For the future of RPGs…get rid of the DM!

A while back on G+ there was a request for suggestions on a RPG gift for a 12-ish kid. Now their interests weren’t quite towards fantasy, so it was a bit of a pickle as D&D and Pathfinder were out as options. Folks gave helpful suggestions but it got me thinking about the difficulty a group of kids might face jumping into RPGs. Plus, I wondered about the future growth of the hobby without having that influx of new players and kids getting interested at a young age.

From a player perspective, I think RPGs are fine. You have a character. You have a group of people to bounce ideas off of and interact with. It’s sort of structured storytelling. As a DM however, I think it’s much more of a difficult role to grasp. As a DM, you straddle this line of referee and director. You are the one thinking up the neat adventure ideas. It’s like you are throwing out toys to the group of players and see what they pick up and play with. It’s hard to conceptualize as a young kid. Even worse, you all are playing the same game but having a very different play experience.

I think we’ve gotten this concept drilled into our collective skulls. This is how RPGs work. You have a group of players and a GM. The GM crafts the framework of the story. They are the arbitrator of rules. They play the opposition for the players. For the most part it works immensely well. But as a young kid being shown this, I wonder if it’s overwhelming. If the divergence in play experience is so different for the DM compared to the PCs, you have kids liking the idea of RPGs but never really running them (simply no one wants to DM).

So what could RPGs incorporate if trying to draw in a younger audience? While older players might accept the different game roles for RPGs, I think this is something needing to be altered for younger players. On to some ideas…

No DM… – By far I think this is something that needs to go. You have this drastic division of tasks and player expectations when a game requires one to actually referee. There is such a large split in what the different players actually do while playing the game, I think it creates difficulty in trying to convey that shared play experience. One person suddenly gains all this additional responsibility compared to the others.

Removing that division would likely help in making RPGs more acceptable to younger players. Some games have dabbled in this. Fiasco (while potentially wildly inappropriate for kids) is a prime example of a DM-less game. You have a good/bad dice mechanic where either the player decides the outcome, or allows the other players to decide it for them. Mechanics could be structured to remove the lone burden of storytelling and helming the opposition by one person, and instead have the input of others dictate the story and what happens.

…or Share the load – An alternate to this would be having a DM, but require that all the players take a seat behind the screen. Possibly each major story junction would use one of the players to act as the DM for that scene. One aspect could be that the ‘DM player’ gets some bonus which can be used at a later time during the game. That way people are encouraged to DM and give the players hard choices, as they get a resource to use when they shift back to being a player. The key point of this is to steer away from one person running the show and make it more a shared duty among the entire group.

Material on sheets, not tomes – Have a system with less choices right off the bat. Make character progression and creation simple and easy to grasp. Having this huge book with pages and pages of options is daunting. Keep the options and information limited, and slowly branch it out. Not only is this great for the PCs being able to jump into the game, but it also means potential conflicts and opposing forces can be easily worked up. Having this huge laundry list of abilities and skills for the PCs likely means NPCs might need something similar, and then likely means a full-time DM would be needed to craft the other story characters.

I pooh poohed Penny Arcade’s Thornwatch initially. A deck of cards to represent actions and abilities of a player? What a silly concept and how limited. But slowly I realized the genius behind this. If you have limited stats and abilities that are simplistically represented, you can also do that for NPCs and monsters. This gives room for having a game that doesn’t require someone to DM, and instead could have conflicts be resolved automatically through some other process. I think they just might have a breakthrough hit there with getting young kids into RPGs.

Less choices, just more outcomes – Another possible way to reign in things without needing a DM might be having less possible choices for tackling a problem, but have some wiggle-room with gradations of successes and failures. With a traditional RPG the DM needs to be ready to parse out all the wild ideas from the PCs in how they find solutions to obstacles. Then they either succeed or fail, and move on to the next conflict.

An alternate would be to shake up the problem-solving process having very specific approaches to solutions, and instead have varying degrees of outcomes. Star Wars: Edge of the Empire has a nifty dice mechanic for resolving checks, and introduces complications and advantages along with the outcome. Mouse Guard RPG (aka Burning Wheel lite) has a similar concept with allowing players to accept success or failure, adding complications to other tasks. In both cases these advantages/disadvantages build on the story having an impact on future decisions.

