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The ongoing weekly game that I’m playing in currently is Pathfinder; thanks Jack! It’s fun, incredibly familiar from my 3.5 days, and will probably wrap up long before 5e’s release date. Even if we’re still playing it after 5e is released, I doubt we’ll convert our characters–we’ll finish as we began, with Pathfinder.

My Hanford friends and I play a lot of different games. 4e was… adequately received when we tried it, but a few players didn’t consider it real D&D. A return to the previous 4e campaign, for another chapter, was on the drawing board as an option later in 2012. I suspect that the announcement of 5e might delay our return to that world–particularly if enough things leak between now and then to make it sound like it’d gain more complete acceptance from our earlier edition enthusiasts.

D&D Encounters

Encounters has been a great vehicle for introducing people to roleplaying in general. Pickup and organized styles of play are something that I hope Wizards continues to support–or expand–as they move forward.

I expect to run Encounters tables until 5e is released–and beyond if the program continues. I suspect that the first weeks with every GM being new to the new edition will be interesting–but if we share our discoveries and stumbles, it might make it easier for us than any GM facing the transition alone.

As a retailer

Deciding how deeply to stock 4e and essentials products for the next year will be tricky. I remember late 3.5 products sitting on shelves at local stores once the edition’s “impending death” was announced. I also remember that my old group had already been weighing whether our campaigns were suffering under supplement bloat; it became easier to put off new purchases once we knew they’d soon be obsolete. Maybe others are the same–or maybe I’m much more hesitant than the gaming public in general. Either way, it’ll be interesting to see what happens to 4e and Essentials sales.

I do wonder how easy it will be to get new players, particularly from D&D encounters, to pick up the matching rulebooks that will be “obsolete” soon. They’re not plugged into the “what’s coming out” grapevine, but I suspect their fellow players will mention the impending conversion–even if phrased positively, like “you should get at least a year out of it…”

In Conversation

I’ve been a fan of 4e since I first played it, but freely admit that it feels different than older editions in play. Maybe 4e’s announced demise will quiet the edition wars. There’s no reason to rub it in–3e’s victory is pretty total, given its relative longevity, successful descendent (Pathfinder), and vigorous ongoing play. If 5e somehow accomplishes Monte’s goal: “It’s meant to be a set of rules that unites all the previous editions, and the players of those editions,” I’ll be pleasantly amazed.

As a GM

I have one major campaign concept that’s suited for 4e: the Myth inspired endday campaign from Seeds and Kernels. My initial response was to set it aside, undeveloped, but maybe I should use the ticking clock to spur it into existence. After all, who knows how easy 5e will make the development of my flop eared menaces?

What’s Your Response to 5e?

Does the idea of 5e excite you? Do you have a game group divided by editions that will, if Monte’s design magic works right, return to one game table?

If you left D&D due to 4th edition, have you found new games that make you completely unconcerned with what happens to D&D? Are you still curious about what happens to D&D even if you’re happy with another game?

Finally, does your response to 5e depend on what hat you’re wearing at the moment? Do you have different desires as a player, GM, or even as a game publisher?

Situation Building: Oracles

The game begins incredibly flexibly; it’s a rush and a terror to try to tie together the prompts and make a situation. What am I talking about? The Oracle, and what it reveals.

You select one Oracle, to give the game a specific style. Then you draw four cards, each of which contributes one specific element. We selected the God-kings of War oracle, and got the following results:

• A day sacred to an oppressed slave cult, the celebration of which is punishable by torture.
• A warrior-woman, queen of her small wild tribe, hard-pressed by advancing civilization.
• The arrival of a hundred fearsome warships on an unprepared, prosperous, peaceful coast.

From those random elements, everyone at the table picks out characters that sound interesting–explicit or implied by the oracle’s reading. The characters can be anyone–god, mortal, slave or king. In our case, the characters that were selected were a tribal queen, a noble horsewoman driven to the edge of habitable land by the large empire. She crossed paths with a captain of the approaching fleet, who it turned out, was a member of the subjugated culture that kept the slaves and drove off the warrior-woman’s people. The last PC was an adviser to the high priest of the banned religion. We had many other characters who came up when we read the characters from the oracle–the ones no one claimed became NPCs. The queen of the ‘peaceful, prosperous’ empire, the high priest, the admiral of the invading navy, and the neglected god were all other characters that could have been selected as PCs–and wound up as NPCs for our game. You can imagine how different it would have played if one of the players had switched their character for one of those roles!

Oracles and You

The core game concentrates on a bronze age, Conan, feel. But the oracles have been embraced by players who love other settings and gathered at random-generator.com; oracles exist for Mouse Guard, Shakespeare, Wuxia, Battlestar Galactica, and dozens of other settings.

If you’re stuck, or just need inspiration for your next session, click on an appropriate oracle. You might have a one-click Shadowrun at hand. (Some assembly required.) You can twist the PCs into the implied roles–or just report the tense revealed situation to your players, and see how they get sucked in.

Short Character Sheets

In A Wicked Age does a great job of summarizing a character’s capabilities succinctly. A PC’s stats are: Covertly, Directly, For Myself, For Others, With Love, and With Violence. That’s how you solve problems–pick two that apply and roll their associated dice. In some ways the stats are similar to traditional RPGs–being good at solving things With Violence is similar to being a high strength fighter in D&D–but being a passionate fire mage is as good an explanation for solving things with violence.

NPCs are even simpler; they have only three stats: Action, Maneuvering and Self-protection. They’re each fixed combinations of two dice, so they’re immediately ready to go. If an NPC is good at maneuvering, okay at self-protection and poor at action? That sounds like an idle ruler or his vizier, doesn’t it?

Needless to say, assigning stats takes only an eye blink when those are all you have. Coming up with the cool character is much less simple, but it is refreshing to throw out driven NPCs, just worrying about characterization–and without pondering how their CR matches up to the PCs, what feats they have available… and all of the other burdens that we accept with our standard systems.

Mastering In A Wicked Age

So, now that I’ve played, here’s the research I should have done to have a smooth session. I hope it helps you get off on the right foot.

This isn’t just advice, it’s also an example and a nice tool. Best Interests tutorial and sheet (PDF)

Some of the bad habits addressed in this thread impeded our play too. This thread, led by the game designer, does a good job of bringing some unconscious habits to light.

I muddled, bringing dice in too early. This thread includes good advice, particularly about waiting until someone says, “Hell no, you’re not doing that” before the dice come out. It’s hard to resist using the system, but delaying until it’s a real conflict would have helped to cement the difference.

Tim Jensen’s advice later in the above thread would have really improved our game. “All of the characters should start within easy walking distance of everyone else.” Not addressing that led to three parallel stories rather than a braid of overlapping interactions.

Setting Sparks

Have you played In A Wicked Age? Did you play it straight, with a different oracle, or hacked to your group’s play style?

Even if you haven’t played IAWA, have you ever used a tool like an Oracle to help you plan out your next scene? Or even to generate PCs and a tense situation for a game?

Organized play is an interesting beast. We just completed our fourth season of
D&D Encounters: The Lost Crown of Neverwinter.

What is D&D Encounters?

D&D Encounters is a Wizards of the Coast program, where they provide game shops with a module, maps, characters, and other resources. Players pick up a pregen or bring their own characters; show up, sit down at a table with other players and a GM, and play.

Each week advances the story a little and provides an interesting fight. Players show up when they can make it, with little expectation of continuity. (Though many players enjoy playing with the same players and GMs each week when possible.) If your buddy’s in town, or your company party is tonight, no one’s counting on you–the adventure will continue without you and you’ll rejoin the next time your schedule allows.

Interestingly, two of our players played in Boston for a few weeks, before returning to Fresno. They were able to experience the same campaign in both cities. When they came to town, they already knew the backstory and had appropriate characters–since they’d been playing the same story elsewhere.

