5E Friday

-I want to critique, analyze and test 5E. But I feel I can't, at least not properly. An RPG system is a composite of its parts into a whole. A system in not just combat. It is how character abilities, special situations, defenses, attacks all interact with each other. How combat works will change as new things are added, such as hp inflation or backgrounds that grant combat bonuses.

For a glaring example, WotC has stated that some of the numerical stats in the current playtest are influenced by "hidden" factors, such as one of the characters adding to weapon damage because they had a background feat that provided more damage. That "feat" and its effect is not listed on the character sheet, just the numerical effect. Looking at the sheet and the impact it has on combat (more damage) alters the analysis of the combat in the play-test. There is an assumption (and rightly so) that the base damage of a character falls within the parameters of the numbers in the playtest, when in fact those numbers are affected by components not part of the playtest (backgrounds and "feats" not listed). But because of these "hidden" factors, it skews the test.

I understand why WotC is running the play-test the way they are. They want to isolate components of the system for ease of analysis. However, I don't think this approach will work. To get a true and clearer picture of system mechanics it takes being able to look at the entire system.

-Jack's Toolbook had a recent article on the percentages in the Advantage/Disadvantage mechanic and asked whether the swing in numerical value depending on the target number (and desired goal) is a handicap to the mechanic. I wanted to comment on the topic but couldn't (not registered). So here are some of my thoughts on the topic...

I've seen the various mathematic breakdowns of Advantage/Disadvantage and I have a simple understanding on the concepts involved as you outlined above. However, for me the bottom line is that Advantage gives the player a bigger chance of success and Disadvantage gives a player a bigger chance of failure. What the actual numbers and percentages are, are not as important to me. The net effect (+ or -) are what matters.

The goal of the systemic use of Advantage/Disadvantage is met. Does the character have Advantage in the situation? Yes? Then the player has an advantage with the die roll...and vice versa.

Also, someone mentioned a baseline + or -3 (roughly) as an overall average. Over the course of a campaign, the percentages and numbers will even out to roughly that number so it all comes out in the wash. If taken over an extended time period, instead of just looking at it on a one-time, single-circumstance die roll, it works itself out.

I like the Advantage/Disadvantage mechanic because it is an easy to implement system that accomplishes its design goal.

Worst End of a Campaign Ever!

[Spoilers]
Yesterday, I wrote about how I am enjoying reading the Adventure Paths from Paizo even though I have no intention of ever running them. However, the ending to the Kingmaker Adventure Path has gained the title of Worst End of a Campaign Ever. To set things in perspective I first want to say that the Kingmaker campaign is actually a really good one which sets a very high bar for published adventure/campaign writing. But the end...it is horrifying.

Basically, once you reach the end of the campaign you have killed the evil nemesis and destroyed her demi-plane. That has been your goal through 6 adventure books and 20 levels. And the last thing that happens to your characters as you finish up, the last die roll mechanic written in the book as happening to your characters, is that you lose 1d4 levels. Part of the destruction of the the villainess' demi-plane is that it collapses into reality and everyone of the characters has to make a save or gain 1d4 negative levels. And then the adventure ends...with some characters having actually lost levels. That's the big end reward.
"Hey, thanks for saving the world, now take one to the nuts!"

What is the Worst End to a published adventure you have ever seen?

Reading an RPG for Fun

Of late I’ve been reading some Pathfinder Adventure Paths, in particular Kingmaker and now Second Darkness. Do I intend to ever run these? No, in fact I do not even own the Pathfinder game system and while I own most of 3E, it is not my system of choice these days.

In all honesty, I am reading them for fun, not for any gaming purpose.

Sure, I might use some of the concepts and encounter ideas in one of my own games down the road. I might convert the Adventure Paths to a system I prefer. Or I might even break down and pick up the Pathfinder rule set. But that is not the intent of reading the gaming books.

The books are well written, packed with detail and it all works to stimulate my imagination. Much the same way a novel does. In my imagination I wonder how my players would handle the adventure or how I would do it if I was a player. I imagine the settings and NPCs.  It is all a source of entertainment.

Of course, the thought that I read gaming books for fun didn’t strike me until I was looking over my Mutants and Masterminds collection. While I love the super-hero genre I will never run M&M. I will never use these books. The game is far too bloated with far-flung rules for my tastes. I am actually running a Savage Worlds super-hero game right now instead. However, I own every M&M book I can get my hands on (both by Green Ronin and all the Super-Link publishers as well). This isn’t even a case of “I might run M&M some day”, because I know I never will. But I sure do like to read their stuff.

I have an extremely large collection of RPG games. I know I will never be able to run most of them, but in the back on my mind I have plans to run them at some point. But there are a couple that I know I will never run. Do you have any game rules/supplements that you know you will never run?

5E Friday

-As I asked last week, how compatible will old published material be with 5E? As Philo Pharynx pointed out in the comments, WotC has already declared ascending AC will be how AC is done, thus excluding most 1E material. Now I ask, how close to compatible with old published material will 5E need to be? For myself, I can handle changing AC on the fly, as long as I do not also have to change hp, damage, and other such "basic" components of a monster/module.

The real question for me is...will converting an old published module require me to do it before the adventure is run or can I do it on the fly? I want to feel that I can use my older material with 5E.

At the very least WotC should include a conversion methodology for each former edition of D&D to 5E, instead of only converting from 4E to 5E.

Now I ask you, how much would it take in conversion before you feel you can no longer do it on the fly?

The Fail of Free RPG Day

This was the first time I was been looking forward to Free RPG Day. Last year was the first time I interacted with Free RPG Day, when I went into my FLGS two weeks after the event and they still had some of the items out on display for people to take. Before this I generally ignored the Day because I assumed the Free stuff was useless and nothing but fancy product fliers. Last year changed my opinion on that.

So this year I made a plan. The wife and I already had plans to visit some friends 90 minutes from our house. I made a list of gaming stores between our house (NH) and our friend's house (central-Mass). The plan was to hit every gaming store between the two points and we'd pick up the swag as we traveled (twice as much as I was going to make my wife come in and get another free item). I figured we could end up with one of each product. The plan was brilliant in it's diabolic cleverness.

So, we hit the first store on our list. This was the FLGS where I had picked up the "after-event" swag from last year. I figured they would be doing the event again this year.

And they didn't have anything.

I asked and they said they were on the list to get the product for Free RPG Day 2012. But there was a snafu and they got nothing. Then they said they called a couple of other stores in NH and were told they also had not received the product packages. Then they told me that a number of stores in Mass also had not received their packages. Apparently there was a shipping/allocation error. The news was that NH and Mass were missed.

We still ended up hitting four more stores on our trip and none of them had any Free RPG product. Overall rather disappointing. Now, I am not the sort of person to gripe about not getting free stuff, after all the producer of said products is not obligated to give anything away for free and I am certainly not entitled to get free stuff from anyone. But it was disappointing.

To be fair, I did check out the Free RPG Day website after I got home and none of the stores I had visited were on their list, though some of the stores thought they were and had expected the product packages. Maybe a case of miscommunication or the website simply reflected the mess-up in shipping. Either way, Free RPG Day was a non-event for me.

As a cool aside, the first store I hit was having a Retro-Free RPG Day to make up for the fact they hadn't received the product packages. They put out product from last year's Free RPG Day that no one had taken last year and then they added in some D&D Encounter modules from their in-store Encounter events. I still managed to get some Dark Sun modules, Keep on the Borderlands, Geist, and Rogue Trader stuff.