Must buy: SlaughterGrid

Christ on his cross. Sometimes I really debate telling other people about a glorious item that is 100% amazing because I have dreams of running it. (I had this problem with Far Away Land.) But sometimes a thing is so good you have to spread the word. This thing I SlaughterGrid. Read the review here.

Let me be frank. This is a little too weird/gonzo for me. I'd have to really detail the crazy hex-crawl nonsense a bit and even then it wouldn't quite fit into any campaign I'd run long term. And this is coming from a dude who recently ran a game that included an onion witch whose crazy onion eyes let her see things from afar but only during the lead-up to orgasm (and probably a bit post orgasm)... And that was, in part, because the players opted to avoid the river rafting which was kinda the railroad of the module. For gonzo/weird shit, I have a hard time keeping all the crazy in mind and making it meaningful crazy. I know when it looks good though, even if its not quite for me.

Nonetheless. I agree that this adventure seems very well done. For me, the adventure is unuseable as it. But still 100% amazing. You get enough details to run each little encounter. Specific attention is payed to smells, writing, and the like. I <3 the bullet points, I've long debated if I could get away with a bullet point format (not just for myself but when gifting things to others) and this answers with a resounding yes! This thing is basically wonderful. Buy it. Read it. Dream of running it and realize it was still worth the cost for all the ideas you'll steal from it.

In a way, it seems overdone. Each encounter is kinda meaningful. Almost Torchbearer/Dungeon World meaningful. Like its a big deal, more than 2d8 gnolls. I think the real trick is figuring out how to use this as inspiration to make 2d8 gnolls meaningful.

5e Spells: W(h)ither Creativity?

So the disappointing thing about 5e is that it seems sanitised for balance, but in a somewhat half-assed way. That's not right, its pretty well done, but maybe its too much compromise. What getting me at the moment is the utility spells.

So, I'm playing a gnome trickster cleric. I get some nice spells like polymorph and charm person and pass without trace. Things to help with sneaking and all that. Some nice options. But, unlike other spells, these don't scale with higher slots. And some of the higher level cleric spells are just less... interesting.

The DM tried to tell me that spells like blade barrier and banishment were great, and I agree. But not great for a trickster. I want some more utilities. And utilities that last longer. And these just aren't happening. Its sad too, because some spells like Bestow Curse show us the way.

For example, why can't a detect magic spell be cast with higher level slots (think 5th/6th level) that doesn't need concentration? Maybe its just 10 minutes or even one minute without concentration, but that's still great! A 6th level slot might be worth the 10 minutes or an hour. And a 9th level slot lasting all day... is that really unbalanced? The same applies to things like unseen servant, tenser's floating disk, and all sorts of other options. Even a higher level polymorph might let you keep your mental abilities or at least be able to concentrate on it for more than one hour. And this isn't just a problem with some utility spells, but a lot of them. No attempt to make them scale.

Then there's the saving throw issue. You can get advantage on magical attacks to deal damage, but it is almost impossible to give your foes disadvantage on saving throws. That makes my idea of playing a callous, cavalier, or downright evil enchanter rather unappealing (besides that they don't seem to get their one useful feature till level 14). So basically, you have an easy go of it if you're just planning on blasting your foes, but using some non-combat spells creatively never gets much easier. Guess some of that's the limit of bounded accuracy and a game focused on killing your foes rather than avoiding them.

I don't have my DMG yet, but theres a table I hope is in there but kinda doubt is: using spells creatively. Because I think they did some good jobs with spells like Create/Destroy Water and Control Water giving us some likely options, but they could have spelled out some of the combat uses better. Like the light cantrip: in AD&D, you could cast it at your foes eyes to blind them. It seems like a rather iconic thing to do and not all that hard to give rules: target gets a save or is blinded for one round (or dazed or whatever an appropriate condition is). Not always the best use of an action but it could have its uses and makes light a useful cantrip. Same thing with ray of frost: give it a secondary use for attempting to knock creatures prone (maybe they get a save/defense bonus of +1 for each leg they have beyond two? or simply advantage if they have more than 2 legs). These uses could easily be hard-coded into a lot of the non-combat spells: even using unseen servant you could sactifice it for a "help" action in a combat. Maybe not the best, but it gives people a clear use of these utility spells in combat.

But the table though. I want a table that gives good advice for using some spells creatively and how much damage they should do. If I use create water against a fire elemental, how much damage should it do? It barely has to be a table. I'm thinking something like:

• Single Target, just damage: 2d8+1d8 per spell level above 1st.
• Multi target, or single target + condition: 2d4+1d4 per spell level above 1st.
• Area of effect type spells ought to do half-damage on a failed save.
• Apply advantage on an attack roll or disadvantage on a save if it's thematically appropriate (i.e. create water against a fire elemental).