Distinctions of the Format

Encounters draws a different crowd. One of the key criteria for sticking around more than one season is your tolerance for “short story” style play. Many experienced players dislike abandoning their character after a dozen weeks–particularly when continuing means restarting at level one. After a few seasons, many regulars decide they’ve “done it”, they’ve experienced what the format has to offer, and they concentrate more on home games.

The low level and short cycle is deliberate. It’s very nice for introducing new players to the game. Since the adventures cap at level three, you’re never buried in character options. Similarly, the strong support (module, maps, adventure design, etc.) makes it easy to introduce new GMs to the role. Modules and a room full of GMs who have read the same adventure make great training wheels. Post game chats, GM to GM, are a big bonus that’s hard to replicate with home groups.

The story that emerges is coherent–often more coherent than a long campaign. It’s one clear story, rather than the epic story of a party’s many adventures. The deliberate boundaries make the hurrah at the end, when the story comes to an end, feel authentic.

What made this season different?

This season’s story was more complicated; unlike previous seasons, there were factions to interact with and schemes to unravel. While the added complexity made it interesting from the GM’s side and the frequently attending players enjoyed puzzling out how the factions interacted, it was harder to bring new players up to speed on “the story so far” mid-season.

What else is it good for?

Encounters is an interesting–and different–solution to Walt’s question in Party Game Style. Much like his game, there is a world of adventure that gets addressed week after week, despite varying players showing up at the table. In his solution, key characters provide continuity–even drafting other players into the portrayal so the character can attend when the player doesn’t. Encounters also ignores which players showed up which week, keeping overall story progress as something “the group” accomplishes, rather than looking to specific characters.

Encounters is the “traditional” solution to player absence, which works if the party’s actions are intrinsic to the world. (Evil is afoot; all right thinking heroes turn out to fight it.) Walt’s Party Style Game works for more sophisticated scenarios, where plots are driven by the characters’ backstory, experiences, and interactions. It doesn’t make sense dramatically for “the party” to solve the character Joe’s divorce problem if Joe’s not there. That’s when you make Joe’s participation mandatory…even if Joe’s regular player isn’t available.

Season In, Season Out

As mentioned at the top, I just completed my fourth season of GMing Encounters. I’m sure that there are experiences that I don’t even notice anymore, questions that don’t occur any longer. If you have questions about anything, please ask in comments!

Free RPGs are a wonderful way for GMs to expand their styles and abilities without making costly upfront investments. Here are three of my favorite free RPG systems.

Free FATE

As many readers already know I am a huge fan of Fudge and its derivatives. One of those derivatives is FATE, and a wonderful derivative of Fate is Free FATE. I find this version of the FATE rules to be the most concise and well-written version, especially for people new to FATE.

Download Free Fate v0.5.

The MicroLite20 RPG Collection

Another derivative work, this one of the OGL System Reference Document for the d20 system, the MicroLite20 RPG Collection is not only a great barebones game system but a wonderful assortment of settings. You do not need to download the whole collection, as many of the individual games are available on their own web sites (such as Where No Man Has Gone Before 2.0 which is what I will be running for my next campaign).

There is something about this 661 page PDF that reminds me of how much fun I had as a kid when I first started playing RPGs. Maybe it is the seemingly endless possibilities, or is it simply because I adapted D&D to be used for every setting I wanted to play back then? Who cares? This is good stuff!

Download the MicroLite20 RPG Collection.

Open D6

Many a fan of Star Wars RPGs knows about the West End Games version that used the D6 system as its core engine. Well that system is open, and not only that but you can download four PDFs for the system: the core book, the fantasy supplement, the space supplement, and the adventure supplement. Not to bad of a start if you want to experiment with a different set of rules as well as build your own setting for your next game.

Download all four D6 System PDFs from this site.

What’s Your Favorite Free RPG?

Those are my top three favorites, at least for now they are as there are more and more great RPGs being released by fans for free it seems. What are some of yours? Share your favorite free RPGs with the rest of us by leaving a comment below.

So four of us (Bryan, Brian, Will, and me) sat down and created a cluster. Bryan and I had read the book a few times before the session, but Brian and Will joined based on our descriptions and hadn’t had a chance to read the rules in advance.

What is Cluster Generation?

In some ways, cluster generation is like the Dawn of Worlds minigame that Matthew reviews in the linked article, but with much less system. Because it has fewer rules for resolving conflicts, it requires more social consensus to make everything link up.

Cluster generation is collaborative setting building, with some random prompts and structure to guide you. We came up with an interesting setting that accreted through our contributions; none of the us would have created an environment like this on our own!

I started to say that cluster generation is collaborative world building, but since we’re in space, we’re actually generating several solar systems, all linked together along jump paths. System generation begins with each player rolling four fudge dice three times in order. Fudge dice have 6 sides: 2 marked minus (-), 2 plus (+), and 2 blank (0). You add them up, with + equal to +1, – equal to minus one, and blank equal to 0. So ++-0 = 1.. The first total is the system’s technology, the second is the system’s environment, and the last is the system’s resources.

Bryan generated the first system, given his greater familiarity with the game. He rolled a technology of -1, an environment of -3, and resources of +2. We recorded this as T-1,E-3,R+2.

We went around the table twice, generating a total of eight systems. As we rolled the dice, we kicked around ideas about what circumstances might result in such a system. It’s incredibly open ended; a system might have an environment of -3 for many reasons–in Boulder’s case, it turned out that it was because the solar system was just a collection of rocks like our asteroid belt, not a planet at all. One dangerously unstable moon might have been an alternate justification of a -3 environment.

We ran into a hiccup for our star system–none of the systems had a technology of more than 1! Since it takes a technology level of 2 to make ships that can hop between the stars, that’s an problem for a space game. Fortunately, the authors foresaw the issue and have a catch-all rule; if no systems are generated with a tech level of 2 or more, you take the two systems with the highest total and lowest total of all stats, and change them to a tech level of 2.

After we finished rolling up our systems and implemented low technology override, these were the systems in our cluster: Austeria(T1,E2,R-1); Boulders(T-1,E-3,R2); Creche(T2,E-1,R-1); Desolation(T0,E-1,R-2); Pilgrim’s Rest(T-1,E1,R0); Solace(T-1,E3,R1); Wheeler(T2,E2,R3); and Xori(T-3,E-1,R1).

Linking Systems Together

Now that the 8 planets had their stats, we rolled to see how they linked together. This is a cunning little system, generating hubs and branches, making some places central and others remote. After rolling the dice a few times, we came up with a cluster that connected like the picture below.

We wound up deviating from the process the book lays out, with real consequences. Instead of giving each system its own two Aspects, then adding a third Aspect about its relationship to its neighbors, we leaped ahead and assigned Aspects to the systems to cover both inherent and relational traits. That was a mistake–the worlds were too fluid and incomplete, and it took a lot longer to stitch things together, trying to do it all at once. If we generate a new cluster in the future, I’ll definitely pay attention to the rules and assign two inherent Aspects to each system first, and worry about relational aspects after the worlds are more coherent.

Developing the Cluster

In our game, the first system generated was Boulder. Bryan described a giant asteroid field–a wide belt around the sun, without significant planets anywhere in system. It’s a hard scrabble, unpleasant place to live, a mining colony with a lot of prisoners doing the labor, but it’s a lucrative place–with resources of 2, it has valuable exports.

In conversation, we sketched out a rough history of the cluster. It paralleled our discussion of the worlds and their relationships, but it might have benefited from waiting until we had eight solid system concepts, instead of the half-sketched system ideas that we prematurely linked.

