A successful willpower saves will only suppress this for a round.
Monday, June 29, 2009
Saturday, June 27, 2009
Forums and So Forth
I've been reading the Brilliant Gameologists forums for inspiration. Not just the min/max stuff, though that has been helpful in reminding myself what it is players like out of their game mechanics. Their house rules section is pretty good, too. It's the best venue for 3(.5)e that I've found, since the Wizards forums are total abortions and entirely 4e anyway.
Friday, June 26, 2009
Negative Conditions
I'm a big fan of some of the changes made in 4e regarding conditions. Being paralyzed and stunned means waiting until it's your turn again, and maybe you can take an action if it wears off, or maybe not. Not being able to take an action isn't fun, nor is having to roll on a confusion table to see what action you'll take. Nor is ability damage fun: who wants to recalculate attack and damage every time a ghost hits you?
Far better to limit certain action choices, i.e. instead of having an effect cause -6 to strength, better to simply have the character deal half damage. Instead of stunning a character, have him fall prone --it doesn't prevent the player from making choices, but it does limit them.
Below are the common negative conditions (I omit Deafness and other tedious conditions) as I have been using them in my present game. I am particularly proud of how Diseased and Delirious work.
Common Conditions
Afraid: You suffer a -2 penalty to your attack rolls and spell DC for the remainder of the encounter. Additionally, you cannot benefit from leadership bonuses or morale bonuses (such as those granted by clerical spells). Characters that are immune to fear cannot be made afraid.
Blind: -5 penalty to attack rolls and spell DC. Cannot target ranged attacks or spells to farther away than ten feet.
Damaged: Some monster attacks disable magic items semi-permanently, but do not destroy them. These items may be repaired via arcane rituals, but until then they offer no benefit beyond a non-magical item, and cannot be used as normal.
Delirious: You cannot cast spells of the highest level that you are capable of casting, nor activate magic items other than potions. Nor may you cast spells that are affected by metamagic feats. Nor may you use per encounter maneuvers such as those gained by the warrior and rogue classes.
Diseased: Effects that restore lost hit points and grant temporary hit points have their effectiveness reduced by half (round down).
Prone: You suffer a -4 to your AC. Prone creatures have their speed reduced to 1. You may stand up as a move action.
Slow: Your speed is reduced to 2.
Surprised: You suffer -3 to your AC and saving throws. You are normally only surprised during the first round of combat before you have taken an action.
Weak: Your attacks and spells inflict half damage (round down).
Other Ideas
I want to have more negative conditions, but I'm struggling to come up with equally elegant mechanics. Some sort of "Rotting" condition might work, as might "Exhausted" or "Dehydrated". The drawbacks need to be significant, but not a pain in the ass to remember or deal with. I use poison as a damage type, so that's not really a venue for ideas.
All of the conditions listed above are non-trivial, and aside from prone require magic or time to end their effect. Some negative conditions that have non-trivial effects but are easily dismissed might be good, such as a Dehydrated condition that could be ended by drinking any magical potion.
I dunno, I'm still working on it.
Far better to limit certain action choices, i.e. instead of having an effect cause -6 to strength, better to simply have the character deal half damage. Instead of stunning a character, have him fall prone --it doesn't prevent the player from making choices, but it does limit them.
Below are the common negative conditions (I omit Deafness and other tedious conditions) as I have been using them in my present game. I am particularly proud of how Diseased and Delirious work.
Common Conditions
Afraid: You suffer a -2 penalty to your attack rolls and spell DC for the remainder of the encounter. Additionally, you cannot benefit from leadership bonuses or morale bonuses (such as those granted by clerical spells). Characters that are immune to fear cannot be made afraid.
Blind: -5 penalty to attack rolls and spell DC. Cannot target ranged attacks or spells to farther away than ten feet.
Damaged: Some monster attacks disable magic items semi-permanently, but do not destroy them. These items may be repaired via arcane rituals, but until then they offer no benefit beyond a non-magical item, and cannot be used as normal.
Delirious: You cannot cast spells of the highest level that you are capable of casting, nor activate magic items other than potions. Nor may you cast spells that are affected by metamagic feats. Nor may you use per encounter maneuvers such as those gained by the warrior and rogue classes.
Diseased: Effects that restore lost hit points and grant temporary hit points have their effectiveness reduced by half (round down).
Prone: You suffer a -4 to your AC. Prone creatures have their speed reduced to 1. You may stand up as a move action.
Slow: Your speed is reduced to 2.
Surprised: You suffer -3 to your AC and saving throws. You are normally only surprised during the first round of combat before you have taken an action.
Weak: Your attacks and spells inflict half damage (round down).
Other Ideas
I want to have more negative conditions, but I'm struggling to come up with equally elegant mechanics. Some sort of "Rotting" condition might work, as might "Exhausted" or "Dehydrated". The drawbacks need to be significant, but not a pain in the ass to remember or deal with. I use poison as a damage type, so that's not really a venue for ideas.
All of the conditions listed above are non-trivial, and aside from prone require magic or time to end their effect. Some negative conditions that have non-trivial effects but are easily dismissed might be good, such as a Dehydrated condition that could be ended by drinking any magical potion.
I dunno, I'm still working on it.
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
Third Edition Grognards
Grognard
Definition: In D&D, a person who prefers an older edition to the newer one.
Gamer A: "After playing 4th edition for six months, our group decided to give it up and go back to 3.5."
Gamer B: "You are officially grognards."
On the Virtues of Third Edition
It was very, very easy for me to adapt third edition to non-fantasy settings, and to do so in such a way as to not scare away my players, who would otherwise shy away from learning a new rules system. It served varied fantasy campaigns equally well.
Unfortunately, this easy flexibility that I felt to be the primary strength of the system did not seem to be accessible to the Wizards staff, whose non-fantasy books were without exception uncreative rehashes of previously released material. I suppose they know that it's already successful and so it's sensible to be conservative and build one's intellectual property up through re-use.
I wish I could say that the OGL publishers picked up the slack. They did not. The OGL is an amazing way to trick older nerds into publishing vanity press, and younger nerds into buying it. Oh well, it's better than being sent cease and desist orders by TSR's lawyers for putting your home brew module on the web --which used to be standard operating practice.