But since they're hard-coding some uses into spells, it seems obvious that create or destroy water ought to be able to do damage to fire or water creatures.  Why is this missing? Stone shape against an earth creature? These utility spells have been sanitised their combat uses. On the surface they have an old school feel because they give you some nice non-combat options, but those non-combat options don't scale well and any combat applications of utility spells are left entirely to the DM to decide. I'd think given the interest in balance in organized play that they'd make some fair and balanced rulings about this sort of thing so they can be evenly applied by different DMs.

I guess maybe this bothers me more because it seems like my current DM has just given up on learning the system: he calls for lots of pointless skill checks (ok, a style issue) and doesn't seem to understand which proficiencies do what (he never uses investigation, seems to misunderstand thieves' tools, and occasionally calls for things like "agility saves" which are usually--but not always--interpretable). So in this world, I'd rather have some clear guidelines on how some of my creative spell use ought to work, and, frankly, we know in D&D that when someone comes up with one creative use for a spell it gets repeated ad nauseum. 5e would be better off giving some of these utility spells a bit more utility, and it could have been better off coding it in the rules.

5th Edition: W(h)ither Creativity?

While I haven't gotten a chance to play some 5th Edition yet, one aspect of it that bothers me a bit is the the lack of explicit creative thinking instructions that we see in the game. I call this "sheet blinders".

This is something that I've noticed when running 4th edition. Your powers list some very specific things you can do. Much to my shame, when running a one-shot 4e game years ago, a friend of mine was still thinking in older D&D mode (or non-D&D mode?) and asked to push an enemy through a window. My response was something along the lines of: "Use one of the powers on your sheet. Do you have one that pushes?"

I think it's the same thing when I play some games with folk back home and people instinctively reach for the d20 and roll perception before the DM has a chance to describe the situation. The book or your sheet explicitly says its an option, so you better do it. And you don't always think beyond the options listed on your sheet.

While I've ragged on cantrips before, I really feel this in cantrips and some of the cantrip-like powers. Look at druidcraft, prestidigitation, and thaumaturgy. They give you a relatively fixed set of options that you can do, with a bit of leeway in "harmless sensory effects". But the tinker rock gnome has the same problem. They can craft one of three little mechanical devices. Can they instead create small clockwork traps? Can ray of frost freeze things? Can I light a candle with flame bolt? Even 13th Age, which has some options of giving the wizard an array of cantrips that do things based on your spells prepared has them only do harmless effects, but what about useful ones?

Maybe other editions didn't call out as many imaginative possibilities like this either: I'll have to do some comparisons. But I think the designers missed an opportunity when the Dragonborn and Tiefling descriptions (or the uncommon races sidebar) didn't suggest variants: If you don't like the concept of Dragonborn or Tieflings as major races in your game, you could still let players play them as unique characters. Maybe half-dragons or half-fiends could have a place in your story (Inu Yasha style?) as rare or unique individuals when the description of the race as a whole doesn't fit? That's one little side-bar from the 4th edition Dark Sun setting that I think would have been well placed in the new PH.

I hope the new DMG has some of this advice stuck in it, but I suppose I can see listing very specific minor effects as a way of keeping things saner in organized play. I just hate that it might lead someone to say "no, your cantrip can't do that" rather than "yeah, but its not quite powerful enough to do all of that." Which is sad, because last summer with the playtest rules, I loved the creativity of players trying to tip bookcases over on enemies when they went Against the Cult of the Reptile God. All the talk of OSR games and such, that's one of the key elements that I want to get back into D&D. Somehow I didn't feel like that level of creativity was absent in Fading Suns or Vampire or other storytelling/indie games, but maybe the lack of creativity is one of the elements that made 4e feel a bit more like a videogame than a tabletop RPG.

That said, even if the DMG doesn't tackle this, it seems like something that a little foresight and planning can help alleviate: just tell players to think outside the box (and the bullet points in power descriptions).

How much variety is enough?

Now that I've been playing some D&D next, I'm starting to rethink my ideal list of classes a bit. People have always been interested in new classes (and races) in D&D. The very first books and magazines expanded the list of character options beyond the few basics, but the basics have always been somewhat the standard, required classes.

Party roles were long ago based on fighters, thieves, clerics, and mages. The basics of exploring a dungeon seem to require someone that can do what each of these classes can do: taking out enemies, traps and scouting, and healing. Ok, the wizard seems more necessary because he's the kill-switch or emergency button. But one well-placed or well-times magic spell overcomes most obstacles. If the mage has the right one ready.

