Redder is better

I have played Magic: The Gathering (as opposed to Magic: The Lathering) twice in the last six weeks. This constitutes the first two times I have played MtG in five years, roughly. The last time I played with any sort of regularity was Third Edition, and I had still had some alpha and beta cards in my deck. Enjoying the high school level of arguing around what a colon meant and how there was a cap on the same card now, and what did it all mean?! Could I spent my theoretically infinite black mana to make my vampire a horrific monster? Did he gain unlimited damage and toughness when he ate bitches?

I pretty much stopped collecting cards when Mirage and Ice Age were the two big sets. While the cards had fewer rules, they were all about the shit ruining. Let's face it, the primary goal of MtG is to ruin shit. Now the shit ruining has more variety, and more rules. The goal hasn't changed, and never will.

Last night was interesting because it was the first time I had ever participated in a draft. The experience was a positive one, and the drafting process is something that I can get engrossed in very easily and treat as the first game in the overall meta game of draft play. The three parts to this game would be draft, deck and sideboard creation, and play. Drafting is something that always interests me, in just about any possible type of draft scenario. The strategy of the counter-pick early on is something I believe in strongly, if given the opportunity. Sometimes this ends up being a formative experience and you draft your team/character make-up/deck around those early picks. You then have the choice of thematic picking or strong picking. You can also "draft bait" by leaving certain elements on the table and then either scoop them up or entice others to take them.

Part of the drafting excitement in MtG is that first pick when you open a pack. It's a moment of excitement, and you get to make an informed decision before anyone else. Each pack that opens grants this moment of suppressed excitement, though later packs are less exciting than the first, because your deck has begun to coalesce. Later picks become arguably more valuable, and you have begun to take note of what other decks might be forming by when cards are taken. This is somewhat guess work in seeing who took what, but it's much like a game of memory to see when cards are taken. If it's not clear, I treat this like a puzzle without a unified solution, and delight in the experience, even if my building and play aren't up to snuff.

I was lucky to open a deck that had this dude:

From Standing in Fire

Holy crap. I didn't know what any of that junk meant, but I was clear about two things:

1) Cards that look visibly different in MtG are better than cards that have a normal design. This has always been the case.

2) It had a red symbol, signifying Ultra Rare.

Planeswalkers are, as far as I can tell, from the Plane of Shit Ruining. They exist to be bullshit. Had the text on the first ability been clear, I would have begun the process of fecal destruction the next round. However, due to Text Parsing Errors, something now rife in MtG, this was not the case. The word next is confusing and exists only in case a card prevents your normal end phase. This lead to my moment of confusion driven embarrassing anger. This happens when I think I understand something and it turns out to not be the case because of some error and it makes me look foolish. I get a flash of anger directed at no one but myself, followed by embarrassment because I got angry. So the Venser, the Shit Ruiner died because of an error that turned out I was correct about, but there was really no way to tell. Oh well. That's the biggest issue with MtG, there are HUNDREDS of clarifications about the text. While the text is normally pretty clear, interactions are just not. This is a finicky barrier to play, not really to entry. Still, live and learn.

The next example of Redder is Better comes in the form of this swell fellow:

From Standing in Fire

Now, his cost is very, very excessive. However, we were playing a multi-player game, so the build was slower. Please note his red symbol. Now couple that with a -1 loyalty cost to make him unblockable. Yup, look at that, shit is ruined. The power level of red is just an order of magnitude higher. It's silly. Of course, some common cards are unbalanced in multi-play as well. I am fairly certain gaining 20 life off of a 2 casting cost card is unintended, but them's the breaks.

The other big path to defecation destruction is Infect. Infect negates regeneration, adds poison counters to make the game twice as short for you, and exists to make proliferate crazy awesome. This is working as intended and is awful. That being said, once you cope with it, it's neat. Then again, all of these counters everywhere are pretty bad. It's 4e higher tier debuff/buff/status tracking. There are counters and conditions everywhere. We had a lot of dice for visual tracking so it wasn't that bad, it was just...voluminous.

It has been hard to get back into the mindset of being a Magic player, but the experience has mostly been fun. I look forward to learning more of the rules and embarrassing myself less often. Seeing people's decks work as intended would be a lot of fun, too. I just need to get used to having my shit ruined as an acceptable way to have fun. I just need to remember that kobolds are too good to block.

Home, home on the range

In video games you run into it all the time. You find yourself thinking, man, I wish I was a melee guy right now or, man, I wish I was a ranged guy right now. MMOs are the biggest culprit, unsurprisingly, with certain encounters favoring one role, class or spec over the others. While many feel this is a chance at a spotlight, others believe that this leads to marginalization. However, think back to single-player, or even group play games. You have experienced the same thing, I guarantee it. We all remember the Lightning Enchanted jerks from Diablo. We remember the horrible "deathblow" abilities that chunked away at melee life. Mass Effect 2 brought on the death of the Vanguard by making charge a death sentence or impossible to use in a lot of circumstances. Dragon Age and Dragon Age 2 tend to favor ranged in most circumstances, but you still need a few melee folks in the group. Still, there are many times when tank and three ranged is the correct answer. Of course there are times when melee is blatantly overpower for the ease of use. The melee weapons in Left 4 Dead 2 are a good example. That ninja sword was made for zombie murder. Fallout 3 and onward treat melee with more reverence than it possibly deserves.

Melee seems to come with the built in expectation of low survivability for those that choose to deal damage that way. As a result, the sustained damage, and often burst damage, tends to trend higher. This can be expanded to include ranged physical damage dealers, as well. Rangers, hunters, etc.

That's all well and good for video games, but what about for table top games? Is there a difference in efficacy between ranged and melee classes that has been taken for granted or not explored? Let's take a look at a few different systems.

DnD: 4E:

Melee Damage Examples: Barbarians, Rogues, Monks, Avengers, Rangers

Ranged Physical Damage Examples: Rangers

Ranged Magical Damage: Sorcerors, Warlocks

Taking this sampling, in no way entirely complete, I think the edge goes to the Ranged classes. The melee classes deal a lot of damage, but are subjected to auras. This is a pretty huge deal in 4e. Auras, auras, everywhere. In addition, you have the marking mechanic, which encourages tanking. The creatures often end up in melee range, which is good for all parties involved, except the melee characters are likely to take splash damage, or be included in attacks. Additionally, once in melee, the characters have an increasingly hard time with mobility. It's very hard to get away from things, especially without taking even more damage. Even if you aren't the focal point of the attacking creature. Charge can help as a gap closer, but it's not a hard gap closer. It's still subject to the dreaded attack of opportunity.