The input from the players are initially limited, but the outcomes have more branches. Having the other players give input to how well (or badly) a situation resolves for a player has a means for running a game without a DM. As outcomes are paired with conditions, this actually could limit player choices (or make others far more appropriate to select) for future obstacles. You have this branching path of of events that slowly expands due to outcomes, rather than having 20 ways to approach a problem initially.

Decentralize rule authority – Have everyone give input to how situations resolve. While one player might want to do something, everyone else at the table decides the outcome. Get away from the DM making all the decisions. Even better, have some kind of game mechanic dictate how well or badly a PC does with input from the other players.

Mouse Guard has a set script for actions and different phases with resolving conflicts. It’s a very cut and dried way to determine outcomes and has room for allowing other players give their input how things unfold. Avoiding one person have the final say in the rules, and instead adopting either a die roll or the decision of other players could do wonders for having a RPG without the need of a DM.

D&D has its roots in wargaming and it shows. The entire idea of a Dungeon Master, a referee, an arbitrator of the rules is so very much from older wargames. Typically you needed a neutral party to disseminate limited intelligence to simulate the fog of war. You’d also need a final say on how much an impact certain terrain would have on movement, how much cover does a building provide, or line of sight issues. While players could always adopt the ‘just roll a die and play on’ means of resolving problems, it was ideal to have a referee in the game.

This is something that RPGs need to eventually drop. I think it is a major stumbling block for introducing new players into the hobby, especially for younger players. Shifting RPGs away from a central person laying the foundation of the story, to a shared responsibility is key. It may not be possible to completely eliminate it. But the idea of having a dedicated DM for the entire game should be dumped. Having a rotating DM seat throughout a session, even something as simple as the player on the character’s right decides what happens next, is a step in the right direction. The responsibility for telling the story of the game needs to be disseminated among all the players.

In the long run, clinging to the idea of a lone DM running the show is something that will keep the hobby from flourishing in the future. Here’s to hoping new RPGs on the horizon drop that concept and come up with something exciting and new.SutherlandFight

Have a happy New Year

Hope folks have a wonderful New Year and have a bit of time off right now to enjoy seeing it in with family and friends. Not to mention getting a few games in over the holidays. Here’s to another year and I wish everyone a prosperous one.

I usually shy away from new year resolutions, but I think I’ll try to adopt one. Buy RPG books to play. Over the past few years I’ve been picking up books for the sake of reading them. Very slowly I’ve been accumilating rule books that have neat ideas, but I’ll likely never get a game going. No longer.

This very likely means I’ll unload quite a few books, but for now, I am only buying RPG books that will see the table. No more dabbling in other systems. I expect getting more source books for stuff I have (looking at you Mr. Savage Worlds), and may very well not bother with a lot of new stuff on the horizon (au revoir, Mr. DnDnext).

Ahem… what’s this 13th Age stuff here? Oh my, how very shiny. Tee hee, we’ll see how well that resolution holds up.

(I’ll leave folks with an image of the 2012 Seoul International Fireworks Festival. Blatantly stolen from Robert Koehler’s photo blog. Be sure to give his stuff a peek. Some amazing pics of Korea there.)

Review: Descent – 2nd Edition

Fantasy Flight games has finally released the 2nd edition of Descent, their classic dungeon exploration board game. Players form a group of heroes to face off against a single player that acts as the evil Overlord. While it might pitch itself as an adventure game, in reality you have a pretty tactical skirmish game that captures that feeling of a fantasy dungeon crawl for up to 5 people.

The game revolves around several specific scenarios. Many of them form a two part quest, with the outcome of the first quest having some bearing on the second part. The heroes are helmed by up to 4 players. Each player has a choice of 8 heroes. Further, each hero can then select one of 2 different class types representing different starting equipment and abilities. The player in the Overlord role plays the opposition, running the various monsters that the other players will fight against.

Play moves around turns, with all the heroes taking two actions for their turn, followed by the Overlord taking two actions for the different monsters. Actions include opening/closing doors, moving, attacking, recovering fallen heroes, to even searching for treasure. All actions for the heroes can be repeated (allowing for 2 attacks if needed). While the Overlord has a similar turn structure with some limits (each monster can attack only once).