The problem is that each of those classes are basically the same, so that their roles can always be done. A wizard can cast any spell he finds. A cleric can always heal. A thief gets the same set of skills, and fighters are basically the same heavily-armored tank.

Episodic Games, not Epics

As a teacher, one of the hard things to learn is to tell a complete story in a lecture. You don't want to just keep plodding through the material in the book, but make sure each day starts with an introduction and ends with a conclusion. I think an RPG session should be very much the same.

This can be hard, because you want to plot out a nice epic. You have a vision of the end. Its one of your best ideas and showcases all your creative genius. But ultimately, I think this view of an RPG is somewhat flawed.

I'm guilty of this sin too. In the Dark Sun game I finished running a year or so ago, I had a great plot which answered a question for me about why a wooden spear killed a sorcerer king. I decided that the other sorcerer kings orchestrated it. The Heartwood spear wasn't a holy primal artifact, but dragon-forged. Everyone knew what Kalak was attempting with his ziggurat. But the other sorcerer-kings knew that they would be in danger if they acted together. Like a big game of chicken, no one would be willing to expose themselves by making the first move. So they set up mortals to do it.

A nice plot, but that doesn't help with each individual game session. I tried to plan things about the one piece of the puzzle that I wanted to reveal each game. Early on I planted the seeds so they would know that the sorcerer-kings each hated a different race and even tried to exterminate their enemies. I had a race by the different factions to find the Orbs of Kalid-Ma, the artifact that Kalak was using to attempt full dragon transformation, and also the Heartwood Spear which disappeared (confusing people to no end with talk of spheres and spears). Some games, however, fell short of that mark, I'm sure.

Part of the problem, I've come to believe, is 4e's emphasis on the encounter. I found myself plotting encounters much more than stories. The plot was in the background while encounters took more planning. It was easy, but that's one thing that left me feeling dissatisfied with the game. This is why the one-hour game session goal of D&D Next is so appealing.

So I've come to believe more and more than an RPG session needs to be treated more like a short story. Like a good episode of a TV show. Each revelation of the larger plot can be a shard in each adventure, but a session should, in general, have a beginning, a middle, and an end. That can be really hard with 4e, where you're more likely to plot the 3 encounters you'll have time to run.

Party Coherence

I've been reflecting a lot on D&D lately (I partly blame Antagonist Relations), specifically on the history and rules. But the game is really in the playing. A ruleset is a tool, better for some tasks than others. But any rule set will generally get the job done. What we don't really see rules for in RPGs, however, is party coherence.

I'm not sure why that is, but I suspect it stems from the general lack of social rules and cooperative attitude that games like D&D engender. What is party coherence though? My ideas on this are colored by my old LARP experience.

See, I used to play LARPs at conventions. These weren't long-term things, just one four-hour game. But the social interaction there required a skeleton of player knowledge. This was generally done by a lengthy list of the characters in the game and a short description of your relationship to each one. So-and-so was your brother in the Mafia family, or in your delegation at the peace conference. So-and-so was your rival, the person you wanted to take down. Without this basic background info, you were lost in this type of political intrigue game.

Some of the people who ran those games also ran D&D games at convention I used to frequent. And you see the same sort of thing in a convention game. My favorite one had my friend JG as my daughter, and I suspected that this other guy that I knew was playing my son that I put up for adoption. Instantly I had connection to the rest of the party. It was awesome.

When the Story was in the Stars

I was just recently reminded of a quite amazing Fading Suns game that I ran/played in a number of years back. I didn't document it as much as I might have liked now, but we tried. It was a great little game though, which lasted about two years. The original idea was for a character-focused drama, in the line of Outlaw Star and Cowboy Bebop. I even went so far as to post Tv-guide style summaries of some of the sessions, and title the arcs. I'm sure I might have more in my lost notes on some old backup CD somewhere. The best, of course, being the Revenge is a Big Fat Wealthy Bitch arc, where the party got revenve on a Scraver casino owner who had busted their balls in the Maltese Gargoyle incident in her casino earlier.

When I read the title of one of the episodes of that arc, Follow That Bitch!, I laughed out loud.
I'd like to get back into Fading Suns, or a similar game, eventually. Its really some of the character-driven stuff that I miss (along with playing in general). I think D&D makes some longer-term things easier, but some of the stricter party structure can make it harder to improvise or deal with missing characters. Even when you're not playing 4e, you know its going to be hard if you're missing one PC.
I've always said (or at least often remarked) that D&D is about 3 parts combat, two parts puzzles, and one part roleplaying. That's not necessarily true, but its what the rules lead one to believe. Its well-suited for busting into ancient tombs and finding treasure, but not always my tool of choice for doing more character-centered stuff. Right tool for the job and all that.

