Blog of Holding

clerics and The Curse of Chalion

December 3rd, 2010

I picked up this book as the fifth book of a “five for 5 dollars” deal at a used bookstore. I had the vague feeling that I’d heard of the author, Lois McMaster Bujold, before, but had no expectations about the book.

I have an uninformed prejudice against modern (80’s and later) fantasy, so The Curse of Chalion was a pleasant surprise. It’s definitely post-Game of Thrones (lots of court intrigue, and — the big tipoff — knights are called “ser”) but it fits in one regular-sized book and it’s not quite as horrific.

At one point, a character gains the ability to see ghosts, and discovers that they’re everywhere. They’re constantly trying to communicate with the living, but only “saints” can see them.

applying this to your game

D&D 4e cosmology has it that that when anyone dies, they spend a few days or weeks “nearby” before they (mostly) journey on to their final resting places. Imagine if these days are weeks are spent as ghosts, able to observe but not affect the living world. The day after a battle, thousands of ghosts are wandering the battlefield. Meanwhile, dozens of ghosts are ineffectively trying to warn people away from a witch’s house.

What if a character gains the ability to see ghosts? Maybe he or she can do so only when close to death – only when bloodied, for instance. In this case, vital information might only become available halfway through a battle. Outside of battle, the character would have to spend healing surges to conduct spirit research.

What if funeral rituals are the only way to give peace to the dead and prevent undead? Adventuring clerics suddenly gain a lot more importance in the game world. They are the only people who can journey to the dangerous places in the world and perform the burial rituals that release trapped spirits. Perhaps the ability to see spirits when bloodied becomes a clerical class feature, as does the ability to release a spirit from its body.

The ghosts seen by a cleric will have different goals. Most will try to lead the cleric to their bodies so that the cleric can perform a funeral ritual. Some, evil ghosts, will try to lure the cleric into danger or ambush.

Imagined this way, clerics are the ultimate healers: they heal your body while you’re alive, and then they heal your soul’s sickness once you’re dead.

Tags: everybook
Posted in 4e D&D, advice/tools, fluff/inspiration, news, RPG Hub | 3 Comments »

name day: Red Day at Redberry

December 2nd, 2010

This is another phrase that came to me when I was half-asleep.

It has an ominous sound, but I can’t quite think of what it can mean. Any ideas?

Posted in fluff/inspiration, RPG Hub | 6 Comments »

Rory’s Pocket Guide to D&D: Sucking up to the DM

December 1st, 2010

In previous articles I’ve talked about character creation, roleplaying, and combat.

Now it’s time to focus on all the little things you can do to make the DMs job easier! I’ve talked before about how much more time the DM spends preparing for a session than a player, so the least you can do is take a load off their hands when the session actually gets going.

I should note that I’m probably outright stealing some of these tips, since I’ve had some of them suggested by players who have read them in other places.

Recap: When I DM a session, I give a minor quest if the players can do a good recap at the beginning of a session to get things started. As a player, whether or not you get rewarded, you should always be ready to do a fun recap to start things off. Taking quick notes at the end of a session never hurts. Giving a good recap saves the DM a lot of time explaining things to players who were absent from a session or forgot what was going on. Plus it shows that you are invested in what’s going on, whether it be a complicated web of intrigue or a delightful romp of orc bashing.
Take Notes: Taking notes during a session is always a good idea. I said this in a previous post but it bears repeating. Take notes! It helps you keep track of what’s going on, shows the DM that you give a damn what his NPC’s names are, helps maintain continuity since the DM might have trouble keeping track of everything, and can help you out later on. If the main villain walks with a limp, that would be useful information when you meet a mysterious limping stranger later on. Names, particularly, are good to keep track of! As a DM, I love it if a player remembers the name of the innkeeper I made up on the fly two sessions ago, saving me the trouble of digging up my notes or making up a new name that everyone knows isn’t the real one.
Bring Snacks: Snacks are another easy way to rack up extra XP if the DM is in a generous mood. Plus, they’re tasty! Plus, they show that you’re at least willing to shell out 5 bucks or so to make up for the several hours the DM spent prepping. Finally, they keep your energy level up!
Volunteer to Keep Track of Initiative: One of the players should definitely volunteer to keep track of initiative, since it’s one less thing for the DM to deal with.
Volunteer to Keep Track of Conditions: There are a few different ways to play this. If some of the players are new or kind of airheads, and you’re not, then it might make sense for you to keep track of conditions on all monsters. Otherwise, all players should offer to keep track of conditions they’ve caused to monsters. PCs should really be able to handle keeping track of their own conditions, hopefully. Keeping track of monster conditions saves the DM more time AND cuts down on the chances that the DM will miss a crucial condition that would have caused a monster to miss with an attack or take more damage.
Volunteer to Keep Track of EVERYTHING: If the DM is willing to let you keep track of monster HP or other effects, then go ahead and do it. It speeds up the combat and gives you a useful edge! As a DM I usually draw the line at HP tracking, since I think it hurts the realism of the encounter and makes for weird meta-game choices, but if a DM is willing to take your help in this way they can probably use it.
Be the Party Banker: D&D can get annoyingly complicated when it comes to an even distribution of wealth. At the very least, it’s usually good for one PC to be keeping track of party gold and the like. When I’m a player, I often like to keep track of what magic items certain PCs have in order to help figure out whose lagging behind and should be next in line for a magic item from the DM or a chunk of cash to buy one.
Help Prepare the Combat: As a DM, if I don’t have a map planned, I sometimes ask a player to draw a fun one out while I do other precombat prep. So I might say “make a crazy garden filled with mystical traps” and let the player go from there. This is a chance for a player to flex their creative muscles a bit and make an awesome combat location. More mundanely, it can be useful to help the DM pick out minis and tokens for an encounter if they don’t have them out yet or simply clear the table of paper and debris so they can roll the combat map out.