If players want to move further, they can gaining additional fatigue represented by counters. Many special abilities also utilize fatigue. This makes for a game currency that allows the player more flexibility during their turn. They might search a treasure chest gaining a healing potion, but be stuck not being able to use it on a fallen hero. Using fatigue, the player can now move those additional squares needed to get to a fallen comrade, and use their second action to offer that newly gained healing potion.

While the Overlord player cannot use fatigue, they have access to a deck which allows them temporary boons to the monsters, or other cards they can play during the heroes turn to hamper them. This gives the Overlord a chance to pull out a trick or twist to the usual predictive monster turn, and possibly muck up the heroes.

Combat is a simple affair rolling custom D6s pairing damage against defense dice of the target, with the attacker inflicting damage if exceeding the rolled defense score. Ranged attacks also require a certain number to be rolled depending on the distance. Meaning not only does enough squares in range need to be rolled, but also enough damage to overcome defense rolls of their opponent. What stands out is that one die has an ‘X’ on one face, indicating a miss regardless of the other dice. So attacks always have a slight chance of missing.

A small twist to the dice rolls is special surge icons. These can be spent to add small bonuses to damage or range. They are entirely dependent on the different equipment and powers wielded by the hero. Additionally the monsters have surge abilities too, including some special characteristics depending on the monster type.

What results is a nice mix of tactical play with just the right amount of luck. Players have a lot of meaningful choices, like deciding to gain those 2-3 counters of fatigue to get a bit closer to an enemy, almost ensuring an attack is in range. As with the Overlord player, heroes have a limited number of actions, so there is a fair amount of thinking and decision-making to optimize their actions from turn to turn.

Combined with the surge abilities and static powers (with both the monsters and heroes), combat is a fast and fun affair. Defeated heroes always have the opportunity to pop back up on their feet later, and the Overlord can continually respawn most minion-type creatures (or gain reinforcements), meaning everyone always has something to do on their turn. Also the different D6 dice have a disproportional number of pips for damage and defense. Some dice are more ideal than others for attacks or defense, and scrambles the probability a tad more than your usual 2D6 array of standard dice.

I have not played the first version of Descent. However I’ve heard chatter the game could slip towards the longish side and that heroes could either be completely overwhelmed, or once enough treasure was gained, completely roll over the Overlord player. This isn’t something I see much with the new version.

What I particularly like about the 2nd edition is that each scenario has specific endgame and victory conditions. It’s broken down into small chunks of gameplay that can be easily tackled during a night. Also my impression from a few games is that for the most part scenarios seem balanced, and I haven’t had the inclination to pull any punches as an Overlord. Also while the victory conditions and layout are set, the Overlord does have some wiggleroom for deciding some of the monster opposition the heroes will face off against.

One nice feature is that it can be played as a bunch of one-off scenarios, however the game also incorporates a campaign mode. There are 16 stand alone scenarios, and up to 20 missions for the campaign. Heroes and the Overlord both gain experience each mission, allowing for additional powers (or additional cards for the Overlord deck). Even gold can be earned searching for treasure that can be used to pick up more advanced armor and weapons for the heroes back in town. What I particularly like is that the outcome of each scenario has some impact on the following campaign missions, which can alter the path the heroes take towards completing the campaign arc.

The Good – Descent is a fun fantasy dungeon crawl. It has the right complexity to make it a challenge and still have enough streamlined play to get in a few sessions during a game night. The rulebook is well written with plenty of examples. There are a lot of different class combinations and the Overlord has some choices for their forces for a quest too. So even with the scenario limit, there is a lot of room for replay. The game scales very well with different number of players, allowing smaller groups of heroes to experience a challenge.

The components are gorgeous. Map tiles and counters are made of thick cardstock and colorful artwork that is very evocative of the theme. The figures that come with the game are very detailed and made out of stiff plastic, giving a very visual element to the gameplay (and simply cries out to be painted up).There is a plethora of cards for abilities, equipment, treasure and combat conditions. Allowing for bookkeeping at the table to be handled with the components alone and not require a pencil and paper.