What makes a tabletop RPG "videogamey"?

One vague criticism that's often leveled against D&D in the past decade is that it's "videogamey", whether it was third edition being like Diablo or 4th edition being like World of Warcraft. But what does this criticism mean?

On the surface, it seems to be an emotional way of saying "I don't like it." But I think it goes a little deeper than that. I think it all comes down to creativity at a personal level.

First, of course D&D (or any tabletop RPG) is going to be like a videogame, because many aspects of RPG videogames were derived from D&D in the first place. In fact, if you go back to the 80s and 90s you'll find D&D video games. Surely those were videogamey? Let's move beyond that though.

• A tabletop RPG relies on gamemaster creativity, a video game does not.

This gets at one of the core grognard complaints, that third and fourth edition reduce the role of the DM to a glorified calculator, with concepts like wealth-by-level, XP budgets, and the like. I don't mean to imply that earlier editions of the game didn't have crazy subsystems or nit-picky rules for things like falling damage, but the trend towards balanced encounters and treasure parceling is one way in which D&D might feel videogamey.

• A tabletop RPG relies on player creativity, a video games does not.

I distinctly remember playing a intro 4e game with some friends, and crushing one of their souls as the DM when he wanted to charge an enemy and push him through the window of a cottage. Sure, it can be done in 4e, but if you want to follow the rules its hard to see how that desired action should be implemented. Conversely, when all your options are laying out in front of you in the form of power cards, you tend to think in terms of those categories, rather than going outside the box. So the proliferation of fixed powers is one way that makes recent editions of D&D feel videogamey.

• A videogame is repetitive, D&D is not.

This criticism goes along with the criticism of the powers system from 4e and some of the class features of third edition. Video games tend to have either unlimited magic attacks or a spell point system, so that you blast away repeatedly with your best attacks. You kill the same set of enemies over and over again in the hopes that they drop better items. You wander around the same maze, searching for fruit and using your power-ups to defeat your ghostly enemies each level. Tabletop RPGs do repetitive things, but in more creative ways. Crucially, in a tabletop RPG, player creativity lessens repetitiveness, or at least it has the potential to do so.

The criticism of videogameyness, then, is really a criticism for having too many spelled out rules. Or at least that's one reasonable and logical component of the criticism. Going back to those old D&D video games, you see it there too. Focusing on the mechanical level, attacks--both magical and mundane--have only one fixed effect. Unless the programmers code it, you can't hide up on that crumbling wall and rain down death on the kobolds from above. Any computer adaptation of D&D loses a lot of spontaneous creativity on the part of the player and DM. It gains some vital benefits: video games do not require a troop of friends and a parent's basement (or other suitable playspace).

Now, as a DM, I loved the encounter building in 4e. It was, by and large, easy. Especially with the online tools, you could easily sort through things and find a slew of appropriate monsters, traps, and hazards with ease. The d20srd has some searchability, so third edition and pathfinder have some of the same options, though I don't find the searching or encounter building to be quite as nice as 4e.

Is there a solution to this problem? I think so. Consider the hypothetical fighter. People complain that he has a lack of options, but I think their complaint is that its not clear what a fighter should be able to do besides swing his sword. Learning distinct maneuvers to disarm, bullrush, knock someone down, etc. is tedious, and distinct mechanisms for that will lead to accusations of videogaminess. It also shouldn't be required that people constantly push their enemies with their basic attacks, which is one fault of 4e. But listing options and plausible effects of those options (e.g. pushing someone in combat might knock them back five feet under normal conditions) will spark some creativity. And adding one more option, along the lines of "Preform some other awesome feat" in addition to "Disarm", "Trip", "Bullrush", and the like might just help remind people to think outside the box, while at the same time giving them some notion of the size and shape of the box.

If this approach is adopted, the problems people see with the magic of 4e (and to a lesser extend 3.5) might rectify themselves as well. In 4e, a wizard might use scorching burst all day long and never start his opponent's hair on fire or damage their priceless tome implement. Some of that good immersive verisimilitude gets lost in those mechanical descriptions. But some general advice for keywords (spells with the fire keyword might start fires), and creative uses for these spells may return en masse. This is the sort of spontaneous creativity that people play RPGs for, and why a computer game--at least in the foreseeable future--just can't compete. When rules systems are seen as emulating computer games in this way (e.g. fixed and exhaustively defined options which may be divorced from any secondary effects), the criticism of videogaminess is probably valid.