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using the Ravenloft board game to make 4e less “board gamey”

November 30th, 2010

Castle Ravenloft uses simplified D&D mechanics. Movement speed and tactical positioning are of reduced importance, so, ironically, the Ravenloft board game points to a version of 4e D&D that can be played off the battlemap, without minis.

Most Ravenloft monsters move 1 room per turn. Extremely fast ones, like wolves, move 2 rooms. A room is a dungeon tile: it might be, say, four by four squares. At this lower level of granularity, though, we’re usually not dealing with squares; we’re dealing with zones or range bands: concepts used by RPGs that are less finicky and tactical than D&D.

If you applied these movement rules to D&D combats, most combatants will probably end up in the same zone. Suddenly, it becomes pretty easy to track everyone’s position without a map. Chances are, all the melee fighters are going to be in the same zone, and some ranged guys will be one or two zones away. You could track this on a little zone chart, or even in your head.

This is not a ready-to-play 4e D&D houserule: 4e has too many game elements that involve shifts, pushes, pulls, and other square-based movement. It’s more of a wishful fantasy for 5e. Sometimes I like playing a tactical encounter on a battlemat, and sometimes I like to run a combat in everybody’s imagination. In my magical perfect D&D game: let’s call it Pauls and Dragons: every such rule would have two rules writeups, one for battlemat play and one for no-map play. Example:

Battle Push
Tactical map rule: The target is pushed up to 3 squares to a square that is not adjacent to any other creature.
Mapless rule: On the target’s next turn, it must spend a move action before it makes a melee attack.

In this imperfect world, one might want to play mapless 4e even without the full Pauls and Dragons rules being available. Here are some quick rules substitutions for zone-based D&D:

Adjacent: Everyone in the same zone is considered to be adjacent to everyone else.

Combat advantage: Movement can be used to gain abstract positioning.

When a push, pull, slide, or shift power is used, the actor makes a saving throw, with a bonus equal to the number of squares pushed, pulled, slid, or shifted. On a success, the actor gains combat advantage against another creature in the same zone. Combat advantage lasts until the actor or the subject moves again.

Hindering terrain: Pushes, pulls, and slides can move a creature into a pit or other dangerous terrain in the same zone. The pusher/puller/slider makes a saving throw, with a bonus equal to the number of squares pushed, pulled, or slid. On a success, the victim is moved into the hindering terrain. (The victim gets its usual saving throw to avoid being moved into the terrain.)

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RONAs and monsters

November 29th, 2010

From watching the Mazes and Monsters movie, we’ve managed to glean a lot of the rules: adventure structure (a maze with a single end boss), a spell system (spell points), and a handful of races, classes, monsters, spells, and items.

We’re almost ready to hammer our Mazes and Monsters rules into a complete game! But before we publish, there’s a couple of tiny rules we need to figure out.

Notably missing: AN ACTION RESOLUTION MECHANIC and A COMBAT SYSTEM. All the times that Tom Hanks stabbed a pretend lizard, we never got the needed play-by-play from a Maze Controller. How hard would it have been to have Jay Jay voiceover, “The lizard rolls an 11! He misses! Tom rolls a 4 on his counterattack!”

Today let’s work on the Action Resolution Mechanic. We’ll save the combat system for next week.

For reference, here’s Iglacia the fighter’s character sheet. We can refer to this as we work out our rules.

click for larger version

RONA

So far, we know that most actions are resolved by rolling exploding d12s and trying to hit a target number called a RONA (Roll-Over Number for Accomplishment). We are using a somewhat peculiar exploding-die mechanism: rolls of 1-10 are treated normally, while 12 is a critical success (add 10, roll again), and 11 is a critical failure (originally, I said that you rerolled and subtracted your new roll, but let’s simplify it to “subtract 10, roll again).