Due to their "fragility", ranged classes tend to end up with more hard escapes. Teleports and damage avoidance are high. Damage for the ranged magical classes tends to scale extremely well, and often multiple targets over a large area can be hit with spells and effects, without limiting the damage that is being produced. Even if they are in melee range, they aren't limited as to what they can cast, because of the way shifting works. They are rarely threatened to any large degree, and auras almost never come into play. Now, you can actively work around this if you are running a game, but you have to work to do so. If you do it every time, it does tend to marginalize the concepts of the defender, and it can frustrate the melee, as they can't pick all of the targets in the same manner than ranged can.

The edge in fourth edition goes to ranged classes, strongly I feel. Though this scales from marginally to greatly as the game progresses in level.

DnD: 3e, 3.5e

Melee examples: Fighter, rogue, ranger, barbarian

Ranged physical damage: Rogue, ranger

Ranged magical damage: Wizard, Sorcerer, Cleric

3e had some parity issues, to put it mildly. Multi-classing and prestige classes were just nuts. However, I think 3e and 3.5 were more friendly to melee, at least early on. Once you get to the later stages of the game, the ranged classes begin to not only dominate, but make you wonder what you are doing wrong.

Auras aren't really a thing in 3/.5E. Multi-attacks, however, are. So many multiple target, multiple attacks. It's as bad as early MMO cleaving. Without an artificial tanking mechanic, it meant if you were close, you were going to get battered. Spiked-Chain Fighter serving as a statistical anomaly here, there was very little incentive to play a melee character. Rogues did great with evasion and greater evasion, but if you lacked that, you were going to have a bad time. Of course, you could pick up a lot of that as a ranged character, simply by using a bow, for example, as a rogue, and not give up your sneak attacks. Even more so than 4e, you really, really had to have potent magic items in 3e to compete as a melee character. Not to mention that you didn't bring any of the party utility the way the magical ranged classes did. We all know that buffing was ridiculously powerful in 3/.5E. Movement was less of a big deal here, as the scale was simply different and it didn't tend to quite be so frustrating. However, again, Spiked Chain Fighter might as well have been from a different game.

Prestige classes allowed for things like Mystic Theurge, Arcane Trickster, Hierophant, and Arcane Archer. The first three are the holy trinity of ranged ridiculousness. The first two are the most egregious offenders, but Hierophant and Neutral with Negative Energy reversion is a really, really close third.

The edge in 3/.5E goes to ranged classes, with the caveat that with enough gear it eventually evened out. The gear level for this was ridiculous and required SR or Immunities, but hey.

Earthdawn

I was going to give examples, but really it's simple here. Spellcasting is really, really powerful. It can be frustrating...until you get your powergamer options. Ice Mace and Chains, Pain, Bonedance, etc. etc. Once a caster advances, melee exists as a frontline to not overrun the casters. The casters are the show, minus rogues with questionable math. Spellcasters can even help out the melee with a little choice. The weapons created with magic rock face. Being able to get things like Air Throne with a spell were pretty ridiculous. The complete glossing over of things like how evil some magic is certainly helps, too. Not to mention that getting in range of horrors seems like a Bad Idea. Of course, Earthdawn was pretty egalitarian about the ranged vs melee attacks. However, it was a setting based on the danger/allure of magic. It's not surprising that the outcome is what it is.

Over the Edge

It's classless. It's a great system, but holy shit guns. Having a gun is just better than everything else, even with limited skill. Kung fu is bullshit, get some more guns. You should be a John Wu film.

Spirit of the Century

Very little difference, it's narrative play. Every gets to be awesome in their own way. I liked that a lot.

So, I think for the most part, in the games I have played, that ranged seems to win out. In part it's because it is easier to mess with melee characters. Being in range of the bad is the biggest detriment to the melee characters. Then again, ranged characters also tend to have more use out of combat. Though, that's another entry all together.

In video games, mechanics are introduced to mess with ranged characters, where movement means less damage or less safety. With the turns of table tops, it just really doesn't work this way. As mentioned before, having monsters appear on them, or ignore defenders or whatnot is ok sometimes, but not something you want to lose a lot. You could do things like increase auras, but that's just obnoxious. So what are some ideas to even things out a little in combat?

Eye of the Storm - Reverse aura. You would have a small area of safety around certain units, but that opens you up to attacks. Some options include a dampening field that lowers damage dealt, encouraging players to get close to be more effective, a storm that strikes lightning in the cloud around the eye, or strong winds that decrease the ability to strike actively or moves characters around.

Tendrils - Ranged attacks in addition to melee attacks. Tendrils wouldn't occur as often as ranged attacks, but a character being lashed by something if they were far away or just as an extra damage kicker of the creature would add a little more risk.

Pillars - Things that require line of sight. If the characters can't attack every round, it's obnoxious for them. They feel useless. However, if the characters can use cover and take bonuses and penalties from doing so, it might be encouragement for risk.

Cones, Splash, Breath - More pie slice/wide area attacks. Punish everyone, be equal!

It might not be as big a deal as I am making it out to be, but I do think there is a disparity. Usually this is in survivability, and the trade is very slightly more damage for the melee. However, sometimes this isn't even the case. It might be nice to keep that in mind for future design.

Making players cry without actually harming them or verbally abusing them

Last night I ran the conclusion of a dungeon in my bi-weekly (every other week, not twice weekly) Chessenta campaign. There were a total of three opponent factions in the final battle, some cultists, a blue dragon, and a brass dragon. The blue and the brass dragon were tangling atop a pile of treasure, crushing the treasure each time they moved or missed with an attack. After that was resolved, I had a list of randomly generated treasure that was being crossed out as the dragons fought and stumbled around.

It was pretty awesome. One of the players ran in and grabbed the dragon in order to forcibly remove him from the room to stop the treasure from getting entirely destroyed, and when the dragon eventually got back in the room, the party rushed him to at least stop him from moving.

The fight featured some neat monsters that were fun and challenging, but not frustrating. Proving once again that ongoing damage is a good mechanic.