Definition: In D&D, a person who prefers an older edition to the newer one.
Gamer A: "After playing 4th edition for six months, our group decided to give it up and go back to 3.5."
Gamer B: "You are officially grognards."
On the Virtues of Third Edition
It was very, very easy for me to adapt third edition to non-fantasy settings, and to do so in such a way as to not scare away my players, who would otherwise shy away from learning a new rules system. It served varied fantasy campaigns equally well.
Unfortunately, this easy flexibility that I felt to be the primary strength of the system did not seem to be accessible to the Wizards staff, whose non-fantasy books were without exception uncreative rehashes of previously released material. I suppose they know that it's already successful and so it's sensible to be conservative and build one's intellectual property up through re-use.
I wish I could say that the OGL publishers picked up the slack. They did not. The OGL is an amazing way to trick older nerds into publishing vanity press, and younger nerds into buying it. Oh well, it's better than being sent cease and desist orders by TSR's lawyers for putting your home brew module on the web --which used to be standard operating practice.
Monday, June 22, 2009
The Island: Dreki Corpse-Eater
Dreki Corpse-Eater is an immense dragon that lives atop a mountain of frozen corpses. The corpses are those that have died outside of battles. He is Nidhoggur and Beowulf's dragon at once, the spawner dragons. The players couldn't really hope fight him, and he wasn't interested in fighting. After Dreki gave his speech, the players fought some of Dreki's children.
I did my best polish accent, inflected all the words wrong, and went with it. The words are partially derived from John Gardener's nihilist dragon, and partially from TS Eliot's The Wasteland. The main thrust of it is that Dreki is aware of the future and what The Tree wants to do with island: kill the dragons, end magic, and supplant the nature of reality in the campaign setting.
I don't expect it looks like much on paper, but despite its nonsensical nature and what I'll charitably call "poetic logic" it made an impression on my players.
"We've been expecting you. I am Dreki Corpse-Eater, world-wrecker, fatal my fang, hungry my horde, father of Goin Dreki and mother of Murrain Dreki."
Because you will one day not exist you do not exist now. You are neither living nor dead. And you know nothing. You see nothing. You remember nothing. You don't see Island, the nymphs departing, thunder screaming out of bells in the distant sunrise.
I heard what The Thunder said. I heard it, but have not heeded it. Dry sterile thunder. Wrongful thunder, bad bad bad thunder. A world of rock but no water, a world of sound but no word. That is what I was to make. What I have given to man to do instead.
You come to me here in this dead land, death's other kingdom. You think you can crush the multifoliate rose of death's true kingdom. That is the only hope for empty men. For thine is the kingdom.
It was my job, but I have given it to man. This capacity to destroy. no part of it want I. Mankind's time on Island is no more than a swirl in the stream of time, but I have prolonged it.
I am killed not by you, but by one like you. Shantih shantih shantih."
I did my best polish accent, inflected all the words wrong, and went with it. The words are partially derived from John Gardener's nihilist dragon, and partially from TS Eliot's The Wasteland. The main thrust of it is that Dreki is aware of the future and what The Tree wants to do with island: kill the dragons, end magic, and supplant the nature of reality in the campaign setting.
I don't expect it looks like much on paper, but despite its nonsensical nature and what I'll charitably call "poetic logic" it made an impression on my players.
"We've been expecting you. I am Dreki Corpse-Eater, world-wrecker, fatal my fang, hungry my horde, father of Goin Dreki and mother of Murrain Dreki."
Because you will one day not exist you do not exist now. You are neither living nor dead. And you know nothing. You see nothing. You remember nothing. You don't see Island, the nymphs departing, thunder screaming out of bells in the distant sunrise.
I heard what The Thunder said. I heard it, but have not heeded it. Dry sterile thunder. Wrongful thunder, bad bad bad thunder. A world of rock but no water, a world of sound but no word. That is what I was to make. What I have given to man to do instead.
You come to me here in this dead land, death's other kingdom. You think you can crush the multifoliate rose of death's true kingdom. That is the only hope for empty men. For thine is the kingdom.
It was my job, but I have given it to man. This capacity to destroy. no part of it want I. Mankind's time on Island is no more than a swirl in the stream of time, but I have prolonged it.
I am killed not by you, but by one like you. Shantih shantih shantih."
Saturday, June 20, 2009
The Island: Elemental Domains
These are priestly domains for clerics that wanted to worship the impersonal forces of frost or fire. The elemental forces that interested in mortals, they were more like manichean forces that were constantly at war with each other. The more powerful they were, the less human-like and less sentient they were.
These are the domains that they grant to their priests. Nobody ended up playing a cleric in this campain, so I didn't end up needing to increase any above 4th level. Each domain has a religious taboo associated with it that must not be violated or the cleric loses access to the ability and spells associated with that domain until penance is made. Spells marked with an asterisk are from the Spell Compendium (3e).
Frost Domains
Rime
Granted Power: You may breath water or water-containing liquids such as mud as easily as air. You also enjoy a +1 bonus to your caster level.
Taboo: You may not speak above a whisper.
1: Chill Touch: One touch/level deals 1d6 damage and a -1 penalty to attack rolls for 1 round. (Rule change: rather than deal 1 Str damage on a failed save, it always causes the penalty)
2: Creeping Cold*: Escalating cold damage to subject over three rounds.
3: Hypothermia*: Causes 1d6 dmg/lvl, fatigue.
4: Creeping Cold, Greater*: Escalating cold damage to subject over four rounds.
Blizzard
Granted Power: You enjoy cold resistance 5, or increase any existing cold resistance by 5. At tenth level this bonus increases to 10.
Taboo: You cannot cause direct harm to a creature aligned with ice.
1: Aura against Flame*: Ignores 10 fire dmg/rnd and extinguishes small fires for 1 rnd/
2: Gust of Wind: Medium creatures cannot move against wind, small are blown away.
3: Icelance*: Changes ice into lance, which attacks subject for 6d6 damage and stuns for 1d4 rounds.
4: Ice Storm: Hail deals 5d6 damage in cylinder 40' across.
Remoteness
Granted Power: You enjoy a +1 morale bonus to your AC and outsiders cannot attack you with melee attacks, nor control you with compulsions. Compulsions originating from non-outsiders function normally.