We also know that characters don’t have numeric stats: Iglacia has “courage”, for instance, not “courage 12”. Therefore, we probably don’t use a D&D-like system where stat bonuses are added to a die roll.
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Tags: mazesandmonsters
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you find 400 gp and 50 cattle

November 25th, 2010

For most of history, cattle were the primary form of wealth. This is a form of treasure that would be extremely annoying for PCs to deal with, and therefore should be exploited.

Let’s say that there is a people that exclusively uses cattle for wealth. Gold jewelry may be valued as a luxury good but is not used as currency. The PCs need to buy something from the king of this people.

To strike a deal with the king, the PCs will have to go to the nearest place that accepts gold, and buy a herd of cattle. They will then have to drive it to the king and enter negotiations.

I’d make the cattle drive a skill challenge. Besides nature checks, any smart decision made by the PCs (for instance, to hire experienced cattle drivers) would count as a success. More successes would mean that less cattle wandered away during the cattle drive.

Also, a lot of cattle-wealth cultures area also cattle-stealing cultures (highland Scots for instance). Therefore, there would be a few combat encounters on the way to the king; raiders whose intent was not to kill the PCs but to distract them long enough to panic the herd and make off with a few cows.

When the PCs meet the king, he’d say something like “My spies inform me that you lost x% of your cattle on your way.” He’d judge the PCs accordingly. If the PCs had done a bad job, he’d be more likely to think the PCs were weak and steal the rest of the cattle himself.

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the bed problem

November 24th, 2010

D&D has an interesting resource-management mechanic, Hit Points, to represent the increasing difficulty of fighting successive battles. However, it’s essentially a toothless system because fighting successive battles is optional.

No edition has offered a mechanical benefit for forging onwards. 4th edition made a vague wave at the idea by doling out Action Points regularly, but it’s still always better to hit the reset button by taking a nap. Sure, the DM can provide story reasons to fight multiple battles, and players may do the honorable thing and journey onward. However, neither DM-based or player-based efforts to route around a rules problem constitute a valid solution to the problem.

The mantra recited by the D&D designers during their pre-4e marketing campaign was “decisions should be interesting.” Now consider this decision:

Should I go to bed?

Yes, if I want to be stronger

No, if I want to be weaker

To offer a compelling choice, dwindling HP (or healing surges) need to be opposed with increasing power along some other scale. The choice should be something like:

Should I go to bed?

I’m getting dangerously low on hit points

on the other hand, if I go to bed, I’ll lose all these cool advantages I earned

I haven’t thought of a good fix yet, though I have a feeling it has something to do with action points. The ideal solution would

provide just enough motivation to do multiple battles that it was an interesting choice

not make the PCs massively overpowered even if they manage to do, say, 8 battles in a day

not encourage weird PC behavior, like, say, purposely doing badly in fights in order to get benefits

replace the ungainly “1 action point every 2 encounters” rule. I hate keeping track of whether it’s an odd or even encounter.

I call this problem the “bed problem”. I will award the Bed Prize and 1,000,000 imaginary dollars to whoever comes up with a satisfying, fun solution that will address the points above.

Note: I pre-reject the solution “The DM should just force the players to do multiple encounters in a day.”

Posted in 4e D&D, game design, RPG Hub | 14 Comments »

mazes and monologues

November 22nd, 2010

We’re in the last scene of Mazes and Monsters! In a week or so I’ll be preparing a free PDF of the complete rules. For now, let’s finish up the movie.

Last time, Tom Hanks’ friends found an insane Tom Hanks about to jump off the World Trade center and saved him by DM fiat.

Some time afterwards, the friends pile in a car to visit him at his parent’s house. They’ve heard he’s “doing better” and are excited to see him. They exchange news about their own lives: Kate, for instance, has gotten over her writer’s block! Oh yeah, she’s a writer, and she had writer’s block. I remember that from all the times that came up.

They find Hanks sitting under a tree out behind his house. They’re thrilled to see him! He quickly demonstrates, though, that he hasn’t recovered; he still thinks he’s Pardieux. That’s the bad news. The good news, though, is that his role-playing has never been better! He delivers a magnificent in-character monologue that generations of Mazes and Monsters players would do well to study and imitate, for both style and content. I present it here, with rules annotations in a right-hand column. Aspiring actors, I strongly recommend you memorize this piece for future audition work.
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Tags: mazesandmonsters
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every book’s a sourcebook: Traps from The Ginger Star

November 19th, 2010

The Ginger Star by Leigh Brackett

Another good classic D&D trap from The Ginger Star: A windlass at the top of a staircase that drops part of the staircase. You can either go old-school D&D, and have a goblin run out and turn the windlass while the PCs are on the stairs (falling damage, no save, go down a dungeon level, roll on the wandering monster table) or 4th edition it and have the PCs have, say, three turns to fight their way up the stairs to stop the goblin before he can turn the windlass 3 times.

I think I prefer the old-school method. It feels so classic I’m surprised it’s not in the AD&D random dungeon features appendix.

Tags: everybook
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