Creche is the homeworld of the cluster, and is completely dominated by bickering corporations. (The details swung throughout the session; one giant mega-corp was initially proposed, and different corporate/government blends were considered along the way. In the end, it was Will’s planet–while he appreciated us chiming in and snowballing ideas, his was the final word.) The corporations ruined their homeworld in their push to space and competition to found colonies. One corporation, Wheeling, found a jump lane from Desolation and began covertly investing resources in the lush system at the far end. They confronted the corporate council on Creche and negotiated outsized political power, much like the veto wielding members of the UN. We waffled a bit on the scope of the conflict/secession of Wheeling from Creche; originally talking about Wheeling/Creche as similar to the US/Britian relationship shortly after the American Revolution.

Assigning Aspects

Aspects are one of the trickier things to get right in FATE systems. You want something descriptive, pithy, and interesting. Interesting aspects are one of the hardest things to get right–and it can be one of the easiest things to miss when boiling table talk down into a record/stat form. The book gives great examples of how one set of system values can be interpreted and written up in four compelling ways. These are our rough notes and proto-aspects; I suspect that we’ll refine them when we turn to character generation–or just take a day or two to let things simmer and settle.

We also noticed the widespread limited technology and decided that that’s probably a result of their history; Creche limits what other systems can develop and maintain to prevent future breakaways (like Wheeler). Wheeler seems to buy in to the same “keep the natives ignorant” arrangement, which seems to contradict their anti-tyranny claim. That fit the feel were were aiming for; this is no white-hat versus black-hat setting, with a lot of sketchy but valid justifications.

Austeria(T1,E2,R-1):
- Playground of the rich and famous.
- Large Ag plantations.
Boulders(T-1,E-3,R2):
- Life is hard and short; most who come here want to leave.
- Mining colonies are scattered across the system-wide asteroid fields.
- Many miners are prisoners from Creche, sentenced to hard labor.
Creche(T2,E-1,R-1):
- Corporate bureaucracy stifles everything.
- Struggling to maintain its colonial empire.
- The world is like a downtown; the place you go to work and make money, but not where you want to raise kids or retire.
Desolation(T0,E-1,R-2):
- The desert makes them strong
- They fight to earn what they lack
- The contract is king
Pilgrim’s Rest(T-1,E1,R0):
- The “quaint” first colony–nothing goes on here.
- Ihose with skills or ambition are drawn to Creche
Solace(T-1,E3,R1):
- One gas giant is orbited by several lush moons
- It’s a balkanized neutral zone, with the moons divided between various corporations (including Wheeling)
- Temp World: Employees are only permitted to serve for four years before they’re shipped out
- It’s the gateway to Xori
Wheeler(T2,E2,R3):
- Wheeler II is lush, ripe for exploitation; with factories concentrated in domed outposts on Wheeler I and III.
- “We’re close knit, cunning rebels, resisting Creche’s tyranny”
- Striving members of the Corporate Council
and Xori(T-3,E-1,R1):
- We drive out men into the forest; only the strongest return
- Only the priestesses know how to refine the anti-aging drug
- The spice must flow
- It’s a matriarchy, led by ancient but physically youthful women, who practice the old ways.

In The End

It took us surprisingly long (about 4 hours) to knock out our cluster. [We had hoped to complete both cluster and character generation in a session, but we should have figured in the learning curve.] I like the setting that we came up with. It’s nothing I would have come up with as a GM, but it has enough of my influence that I already want to see how things develop–and that’s before I have a character to go exploring!

It will be interesting to see how we flesh out the cluster–and doubly interesting to see what characters we come up with to explore this place. I enjoyed it as a stand alone “game” [though cluster generation is more a series of creative prompts than a game], but really want to see if it makes for interesting, involved characters. We’ll see!

In my previous article, I mentioned some common problem player symptoms. Reading and acting on the module, cheating on die rolls, and hogging the spotlight are all behaviors that may get you kicked out of the event or shunned once the behavior comes to light. Other practices you should avoid if you want to sit at the cool kids’ table: getting your characters killed frequently, regularly shouting (or cursing at any volume), talking over other players on their turn, and wandering away from the game (physically or mentally). If you’re late, you’ll get the leftover space–which is probably at the table everyone’s eager to avoid.

Organizers spend a lot of time talking with their GMs and getting a more complete picture of their players. Beyond balancing character roles and other game specific constraints, organizers have a number of additional restrictions when they’re setting everything up. Here are some of the factors that many organizers consider when they’re deciding where to slot you (and everyone else):

• What are the player conflicts? Are there two people who can’t sit at the same table?
• Are there any players that everyone wants to avoid?
• Which groups have positive play experience/regularly show up together/ask to be seated as a group?

Before you ever get to selecting character groups that will work together and be a good match for the adventure, many ideal parties (measured by their character sheets) have been sunk by player conflicts.

Once the event organizer has triaged the lists, the organizer now needs to match a GM to each of the tables. Almost invariably, the organizer takes a “problem table”– either the table requiring more GMing expertise (because the players use more exotic character options, min-max their characters to overcome the written scenarios without challenge, or assertively present wrong rules interpretations that will trip up GMs who haven’t encountered them before). Many organizers don’t have the luxury of a large GM pool, encouraging them to assign the least problematic players to GMs with less experience, especially since good player groups double as a role model for new GMs. Sometimes you’ll schedule your best groups to reward and recharge hard working GMs, to remind them that organized play is fun for GMs too. There’s always a balance–hopefully you have enough good tables to keep your GMs happy and eager to return and help out next time.

Seating Frustration

As a player, it can be annoying to get seated at a problem player’s table. Getting seated with the player that everyone wants to avoid often falls on new players–who don’t know to ask for other tables! Even as the GM it can be frustrating–it can feel like your hard work and experience earned you a tougher set of players.

Organizers have to watch out too. Keeping a stable “cool table” can develop cliques, leading to stagnation and a declining player base. It’s good to mix up groups–even groups that play great together–if only so more people can experience awesome play! If “newbs” only ever get seated with the problem players, you’ll have difficulty retaining them. It can be rough–particularly since you’ll listen hardest to the players you want to retain–but they too can stretch every once in a while.

Handling Problem Players

How do you handle problem players as a fellow player, GM, or organizer? I know that my responses vary.

As a player, I tend to silently put up with a problem player–figuring it’s one slot, that they didn’t get that way overnight, and that as a player I don’t have authority to force better behavior anyway. That’s definitely not optimal–it slows the community’s improvement and puts more burden on GMs and organizers. I don’t know if problems (other than black and white issues like cheating on die rolls) is easily addressed as a player.

As a GM, I tend to silently put up with a problem player–unless it’s a young or new player, someone who might be unaware that their behavior is off-putting…and leading toward permanent problem table exile. It usually takes repetition–GMing the player in a second game, or seeing them engage in problematic behavior repeatedly, before I’ll decided to catch them after the game and explain my perceptions. It’s never a fun conversation to start–but it can salvage a player.

It’s always nice to have something more useful than “my character” stories to talk about when you’re talking about roleplaying, and it engaged my “problem solving” skill group–always a bonus. Here’s how it went and what I learned.

Get Context

I haven’t played in a roleplaying guild, so I was unclear as to how they engage with the world. It turns out that it’s very similar to tabletop RPGs–the scene and events are described, often not matching the graphics engine at all! Just like a tabletop RPG, you have to enhance what you see (the town or a field in WoW, minis on a battlemap in traditional roleplaying) with your imagination. The person you’re advising might have entirely different powers and interactions–one friend, Stacy, works with her MUD’s designers to add new content. That gives you a different chance to engage the senses–or at least resolution engine!

Context reveals the inherent limits. If there’s no in game way to teleport characters to a new location, then describing an enemy wizard who teleports them will be difficult to implement. Even if the players pretended to hop to the dreaded forest after they were cursed, trudging there will feel very different from what you described. So part of figuring out the context and limitations is planning out which quests and events make sense for the resolution system. (For the above example, being cursed to journey to the dreaded forest makes more sense, given the system’s limitations.)