Taboo: You cannot cast offensive spells that have a range of touch.
1: Remove Fear: You resist -2 of morale penalty and gain +2 to saves for 10 minutes.
2: Spell Immunity, Lesser*: As spell immunity, but only 1st and 2nd level spells.
3: Corona of Cold*: Aura of cold protects you, damages others.
4: Globe of Invulnerability, Lesser: Stops 1st- through 3rd-level spell effects.
Fire Domains
Bloodlust
Granted Power: You enjoy a +1 morale bonus to your attack rolls.
Taboo: You must never allow a defeated foe to survive.
1: Blood Wind*: Subject uses natural weapon at range.
2: Rhino's Rush*: Your next charge deals double damage.
3: Find the Gap*: Your attacks ignore armor and natural armor. 1 rnd/lvl.
4: Fire Shield: Creatures attacking you take fire damage; you’re protected from heat or cold. You only have access to the fire version.
Ruin
Granted Power: You enjoy a +2 morale bonus to your damage rolls.
Taboo: You cannot willingly sleep within a permanent structure.
1: Foundation of Stone*: Subject gains +2 AC, resists forced movement.
2: Curse of Ill Fortune*: Subject gets -3 to attacks, checks, and saves. Will sv.
3: Clutch of Orcus*: Deals 1d12 damage per round and paralyzes foe. The version of this spell that you know does fire damage.
4: Orb of Fire*: Ranged touch, 1d6/level fire damage and subject might be dazed.
Inferno
Granted Power: You enjoy fire resistance 5, or increase existing fire resistance by that amount.
Taboo: You must dispose of the remains of any foe slain by your hand, via funeral pyre.
1: Burning Hands: 1d4/level fire damage (max 5d4).
2: Body of the Sun*: Your body emanates fire, dealing 1d4 fire damage/2 levels.
3: Flashburst*: Burst of light dazzles and blinds creatures in area.
4: Wall of Fire: Deals 2d4 fire damage out to 10 ft. and 1d4 out to 20 ft. Passing through wall deals 2d6 damage +1/level.
These are the domains that they grant to their priests. Nobody ended up playing a cleric in this campain, so I didn't end up needing to increase any above 4th level. Each domain has a religious taboo associated with it that must not be violated or the cleric loses access to the ability and spells associated with that domain until penance is made. Spells marked with an asterisk are from the Spell Compendium (3e).
Frost Domains
Rime
Granted Power: You may breath water or water-containing liquids such as mud as easily as air. You also enjoy a +1 bonus to your caster level.
Taboo: You may not speak above a whisper.
1: Chill Touch: One touch/level deals 1d6 damage and a -1 penalty to attack rolls for 1 round. (Rule change: rather than deal 1 Str damage on a failed save, it always causes the penalty)
2: Creeping Cold*: Escalating cold damage to subject over three rounds.
3: Hypothermia*: Causes 1d6 dmg/lvl, fatigue.
4: Creeping Cold, Greater*: Escalating cold damage to subject over four rounds.
Blizzard
Granted Power: You enjoy cold resistance 5, or increase any existing cold resistance by 5. At tenth level this bonus increases to 10.
Taboo: You cannot cause direct harm to a creature aligned with ice.
1: Aura against Flame*: Ignores 10 fire dmg/rnd and extinguishes small fires for 1 rnd/
2: Gust of Wind: Medium creatures cannot move against wind, small are blown away.
3: Icelance*: Changes ice into lance, which attacks subject for 6d6 damage and stuns for 1d4 rounds.
4: Ice Storm: Hail deals 5d6 damage in cylinder 40' across.
Remoteness
Granted Power: You enjoy a +1 morale bonus to your AC and outsiders cannot attack you with melee attacks, nor control you with compulsions. Compulsions originating from non-outsiders function normally.
Taboo: You cannot cast offensive spells that have a range of touch.
1: Remove Fear: You resist -2 of morale penalty and gain +2 to saves for 10 minutes.
2: Spell Immunity, Lesser*: As spell immunity, but only 1st and 2nd level spells.
3: Corona of Cold*: Aura of cold protects you, damages others.
4: Globe of Invulnerability, Lesser: Stops 1st- through 3rd-level spell effects.
Fire Domains
Bloodlust
Granted Power: You enjoy a +1 morale bonus to your attack rolls.
Taboo: You must never allow a defeated foe to survive.
1: Blood Wind*: Subject uses natural weapon at range.
2: Rhino's Rush*: Your next charge deals double damage.
3: Find the Gap*: Your attacks ignore armor and natural armor. 1 rnd/lvl.
4: Fire Shield: Creatures attacking you take fire damage; you’re protected from heat or cold. You only have access to the fire version.
Ruin
Granted Power: You enjoy a +2 morale bonus to your damage rolls.
Taboo: You cannot willingly sleep within a permanent structure.
1: Foundation of Stone*: Subject gains +2 AC, resists forced movement.
2: Curse of Ill Fortune*: Subject gets -3 to attacks, checks, and saves. Will sv.
3: Clutch of Orcus*: Deals 1d12 damage per round and paralyzes foe. The version of this spell that you know does fire damage.
4: Orb of Fire*: Ranged touch, 1d6/level fire damage and subject might be dazed.
Inferno
Granted Power: You enjoy fire resistance 5, or increase existing fire resistance by that amount.
Taboo: You must dispose of the remains of any foe slain by your hand, via funeral pyre.
1: Burning Hands: 1d4/level fire damage (max 5d4).
2: Body of the Sun*: Your body emanates fire, dealing 1d4 fire damage/2 levels.
3: Flashburst*: Burst of light dazzles and blinds creatures in area.
4: Wall of Fire: Deals 2d4 fire damage out to 10 ft. and 1d4 out to 20 ft. Passing through wall deals 2d6 damage +1/level.
Friday, June 19, 2009
Campaign Snippets: The Island part II
Above is a picture of the cosmology of this campagin, sans Tree.