Overall it was a fun session that ended up being more lucrative for the party based on the party's tactics and actions, a fine thing if you ask me. We also learned that dragons HATE blowguns.

I love random treasure generation

I love generating treasure. The possibilities that appear before you are endless. The random nature of the treasure is a surprise and a pleasure when you are generating it, and you know that the PCs are going to be surprised when they see it. Sure, sometimes it's nice to have nicely itemized rewards as well, and it's nice to have bazaars that the players can visit and purchase items. Other times, it's a nice reminder that the PCs are part of a larger world and the items are for people that are obviously not them.

So how do I do it? I made up some charts that I have been using after playing around with various methods.

First, determine how many items you want, or just roll a die to figure out how much you want.

d6 - type of treasure

1-4. Equipment

5. Rituals

6. Alchemy

d20 - type of equipment

1. Armor

2. Weapons

3. Augments

4. Implements

5. Reagents

6. Arm Slot

7. Feet Slot

8. Hand Slot

9. Head Slot

10. Rings

11. Waist Slot

12. Wonderous Items

13. Item Sets

14. Mount Slot

15. Familiar Slot

16. Companion Slot

17. Alchemical Items

18. Consumables

19. Intelligent Items (If you don't want to use these as random treasure, re-roll here instead)

20. Artifacts (If you don't want to use these as random treasure, re-roll here instead)

Level of Item

For players level 1-8 roll a d8 (1-8 level items)

For players level 9-18 roll a d12 (8-19 level items)

For players level 19-30 roll a d12 (19-30 level items)

You can obviously increase this if you wish, but it's a decent guideline based on levels.

Ok, you have determined the item type and the item level. That makes it pretty easy to narrow down choices now. For some things, less so though!

d6 -Armor type

1. Cloth

2. Leather

3. Hide

4. Chain

5. Scale

6. Plate

For armor, you can then determine subtypes if you want, githweave, finemail, warplate whatever if you want to, but the stuff is leveled, so you should feel comfortable subbing that in based on levels if you want. If the item type can match a level of that object (finemail at level 6 for example) roll a d6, 1-5 is normal, 6 is the special type.

d6 - Weapon Quality

1-2. Simple

3-5. Military

6. Superior

Superior Quality Weapons

1. Bastard Sword

2. Blowgun

3. Bola

4. Craghammer

5. Cutting Wheel

6. Double Axe

7. Double Flail

8. Double Scimitar

9. Double Sword

10. Drow Long Knife

11. Execution Axe

12. Fullblade

13. Garrote

14. Greatbow

15. Greatspear

16. Katar

17. Kukri

18. Mordenkrad

19. Net

20. Parrying Dagger

21. Shuriken

22. Spiked Chain

23. Spiked Shield

24. Superior Crossbow

25. Talenta Boomerang

26. Talenta Sharrash

27. Talenta Tangat

28. Tratnyr

29. Triple Headed Flail

30. Urgosh

31. Waraxe

32. Whip

33. Xen'drik Boomerang

34. Zulaat

35. Rapier

36. Reroll

That's a lot of superior weapons. The easiest way to do it is to break them into groups of six. 1-6, 7-12, 13-18, 19-24, 25-30, 31-36. Roll a d6 to determine what group you get, and then roll another d6 to determine weapon type.

Simple Weapons

1. Club

2. Crossbow

3. Dagger

4. Greatclub

5. Hand Crossbow

6. Javelin

7. Mace

8. Morningstar

9. Quarterstaff

10. Repeating Crossbow

11. Scythe

12. Sickle

13. Sling

14. Spear

15. Spiked Gauntlet

Still a lot, but not as many. Break them into groups of 5 and roll a d6 with group 1 (1-5) being 1-2, group 2 (6-10) being 3-4, and group 3 (11-15) being 5-6. Then roll a d6, rerolling any 6 you roll.

Military Weapons

1. Battle Axe

2. Battlefist

3. Broadsword

4. Falchion

5. Flail

6. Glaive

7. Greataxe

8. Greatsword

9. Halberd

10. Handaxe

11. Heavy Flail

12. Heavy War Pick

13. Khopesh

14. Light War Pick

15. Longbow

16. Longspear

17. Longsword

18. Scimitar

19. Scourge

20. Short Sword

21. Shortbow

22. Throwing Hammer

23. Trident

24. War Pick

25. War Hammer

Again, we have a multiple of five. Easy enough. Once again use a d6 to determine the item groups. If you roll a 6, just reroll. Group 1 is 1-5, group 2 is 6-10, group 3 is 11-15, group 4 is 16-20 and group 5 is 21-25.

Ok, so now you have your basic weapon types and your level ranges for items. I am going to do a huge thing here and list the effects as well, by level and weapon type.

One-Handed Non-Hammers

d4 - Level 1:

1. Magic Weapon +1

2. Challenge-Seeking +1

3. Reroll

4. Reroll

d20 - Level 2:

1. Aftershock +1

2. Armblade +1

3. Bloodclaw +1

4. Defensive +1

5. Farbond +1

6. Flesh Seeker +1

7. Gambler's Weapon +1

8. Goblin Totem +1

9. Guardian's Call +1

10. Harmonic Songblade +1

11. Mage Weapon +1

12. Manifester Weapon +1

13. Parrying Weapon +1

14. Pinning Weapon +1

15. Psychokinetic Weapon +1

16. Quicksilver Blade +1

17. Reproachful Weapon +1

18. Supremely Vicious Weapon +1

19. Vicious Weapon +1

20. Weapon of Shared Wrath +1

Level 3

1. Aegis Blade +1

2. Anathema Weapon +1

3. Aura Killer Weapon +1

4. Byeshk Weapon +1

5. Duelist's Weapon +1

6. Foe Maker Weapon +1

7. Frost Weapon +1

8. Great Hunger +1

9. Harsh Songblade +1

10. Inescapable Weapon +1

11. Inspiring Weapon +1

12. Ki Weapon +1

13. Luckblade +1

14. Pact Blade +1

15. Paired Weapon +1

16. Quick Weapon +1

17. Reckless Weapon +1

18. Scalebane Weapon +1

19. Strongheart Weapon +1

20. Subtle Weapon +1

21. Thundering Weapon +1

22. Vanguard Weapon +1

23. Warsoul Weapon +1

24. Gutting Weapon +1

25. Infectious Flame Weapon +1

Again, break this into groups of five. There will be five. Roll a d6 to determine the group then a d6 for the effect, re-roll any result of six.