The Story So Far

No matter what system you’re using to resolve conflicts, your plot needs to make sense for it to engage the players. One of the most ingrained expectations is that it’ll be a “story”–what happened before influences what comes after. So listen up and ask good questions about who the PCs are, as a group or individuals, and build what comes from their pasts.

Once you have a sketch of the group’s reason for existing and its history, offer up a plot idea. Is there a foe that makes sense, given the backstory they’ve presented? Do they need a foe to justify the group’s concerted efforts? Even though you might not know the specific foes in their game world, you can mention a few traits that your foe should have–the GM seeking your advice will probably be able to name villains and evil organizations to fit your ideas. If not, you can brainstorm one together.

Most groups/guilds need a reason to exist. If they don’t already have a formative kickoff event, then that’s what you should be brainstorming with your GM. Who will make a great recurring villain in this setting? Who will the PCs eagerly work against, and who can you blame their defeats on? Just like a tabletop RPG, you’ll want a struggle the players are happy to identify their characters with.

Now Use Your GM-Fu

Once you have the kickoff/precipitating event planned, you can offer a menu of twists and developments that your GM padawan can toss in response to their guild reacting to the kickoff event. Mysterious notes, bystanders who present conflicting reports, villains who are catspaws of other villains–these are tools that you can provide for further development.

Don’t worry about your twist being hackneyed or trite; it’s a new medium, and hopefully you’ve been approached because of your success in your own realm. The first time you experience a twist, it’s amazing; because few of their players have sat around your table, you can line things up similarly, and between a different GM implementing the plan and the differing world/situation, it’ll feel completely different. It’s a new environment, so old can be new!

One thing to keep in mind is that the GMs are coordinating events more like a LARP than a traditional tabletop game–each character can wander off and interact with the world simultaneously, rather than waiting for the GM’s attention. Ideally, your plots can simmer and thread behind their daily tasks–giving their animal skinning and gold gathering a justification in between scheduled events.

How about you?

Are you in roleplaying guilds in MMOs or MUDs? How DO you come up with plots for online games? Is it the same process that you use for your tabletop game? How does the committee nature of larger guilds affect story creation and coordination?

Trust me. There is a point to this.

I do not like ham. Never have. I like bacon, pork chops, and pork roast, but I have never liked ham. I cannot blame this on ham though, because this is a matter of my personal tastes. You can serve a world class Virginia smoked ham prepared by Woflgang Puck and I probably still would not like it. Every time that I have tried it ham it turns out to be not my thing. I do not hate ham, but I do avoid eating it.

My personal tastes though should not blind me to the fact that you can still have a good quality product in the form of ham. Obviously other people like ham, and I should not try to convince them otherwise.

What does this have to do with The Dresden Files RPG by Evil Hat Productions? The Dresden Files RPG is an obviously well-crafted product that will appeal to many people that I myself am not that crazy for. Never before have I reviewed a product that did not appeal to me, but that I knew would appeal to others on a large scale. I finally understand how my friends who do not like the film The Godfather feel.

This product has many outstanding qualities, and you can easily find others singing its praises on the Internet through various web sites. It and its companion product Our World have already been nominated for the 2011 Origins Awards for Best Roleplaying Game and Best RPG Supplement. It has already won the Golden Geek for the Best Artwork/Presentation and Game of the Year. It recently made the prestigious short-list for the Diana Jones Award. I am positive that The Dresden Files RPG is also going to be a force to contend with at this year’s ENnie Awards.

Not a great place to be as a reviewer. How do I tell you the obvious (this is a really good product), and still be honest (this is a really good product that I do not care for)?

In an attempt to be both both fair to The Dresden Files RPG, as well as to share my honest opinion with all of you I am splitting this review across two web sites. Here on Gnome Stew I am going to tell you why this product deserves the praise that it is receiving, and over on my personal blog SinisterForces I am going to share with you why I do not care for the product for personal reasons. Read one of the two reviews, or read them both, but remember that my reasons for not liking the product are based upon my personal tastes as a fan of RPGs.

One last thing: I was offered a PDF copy of The Dresden Files RPG: Your Story, The Dresden Files RPG: Our World, and the free adventure Neutral Grounds by Fred Hicks of Evil Hat Productions in response to a blog post that I wrote. Props to Fred for letting his work stand on its own.

Let’s begin…

This is the most beautiful RPG product that I have seen in a long time.

From the moment you pick up The Dresden Files RPG full color artwork greets you on the cover and continues to leap out at you from its 400 plus pages. This is nothing new for an RPG to have, but unlike some products where the artwork seems to be placed on the page merely because people expect it to be there in the typical “chapter starts with big artwork, smaller pieces provide filler” formula (I’m looking at you Wizards) with The Dresden Files RPG every item on the page is used to accentuate the product. The layout work done on this product is absolutely incredible. You get a real sense of the book being a dynamic story unto itself, and in may ways it is (more on that later).

Every details seems to have been picked on purpose to ensure that this RPG does not just present you with the rules but also sucks you into the game world. The fonts, borders, and everything else seems to fit perfectly into the setting that the product describes. This is not just a book, but a portal into the world of Harry Dresden.

And speaking of Harry Dresden…

I confess that I have only read three of the Harry Dresden books, but even with my limited knowledge of the Dresdenverse it is clear that this RPG is loyal to the source material. The way that skills, spells, and other such qualities are described shows how this was not just a product made to cash in on a hot licensed property, but instead is an homage to Jim Butcher’s tales of the only wizard detective listed in the phonebook.

One reason for this is because the book is designed to read as if the character Billy, a geeky werewolf who plays RPGs and is a close friend of Harry, has designed an RPG based upon the case files from Harry’s past adventures. Throughout the book there are notes being exchanged between Billy, Harry, and Harry’s advisor in the form of a soul-bound-to-a-skull named Bob. Anyone who has read any of the titles from the Dresden series will be treated to many references to events that occurred within the books. In some ways this book is not just an RPG but a reference guide to the Dresdenverse. Even if you have not read any of the books the RPG serves as a good introduction to the world of Harry Dresden which is by all means a fascinating one.

But what about the game?

Yes the book is gorgeous, yes the book has style, but none of that matters if the game sucks. Luckily the game is solid as well, and if you are a fan of the Fate system (Spirit of the Century, Strands of Fate, etc.) you will be happy to know that The Dresden Files RPG is the first product released using the new Fate 3.0 engine (correction: Spirit of the Century also from Evil Hat Productions was the first Fate 3.0 release). Fate is a fantastic rules system that focuses on the storytelling aspect of RPGs. It is a derivative of my personal favorite game system Fudge, and it stays true to its roots while at the same time expanding upon the system and tightening up a few parts as well.

Fair warning – Fate and Fudge are game systems that may not be for everyone. Luckily both are available for free on the web for you to try before you buy, and as much as I am a fan of these systems you should try them out first before buying The Dresden Files RPG.

In many ways Fate and Harry Dresden are a perfect fit, because magic in the works of Jim Butcher is not dependent so much on what something is but what it represents. Aspects in Fate work very much the same way, as they are traits that a character can tap in order to stay true to the character’s concept. This again just builds upon the synergy between the RPG and the published works.

Should you buy it?

With all of the production work that went into The Dresden Files RPG there has to be a price, and in this case that is literally the price! The Dresden Files RPG: Your Story is $49.99 in print and $25 for the PDF, while the companion book Our World which provides more detail for the setting of the Dresdenverse is $39.99 in print and $20 for the PDF. It should be noted though that Evil Hat Productions provides a PDF copy to anyone who buys a print version of their products through retailers, and orders placed through their online store for print products includes the PDF versions. That said, $90 is a lot of money to spend on an RPG given the many cheaper products that are out there. Is The Dresden Files RPG worth the money?