The Bad – While the rules are well written, there are some times where you might need to look over the FAQ to clear up some muddied points. Additionally, this isn’t a simulationist game. It’s very much a board game and the rules ‘as written’ might occasionally hinder that player wanting to do something more heroic.

Also, the game is very much a gang up on a single player. You have that one person managing a lot of monsters as the Overlord, and the lopsided team might not sit well for everyone. A workaround however can easily be attained, as there are lots of different monsters to field for each quest and the Overlord role could be split between 2 players if desired.

The layout and opposition are fully realized for each quest, along with the victory conditions, meaning it doesn’t quite capture that feeling of dungeon exploration. Also while there are a lot of potential combinations for class abilities, equipment, and Overlord monsters, there is a limit to what is in the box. Eventually you may have that slight feeling of ‘sameness’ that creeps into the game.

There is a lot that comes in the box. While I applaud having bits to keep track of the game without the need for paper and pencil, at the same time you will have to make an effort to organize the game components. Plastic baggies are a must for the game, and card protectors wouldn’t hurt either.

The Verdict – The second edition of ‘Descent: Journeys into the the Dark’ is a great game. While you can easily pick it up and play out a single quest for the night, it cries out for more frequent play and the campaign format. There is a good chunk of variety in the class abilities and room for progression for both the Overlord and heroes, which gives the game some legs for replay. The quest victory conditions are varied, and usually have both players trying to achieve some objective. This means that each side has to be proactive and can’t just sit back in static attack or defense roles.

I would garner to say that Descent might be also an excellent entry point for non-RPG players into the hobby. At the core, there is that tactical combat relying on teamwork and character progression that gives a nod towards traditional fantasy RPGs. For someone completely unfamiliar with RPGs, this might be a decent stepping stone to getting them acquainted with the hobby.

For the rest of us, you have a deeply enjoyable dungeon delve board game. It hits on just about all cylinders, capturing the theme and feel of your typical fantasy adventure very well with lots of monsters to fight, treasure to find, and powerful abilities to acquire. The components and play are well thought out and all the moving pieces of game play work great. I highly recommend picking it up if you are itching for a dungeon crawl type of game.

What are the monsters fighting for?

A big adjustment I had DMing 4E was to rethink how fights worked compared to AD&D. I used to throw down a lot of fights back then. Usually my dungeons were chock full of monsters and fights were fast and furious.

With 4E I find combats are a lot more dynamic and almost have a cinematic feel. They’re a lot more tactical and everyone is constantly maneuvering around for a better position. Even in an open room, in 4E you have a real engagement, where in AD&D it would be a glossed over fight (maybe some excitement if a person rolled a 20). It took me a while to wrap my head around how combats played out in 4E, and what works well (or doesn’t).

I found out one important thing with 4E fights, if you are fighting just to have some combat, it’ll make for a boring affair. In older versions this was never a big deal. If my group got jumped by a monster wandering the woods, I’d just play it out. 4E combats work better as staged set pieces. If you used an old approach of just dumping out monsters to fight on a grid, things get old pretty fast. So I learned to ask myself constantly, ‘why should this be a fight?’

I found this was critical in designing encounters and more importantly, stringing them together to make an enjoyable session. So when I’m planning out a dungeon, I try to think of a few reasons why I should be having a fight and what is the purpose of the combat encounter.

Moving the story along – Likely the number one reason players are trading blows with creatures. The group is in combat with a main villain, or some key encounter, because of the story. It is an event central to the plot. Not every fight has to hold a critical element to the campaign arc, but it’s something you should be striving for.

I try to avoid having a fight simply to give a clue. If I go this route, I try to limit to a few rounds, usually having the opposition run, surrender, or offer some other quick resolution to get the players moving on.

As an example, my players landed on a dock where a local crime lord had control over the longshoremen. A few burly dockworkers with cudgels badgered their ship captain into getting more coin to unload some cargo. They turned their ire towards the players, clearly itching for a fight (the non-lethal thumping of heads kind). Combat went for about two rounds before the town guards came in and broke it up, siding with the longshoremen on who started it.