The Dream Of The Tree
Last night, you dreamed a true dream. While other men reclined on their beds and dreamt lies, you perceived a rare and wondrous Tree which glowed like the sun. It's bark was gold, it's trunk studded with jewels. This Tree was no hangman's Tree; no body twisted in the wind beneath his mighty branches. This was the Victory Tree, to which the world is nailed.
You wondered why you deserved to view this Tree. And it was then that you saw that the Tree was dripping sap, and it was your crimes which caused this injury. It's blood was rare perfume!
Then did the Tree deign to speak to me. "Your people have worshipped presence and absence, yet they care not. I alone shall heed your prayer, I alone bring glory." And I saw that it was also the Truth Tree.
"Now do I command, my best beloved, that you this vision tell to man: reveal the word that it is this glorious Tree which will bring surcease of sorrow and give renewed life." Prayed you then to the Tree in joyful spirit, with great zeal, and then there you were alone.
Notes
It was supposed to be sort of a vegetable Christ, semi-based on how the Danes were more easily converted to Christianity because of the similarities between Odin hanging from a tree, and Christ nailed to a "tree." In my version, it also shared certain characteristics with the Yggdrasil, the Norse world tree.
I fell in love with the idea of a near-mindless, all-loving entity that instinctively tried to grow, and snuff out magic by killing dragons and fairies wherever it could. It would send The Dream Of The Tree to just about anybody, instructing them how to build bells out of iron that would weaken magic and supernatural creatures for miles around. If enough such bells were constructed and rung, magic and fae creatures would disappear entirely, leaving only The Tree as the source of the miraculous. Below is included the affiliation rules that I used for it. Affiliation rules are from the 3.5 PHB II, and basically represent how much a group or entity likes you.
Affiliation: The True Rood
Criterion / Affiliation Score Modifier
Character level +1/2 PC's level
Religion 9 or higher +1
Setting up a bell tower in a new region +2
Killing or banishing a spirit +1
Killing or banishing a group of spirits +2
Saving an innocent life +1
Saving a group of innocents' life +2
Making use of heathen magics -3
(3 or lower) No affiliation or junior member with no benefits.
(4 - 10) Brother/Sister: You gain a bonus exalted feat. Must donate at least 50 gp per month toward bell foundry construction and upkeep. Gain access to a special equipment list, any of which may be used if you possess an exalted feat.
325 gp Incense: Delayed Bless spell, as scroll.
360 gp Sacred Splinter: Swift cure light wounds cast @ 1st level, self only.
720 gp Coat of Many Colors: Energy resistance 1. Vest Slot.
5500 gp True Leaf: Raise Dead as scroll.
(11 - 17) Saint: +4 competence bonus on Religion and Spellcraft checks. You may take a -1 to your affiliation score to be raised from the dead as a raise dead spell, save that there is no level loss.
(18 - 22) Beacon: +1 luck bonus to all saving throws while wearing a Coat of Many Colors. You must disperse a den of fae or heathens each week, or suffer a -1 to your affiliation.
(23 - 29) Apostle: You must tithe 10% of your income toward bell foundry construction and upkeep. You are constantly under the effects of the tongues spell.
(30 or higher) Seed: You gain a bonus exalted feat.
Thursday, June 18, 2009
Campaign Snippets: The Island
The Island
One of the better games I've ever run, this featured a war between the elemental forces of fire and ice over an isolated, fantastic version of Iceland, as a foreign tree deity tried to get its foot in the door and eliminate magic from the Island.
I delved into Iceland chic pretty hard for this one. Ambient soundtracks featuring Sigur Ros were prominent. Scandinavian folklore was shamelessly plundered, especially from the early Christian period. I used Seamus Heaney's translation of Beowulf. In that spirit, here is my take on Grendel. The low-effort art was a gestalt of the art in John Gardener's nihilistic version of Grendel, Where The Wild Things Are, and the often terrible yet occasionally good Grendel comics.
Grendel (large giant)
Caine-cursed, demon-gleeful, man and beast at once.
Init +8, Speed 8
HP 200, bloody 100
AC 20
F +12 R +9 W+9
-Resists: damage reduction 10, electric 10, fire 10
-Vulnerabilities: critical hits 10, unarmed 10
Claws +14, dmg 3d6 +5 (crit 18-20)
Bite +18, dmg4d6+10
-Pounce: Grendel may make a bite and claw attack as a standard action.
-Rend: If both the bite and claw attack hit a target during the same round, that target suffers an additional +12 damage.
-Cleave: When Grendel "drops" an opponent, he may make an immediate Whirlwind attack. This whirlwind attack will not affect any unconscious or dropped creatures.
Special Vulnerabilities: Grendel's damage reduction does not apply against critical hits from any source, nor against unarmed attacks. Critical vulnerability applies to sneak attack damage.
Bloody: When first bloodied during an encounter, Grendel may make an immediate whirlwind attack with a bonus +2 to critical threat range. If a critical hit was what rendered Grendel bloodied, he loses an arm and instead of his extra attack, he can no longer make whirlwind attacks.
Kinslayer Curse: Any creature that participates in killing Grendel must make a Willpower Save (DC 20) or suffer a curse. The curse causes all giants to enjoy a +2 bonus to attack and damage against the character. The curse may be removed via the Remove Curse spell, but additional material components worth 300 gp each are required.
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
Nouveau Regimes
Continuing yesterday's themes, these are some of the campaigns that I have run over the years.
The Weird Games
-An airplane based drama (!) set in an ever more surreal Mormon Utah populated by personified holes in reality itself. Flame-shirt wearing otaku favorite Nausicaa and the Valley of Wind was my main influence for this. Who would have thought that you could really base a good d20 game around airplanes?
-A company of actors is practicing in Prague, the city of ghosts, during the Great War (WWI) but so many have died within such a short span that the afterlife has overflowed like a clogged sink. The dead return to life, and their spirits haunt the living. And what is this about the mysterious Dee family? And will Bohemia shake itself loose from the Kaiser?
-A generation ship is headed between solar systems, populated by people that do not even realize that they are traveling. First contact is made with an otherworldly alien species that seems intent on destroying the "angelic intelligences" that run the ship. Initially informed by Sikh culture, I ran a redux of this with Soviet chic in which the players were cybernetic hit men. Good times!