That is hard to say, because everyone’s financial situation is different. Perhaps it is better to think of it this way: Do you want a Mercedes? There are very few reasons to buy a Mercedes-Benz automobile from a practical standpoint. Most vehicles will deliver the basic functionality that a person needs from an automobile at far less a price, but a Mercedes-Benz delivers that same basic functionality with a higher level of comfort and quality. This RPG is not your typical collection of mechanics with a dash of setting thrown in (again, I’m looking at you Wizards). The Dresden Files RPG is more of a luxury purchase that is as much a work of art as it is an RPG. For some of you that $90 is not worth it, but for others $90 will be a bargain for the set.

Final Thought: It is deserving of all of the hype.

In the end The Dresden Files RPG is a solid piece of work that is elegant and well done. Fans of Harry Dresden will not be disappointed, and fans of Fate and Fudge have another high quality game available to them. Even gamers who have never played Fate and Fudge and who have never read any of the Harry Dresden series should check it out just to see what a classy job the folks at Evil Hat Productions did with these books.

One thing that I am certain of is that The Dresden Files RPG is worthy of all the praise and attention that the industry is bestowing upon it. Regardless of your personal tastes these books just radiate of being of a higher quality. At the very least Evil Hat Productions has raised the bar for RPGs across the board, and that is a good thing for all of us gamers as a whole.

Do you own The Dresden Files RPG? What do you think of its quality and content? Share your opinion with the rest of us by leaving a comment below.

The first part of the serialized novella is a cliffhanger, for Conan stumbles into a trap as he explores the jungle palace ruins. It reads:

He turned toward the arch — with appalling suddenness the seemingly solid flags splintered and gave way under his feet. Even as he fell he spread wide his arms and caught the edges of the aperture that gaped beneath him. The edges, crumbled off under his clutching fingers. Down into utter darkness he shot, into black icy water that gripped him and whirled him away with breathless speed.

Here, the use of a trap is not an obstacle to be overcome. For storytelling reasons, it is inescapable, in fact. But it does no harm to him, except to sweep him away to another section of the ruins. It is Conan’s avenue to another part of the adventure.

I think for many GMs (myself included) and especially those who game in D&D’s 3.5 and 4E versions or Pathfinder — we’ve become accustomed to using traps simply as a tool that serves as a challenge for the game’s tactical aspects.

There’s nothing wrong with that. Such an approach makes them quite useful in constructing engaging encounters. In fact, the rules use a rating system to describe the lethality of the traps and their appropriateness to test each adventuring party’s skill level. In this regard, traps are like puzzles, and they carry with them a consequence for failure.

But going back to the example of this Conan story, the trap is not a challenge. It’s a literary device to advance the plot. It could have been a magic teleporting circle, a slide, a long hallway or any number of conveyances — except in REH’s deft hands, it’s the thrilling conclusion to one part of the story. The handhold gives way and Conan is carried away by the underground stream.

For storytelling reasons, it might serve us well to consider using traps in this fashion occasionally. Standard traps, such as those detailed in rulebooks, are actually stop signs in the adventure. The characters must stop and deal with the trap, just as they would have to stop and deal with a monster.

But this other trap is an avenue to another adventure. And it’s not unknown to D&D-style games. But I think its use has been forgotten amid the passage of years and the growing piles of supplements. But early on, using a trap this way was encouraged.

Looking at my copy of the 1980 Moldvay version of the D&D Basic rules, there’s a sample dungeon within. And Room No. 4 of the East Tower features a trap beneath a rug in the floor. And it’s not a trap/challenge. It’s a trap/avenue, a means of getting to the second level of the dungeon (which if you look at the cutaway diagram of the dungeon by Erol Otus, that second level is a loooooooooooong way down).

Before using this kind of trap, however, GMs need to be prepared to cope with player reaction, which will probably boil down to this:

Players, being conditioned to coping with the trap/challenge, might well jump up in arm-waving exasperation or game-stopping reactions, unwilling to be dropped down a hole and swept away without calling upon their various abilities to overcome the trap. “Surely I perceived the trap and would have avoided it!” “My reflexes are amazing, can’t I just step aside?” “My character had his climbing gear ready just for this eventuality.”  And so on.

This point, it becomes a matter of trust. The players have to be convinced the GM isn’t using a trap to wear down the characters’ hit point totals with some arbitrary falling damage roll. Moreover, this is very much an instance where the GM has actually robbed the players of “choice.”  The trap/avenue is the very definition of railroading. The players can’t get off these rails (at least for the moment).

But it’s for the sake of story, and for transporting the PCs to another adventure site, where they can explore, fight and uncover treasure at their own pace and direction, once again.

It may take some adroit handling to send the players hurtling from one part of the dungeon to another by means of a trap/avenue. But described with a bit of flair, and by making it clear the adventures are still the heroes of the story, it can be part of a rewarding session.

Or a cliffhanger in its own right.

I’m looking forward to welcoming new GMs into the fold; a few of our players from the previous seasons are stepping up to run tables for us this season. The constraints of module play makes Encounters (or other organized play, like Pathfinder society modules) an excellent first step for GMs. Playing through previous seasons has done a good job of introducing them to the conventions and expectations of a D&D Encounters game. If you’ve played Encounters recently, maybe it’s time to volunteer and help your local store seat more players.

Reincorporation

I never ran a lot of premade modules–I always prized my own creativity too much, particularly the ability to tailor a campaign to the players and the specific characters at the table. When your start and end points have to match every other table each week, it’s harder to tailor the game as closely to your specific players. But it’s certainly not impossible.

Paying attention to the players’ actions and reincorporating them is surprising and rewarding. At Jennifer’s table, the PCs had quirky interactions with a recurring NPC mage, Faldyra. One character tried to steal her shoes early on–his player was surprised that the consequences followed him into future sessions, when her curse tied him to the ground, slowing him and amplifying the earth’s grasp. Another character hit on Faldyra, leading to a cute subplot woven behind the main session each week. At my table Faldyra was viewed as an incompetent; the PCs kept inventing “side quests” to keep her busy so they could get to the important work without her distractions. None of that was written into the module, but bringing it back–reincorporating it–gave each table a different feel, even though their fight was against the same foes each week.

Pickup Play

D&D Encounters shares an important element with many indie-game designs–an emphasis on independent sessions and less onerous schedules. Many games solve the problem by designing complete in one session experiences–Dread and Universalis are two games among many that are designed for solid one session play.

D&D Encounters takes a different tack–each “episode” is discrete for the players, even though the characters continue on their adventures. At a typical table the extra flexibility comes at the price of verisimilitude; the previous session’s staid dwarven warrior morphs into a rampaging minotaur without an eyeblink from the characters. It is a heavy price to pay, particularly if you love the story that emerges from a campaign’s events.

The offsetting advantage, though, is huge–many people who long ago gave up on roleplaying come back when a game fits their schedule. The lower bar of commitment encourages new people to give roleplaying a shot–after all, no one is depending on them to come back if they don’t enjoy it. The indefinite commitment required to be a good player in a typical campaign can be a barrier to bringing busy adults, new players, and lapsed gamers to the table.

The other advantage of the Encounters structure is that the players who do come week after week get a chance to engage with a plot that can twist and turn, with each session contributing more to the overall story. It’s a subtle reward–and one subject to backfire when the players stumble across…

Plot Holes

When you’re running someone else’s adventure, you have to trust that they’ve planned it out. Sometimes, though, the designer misses something. Customizing a Module has some advice for identifying weak spots and working solutions into your table’s experience. At other times, it’s just frustrating–you know that the adventure demands a specific result, no matter what happens in play. That’s often the first step towards the players feeling like their actions don’t impact the story, which is bad in any environment.