Level 4

1. Acidic Weapon +1

2. Communal Weapon +1

3. Deathstalker Weapon +1

4. Dislocation Weapon +1

5. Echoing Songblade +1

6. Intensifying Weapon +1

7. Master's Blade +1

8. Maw of the Guardian +1

9. Medic's Weapon +1

10. Oathblade +1

11. Opportunistic Weapon +1

12. Stormbiter Weapon +1

13. Vigilant Blade +1

14. Weapon of Oaths Fulfilled +1

15. Wounding Weapon +1

Again, three groups of five, with re-rolling on a six.

Level 5

1. Chainreach Weapon +1

2. Fey Strike Weapon +1

3. Flaming Weapon +1

4. Flensing Weapon +1

5. Lifedrinker Weapon +1

6. Necroshard Weapon +1

7. Poisoned Weapon +1

8. Runic Weapon +1

9. Thieving Weapon +1

10. Thoughtspike Weapon +1

11. Vengeful Weapon +1

12. Weapon of Great Opportunity +1

13. Learning Weapon +1

Break them into groups of five. Roll a d6 to determine the grouping, a result of 1-2 for 1-5, a result of 3-4 for 6-10, and a result of 5-6 for 11-13. For the last group, assign each item two numbers then roll.

Level 6 - as level one with the following, all bonuses increase to +2

3. Dynamic Weapon +2

4. Sacrificial Weapon +2

Level 7 - as level two with the following changes, all bonuses increase to +2

d20

1-16. Roll on the level 2 chart for item type

17. Devilblind Weapon +2

18. Retribution Weapon +2

19. Spiderkissed Weapon+2

20. Transference Weapon +2

Level 8 - as level three with the following changes, all bonuses increase to +2

d20

1-11. Roll on the level 3 chart for item type

12- 20. Roll on the below Chart

1. Adamantine Weapon +2

2. Assassin's Weapon +2

3. Bronzewood Weapon +2

4. Cloaked Weapon +2

5. Cold Iron Weapon +2

6. Cunning Weapon +2

7. Dread Weapon +2

8. Flanking Weapon +2

9. Force Weapon +2

10. Graceful Weapon +2

11. Guardian's Brand +2

12. Mithrendain Steel +2

13. Mordant Weapon +2

14. Performer's Blade +2

15. Rubicant Blade +2

16. Tyrant's Weapon +2

17. Victory Flash Weapon +2

18. Waterbane Weapon +2

19. Writhing Vine Weapon +2

20. Re-roll

Level 9 - as level 4 with the following changes, all bonuses increase to +2

d20

1-12. Roll on the level 4 chart

13-20. Roll a d10 on the chart below.

1. Demonbane Weapon +2

2. Demonslayer Weapon +2

3. Dragonslayer Weapon +2

4. Feyslaughter Weapon +2

5. Elementalbane Weapon +2

6. Lucky Halfling's Weapon +2

7. Shapechanger's Sorrow +2

8. Singing Weapon +2

9. Vampiric Weapon +2

10. Wolfen Weapon +2

Level 10 - add the following to the level 5 chart, increase bonuses to +2

roll a d20

13. Blackshroud +2

14. Footpad's Friend +2

15. Guarding Weapon +2

16. Lightning Weapon +2

17. Righteous Weapon +2

18. Vitality Drinking +2

19. Wraithblade +2

20. Re-roll

I will finish the rest later, but this is a good start to get you going! Tomorrow will have levels 11-30 for weapons, hammers, armor and whatever else I get through.

Striation

"This isn't designed for you"

That phrase is said a lot in the MMO world right now. It's an interesting thing to consider. We've reached a point in MMO design where accessibility, time, and performance are clashing in a completely new fashion. In most MMO models that feature a PvE endgame which revolves around raiding, you have the following model.

Originally, everything was a competition. The players separated themselves into the above tiers. The striation and social structure is set by many factors. Most of which are time, accessibility and accountability.

Yes, accountability. People had to be accountable for their actions originally in MMOs. The leveling curve was steep and starting over just really wasn't something you wanted to consider. You couldn't just pay and swap servers. You couldn't rename yourself. Nothing was instanced, so you interacted with people on a continuous basis. I am not advocating a non-instanced fully Surviving the Game style of game. I do miss this level of accountability though in some games.

Time was a huge obstacle. You had to be available at a moment's notice if you wanted to be bleeding edge. It was a commitment. There was no playing 30 minutes a day or just twice a week. You had to put in the time. Almost unhealthily so. If you couldn't commit like this, then you were in a different strata.

Accessibility was not a game model until recently. The model didn't support multiple people being at the top at a time. By definition if you were not at the top, you couldn't access everything. There was a lot of other content with different difficulties and different rewards available, but if one guild was on top besides the one you were in, you couldn't do it. Now, games over time have tried to fix this. Instances have become common place. This prevents that single guild on top model in theory.

However, people like to compete. People WANT to separate themselves from the crowd. They want to show they are better than other people. They can't help it. This begins the problems with some of the design shifts that have occurred recently. Instead of that clearly delineated strata you had, you end up with something like looks like this.

Which is pretty odd. This is just people who actually want to experience the raiding content. There is another tier of people that have no interest in raiding at all. Still. Look at that. You have three of the tiers of people that have completed the content. This is pretty cool. Everyone seeing what they have paid for is still a new concept. I don't think it's lost its luster quite yet. However, this does raise problems.

The game design created competition is gone. It's entirely gone. This means that people have to create their own forms of competition. Let me be honest with you here, people are jerks. Giant jerks. If left up to them, they will create competition and barriers to entry that make game defined ones look like nothing. People create arbitrary requirements and then immediately start with the following process:

1) Anything I can't complete is overtuned.

2) Anything I can complete that you can't complete is an amazing fight and perfectly balanced.

3) Anything that I completed before you, but you have completed used to be an accomplishment, but now it's nerfed and weak.

4) Anything you can complete but I can't complete is tuned for people who treat this game as a job and have no life. I'm too busy dating supermodels and being a millionaire to worry about what you think, you fat basement dweller.