-A game set in the modern era based around the characters being exorcists for hire. It ran like a cross between Ghost Busters and A Confederacy of Dunces, or the incredible book by David Wong, "John Dies at the End". Think dogs possessed by demons that won't stop barking at wall crucifixes.
-A Colder War, Redux: The players are paranormal CIA liaisons dispatched to various international locations to deal with the threat of supernatural terrorism. From Kiev to the Khyber Pass in Afghanistan, this story was informed by Charles Strauss' amazing story A Colder War, that juxtaposed the Cold War with the Cthulhu Mythos in a really charming way. My game was more Russian oligarchs learning to control shoggoths and using them as weapons of mass destruction, less Cold War era. One of the characters was one of those deep cover Al-Qaida operatives that was secretly working for the US government --this kind of alternative perspective is the kind of stuff roleplaying was invented for.
Many Terrible Modules
There were other games less worthy of mention. I've attempted various modules over the years, but they are rarely worth it. When I usually attempted to run them, I'd resist completely re-writing them to my taste since it would be about as much work as making my own module, but that led to miserably-paced, unimaginative boredom festivals as I'd try and run some bland schlock cranked out by an unpaid T$R employee or Monte Cook's latest "boy wizards are cool do you like wizards" self-congratulation event.
I did enjoy trying (and failing) to run the 2e Rod of Seven Parts boxed set, even though this typified the worst of TSR's products from the interregnum, before Wizards of the Coast bought them. It had some really slow, boring parts, and for whatever reason at the time I felt that it was best to run the adventure as-is, with as little modification as possible.
The 2e planescape adventure Fires of Dis worked quite well, and showed off what the Planescape setting had to offer. A lot of the boxed sets have preluds that run for weeks, I enjoyed running the Dragon Mountain megadungeon and The Night Below, but it took a dozen sessions in each set to even get to the dungeon. Even then, it didn't feel like it was well-paced.
Two of the best adventures released for 2e were also amongst the last products released: The first was The Apocalypse Stone, a transitional module designed to end your campaign world in preparation for 3e. The second was Reverse Dungeon, a conceptual take on playing monsters as the adventurers come to you. The latter may be the best module ever published. It's that great. It's like this metacontextual exercise in examining dungeons from the other perspective.
There was not a single worthwhile module published. A good example of the uninspired problems with 3e is Monte Cook's Temple of Elemental Evil. Nothing interesting happens in the entire book, and Cook goes off on his evil lovecraftian god tangent for the umpteenth time without it making for a fun or dynamic module.
I tried running a number of the Dungeon magazine modules available for the game, including some epic-level journey to a demi-plane inside a spinning cube that exemplified just how terrible the epic-level play rules were.
Speaking of, I have mixed feelings about Andy Collins. He wrote the excellent yet antiquely named Oriental Adventures, featuring excellent mechanics for feats, monsters, and prestige classes. On the other hand, the Epic Level Handbook was so badly conceived that it was unplayable. The classes were just mishmashes of epic-level feats that were often worse than non-epic feats. The spell system failed, and was a super example of 3e's attempts at using math to extrapolate rules instead of inspiration. I suppose he had his hits and misses.
The Porphyry (or whatever it was called) was also published in Dungeon Magazine, using the lamentable Vile Darkness rules, was amusing in that it enraged stolid social conservatives like the otherwise talented Tracy Hickman, but otherwise lacked gris-gris.
None of the 3e modules produced by third party publishers took my fancy, either. That Freeport one that happened to be the first wasn't especially good. The White Wolf adventures were hurried out and lacked imagination. Necromancer Games' Rappan Athuk series were a complete waste of time.
In short, 3e was bad for modules, and 2e had some high notes. I haven't ever run a 1e module, aside from the Tomb of Horrors, but I have the feeling that their virtues lie more in their originality than in their conception or execution.
Next: Parceling out useful/inspirational byproducts from my games.
The Weird Games
-An airplane based drama (!) set in an ever more surreal Mormon Utah populated by personified holes in reality itself. Flame-shirt wearing otaku favorite Nausicaa and the Valley of Wind was my main influence for this. Who would have thought that you could really base a good d20 game around airplanes?
-A company of actors is practicing in Prague, the city of ghosts, during the Great War (WWI) but so many have died within such a short span that the afterlife has overflowed like a clogged sink. The dead return to life, and their spirits haunt the living. And what is this about the mysterious Dee family? And will Bohemia shake itself loose from the Kaiser?
-A generation ship is headed between solar systems, populated by people that do not even realize that they are traveling. First contact is made with an otherworldly alien species that seems intent on destroying the "angelic intelligences" that run the ship. Initially informed by Sikh culture, I ran a redux of this with Soviet chic in which the players were cybernetic hit men. Good times!
-A game set in the modern era based around the characters being exorcists for hire. It ran like a cross between Ghost Busters and A Confederacy of Dunces, or the incredible book by David Wong, "John Dies at the End". Think dogs possessed by demons that won't stop barking at wall crucifixes.
-A Colder War, Redux: The players are paranormal CIA liaisons dispatched to various international locations to deal with the threat of supernatural terrorism. From Kiev to the Khyber Pass in Afghanistan, this story was informed by Charles Strauss' amazing story A Colder War, that juxtaposed the Cold War with the Cthulhu Mythos in a really charming way. My game was more Russian oligarchs learning to control shoggoths and using them as weapons of mass destruction, less Cold War era. One of the characters was one of those deep cover Al-Qaida operatives that was secretly working for the US government --this kind of alternative perspective is the kind of stuff roleplaying was invented for.
Many Terrible Modules
There were other games less worthy of mention. I've attempted various modules over the years, but they are rarely worth it. When I usually attempted to run them, I'd resist completely re-writing them to my taste since it would be about as much work as making my own module, but that led to miserably-paced, unimaginative boredom festivals as I'd try and run some bland schlock cranked out by an unpaid T$R employee or Monte Cook's latest "boy wizards are cool do you like wizards" self-congratulation event.
I did enjoy trying (and failing) to run the 2e Rod of Seven Parts boxed set, even though this typified the worst of TSR's products from the interregnum, before Wizards of the Coast bought them. It had some really slow, boring parts, and for whatever reason at the time I felt that it was best to run the adventure as-is, with as little modification as possible.