We had that situation come up this last season; at several tables, the PCs made very reasonable offers towards Salazar Vladistone (the season’s ‘big bad’) when they crossed paths early on. Because the villain recurred and future weeks depended on them being at cross purposes, the villain had to reject the PCs’ very reasonable (at some tables) offers. That was a bit frustrating, and led to divergence as each GM came up with their own way to justify the ongoing enmity.

Module Design

Module designers have to make a lot of assumptions about what’s going to go on at “the average table”–and they have to design knowing that extreme results happen, and will affect different tables’ experiences. At the table where the GM can’t roll above a five, the PCs will end with their full complement of abilities and health, unlike the table where the GM’s dice are on fire–and the few survivors are completely drained of their resources well before the big fight.

Seeing two full seasons did illustrate some big differences in the module designs. Here are some of the things we noticed.

1. Computing experience at the table introduces more opportunities for error.

For our first season, experience for each character was pre-calculated; so at the end of the night’s adventure the PCs who showed up for the same session all got the same experience. The next season the module designer did some of the work–totaling combat XP and listing bonus XP for various additional actions–but after division by the GMs, especially after the GM added or subtracted foes to match the strong table/weak table guidelines, the experience characters had on their sheet at the end of week 3 was dramatically different depending on the table where they’d sat. The totals only got further off as the season progressed. I’m very happy to see that the upcoming season returns to a flat per character award.

2. Variety is the spice of life.

I have to admit that the title gave it away–The March of the Phantom Brigade featured a lot of ghosts. Most weeks, the same attacks did the same damage, the ghosts used similar tactics–and the same weaknesses were exploited by both sides. While it came together thematically, it was a lot less “fun” on both sides of the table than fighting a variety of foes with a variety of strengths and weaknesses.

3. Auto-leveling for the win.

The first season included specific advice–that PCs should be second level by week 9, 3rd level by week 17. Every player, whether it was their first week or their 20th, had characters that were ‘on par’ with each other. March of the Phantom Brigade lacked that advice–and resulted in TPKs when first level characters took on the week’s fight–a fight geared for more powerful characters. Inexperienced players plus underpowered characters makes for a less than ideal introduction to roleplaying. Some new players spent most of their session watching–their limited hit points meant that their character fell unconscious early in the battle.

Richard Baker recently wrote an article about the design constraints involved in creating this season’s module. If you’re curious about how it came to be, his article is Dark Legacy of Evard: Design & Development.

Go Play!

Encounters isn’t for everyone. Many players miss the freedom that a home campaign can provide, some GMs will miss the creation and control of a world–the constraints may chafe too greatly. Despite the flaws, Encounters and other module play provides a great way to introduce the game to new and lapsed players. It’s even a great reward for other GMs; many GMs long to both play and GM, but their home group doesn’t have parallel games or even a second GM. You can provide a chance for those GMs to enjoy both sides of the game–and it only requires a couple of hours a week!

If you’re looking for a way to meet other people and evaluate their play style for compatibility…there’s no better way that seeing how they play. Besides, don’t you deserve a chance to relax and just pick up an axe to right the world’s wrongs? Maybe there’s a GM near you running a session that’s perfect for your busy schedule.

Where will tonight find you? Waiting to see what is in the basket of mystery ingredients? Practicing your arcane gestures and preparing to solve the ills of Duponde? Or will you take on the role of dungeon master and guide heroes into adventure?

Instead, I ended up designing one.

(Nothing in life goes in a straight line, it seems. Just curves, twists and unexpected opportunities.)

Using the 3.5 variant Pathfinder rules, I submitted and had published the Dawa Defender, which is available as a free download, Wayfinder 4, over at paizo.com. Thanks to some development from editors Liz Courts, Adam Daigle and Ashavan Doyon, and company, and a particularly kicking illustration from Eureka contributor Hugo Solis, it turned out pretty good.

So, did the experience temper my position on prestige classes?

A little. But not enough to derail this post entirely.

Oh, get on with it already …

Here is my beef in a nutshell: Prestige classes were presented as a GMing tool in the third edition Dungeon Master’s Guide.

Hear that, GMs? It was intended to be our toy to play with originally. Ours.

And I don’t let go of things easily.

What did those pesky power-gaming players do when they learned about prestige classes? (I say that in jest after all. What’s the fun of being a GM without a few power gamers around the table?) They stole them for their own use. But not only were players latching on to this mechanic with wild enthusiasm, Wizards of the Coast was complicit in the scheme, feeding their desire to build more powerful characters.

Before you could blink, PrCs were showing up in every supplement geared toward players. Masters of the Wild. Check. Defenders of the Faith. Check. Song and Silence. Check.

And what were GMs getting? Books on how to design strongholds and castles. (“Really? Did we really, really need that?”)

Sure, each release came with the standard caveat: Do it only with your GMs approval. Of course, the warning was delivered with all the authority that comes with the “do not remove under penalty of persecution” label on a mattress tag. It’s not like you can send players to PrC jail. Nope. Players just countered with the more powerful rejoinder: It’s official!

As you can see, my ire has been building a long, long time.

Take a deep breath, dude

Time for some perspective. This is D&D. The game was dead. Third edition not only revived it, it rejuvenated the whole rpg scene. If players were staking out new territory by incorporating PrCs wholesale, so what! As a GM, I could be magnanimous. I mean, it’s not like I still couldn’t use PrCs as they were intended, right?

Until 3.5 rolled around. And its Complete series of books. Yes, in many ways it was just a reprinting of the earlier softcover player supplements. But the players, almost as one, started issuing a common complaint: Why are you guys at Wotc wasting space by including stat blocks of an example NPC with each prestige class entry?

Wasting space? The only nod to the original purpose of PrCs as a GMing tool — a sample NPC we could use — and the players are complaining about their inclusion in a gaming book?

Ungrateful lot.

By the time the GM series of campaign books came out, the number of prestige classes offered got woefully slim. The player-focused books are loaded with PrCs, and the GMing ones only get a smidgen? The world’s been turned upside down, right?

Righting the ship

This proliferation of prestige classes contributed to the rules bloat that 3.5 sagged under. So, I now appreciate the reluctance that Paizo has had with adding PrCs to the Pathfinder rules. Better yet, Pathfinder introduced the alternate class features, which gives the PCs the tools they they’ve really wanted all along — the means to customize a player’s character class. This solution means there’s less incentive to mine prestige classes with this new mechanic.

It’s interesting, because prestige classes — a template GMs could use to bolster or customize adversaries and NPCs, as well as add flavor to a campaign — got fixed in fourth edition, too. That rules spot is now occupied by monster templates, ways to beef up those encounters with only a little fuss.

True, the campaign flavor mechanic got lost, the bait you could dangle in front of players to acquire levels in a PrC that immersed them in your world was set aside. But experience had already shown it wasn’t immersion the players craved, so much as the cool powers.

Not much of a rant, bud

Yeah, I know. Apparently dipping my toes in design did cool things off. And now players can dip in to my PrC for a few levels of dawa defense …

… but only if their GM says it’s OK.

Every year the first Saturday of June is the "Day of Fudge" where fans of the Fudge RPG system are encouraged to run Fudge game events out in public. You can run a game at your local game shop, at your public library, a local campus, or anywhere you get permission to host such an event. All you need to participate in the DoF is some imagination, and a little gumption!

You can read about my scenario for this year’s DoF at the link above. For the past two years I have had a blast promoting my favorite system while at the same time running a fun game for others. Fudge is a very simple system that uses adjectives instead of numbers for traits, and it has inspired some great derivatives like FATE, the Dresden Files RPG (which I’ll be posting a review of soon), Diaspora, and Icons (which a certain gnome was involved with).

This year the DoF is already getting attention from folks like Michael Wolf over at Stargazer’s World (which is a blog that you probably want to check out too). There is even a DoF raffle where you can win custom Fudge dice from the Dicecreator’s Blog! I am very happy to see the DoF grow a little bit bigger each year, and I absolutely love seeing the RPG community gather to celebrate our hobby whether it be a niche holiday or a convention.