People chafe under this non-existent yoke. People want to flaunt their skill, dedication, and elitism. So what happens? You create optionally harder content as a way for people to distinguish themselves. You create challenging situations that change the fights in some fashion, or fights that are only accessible once you have completed all the hardmodes. Once again, limiting your access. It's not a big deal, and the top 5% and the group slightly behind them will say that it's for them and not for you, and you get access to everything now anyway and to stop crying. That's where it starts, not for you.

So what happens? You have a gear differential. Now, I am only talking about the same type of raiding size here. Some games separate the sizes and that creates a player imposed barrier. Well, you raid differently than me, that means you are either a) not as good or b) have no life. This depends on what side you are on. Anyway, this gear differential creates issues. You now have people who have significantly better gear. So, the next dungeon is released. The people in hardmode gear now seethe and whine about being placed back in the normal track with the rest of the people. They blow through content and say it's so easy. They complain that the game is dumbed down. They say that anyone who can't annihilate it is bad. Of course, if you release the hardmodes at the same time, you get more of the above four points.

Then what do you do?

You release more at once. You let people work through what they can work through at some sort of pace. Pacing is very important in games, something that seems to be forgotten in a lot of MMOs. You support competitions in game. You reward the people who do things first or quickly with vanity items that then become unattainable later. This lets people show off their skill and dedication but in no way gives them any sort of game edge. Limited titles, limited mounts, all neat. However, when you remove something, you have to replace it with a lesser reward to still encourage people. Still, it's actually a neat method.

You bring back accountability. Make people care about how they treat people and how they are treated. Yes, name changes and server transfers make you money. Still, there has to be a balance between this and giving people carte blanc to be d-bags.

Support rankings and player competition through in-game mechanics. Make things more friendly and supported by the game. Once it's a game structure, it becomes less mean spirited and more accepted. There are many ways to do that, but that's almost another post entirely.

You limit out of game resources needed to perform. If knowledge is presented in an appropriate fashion in the game, it stops being a barrier to entry or performance. People can learn to excel at the game while playing the game. This is something completely not done currently.

I like that we are in an age of change and experimentation. I don't like the fact that the wrong lessons are seeming to be learned. Strides need to be made. Not striations.

Lazy Weekend One-Shot: The Legend of Zelda in 4e

Ever find yourself bored and wanting to run a throwaway game for some reason? Maybe you want to just get some people together to drink and grill and play a game while doing it. That made me think. Any old fantasy Nintendo game is great for this purpose. Why? They simply didn't have the storage space to make the games long and complex. So let's start with my personal favorite, the game my mother made me go outside in order to allow her to finish.

So how does a single player hack and slash style rpg translate to tabletop? Well, poorly. Fret not, I have ideas. It's pretty simple, the maps are already there for you. You can either print out the maps, the squares are already there even!, or you can just draw out the overworld map and leave it be and use a second map for the dungeons. Either one works.

The biggest thing to overcome is the combat. That's actually really easy to do, again, Zelda already does this for you! Everything is either a minion or a boss. Now there are different colors of minions, and different brackets, but they remain minions. This isn't as complicated as it sounds. The colors are easy, everything, with the exception of bats, slimes, lasagnas, mummies, hands, gargoyles, ghosts, golems, snakes, weird flower bugs, rabbit dudes, mermen and skeletons , is broken down into either red or blue. Red is weaker than blue. The exceptions are easy as well.

The creatures take one, two, four or eight hits to die. Again, everything is a minion, so you just count the number of hits and that's it. They are different than normal minions in this way, but still really easy to keep track of anyway. By the end of the session, everything will be back to dying in either one or two hits anyway.

List of One Hit Kills:

Bats

Skeletons

Red Octorock

Red Spiders

Blue Spiders

Snakes

Little Slimes

Red Moblins

Rabbit Dudes (ranged only)

List of Two Hit Kills:

Blue Octorocks

Blue Moblins

Golems

Weird Flower Bugs (must not be moving)

Red Sandworms

Big Slimes

Red Centaurs

List of Four Hit Kills:

Red Knight

Blue Centaurs

Hands

Ghosts (when not moving)

Mermen

Lasagnas

Red Wizards

Gargoyles

List of Eight Hit Kills:

Blue Knights

Blue Wizards

Mummies

Now, items, health and leveling. Keep the original stores and item prices around the world. Just roll to determine the treasure from a random monster.

D8

1. Nothing

2. One Rupee

3. Five Rupee

4. Ten Rupee

5. Twenty Rupee

6. Heart

7. Faerie

8. Nothing

You can multiply the Rupee rewards by the number of players in the game if you want them all to have the items bought. If not, then don't. Now, there will be Heart Containers around the world still. You can either keep them in their spots or move them around however you see fit. Skill checks made in place of bombing or rafts or the old man are reasonable substitutions. You can do a lot with player ingenuity and creative here to make the game fun and not just make it collect quest. For example, one of the walls could be an illusionary wall and the players could find it and then have to solve a puzzle to make the illusion disappear. You get the gist.

Now, Heart Containers are how you level and your health. Everyone starts with twenty-four hit points, and your surge value scales accordingly. Your number of surges is still based on your class, but surges and health are replenished by either a potion or a trip to the faerie spring. A potion or a faerie spring resets dailies and daily magic items as well. Finding a heart allows you to spend a surge and regain eight +surge hp or you just gain eight hp if you are out of surges. Finding a faerie gives you twenty-four + surge hp or just twenty-four hp. Potions do not spend a surge, obviously.

Leveling, Hit Points, and Healing. Finding a Heart Container raises your max hp by eight and your surge value by two. Once you have accrued four heart containers, you ascend to fourth level after finding your magical weapons. Once you have accrued nine heart containers, you ascend to ninth level after finding your legacy weapons. Once you have accrued thirteen heart containers, you ascend to eleventh level and select a paragon path as well. So, everyone will need to pre-generate four sheets total. Easy enough to keep track of again. Healing can still occur from player sources as normal. However, with the above healing methods, having a leader is not required to play this way.

Taking Damage. Damage is again easy. Everything deals either 4, 8, or 16 damage. Once your party acquires the blue rings, you gain Resist Half Damage. Once your party acquired the red rings, you gain Resist Three Quarters Damage. The way you determine the damage done is to look at the above monsters. One and Two Hit kills deal four damage, Four Hit Kills deal eight damage, and Eight Hit Kills deal sixteen damage. Traps deal eight damage. Bosses deal either eight or sixteen damage.