The 2e planescape adventure Fires of Dis worked quite well, and showed off what the Planescape setting had to offer. A lot of the boxed sets have preluds that run for weeks, I enjoyed running the Dragon Mountain megadungeon and The Night Below, but it took a dozen sessions in each set to even get to the dungeon. Even then, it didn't feel like it was well-paced.
Two of the best adventures released for 2e were also amongst the last products released: The first was The Apocalypse Stone, a transitional module designed to end your campaign world in preparation for 3e. The second was Reverse Dungeon, a conceptual take on playing monsters as the adventurers come to you. The latter may be the best module ever published. It's that great. It's like this metacontextual exercise in examining dungeons from the other perspective.
There was not a single worthwhile module published. A good example of the uninspired problems with 3e is Monte Cook's Temple of Elemental Evil. Nothing interesting happens in the entire book, and Cook goes off on his evil lovecraftian god tangent for the umpteenth time without it making for a fun or dynamic module.
I tried running a number of the Dungeon magazine modules available for the game, including some epic-level journey to a demi-plane inside a spinning cube that exemplified just how terrible the epic-level play rules were.
Speaking of, I have mixed feelings about Andy Collins. He wrote the excellent yet antiquely named Oriental Adventures, featuring excellent mechanics for feats, monsters, and prestige classes. On the other hand, the Epic Level Handbook was so badly conceived that it was unplayable. The classes were just mishmashes of epic-level feats that were often worse than non-epic feats. The spell system failed, and was a super example of 3e's attempts at using math to extrapolate rules instead of inspiration. I suppose he had his hits and misses.
The Porphyry (or whatever it was called) was also published in Dungeon Magazine, using the lamentable Vile Darkness rules, was amusing in that it enraged stolid social conservatives like the otherwise talented Tracy Hickman, but otherwise lacked gris-gris.
None of the 3e modules produced by third party publishers took my fancy, either. That Freeport one that happened to be the first wasn't especially good. The White Wolf adventures were hurried out and lacked imagination. Necromancer Games' Rappan Athuk series were a complete waste of time.
In short, 3e was bad for modules, and 2e had some high notes. I haven't ever run a 1e module, aside from the Tomb of Horrors, but I have the feeling that their virtues lie more in their originality than in their conception or execution.
Next: Parceling out useful/inspirational byproducts from my games.
Monday, June 15, 2009
Ancien Régime
I've run a lot of D&D campaigns, and about half of them were outside the box of standard fantasy dungeon crawls. Though the setting and genre might have changed, somehow the way I ran them always made them D&D, even if neither of the Ds were actually represented in the game.
I thought it might be a pleasant exercise to outline some of the more memorable campaigns just to horrify more conservative grognards. All of the games listed below used 2e, 3e, or my own perversion of the d20 rules.
The D&D Games
-A war between the elemental forces of fire and ice over an isolated, fantastic version of Iceland, as a foreign tree deity tries to get its foot in the door and chase all the wyrms off the island. This campaign boasted Grendel, the Dream of the Rood, a Bjork cognate, and the fatalistic dragon from John Gardner's Grendel.
-A miserable princess escapes a forced marriage, and embarks on a quest to kill the circle of traitorous knights that betrayed her father the king. High production values didn't help me with this one, it stank.
-The unjust tyrant is responsible for many injustices, including personally wronging each of the player characters. They embark upon a campaign of domestic terrorism, assassinations, and eventually, revolution. Their adventures are punctuated by frequent flashbacks to before they became obsessed with vengeance.
-A group of friends is raised amongst a community descended entirely from adventurers, but must leave their home when it (and many others' homes) are threatened by an expanding empire of psionic slavers. This campaign boasted two adventuring parties played by different players, operating contemporaneously in the same world. One was the party of exiles, and the other was charged with destabilizing the slavers' targets.
-The Sahara desert as never seen before, the strange people that live in it, and the even stranger deities. The culture was based on the fascinating Tuareg people, to whom much Frank Herbert's Fremen owe a large creative debt. Iron was considered magical, and the goat men were to be the primary nemesis, though this didn't quite take off.
-A fantasic retelling of the reconquista in which the players were the personal playthings of a decidedly malicious creator deity. Drew strongly on the early surrealist book "Les Chants de Maldoror" by the Comte de Lautreamont.
-A kingdom that spared itself annihilation by using magic to cut itself off from the outside world, yet remained in danger of destroying itself. This setting had everything, from the good prince player fighting the evil prince player for the crown, to the hex crawl, to the city-based adventure, to two competing parties of players questing for the same item --more about this later, it's probably worth writing about in more detail.
Next: The Weird Games.
I thought it might be a pleasant exercise to outline some of the more memorable campaigns just to horrify more conservative grognards. All of the games listed below used 2e, 3e, or my own perversion of the d20 rules.
The D&D Games
-A war between the elemental forces of fire and ice over an isolated, fantastic version of Iceland, as a foreign tree deity tries to get its foot in the door and chase all the wyrms off the island. This campaign boasted Grendel, the Dream of the Rood, a Bjork cognate, and the fatalistic dragon from John Gardner's Grendel.
-A miserable princess escapes a forced marriage, and embarks on a quest to kill the circle of traitorous knights that betrayed her father the king. High production values didn't help me with this one, it stank.
-The unjust tyrant is responsible for many injustices, including personally wronging each of the player characters. They embark upon a campaign of domestic terrorism, assassinations, and eventually, revolution. Their adventures are punctuated by frequent flashbacks to before they became obsessed with vengeance.
-A group of friends is raised amongst a community descended entirely from adventurers, but must leave their home when it (and many others' homes) are threatened by an expanding empire of psionic slavers. This campaign boasted two adventuring parties played by different players, operating contemporaneously in the same world. One was the party of exiles, and the other was charged with destabilizing the slavers' targets.
-The Sahara desert as never seen before, the strange people that live in it, and the even stranger deities. The culture was based on the fascinating Tuareg people, to whom much Frank Herbert's Fremen owe a large creative debt. Iron was considered magical, and the goat men were to be the primary nemesis, though this didn't quite take off.