This year though I want to try and crank the DoF up a notch. The problem is that I can’t do that on my own. I need your help to make it happen, and the best way to get your help is to offer my own back in return.

If you want to run a DoF Fudge game then I want to help you do it!

Over at my forum You Meet In A Tavern I have created a board dedicated to the DoF. If you are interested in learning how to play, run, or design a Fudge game I will help you in any way that I can. Want tips on designing an adventure? I am at your disposal. Need advice on introducing gamers to the Fudge RPG? I’ll share every trick that I know with you. Looking for a recommendation for a Fudge product? I can point you in the right direction.

And if I can’t help you with something, well there are two more gnomes over at the Tavern who might be able to help (we’re everywhere). They aren’t rabid Fudge fans like myself, but they damn well know how to run a good game with any RPG system!

To be clear, I am not associated with any Fudge product that is currently being sold today. I do this out of a passion for my favorite game system, and I can tell you how to run Fudge without having to buy anything at all. This is just my way of giving back to the community that has given me so much.

Step up to the challenge!

If you are ready to run a game of Fudge I salute you, and if you want to run a game of Fudge I will help you to do it. Fudge is a great system that may change how you look at other RPGs in general, and that is always good because it expands your GM’s toolbox.

Are you going to step up to the “Day of Fudge” challenge? Let us know by leaving a comment below, and I’ll be sure to write a follow-up post after the DoF to let you all know how things went.

It was interest in trying out the 2001 roleplaying game based on the d20/Third Edition system that moved me to the GMing side the screen in the first place.

I ran two solid campaigns using those rules. It went pretty well. Yes, the channellers can rule combat encounters (as they should, if you’re being faithful to the books) and the Aiel algai’d’siswai class is overpowered, but there’s more roleplaying than rollplaying in one of my Wheel campaigns than even my standard D&D stuff, so those were secondary concerns.

The question: Is it worthwhile a decade later to put a Fourth Edition skin on the setting? And if so, could it be done with an eye toward minimal preparations and alterations?

The spirit of 4E is that it should be a matter of simply plugging in what we want and discarding the rest without getting bogged down in charts, tables and elaborate stat blocks.

At first blush, the theme-based spellcasting of the Aes Sedai and their ajahs (factions), not to mention the various dueling sword forms of blademasters using heron-marked blades (such as “parting the silk,” or  “hummingbird kisses the rose”) are in lockstep with the powers mechanic.

Besides, the time to run a Wheel campaign is in the coming year — before we know the end of the story with the release of the last novel in the series.

So here it goes. Remember this is only conceptual. Working out the details is the kind of thing only game play will reveal.

Races

There are two races: humans and ogiers. Humans are humans, of course. And goliaths (PH2) stand well enough for ogiers. I would say you could allow other demihuman stats to stand as humans, too. Elaidrin could be a type of ta’veren, those beings strongly woven in the pattern. Using dwarves, halflings and elves would be OK, so long as you just accepted their stats and called them humans with special abilities. (For example, Cairhienen are a short people, maybe not as short as halflings, but it could work.) Shifters would be OK for a wolfbrother, but the shapechanging would have to be limited to the world of the Wolf Dream. And some darkfriends could use tiefling abilities.

Classes

This list can be quite involved, if only because 4E allows customization that is more respective of the different Aes Sedai ajahs. But it was exactly that kind of distinction that was missing from the d20 version.

Algai’d’siswai: archer ranger (spears), rageblood barbarian or thaneborne barbarian.
Armsman: great weapon fighter
Ashaman: earth warden, isolating avenger, pursuing avenger or wizard
Blademaster: great weapon fighter
Captain: inspiring warlord or tactical warlord
Forsaken/Darkfriend: infernal pact warlock
Gleeman: cunning bard or valorious bard
Noble: guardian fighter, valorious bard or inspiring warlord
Thief taker: two-blade ranger
Treesinger (Ogier): guardian druid
Wanderer: trickster rogue
Warder: protecting paladin or guardian fighter
Wilder: chaos sorcerer or dragon sorcerer
Windfinder: guardian druid or chaos sorcerer
Wise One: panther shaman or wild warden
Wolfbrother: predator druid
Woodsman: archer ranger

Now for the Aes Sedai: any wizard or sorcerer build would be OK, but other options exist, too:
Blue Ajah: deceptive warlock, control wizard
Brown Ajah: preserving invoker
Gray Ajah: deceptive warlock
Green Ajah: scourge warlock, battle cleric
Red Ajah: wrathful invoker, war wizard
White Ajah: control wizard
Yellow Ajah: devoted cleric

Items of power

In Wheel, there are basically three types of items of power: angreal, sa’angreal and wondrous ter’angreal. The last do not require the ability to channel to use. They come in all shapes and sizes, so it should be a matter of course to simply use most any magic items. Power wrought blades (and other weapons) are quite rare. So there aren’t a lot of magical swords, and the ones that exist, really are ter’angreal that do things other than grant attack bonuses.

Creatures

The world of Wheel is far more conventional than your basic D&D campaign, meaning there are far fewer fantastic creatures. But that doesn’t mean you can’t use some Monster Manual entries for other things. Also, there are some fantastic creatures that aren’t EXACTLY a good fit for their nearest analog. (Draghkar comes immediately to mind).

Here are my suggestions for the major creatures of the setting:
Blight worm: purple worm
Bubbles of evil: elementals, plant monsters and various oozes
Darkhound: shadowhound, hellhound or wild hunt hound
Darkfriends: shadar-kai
Draghkar: vampire spawn, medusa
Gholam: bodak, slaad or troll
Gray man: dark creeper or quickling
Green man: treant
Grolm: drake
Horse: horse, warhorse
Lopar: macetail behemoth
Mounted cavalry: centaur
Myrddraaal: death knight, lich, wraith
Ravens: stirge
Raken and to’raken: wyrven, fell wyvern
Spirits: ghosts and specters
S’redit: mammoth
Trollock: goblinoids, ogres, gnolls, minotaurs
Wolf: gray wolf, dire wolf
Wolfbrothers: shifters

The 4E rules aren’t a perfect fit. But I think any GM who is earnest about giving their players an adventure about defending the Borderlands from an invading horde of trollocs from the Blight, who want to spin webs of daes dae’mar (the Game of Houses or the Great Game) with the fate of nations at stake or have Aes Sedai confront darkfriends and/or Forsaken abroad or in their own midst (the whispered evil of the Black Ajah), then these tools are sufficient for hours and hours of fun.

Just make sure the Dragon Reborn reaches the Last Battle.

(1) It’s no use informing me of the series’ many shortcomings, particularly literary ones. Believe me, as a fan—I’m all too aware of them. If it’s not your cup of tea, that’s cool with me. But grant me my indulgences, please.

RENTON, Washington, April 15. Wizards of the Coast, the leader in hobby games, is pleased to announce the first preview of DUNGEONS & DRAGONS (TM) 5th Edition. This preview, an “alpha” version of the new rules, will be included in our most essential release for D&D players since 2002..

2002′s The Book of Vile Darkness and its companion product, The Book of Exalted Deeds, both oriented towards mature audiences, were the most successful and critically praised products in DUNGEONS & DRAGONS history. Coupled with the runaway success of the third-party Book of Erotic Fantasy (2006), we saw a real opportunity to go back to that well and revitalize the DUNGEONS & DRAGONS property with another flagship product.

Wizards of the Coast is proud to announce the May 2011 release of The Book of Erotic Flatulence, which will feature a preview of the DUNGEONS & DRAGONS 5th Edition rules.