Dealing Damage. You start off dealing one hit worth of damage. No matter what class you are. The area and control abilities still function as per normal. Ongoing damage will count as a second hit when they take damage from it. Once you get your magical weapons, you deal two hits worth of damage. Once you get your legacy weapons, you deal four hits worth of damage. In addition, every weapon has the Project Weapon power.

Items. Items are just like they are in the game. Blue Candles can only be used once per combat and deal one hit worth of damage but the flame persists for two rounds. Red Candles can be used unlimited times per combat and deal once hit worth of damage, with the flame persisting for two rounds. The candle flames start in a square adjacent to you and move three squares before stopping and persisting in the third square until the end of the next round. Anything in those three squares takes damage. Arrows deal one hit, Silver Arrows deal four hits worth of damage. Arrows are not stopped in enemies and work as a ray attack in a one square line all the way across the drawn map. The Strength Bracelet lets you move Overworld objects that may be moved. Everything else functions just as you imagine it would. The object that are required to be used to kill bosses would still be required. The flute would still teleport them around the map. The boomerang can be used to collect items as a standard action or target an enemy as a ranged basic attack. If successful the enemy is stunned until the end of their next turn. The wooden boomerang has a range of five. The blue boomerang has a range of one room or area. The shortcuts work the same etc. Players are encouraged to talk about items they would like at the appropriate levels prior to playing so that leveling means you gain the items as well.

Combat. At the start of the game, everyone rolls initiative. That's the initiative for the whole game until the party levels. Once the party levels, initiative is rerolled. The party always gets a surprise round every combat. Combat should be fast paced and near constant in this game. Players can choose to skip combat unless they are locked in a room. They just spend movement to go to the next area and the entire party is transported there. Boss combats are normal solo encounters and you are encouraged to make the boss fights fun and unique. There are lots of dragons and things that could be abominations, also dinosaurs and plant monsters!

Project Weapon Power Heritage Power

At-Will * Arcane, Weapon, Implement

Requirement: Must be full health

Target: One Creature

Range One Room/Area

Attack: Strength, Constitution, Dexterity, Intelligence, Wisdom or Charisma +2 (+3 at 4th level, +4 at 9th level and +5 at 11th level) vs AC

Hit: One hit (two hits at level 4, four hits at level 9)

Defenses. Defenses scale with the monsters. Build them as you see fit type-wise. Level wise, one and two hit monsters should be level one. Four hit monsters should be level four. Eight hit monsters should be level nine. Bosses are either level four, eight, nine, ten or fifteen.

Dungeon difficulties. Pretty much just go by the difficulty in the game. Dungeons one through three are scaled for level one. Dungeons four, six and seven are scaled for level four. Dungeons five and eight are scaled for level nine. Dungeon nine is scaled for level eleven, regardless of if they have attained it.

Boss stats. Wing it really, but keep it cool and fun and go with the general boss feelings of the game.

So that's pretty much it. You can change up the plot however you would like, though I recommend keeping the original plot as it's as straight forward as it gets and just making the NPCs more robust and real to explain their presence, who they are, and give Hyrule more lore and history. Make the weapons cool, heroic and epic through the NPCs. You can also give out treasure in loot hoards in the tri-force rooms instead of just awarding it when they level as well.

There's not a lot too it, really. I think it would be a pretty fun way to kill a long weekend, and a way different method of checking out 4e.

DragOwned

I did run session four of Planescape this past weekend, to at least my satisfaction as I won't speak for the players, but I am not ready to talk about the mechanics of it yet. I spent so long on that session that I need some time to decompress from it. Anyway, here is a quick picture to illustrate the first, in a hopefully series, or climactic battles, in which at least the Gnome made a lifelong enemy. The Dragonborn made an enemy in just getting into the mission, I think.

Anyway, I had this idea for a fight the other day. It might or might not be super cool, but it would need some special rules. Here's the pitch. The players are either hired to work escorting a barge of supplies from one city to another in a large kingdom, or they are hired to stop the transport of the goods. Here's the twist. The "barge" is a ship that has been tied to the bodies of dragons in order to keep them afloat. Three in the front and three in the back and one on each side have been assigned to keep the barge going. The players either must fight on the barge or the dragons, or attempt to pilot their dragons in such a way as to then be able to board or fight on the barge or dragons.

It's not really that complicated. First, you have the general set up. No matter which side the players are on, the rules are the same. The barge requires two people, one at the front and one at the back to keep a handle on the dragons. Keeping the dragons under control and their speed constant is a minor action. To boost or slow their speed is a move action. To cause them to attack is your standard action. Only one dragon can attack at a time.

Here, the barge is brown and the barge dragons are green.

The exception to this is to allow a nature check to let a dragon act on their own. If they have taken no damage, the challenge is DC 10 + 1/2 CL. If they have taken any damage, the challenge is DC 15 + 1/2 CL. If the dragon is bloodied or worse, the challenge is DC 20 + 1/2 CL. Once you fail a nature check, the dragon acts on it's own from that point forward until their opponent is killed.

Now, you have enemy dragons, either the players or just plain enemies, incoming. They are blue. Piloting a dragon is the same as controlling a dragon on the barge. As you can see, the dragons on the barge are tethered at the start. You may leap from barge to the dragon and from dragon to dragon using the following skills:

Arcana - using a quick cantrip or manipulation of raw magic to direct the wind around you and buoy yourself (DC 14 + 1/2 level)

Athletics - you climb and jump across (DC 14 + 1/2 level)

Acrobatics - You tumble, leap and otherwise flip across (DC 17 + 1/2 level)

Nature - You speak with the dragon to extend a wing a bit and allow you across. (DC 17 + 1/2 level)

These skills may be used to aid others climbing across as well. While on a dragon, you must success a DC 10 Endurance check or be knocked prone, if you are attempting to cross or fight on one.

Now here, you can see the two parties start to meet. The blue team is opening themselves up to lots of attacks, but they are trying to enrage the dragons and free them from their tethers to make the boat more unstable and bring it down. The barge team is staying put and focusing fire on the dragons, hoping their riders will lose control.

Riding a dragon, you must succeed in an Arcana, Diplomacy, Intimidate or Nature check in order to keep control of the dragon once it enters combat. This follows the same rules as the barge riders letting the dragon act on their own. The difference is that you, as a rider, controls the actions of the dragon fully as if you were the dragon. Once you leave the dragon, the rules are exactly the same.