-A fantasic retelling of the reconquista in which the players were the personal playthings of a decidedly malicious creator deity. Drew strongly on the early surrealist book "Les Chants de Maldoror" by the Comte de Lautreamont.
-A kingdom that spared itself annihilation by using magic to cut itself off from the outside world, yet remained in danger of destroying itself. This setting had everything, from the good prince player fighting the evil prince player for the crown, to the hex crawl, to the city-based adventure, to two competing parties of players questing for the same item --more about this later, it's probably worth writing about in more detail.
Next: The Weird Games.
Monday, June 8, 2009
The Edition Edition of Pity Crit
1e
It got the job done and there was nothing else like it. Which is all there is to say about it, really. Some grogtards really worship this shit like there was no improvement possible, as if antiquity equates quality. You know the kind of people that I'm talking about --there is no label group more afraid of the new than nerds.
2e
I do miss kits, distinct/non-generic campaign settings, and specialty priests. I sort of miss how the character classes weren't balanced and didn't try to be, but had different XP tables. The campaign settings were actually different from each other instead of being some sort of fantasy lowest common denominator shit. They actually had real themes built into the setting --you didn't see anything like Dark Sun or Planescape come out of 3e, even with the open gaming license. And there could be whack ass shit that worked like a ranger kit that slowly turns into a treant, and grew extra arms. On the other hand, there would be whack ass shit that didn't work, like the mechanician sha'ir class. But there was the Peasant Hero, the Warlock, the Jackal, the Myrmidon, the Wild Mage, and lots of others that I can't even remember that seemed juuustst right.
I don't miss the fragility of low level characters (wizards with 1 hit point, negative HP was optional for over a decade) or the relative monotony of going up levels, nor the gibberish saving throws. Nor the completely arbitrary limitations (dwarves can't be paladins, etc).
3e
Third edition made some serious improvements but also had a lot of problems --I can't remember a single 2e fight taking as long as the average fight in 3e. I don't like feats being more important than classes. I don't like the hundreds of buff spells and modifier types and so forth. More of the classes were useful, but bards were somehow worse than in 2e --every other class had a noticeable power jump. Clerics were still healing batteries first and interesting second. I would buy entire source books just to use five pages of them... fuck, I'd buy entire lines of sourcebooks just to use five pages of them, and even then it would be one feat that occupied a single paragraph, and half of that would be repetitive mechanics information with maybe a quote from every marketing major's darking, the iconic character Lidda, thrown in.
The OGL: Jesus, you could legally publish your own campaign or sourcebook. Which was amazing -lots of non-fantasy games including some that were reputably worth playing --like Mutants and Masterminds, or creative like Godlike). Even with the complete market glut of shitty, unbalanced products, like The Adventurer's Guide To Amazons and its cousins. I guess Hasbro is continuing this in 4e, which is both good and bad.
4e
Is it possible for something to be too balanced? I dunno. There are a lot of things that I really like, a lot of bullshit fixed, but it's a little too precise, at certain points I think to myself "maybe I'd be better off playing left for dead" since that's basically what I'm going for. Well, left4dead meets A Confederacy of Dunces.
I dunno. Lots of 1 round benefits, lots of moving people around the battlefield. I don't know why they even bothered to retain feats in this edition, they're so shitty. They moved away from skillpoints towards what are basically Non-Weapon Proficiencies, which I think a useful anachronism. They also pander completely to the sort of player that I wouldn't be interested in having around.
Again, I dunno. There's some serious mechanics sprawl with saving throws and Defenses (what used to be called Saves). The classes are so perfectly balanced that it's intimidating to try and develop your own classes and abilities. It feels like they actually tried to make it so that things would not be backwards compatible --they slew the sacred cows and then, in lieu of making hamburgers, they made WoW on paper.
It's like they remade the game so that it was so cold and predictable that WoW would be a perfect replacement. There's got to be a sort of balance between rules and drama --and this ain't it.
It got the job done and there was nothing else like it. Which is all there is to say about it, really. Some grogtards really worship this shit like there was no improvement possible, as if antiquity equates quality. You know the kind of people that I'm talking about --there is no label group more afraid of the new than nerds.
2e
I do miss kits, distinct/non-generic campaign settings, and specialty priests. I sort of miss how the character classes weren't balanced and didn't try to be, but had different XP tables. The campaign settings were actually different from each other instead of being some sort of fantasy lowest common denominator shit. They actually had real themes built into the setting --you didn't see anything like Dark Sun or Planescape come out of 3e, even with the open gaming license. And there could be whack ass shit that worked like a ranger kit that slowly turns into a treant, and grew extra arms. On the other hand, there would be whack ass shit that didn't work, like the mechanician sha'ir class. But there was the Peasant Hero, the Warlock, the Jackal, the Myrmidon, the Wild Mage, and lots of others that I can't even remember that seemed juuustst right.
I don't miss the fragility of low level characters (wizards with 1 hit point, negative HP was optional for over a decade) or the relative monotony of going up levels, nor the gibberish saving throws. Nor the completely arbitrary limitations (dwarves can't be paladins, etc).
3e
Third edition made some serious improvements but also had a lot of problems --I can't remember a single 2e fight taking as long as the average fight in 3e. I don't like feats being more important than classes. I don't like the hundreds of buff spells and modifier types and so forth. More of the classes were useful, but bards were somehow worse than in 2e --every other class had a noticeable power jump. Clerics were still healing batteries first and interesting second. I would buy entire source books just to use five pages of them... fuck, I'd buy entire lines of sourcebooks just to use five pages of them, and even then it would be one feat that occupied a single paragraph, and half of that would be repetitive mechanics information with maybe a quote from every marketing major's darking, the iconic character Lidda, thrown in.
The OGL: Jesus, you could legally publish your own campaign or sourcebook. Which was amazing -lots of non-fantasy games including some that were reputably worth playing --like Mutants and Masterminds, or creative like Godlike). Even with the complete market glut of shitty, unbalanced products, like The Adventurer's Guide To Amazons and its cousins. I guess Hasbro is continuing this in 4e, which is both good and bad.
4e
Is it possible for something to be too balanced? I dunno. There are a lot of things that I really like, a lot of bullshit fixed, but it's a little too precise, at certain points I think to myself "maybe I'd be better off playing left for dead" since that's basically what I'm going for. Well, left4dead meets A Confederacy of Dunces.
