Insights from PAX

So this past weekend I had the fortunate pleasure of attending PAX on Friday. I didn't do much. I saw David Jaffe's keynote which was interesting and full of colorful language. After that we failed to see Wil Wheaton and so wandered the exhibit hall, went to a panel on how to publish your table top PRG, an experience which would have made steam come out of RPGPundit's ears. This was followed by dinner and then off to see if we could get into some tabletop games (we couldn't), and then got bored by the VGO. We then went to the PC freeplay area and watched Starcraft 2 patch while actually playing Alien Swarm and Team Fortress 2.

While some con-goers might count my experience as a fail it was made fun because I was spending time with a local friend and some friends out of town that I don't get to see much of anymore. That being said I found as I wandered through "game land" that I couldn't help thinking that this is where all the D&D players went, and most likely will continue to go. Also it seems that one FPS is pretty much like another with slight variations- zombie games are the same. Sports, racing games, sidescrollers etc. etc. to do the same.

The two big takeaways though were:

1. That while people keep remaking D&D, they also seem to keep remaking the same video games... I saw digital versions of fantasy heart breakers, FPS heartbreakers, RTS heartbreakers, etc, etc... I felt like I was walking by the same game over and over.

2. The other was that D&D is pretty much everywhere in the video game world. This makes sense as computers lend to running a game that can get as complicated as D&D can, and that D&D was an early influence on the medium. It makes sense that many would be D&D players end up playing video RPGs rather than pen and paper ones.

Wandering through the convention center everywhere I looked I could see the fingerprints of D&D. In the art and concept for a fantasy side scroller, to Skyrim, to the first person shooters and their percent based armor. The D&D influence was pervasive and palpable for those who knew where and how to look for it. I have pretty much concluded that people stopped playing D&D in pen and paper form because weather they really know it or not they are playing it in video game form.

A Wilderness Template and More On Hexes

Back in December of 2009 (am I really that infrequent?) I posted about the 6 mile hex being the ideal hex for wilderness adventuring hex crawls over its other frequently appearing cousins the 4 and 5 mile hex. I still think that is true. But what I wanted to revisit is the third part of the post about how to break down the 6 mile hex into subhexes. In that article I was breaking everything down based on the number 12. 12 half mile subhexes and those breaking down into 12 1/24th mile subhexes. This had the cool effect of fitting in a space of 44x44 battle mat squares. But then I noticed some problems. I was aiming to create a one page wilderness hex map that could be used no matter what subhex level you were on. When I tried to print out and use a map of a hex 12 subhexes across the hexes were too small to really draw a map in, especially when you were on a 1/2 mile scale. Sure I could use the old B/X or Mentzer wilderness symbols, but the other problem was I wanted to use hex numbers to track which subhex I was documenting and the hex numbers would not fit into the subhexes of a hex 12 accross when it was configured to fit on an 8.5 x 11 sheet of paper. Granted I could put numbers in there but they would be too small to easily read. The change works quite well. If you have 6 one-mile subhexes across a hex you can get large enough hexes to hold hex numbers and more map detail within the hexes should you want it. One mile hexes are good also for determining how far someone can see based on the 3 miles to the horizon principle I talked about in my previous hexagon article. Each of these 1 mile hexes breaks down to 6 880ft hexes, giving a good tactical scope to the one mile hex. These 880ft hexes have some interesting stuff about them: The longer range of historical bow shot was 200 to 400 yards and the standard practice range as set down by Henry the VIII was 220yds, or 660ft. So if you are in the middle of an 880ft hex, anything else in the hex is about 150 yards away. You could even shoot well into the next hex with some accuracy. So useing this scale, a good rule of thumb is that if someone is in the same hex or the next one with you, they are within bow shot. Another benefit is that Judges Guild hex maps on the 42.24ft per subhex scale can easily be rescaled to be 35.2ft per subhex having 25 of those fit in an 880ft hex. Since the structures displayed in these maps actually would get smaller it does not stretch the imagination and may be more believable. Also, 880ft is still a number that works well with the imperial measurements of chains and furlongs and acres. Furthermore 880ft hexes divide into subhexes of ~146 feet across. That fits on a 30 x 35 battle mat. Additionally using hexes with 6 subhexes across you can go upward too. I good area for starting a sandbox campaign would be a superhex of 6mi hexes. This is about the size of a typical county in Texas. (30mi x 30mi) Apply the same again and you might be nearing the ultimate scope of a campaign. So I have given all the different hex levels a different designation. See the measurements below for these. So here I have up here for download my take on the one page wilderness template. I have included it in form filled PDF, lined PDF, unlined PDF, Word with lines, and Word without lines. The graphic of the large hex is about as big as I can make it on 8.5 x 11. The lines are a little funky so expect these to get cleaned up sometime soon (probably next year). Here are the measurements of the hexes and subhexes: HexType: Face to Face, Vertex to Vertex Scope Hex: 216mi, 252mi Campaign Hex: 36mi, 42mi Adventure Hex: 6mi, 7mi Terrain Hex: 1mi (5280ft), 1.154mi (6093.12ft) Tactical Hex: 880ft, 1016ft Combat Hex: ~146ft (30 squares), ~169ft (35 squares) Judges Guild Maps: 35.2ft, ~40ft (40.3) Remember that the center to face is half the Face to Face distance and center to vertex is half the Vertex to Vertex distance. Here are the templates in PDF. There are three formats: blank, lined and form field: HexMapTemplate.pdf HexMapTemplateLines.pdf HexMapTemplateForm.pdf Happy wilderness mapping!