Brand Manager K. Siemdieba says, “This is the product Dungeon Masters and D&D players have been clamoring for in person at conventions and in our online forums. Without the Book of Erotic Flatulence, your game is just plain incomplete — and if you haven’t been including the bodily functions of D&D’s most iconic creatures in your games since 1997, like all of us here at Wizards, then man are you missing out. From reesty orc beefs to wispy little mind flayer squeakers, the Book of Erotic Flatulence has it all. You do not want to miss this.”

The Book of Erotic Flatulence will be a full-color 32-page hardcover with a retail price of $49.95, and is expected in retail stores in May 2011.

The press release was accompanied by a PDF, which I can only assume is some kind of internal production copy of The Book of Erotic Flatulence. The cover is below, and you can download the PDF if you enjoy pain (NSFW).

I have no words. I’m so glad I stopped playing D&D. Thanks for ripping a big, erotic fart all over my childhood, WotC.

So when we last ran an article about DEM games, it was a when Amethyst had come out.  So tell us what’s new with Amethyst..

A second book is coming.  Let’s get that out of the way.  Amethyst proved quite the success but like all creators, I always feel I could improve upon it.  We’ve set the title of the second book as Amethyst: Factions, due out this winter.  Initially, it was only going to be about 80,000 words, introducing one new techan class (the vanguard), more lifepaths and feats, epic destinies, and a guide to creating long-term campaigns in the Amethyst world.  Now it’s over 150,000 words and contains alternate powers and class features (like a splatbook) for the original techan classes, a new energy weapon property (nuclear), super heavy weapons, and mecha…yeah, that’s right, mecha.  Granted, they’re just large suits of armor but I still think they’re awesome.  Just recently, we decided to offer “essential” builds to the original techan classes so for those endorsing the new line of books there will be something for them as well.  As a result, we are currently discussing splitting the book up into a player volume and a GM volume.

Nick Greenwood is doing most of the art.  Jeremy Simmons is doing all the maps.  Nick’s cover is going to be fantastic.  There’s this one specific illustration he’s doing that we’re really looking forward to.  I guarantee it will be the coolest illustration for a role playing game you’ll have seen in ten years.  Most RPG graphics are perfunctory, barely worthy a hundred words.  What Nick’s doing is nothing short of a bible’s worth.  I’m not the artist so I can offer this kind of praise.  He’s humble so I’ve got to compensate.  Because the next book is primarily PDF, it’ll also have a lot of color.  Oh yeah, and demons are finally showing up.

When Amethyst came out, you were also at work designing NeuroSpasta, your modern/future setting under the GSL.  How has work on NeuroSpasta been, and where is the product in the development cycle?

After the release of Amethyst, I re-opened the doors for NeuroSpasta playtesters and ended up getting a monsoon.  It went from 20 to 150 people in two months.  It has evolved substantially in the past year.  This emerged from what I’ve learned from Amethyst as well as understanding the developing philosophy of the 4th Edition system (funny story, that one).  At 256,000 words and growing, it’s become blatantly obvious that we had to break it up.  We made the decision recently to split NeuroSpasta in two.  First to be released is Ultramodern4—the default rule system for all 4E games DEM will produce from now on.  It will have the ladders, the classes, feats, epic destinies, all the equipment, weapons, and armor.

NeuroSpasta, released later, will have the setting, the races, lifepaths, one class, rules for hacking, cybernetics, and an adventure.  This way we can produce other setting books and make it interlock with U4 or NeuroSpasta.  U4 is planned for a release earlier next year with NeuroSpasta following soon after.  Based on the sales of the next three books, we’ll determine the schedule of future DEM publications.

With one GSL game out and one more in the works, what have you learned about working under the GSL in terms of designing a game and publishing it?

Honestly, I never think of the GSL.  You’d think that I’d be constantly concerned about breaking some fine-print policy, but I don’t.  I feel like there’s some secret that only I know about frolicking in this playground.  I’m not going to say it was easy, but the limitations with the GSL was never a real concern.  My issues deal with the evolving philosophy of D&D itself.  I know some fans who follow my writing (thanks Bob) will think I’m repeating a common rhetoric.  When I started writing Amethyst, we only had the core books.  I had no idea what the design philosophy was or that it even existed.  Why should we be obligated to make our product like someone else’s?  Amethyst is not a D&D world.  It’s a fantasy game using D&D mechanics.  Thankfully with the deviations that Dark Sun recently took from the D&D staple, the heat Amethyst received from these few critics has reduced.  That being said, Amethyst has gotten many and great reviews, even from people that questioned the wisdom of our setting decisions.

Gnome Stew is the home of the best GMing advice on the Prime Material Plane. What kinds of things do you put in a game to aid the GM to run your game mechanically, as well as to develop stories in your worlds.

I’m been a GM longer than some of my players have been alive…ugh…the facts of that statement just hit me.  I wasn’t even exaggerating.  My personal Amethyst game has run off-and-on since 2002.  Rarely do I make characters.  I’ve been a storyteller in role playing games since the 80s.

I recently posted an article on LivingDice.com about how a few minor homebrew rules can enhance 4th Edition’s compatibility with a long-term, story-based game.  I offered ideas that enhance milestones, or utilize tokens to reset powers and healing surges—all of this to help a GM create a story based campaign without the obligation to have multiple battles every day to prevent players from wasting daily powers in the one encounter they have that week.

Additionally, the last chapter in Factions deals with constructing a story-based game in the setting.  It offers several hooks to start a campaign, with either echan-centered groups, techan-centered groups, or a mix of the two.  It discusses the people characters may meet, the story arcs that could develop and the opponents they may face.  There are campaigns involving slave markets, lost technology, and obviously, the Amethyst artifacts themselves.

Amethyst has a pretty complicated world, in terms of Chaos vs Law and Good vs Evil, with a number of unique races and cultures. What advice would you give a GM in running Amethyst for navigating these complexities?

I know some GMs don’t want a game to get too complicated or too multi-faceted, but I say let every decision have consequences.  Don’t ignore the little threads that emerge.  The more detailed the players make their characters, the more ingrained in the setting they become.  Don’t ignore the issues of race or politics when they emerge.  Don’t ignore issues with religion, a hot topic for any table.  Don’t assume you need a group that cavorts through fields holding hands.

I know a few reviewers had felt that Amethyst tries to discourage the mixing of worlds and philosophies, but I placed those hurdles in the setting in the hope people would create a campaign rife with conflict.  Have your players disagree with each other.  Have them be from different bastions, races, and ideologies.  Have them find a common ground despite these differences.  A good example is the assumption that the game is mostly about players building techan classes and shooting dragons in the face with plasma guns.  Despite the amazing amount of fun that could be, I have personally NEVER done this in my Amethyst game.

My group currently consists of a psychotic gimfen, a human fighter, a human warlord with a shotgun, a dual-pistol stalker with amnesia, a wasteland grounder with a minigun, and a mentally challenged narros ranger–all riding around in a giant snail with a house made from this shell (Jigapoda…coming in Factions).  I can run Amethyst until I’m 80 and not retread over the same type of story twice.

I am assuming that before you were a game designer you were a GM. How has your GMing experience carried over into your game design?

The purpose of Amethyst was an attempt (a heartfelt one) to offer all the information I had (and more) at my disposal when I created the original campaign.  I’ve never put a single element in Amethyst that pandered to pressure from outsiders.  GMs can play in my sandbox or move the sand to theirs.  I know what I like in my games so I offered as rich a universe as I could in hopes other GMs could read and appreciate the details.  I figured if I wrote a setting intelligently, intelligent storytellers will pick up on the particulars and handle the rest.  Those that don’t care can still pick up a said plasma rifle and shoot said dragon in the face.

Thanks to Chris for his time, and we are looking forward to the upcoming releases. You can get Amethyst:Foundations at Goodman Games and a DriveThruRPG.  You can keep up with all the goings on at DEM at their website.