Now you can see the chaos start to unfold. One of the blue dragons has been downed, one of the green dragons has been downed, and three green dragons are off their ties. The ship, while not crashing, will slowly descend. The green dragons and blue dragons are going to be battling it out, so you better hope that the riders are safely on that barge, or are going to make their way there soon.

This is a high risk, high fun-potential battle that lets players control dragons to a limited degree as vehicles, before eventually becoming shipboard combat. It's not a perfect system or skill challenge, but it definitely has a lot of potential to be awesome.

When Angels Attack! (next on Fox)

I had this idea after reading The Plane Above and then playing in a game last week in which we, the players, controlled a summon angel to fight some stuff. It's simple.

Angels, as described in The Plane Above, are beholden to no god, but all gods. Angels are the servants of the deities, and the deities they serve change from hour to hour or day to day.

That got me thinking. What if there was a battle where one, maybe more, of the creatures on the field were angels, and you were facing off against the divine agent of an opposing god? You would be on a holy task yourself, and, importantly, you'd be in another domain or even plane than the two primary deities listed.

The fight setup might be something like this:

Kord has tasked you, through an intermediary, with the destruction of a temple dedicated to the Primordials, housing a cult that uses a brand created by Erathis to control abominations. Through this, they are hoping to break into portions of Carceri and control and free the abominations locked within. Kord has given you a gauntlet laced with his divine power to shatter the brand on contact. Bane has decided that a brand would be useful to him, and has dispatched his own group of mercenaries and devotees to instead capture the brand.

The site itself is actually a temple to a forgotten god and many angels fill the halls above the temple itself, still trying to enforce the edicts that were imposed centuries ago. Each group sees the other at roughly the same time and the two groups start to go at it, in the Hall of Forgotten Angels.

Here's how the combat would work. First, the general set up of the combat.

The blue squares are players, the green squares represent unaligned angels and the red squares are the troops of bane.

1) Any worshiper of Kord, or the person carrying the artifact could make a religion, intimidate, history, diplomacy or arcana check (the person carrying the artifact gets a functional +5 bonus to all skill rolls to do this). Bane has sent two holy men on his side, so each of them would get to make the same check on their turn.

2) Non-worshipers may roll bluff, diplomacy, history or intimidate at -5 to attempt to persuade the angels.

3) The base DC to persuade an angel is DC 15 + 1/2 level if the angel is currently unaligned and DC 20 + 1/2 level if the angel is aligned (this goes for the PC level in this case so the challenge can scale in any direction)

4) You may spend a minor action to try and persuade one angel. A standard action can be used to persuade two angels.

5) Any failed attempt at persuasion ends your attempts for that round, regardless of the action type you spend.

6) Angels act immediately once they are persuaded.

7) Once angels are aligned, they stay aligned to that god and act on that initiative until such time as they become differently aligned.

8) Angels become unaligned once they are bloodied for the first time.

The PCs act win the initiative and act first. The first round looks like this for them.

As you can see, the PCs have persuaded several angels and now they are using them to move forward. The PCs have four additional angels ready to wreck some opposing god face. Now the Banesworn get their turn.

It's not looking so good for the players now. The Banesworn have four of their own angels now, two of which were previously angels working for the players. Two of the angels remained unaligned and are thus out of the fight for the moment due to the Banesworn option to try and turn the tides against the players earlier rather than playing it safe.

The tides of battle could shift dramatically, with the angels playing the roll of terrain obstacle (you must move around them), trap (you must try not to catch them in area abilities in order to not aggravate them), ally, and enemy. The players might opt to kill the angels off completely, just to get them out of the combat and send them back to the Astral Sea in order to serve a purpose once again. Should the players align all of the angels, the banesworn might withdraw in order to try and live another day, surmounting those odds seems unlikely!

As for the angels? Well, they end up straight out of China Town.

Sure, they are confused and having an identity crisis, but they are just vessels after all, unless they are archangels or have names. In which case, they don't really qualify for this situation. This seems like it would be a pretty awesome way to incorporate some mythos, some skill challenges and some interesting combat tactics into a fight.

Minions, not just for minioning any more

Minions are awesome. I love minions. There is nothing better than slaughtering a handful of minions at a time and not even sweating it. Don't get me wrong, minions are a threat. They provide combat advantage, they aid in attacks. They serve a valuable purpose. However, how would you run a level appropriate fight with all minions? Here's a story of how I did it, entitled, Sewers are Bullshit.

The fight took place in the sewers of Sigil. The room was filled with armor, scraps of metal, weapons, torn papers, bits of cloth, coins, you name it. Essentially it was a vent room for the storm drain pipes of the city. This particular room had four large bore pipes that came into it, and two sets of four valves on either side of the room corresponding, you guessed it, to the pipes overhead.

The encounter started with the players entering on one side of the room and them seeing a lone, lowly imp spin all four of the valves and then turn invisible. As the room was filled with sludge and magical gunk from up above, the armor on the ground became animated with an unholy presence. The room was suddenly filled with Infernal Armor Animus (animated armor powered by devil souls)!

Here's the breakdown of the mechanics.

1) Each player has an option to stand in the same square or adjacent to a valve. They may spend a minor action to turn one or two valves either preemptively or as a held minor action that occurs simultaneously with the imp.

2) A standard action let them spin up to four valves. They were allowed to turn, move, turn if they spent their standard action to turn valves.

3) The imp did nothing but turn invisible and then turn valves while moving. The imp only required a minor action to turn all four valves. Turning invisible is a standard action.

4) For every valve turned by the imp, 1d6-1 minions spawned.

5) Anyone, including the minions, caught in the dumping sewage took one of the following random effects determined by a d6.

a) 1d8 points of poison-fire damage. (the magically imbue sludge is noxious and burning)

b) Bolstered! +1 to attack and damage rolls (the magical aura speeds your arm and mind) (until the end of the encounter or hit by Hinder)

c) Hindered! -1 to attack and damage rolls (the magical aura slows your arm and mind) (until the end of the encounter or hit by Bolster)

d) Vulnerable 5 fire (save ends) (the residue clinging to you smokes slightly and appears ready to burn at the slighting spark)

e) Vulnerable 5 poison (save ends) (a gooey film covers you, acting as a catalytic enhancer for poisons)

f) Resist 5 fire and poison (end of the encounter or until hit by a vulnerability)

6) Perception and Insight checks (DC against his stealth with invisibility penalties (each round accumulates a +1 to the next check until a success occurs by the players)) revealed the imp's position and gave the players a chance to counteract the pipes.