Monkey Scribe

Monkey Scribe

Level: 1
Duration: Instant, until written work is completed
Range: Touch

It is known that monkey scribed scrolls are the most potent.* This spell allows a magic-user to use a monkey (specifically a non-human great ape) to scribe mundane and magical writings. For spell books, a monkey scribe will copy the spells from a spell book to another as if they were the magic-user themselves, freeing the magic user for other tasks. The monkey becomes capable of understanding and speaking to the caster (with the casters intelligence and 25% of the time the casters personality and memory) for the duration of the spell and will calmly and diligently pursue his duties until finished. For scribing scrolls the monkey counts as the caster by proxy. The caster must be able to make the scroll himself without the help of the monkey for the monkey to be able to scribe the scroll. Scribing the scroll in this way makes the scroll more powerful as they max out any variables and offer twice the volume, range, duration and area of the spell. A factor of the spell is not doubled if it is already maxed out (for example in the case of variable duration, the max duration is used, and is not doubled). Variant: A GM may decide that humans do count as great apes for this spell.

*This idea came from the comments over at this linked post over at Telecanter's Receding Rules.

As I submitted this to Raggi for his spell contest this sucker is OGL so feel free to read and distribute with credit due.

Yost the Boastmaster

Yost is the god of bravery, drinking, and boasting. Often refered to as the "Yost the Boastmaster" or simply "The Boastmaster", he typically appears as a human or very tall dwarf in a horned helmet with a very large scraggly beard. His principle weapon is a battle axe but he has been known to show up with a sword or hammer. He is revered by all Dwarves and most humans who live in the north, have beards, and prefer to travel by long ship.

He is fond of valor and bravery, and most fond of the "heroic stupid" variety. Yost has been known to give a blessing to those that survive in situations where their worst enemy is their own bad judgment, for he believes that only the strongest can really overcome such a handicap. He is fonder of such attempts if a boast is first made about how they will overcome such odds, and even fonder if it is made while drunk. However, Yost is a god of action. In fairness he only blesses after the deed is done, in a degree to which the boast and brave deed were completed. To maintain the blessing the reciever must regularly boast about the deed that gained him the blessing at least once a day while drinking something; this is generally done as a toast to ones self and need not be an alcoholic drink. In the same fairness, Yost only permits one blessing at a time. Yost has a hate for the undead and his interests revolve around the riddle of steel, drinking, boasting, the number 7, the number 13 and the letter T.

The Blessings of Yost (1d12)
Check for blessing: When foolhardy bravery appears in your game roll a 13 on a d20, then roll a 7 on a d12, then roll d12 on the chart below.