I dunno. Lots of 1 round benefits, lots of moving people around the battlefield. I don't know why they even bothered to retain feats in this edition, they're so shitty. They moved away from skillpoints towards what are basically Non-Weapon Proficiencies, which I think a useful anachronism. They also pander completely to the sort of player that I wouldn't be interested in having around.
Again, I dunno. There's some serious mechanics sprawl with saving throws and Defenses (what used to be called Saves). The classes are so perfectly balanced that it's intimidating to try and develop your own classes and abilities. It feels like they actually tried to make it so that things would not be backwards compatible --they slew the sacred cows and then, in lieu of making hamburgers, they made WoW on paper.
It's like they remade the game so that it was so cold and predictable that WoW would be a perfect replacement. There's got to be a sort of balance between rules and drama --and this ain't it.
Saturday, June 6, 2009
The RPG Kool Aid pt II
My disillusionment came on slow. I drank the kool aid for a long, long time. When 3e came out, I didn't mind one bit. The 2e rules were stale, I'd done everything that could be done with them and, although I was disappointed at Wizards' transparent attempts to sell miniatures via D&D, I was ready to move on the next edition.
Still, the many flaws stood out. Prior to 3e, miniatures were deliciously optional. And it's true (as was asserted when creating 4e) that choosing feats in 3e was more important than choosing a class, that the fighting in 3e was more complicated. The weapons didn't offer much variety, the skill point system was an entirely new level of complexity, and the combat took much longer.
But despite these and other misgivings, I helped myself to cup after cup of sugary red kool aid. I would buy huge splat books just for the six pages with feats, and even then only a third of the feats would even be well-designed, let alone useful to my players. Fluff in rpg books is usually useless, and often bad, but the text in the 3e books was cliche to the point of being infantile. The monster books remained useful, as indeed my 1e and 2e books did.
Hiccups
Yes, there were hiccups. Simple fights taking three hours a round, for example. Entire books that seemed to take themselves seriously and yet, failed to satiate this hunger I had for a better game. But I persevered. Then 4e came out.
I was a little naive. All of the changes that I heard about prior to publishing sounded good. Things seemed to be getting fixed. Some of my house rules even ended up canonized through some sort of process of rpg convergent evolution. When I cracked open the book and was greeted by dragon men and demon men, it was fine. I could just skip ahead --I wouldn't need to use that sort of thing, and it's just there to cater to the lowest common denominator of role-player, anyway.
Yes, everything would be fine, I told myself.
Fourth Time Is The Charm
At last the day came when I had a copy of the glossy, art-heavy, designed by marketing majors Player's Handbook. And I tried to use the rules. They were useless and actually prevented me from enjoying myself. I'm not talking about the usual hurdles with learning a new rules system, I'm talking about the design choices.
All of the characters are the same. All of the class flavor is beaten out of them --the differences between are marginal. The fights take even longer than 4e, stretching even my patience. Blech.
What caused these terrible changes to the game that I love? What could have made the marketing execs at Hasbro say to themselves, "let's make the game like this."
Well, obviously: World of Warcraft. Thanks to the brand identity messiahs in Hasbro's basement thinking they can tap into some sort of consumer confusion, you too can know the joyful tepidity of being the tank for band of asperger-lite neck-beards. Thrill as you deal progressively more monotonous amounts of damage in an ever so slightly different way than the other people sitting at the table. Soar as you experience the wretched grind and quest for purple items.
Not that there wasn't good stuff. Many of 3e's foibles were finessed, and even more of 1e and 2e's sacred cows were slain. But the changes are so comprehensive that one may as well be playing a different game, and that game may as well be WoW.
No thanks.
Still, the many flaws stood out. Prior to 3e, miniatures were deliciously optional. And it's true (as was asserted when creating 4e) that choosing feats in 3e was more important than choosing a class, that the fighting in 3e was more complicated. The weapons didn't offer much variety, the skill point system was an entirely new level of complexity, and the combat took much longer.
But despite these and other misgivings, I helped myself to cup after cup of sugary red kool aid. I would buy huge splat books just for the six pages with feats, and even then only a third of the feats would even be well-designed, let alone useful to my players. Fluff in rpg books is usually useless, and often bad, but the text in the 3e books was cliche to the point of being infantile. The monster books remained useful, as indeed my 1e and 2e books did.
Hiccups
Yes, there were hiccups. Simple fights taking three hours a round, for example. Entire books that seemed to take themselves seriously and yet, failed to satiate this hunger I had for a better game. But I persevered. Then 4e came out.
I was a little naive. All of the changes that I heard about prior to publishing sounded good. Things seemed to be getting fixed. Some of my house rules even ended up canonized through some sort of process of rpg convergent evolution. When I cracked open the book and was greeted by dragon men and demon men, it was fine. I could just skip ahead --I wouldn't need to use that sort of thing, and it's just there to cater to the lowest common denominator of role-player, anyway.
Yes, everything would be fine, I told myself.
Fourth Time Is The Charm
At last the day came when I had a copy of the glossy, art-heavy, designed by marketing majors Player's Handbook. And I tried to use the rules. They were useless and actually prevented me from enjoying myself. I'm not talking about the usual hurdles with learning a new rules system, I'm talking about the design choices.
All of the characters are the same. All of the class flavor is beaten out of them --the differences between are marginal. The fights take even longer than 4e, stretching even my patience. Blech.
What caused these terrible changes to the game that I love? What could have made the marketing execs at Hasbro say to themselves, "let's make the game like this."
Well, obviously: World of Warcraft. Thanks to the brand identity messiahs in Hasbro's basement thinking they can tap into some sort of consumer confusion, you too can know the joyful tepidity of being the tank for band of asperger-lite neck-beards. Thrill as you deal progressively more monotonous amounts of damage in an ever so slightly different way than the other people sitting at the table. Soar as you experience the wretched grind and quest for purple items.
Not that there wasn't good stuff. Many of 3e's foibles were finessed, and even more of 1e and 2e's sacred cows were slain. But the changes are so comprehensive that one may as well be playing a different game, and that game may as well be WoW.
No thanks.
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