7) Each valve and series of valves turned different pipes. You can make this as easy or as complicated as you want. I made it middling difficulty, so the players had to watch a few rounds and learn what pipes did what.

8) The far door was magically sealed with a puzzle. Two players had the necessary text objects to solve the puzzle themselves, or aid the other party members. They got this information during the course of the game through text props and bad guy notes they intercepted.

9) If the players blocked a pipe, a cloud of the above random effects lingered in the area under the pipes as defined by the circle. No saves are required, just entering or leaving the area was enough to gain or lose the effects.

So that was the challenge. The players in question defeated 27 minions, several players were knocked unconscious, one player was knocked unconscious several times, and they eventually killed the imp. The look on their face when they realized the armors healed the imp when they died was priceless.

As one player said, "maybe we should have tried arcana or religion to learn more about those guys!". So true, skills are knowledge, and knowledge is power. Especially in a world of integrated fights and skill challenges.

That's the basic set up of the encounter I ran. All minions and one little imp lurker. They players had a great time, and loved the integrated skill challenge as part of the fight. Now, I have to think of more interesting fight scenarios.

Investigations? In MY 4th Edition?

I've played 4th edition starting the week it was released through current times, in which I play two or three separate campaigns. There was a brief gap there where I didn't play 4e, but that was because a few games dissolved and we waited for them to start back up again. That said, I probably played 4th for almost a year before running into my first skill challenge. This experience, though it was a strange skill challenge and used some strange DCs, operated a little oddly, and was very obviously the group's first attempt at something like this, it opened my eyes to the possibilities that could exist in a system that was built in order to support a concept like this one.

Maybe I should back up a little. I had an idea for a story that revolved around a modern fantasy setting where magic was common place and so was the variety of races. Their technology was lacking in some areas and superior in other areas as their magical prowess made necessary. The problem was, this was going to be a detective story. So, how do you track down killers and solve crimes in a fantasy setting where magic is common, people can turn invisible, alter memories and do innumerable horrible things? I didn't know until that first skill challenge. After that first skill challenge it was clear, scrap the story idea and run this as the central idea behind a campaign.

Without getting too much into it right now, I decided to revive the planescape setting, converting a lot of non-existent stuff to 4e and then reworking or adding a lot of the current planar setting to make the game make sense in the 4e cosmos. The players were to be the Custodians, a group of people taken from each of the factions and put together under the command of the city in order to investigate and solve crimes that demand special attention. One of the twists was that everyone picked their own faction. Players got missions for each major arc that they tried to successfully complete. At the end of the major arcs, players got a chance to guess one other player's mission.

This seems like it would create conflict, and perhaps it would have, if not for additional rules. First, the Custodians are supposed to be outside of the faction wars. So, if the Custodians are caught, player discovered in this case, performing a task for their faction, the faction isn't allowed to act on the mission results. To do so would be to invite punishment by the Lady of Pain. Successfully completing missions would never effect players either, as Custodians are protected by the Lady of Pain. To harm them would be to invite wrath upon your faction. Obviously, factionless groups, monsters, etc. have no issues hindering the players physically, and factions and mess with their minds just find. What does this mean for the players practically? Well, completing a mission grants bonus xp to the whole party. Discovering a mission grants bonus xp to the whole party. This creates an environment that is supposed to foster fun competition without it getting down and dirty like say, Paranoia.

So far it's been pretty good. People tend to forget their tasks, even with me giving them copies of their mission every session. No one has gotten upset or frustrated though, so it's not a total failure!

Back on topic here, I decided to set up an investigative system built around the skill challenges. I believe that skill challenges should be somewhat open ended and as long as you can describe what you are trying to do given the use of an appropriate skill, it should be allowed. This means a lot of work on my end. I spend a lot of time before each session coming up with ways that players might use skills, or at least how THOSE skills might be related to OTHER skills. If the skills are related I just up the DC on one of the skills and would give out the same information they would have got given a different skill use.

Skill challenges can ruin the flow of the game at times, especially if you have to state each time you are in a skill challenge and then dole out which skills are appropriate to use. What I do is use two differently colored poker chips. After describing the scene for the players, the first player to act becomes the first of each round. Once the player has acted there are three possible outcomes.

1) A yellow chip is added to the table, indicating success and that they are in a skill challenge.

2) A blue chip is added to the table, indicating failure and that they are in a skill challenge.

3) The player decided to aid a friend, in which case 1 and 2 are just delayed.

The biggest problem is creating the right conditions for failure and making sure that failure means something. I've opted for a pretty basic rules set for failure, following the idea that all information is valuable and there need to be many ways to get it. An investigation game is only as good as the information presented and getting stumped because they failed one challenged and missed crucial information just plain isn't fun. This means that there has to be penalties without stopping the actual game story. This list is what I have used so far.

1) Each scene has two failure limits. The first failure limit indicates that the difficulty of the encounter has decreased, lowering the party's overall XP reward. The second indicates that the scene ends and the group has to move on elsewhere for information.

2) The party receives incomplete information as the scene ends. This has almost always lead to a fight scene as the party was lead into the mastermind's devious trap. Usually the fight reward is the rest of the information or at least additional information that might lead to another skill challenge.

3) Punishment as it is recommended in the DMG. This actually isn't bad. Players lose healing surges, they become distracted lowering their initiative for the next fight, etc. These are all acceptable actions that show the consequences of failure without really stopping the investigation.

4) Missed information results in a harder encounter down the line as a result of the missed information, prior to the climax of the arc. This is always coupled with enough information during the encounter itself to reveal what was missed and how that might have been avoided.

5) Tangible rewards. A lot of scenes have specific items and treasure hidden about as rewards for doing well enough to spend actions just searching the premise. In this case, the punishment is not getting that stash of gold or potions, or even magic ritual or item. This is an easy one to use, and the players might never have a clue.

The key is that information is never the reward of the scene, just the speed at which it is gathered. This might mean adding extra encounters as the game story progresses, but that's just part of the fun an excitement running this type of game.

Give an investigation encounter a shot in a game. Who knows? The players might love it, and so might you, the person running the game.