Small chance of survival: +1
Outnumbered by 7+: +1
Outnumbered by 13+: +2
Boast made as to means: +1
Boast made while drunk: +2
Deed done while drunk: +3

1. "I can't bless that crap you carry!" 100gp appear on the person as a free gift
2. "So little to work with! Behaps it'll save ya..." +1 to all saving throws
3. "Waerin armor like that who needs enemies?!" Primary armor is now +1 magical
4. "Perhaps you should stand back more?" Primary missile weapon becomes +1 to hit
5. "You looked a little winded back there!" +5 to max hit points as long as blessing maintained
6. "Bah! Good weapons could be better!" Primary weapon is now a magic weapon +1
7. "Only a bad carpenter blames his tools..." 200gp appear on the person as a free gift.
8. "Ya got the tiniest nimble fingers!" +1 to all ranged attacks, counts as a magic weapon, +1 to AC treat any armor worn as magical
9. "Heh! Maybe this will help ya try somthin bigger!" +10 to max hit points as long as blessing maintained.
10. "What is steel compared to the hand that wields it!" +1 to all attacks and damage, counts as magic weapon
11. "Not gods... not giants... just men!" Increase Constitution to next bonus tier
12+. "This you can trust!" Increase Strength to next bonus tier

Yost is known for two magic items that appear from time to time:

The Toast of Yost (Tankard of Bravery)
Once per day when filled with a liquid and drunk with a boast or a toast to bravery, this old dusty tankard bestows upon the drinker the blessing of Yost, the god of bravery, drinking and boasting. The entire tankard must be drained for the blessing to take effect. The blessing is variable depending on what is put in the tankard. Mixing liquids randomizes the effect. Liquids not listed below have no effect. The effects last for 5 minutes:

Mead: +10 hp
Cow's Blood(and roast drippings): +2 to hit and damage
Ale/Beer: +5 more hirelings can be hired for that day while in effect
Water: +2 to turning level and all turning rolls
Milk(of any kind): AC treated as better by one armor type, +2 to ranged attacks
Wine: Speak fluently one additional language, only this ability maintained by drunken state; All checks increase by 1 in 6 or 20%; Thief skills gain by 20%;

If one drink is shared between several drinkers (many can drink but a sip) over a turn (up to 13 persons) then the effect is +1 to attacks, damage and saves. It affects all those whom drank from the tankard with the effects lasting 5 minutes.

Weight 1lb

The Host of Yost (Bread of Bravery)
The host of Yost is a slice of aromatic bread toasted to a golden brown and wrapped in a white cloth. While in the cloth the bread continues to radiate heat no matter how old it is. When the slice of bread is unwrapped and eaten it grants the eater +2 to attacks and saves, immunity to fear effects, and 10 temporary hit points for 10 minutes. When 1 slice is shared the effect is the same as the Toast of Yost but for 10 minutes.

The Host of Yost is generally made by valkyries in their free time when they are on speaking terms with Yost and it is rarely made by mortals. On the rare occasions when this bread is found, it is found in very dangerous or very odd places. Should a mortal make the bread they must make an entire loaf of 13 slices, or rolls. Additionally the white linen wrappers must be washed in holy water or the magic in the bread will dissipate after 3 days.

Need Help Finding an Alternate Raise Dead/Resurrection Table I lost track of

A while ago- It must have been in the days of WFRP2 and Heroes of Horror- I found a really cool resurrection/raise dead chart that allowed for weirdness around said spells. That is it made them way more interesting. The gist was these spells could go wrong. I thought that the chart was the resurrection mishap table in Heroes of Horror, but now that I have had a good look a it I realise I must have been reading something else! One distinct feature that I remember about the chart was that it for sure had the entry where a completely different soul is returned to the new body. Another was that the guy was back yes, but he did not get to stay. Sort of a "the crow"scenario- what he is working on is important enough to allow him more life but when its done so is he.

Anyone remeber this thing?

Be My Frankenstien!

Over at Jeff's Gameblog there is a discussion about how D&D has always been a sort of frankenstein of games. I was discussing this with my friend Sam, talking about using board games and such to illustrate aspects of the game world. Like using Catan elements to set up a region and play out how the region works. Or use Carcassonne to come up with a map of a city and it's outlying settlements.

I was quite taken with Jeff's idea (though I don't think he is conscious of it) that you can have completely different rules for players and DMs. Or even different types of characters that have different types of rules as Rob Conly points out in the comments.