It was a short fight, but it helped established a few key points that some dockworkers were more thugs than laborers, and that local authority were either corrupt or inept. I didn’t want to drag the fight out to a bloody conclusion. But at the same time I thought it useful to have the players exchanging a few blows, before getting some key information about the town they were in.

Drain the resources of the players – This is an effective way of ramping up the difficulty of later encounters. A straight up engagement against a group of guards may not have a tremendous story purpose. But if it is an encounter before the group moves further in a bandit camp to fight against the main bad guy, you’ve definitely have a reason to have the fight. While the party is expected to win, they will take a little damage. This results in healing surges being used, and may result in use of some magic item powers, all of which drains the resources of the party for future combats.

It’s a decent ploy to make that later combat against the main villain a little tougher, without having to ramp up the encounter level. If players have used most of their healing surges, a few magic items, possibly even a daily, you’ve got players working a much tougher fight. The main trick is to keep the group moving and not have them head back to town for an extended rest. This does not necessarily have to be a battle either. Traps make for great ways to drain the group resources also. Don’t forget that you don’t have to almost kill the players, you just need to dig into the HP a little and in turn, whittle away at their healing surge total.

A combat for the sake of combat – This is something I try to avoid. Yet sometimes after several nights of talking around problems and clever use of skills to overcome obstacles, it’s nice to have a throw down with some monsters and hack away at things. However I think for these type of encounters to work, you should have one rule. Keep things interesting.

Pull out the stops and have a fight on a collapsing bridge over a chasm. Dig through the monster manuals and pull out some wild planar creature. Whether it’s the location or the type of creatures they fight, make the combat exciting and memorable. A bar fight with some surly dwarves may have nothing to do with the campaign, but can make for a grand time. You won’t get the same player reaction from another nameless wilderness encounter in a wood clearing.

Don’t hesitate to hand wave a fight – Don’t worry about having an actual combat for every encounter also. If the players have to infiltrate a fortress and fight through waves of opposition, you don’t have to play out every combat. Hand wave a bit and resolve it through narration. Maybe have that first fight against a few initial guards and don’t worry about the rest. Save the encounter combat for the main boss at the end.

This is where healing surges work wonders. Tell the players they made their way through an orc enclave, slaying a few groups, then have each player lose a healing surge. If you want to be tricky, also roll a basic attack against each player and have them dock off another surge if you hit. It’s a nice way to represent some scrapes and bruises from a fight, without having to actually play out a combat.

In my past campaign, I had my players clear out a kruthik nest. The original layout was an optional encounter if they failed a skill challenge, followed by a tough fight, with a final fight against the nest queen. While my group succeeded at the skill challenge, they opted to take on the optional encounter. After that happened I looked hard an long at the second encounter.

Did I have to have this fight? Would it really push the story along? I wanted a series of progressive fights, ramping up the difficulty to emphasize the group was going deeper and coming closer to the nest queen. But that optional encounter took off a few healing surges, so did I really have to have another full battle to do the same? Nope. So I just narrated to the players they ran across more kruthik and killed them as they explored further the tunnels. I moved them on to the final fight, just handwaving the middle combat and sticking to the more meaningful final encounter against the nest queen.

These are a few things I keep in mind when I design a string of encounters. I still (as the kruthik example above) flub things. While it may look good in preparation, actual play can change things. You might get a really bad string of rolls from the players (and some awesome rolls for the monsters), so a simple fight on paper may end up being much more difficult. I try to keep things fluid with my plans and read the players’ moods at the table to keep things interesting.

So with 4E, I’ve had to shift my thinking about combats compared to previous editions and shed that idea of a throwaway combat. Seems DnDNext has let this creep back in somewhat. I’m sort of on the fence with that but by recognizing this difference in how combats fit into the story, it’s made my 4E game better.DMGADnD

Railroad flashbacks as a first session

It’s always a bit of footwork to get a new campaign rolling, especially that first session. I like a short adventure giving the PCs some action. I also like all the players having some shared background to help cement relationships. It just helps get the ball rolling.

For my latest Savage Worlds campaign I decided to do a slight departure from having a lot of open talk on past relationships, and avoid the players starting off with a small adventure to tackle. Instead I put them on a story railroad to help create a shared experience and let that be the backdrop to how the players established their own relationships. There were a few key aspects for how I set this up.