Awesome! BYOR Roleplaying! (Bring Your Own Rules)

This begs further investigaiton. :)

Whats with this retro gaming thing anyways?

Retro gaming... it happens. One of the things that is an inspiriton to anyone who wants to play an older game or create a game based on older elements, or create a game that is pretty much like an older game except you use positive AC, or you use modern elements with a classic facade, or you use... well you get the idea, is the retro video game movement.

Using text characters as your graphics was cutting edge in 1980. But with today's rendering capabilies and GPUs and bazzillions of colors who would go back to games like Rogue?

Well plenty of people apparently. Check out ADOM. Its a "Roguelike" still being made (started in 1992) and has quite a following.

As computers go, you don't get more retro than this. And if text adventures like Zork are the OD&D/Holmes or Cook/Moldvay, the Roguelikes would definately be the 1e AD&D/BECMI of computer gaming. Ultima 4-5 are the 2e, but in a good way, with Ultima 6 and 7 definately come in as 3.0 and 3.5 respectively and respecfully: even black Isle picked up their form factor. But Ultima 4 and 5 are video games that just say "RETRO" to me. And even now we are starting to see the Ultima-likes in things like the Nazghul toolset and the game Haxima.

So it is in the spirit of these games that I am creating Codex. Codex is shaping up to tip its hat to the roguelikes and ultimalikes as well as Judges Guild, OD&D, Holmes, C/M, BECMI (without the CMI) and even certain mechanical aspects of 1-4e. Think of Codex as a modern game created with retro sensibilities and front end, kind of like using tools that were designed for an Apple2 on a modern high end gaming PC that is equivalent to about 1000 Apple2s.

By the way- has anyone seen any Wizardrylikes?

A couple of other design goals...

Today I made my first 4e character, based on Dirk the Daring from the DragonsLair laserdisc game:

The thing I noticed about 4e is that while the mechanics were a lot smoother, the arrangement of the information was not helping with the process. Making the character and writing it down on a blank piece of notebook paper took an hour and a half. Now that I know the process I will beable to make a character faster.

Thats all to say that while I was doing this I realised two more design goals for Codex:

1. All your character information should fit on an 4.25x5.5 inch piece of paper, front sided.*
2. The only changes that should be made from edition to edition of Codex are text corrections, correction to broken rules logic (ala polymorph in 3.x) and expansions worth adding.

So once we have the rules for Fighters in Codex the method to make a fighter should always be the same, unlike other RPGs where they are significantly different from edition to edition. This is to say that an edition change should not make you have to a) convert your character or b) reimagine your character. The stats with very minor tweaks should just work.

4e does rock on its own merits. One thing I really liked was that if you really wanted, you could have a fighter who is trained in Arcana. Perhaps my next character will be a ranger or fighter or paladin or warlord who hunts necromancers...

*Why such a specific size? Because I have decided that digest format rocks on toast! Everyone remember this:

Yeah, me too! Characters at first level used to fit onto this. On the back of the 1981 Red Box players guide you had one of these there. It was small. You could fold it in half and it contained a whole character. You can fit your character into the first half of this (the second was all money, and gold and equipment and stuff). How cool was that!? More about the digest format later!

Finally a beginning...

At least for this blog. The project covered here had its beginning in 2004-2005 with the advent of D&D 3.5's Unearthed Arcana, Castles and Crusades, and WFRP2. UA was where I started tweaking the rules of d20 and as a result came up with a some new philosophies about game design (new to me at least). C&C and WFRP2 laid the ground for some other ideas that have been gestating for the last 3-4 years and with 4e D&D they are now building themselves inside my head into a game I have decided to call Codex.


But this blog won't be just about Codex development.

Some things I plan to discuss:

1. Ideas about Swords and Sorcery Fiction as a genre as it relates to game design
   
2. Problems in Gaming - specifically mechanical problems that don't seem to go away
3. The Good and Bad of 4e
4. Developments in the RPG Industry
   
5. Discussions of other Systems
6. "Old School" Gaming and related concepts
   
7. Any other thing that I want to comment on which will usually be gaming related or a comment on someone else's comments