Less details, more a thumbnail sketch – I didn’t want players to get all their powers, abilities and stats all lined up. I wanted very broad ideas of who they were. So a dwarf psionist or human tracker good with a bow was all I needed. I especially did not want any backstory.

Use paper dolls – I created a simple set of generic stats and types of abilities for typical hero icons. I created a melee type, a ranged weapon type, and a caster type. All with average D6 stats and without any edges or hindrances (for the 4E fans out there, consider a character with 14 in all stats, using a basic attack, possibly a magic missile at-will for spell casters, with no feats or class abilities). I didn’t need them having anything special.

I did this primarily as much of my group had not played SW before. I wanted to get one combat in and let them learn the nuts and bolts without a lot of distractions of power choices and edges. The fight would be heavily scripted with a hard stop, to allow any fallen characters a chance to recover. It was designed just to get a feel for how fights work in the system.

Run a story railroad – I created a context and background for the situation, including a short melee conflict. There are a lot of ways to do this. The key points are to have the group forced in a situation where they are around each other for an extended period of time, and have the opportunity to get into a combat. Maybe the group is part of a military campaign, or under a castle siege. Possibly the group are doing some required service for 6 months to a local lord, with the keep being attacked once during that period. Maybe they were all shipwrecked on an island for a year (cue the theme to Gilligan’s Island).

In my Dark Sun conversion using Savage Worlds I had the group leaving Tyr joining a merchant caravan. The caravan was ambushed (playing out the fight), creating a dire situation for the group. They managed to crawl to Raam and were promptly put into indentured service for a year to pay off losses incurred to the merchant. I fast forward everything so that they had completed the year of service, and were preparing to leave the merchant house in Raam. It was heavy handed, but created a situation where the group was forced to have a common experience and be in each other’s company for some time.

Determine set relationships randomly – I had each player roll a D6 and paired off everyone. The highest rolls were with the lowest, next highest with the next lowest, and any pairs rolled were given a matching partner. I did it in such a way that everyone at the table had a least one relationship with another. They were free to have other relationships among the other players, but it was required to have one with the other PC they matched up with through the die rolls.

Have the players fill in the details – Once that was set, I let the PCs tell me what happened throughout the year. How did they initially meet? What key events happened throughout the year? What did they do as individuals? How did they establish this connection with another player? In the end they all knew each other, but likely had some particular shared experience with one other player.

What is important about this is that I let the players have control over the story. I’d set some ground rules and potentially reign in some ideas (they couldn’t kill the merchant they worked under during that year). However I let the group tell me how they spent their lives during that time. I let them figure out where they came from, and how deep their friendship went with the others. The setup was just the backdrop, the players had firm direction with they did during that past time.

Another great thing is the DM can slowly set up other elements in the campaign world. As past events unfold, you can allow rumors and bits of information to accumulate. Maybe a player learns more about a key NPC, or finds out some important news, or gets the real inside scoop on the relationship between different NPCs.

For my group, Tyr was firmly under control of the sorcerer king. I had them initially explain why they joined the merchant caravan heading to Raam. Then I had them describe their lives and what service they provided the first 3 months at the merchant’s house. At the 6 month mark, I got more information on their lives and what happened at the house, however I dropped rumors that Kalak, the sorcerer king of Tyr, was slain. Fast forward another 3 months, after getting more details of their lives from the PCs, I gave them information that the impossible had happened in Tyr. It was confirmed that the sorcerer king was indeed dead, Tyr had abolished slavery, and was now known as the free city.

This is a great way to offer some background on the world in broad strokes, and not just give an info dump to the players. Additionally, you can have the players become part of that knowledge gaining experience. If players were doing required service at a noble’s keep, maybe a PC overhears a fight between the local lord and a duke emissary. Maybe the player working the kitchen hears all the juicy gossip about the lord’s youngest son being a rake and a gambler. Maybe the player working the keep library stumbles across an ancient map.

Wrap everything up and get the characters completed – At the end of the night, all the player characters should be completed. It is quite possible things can change during the course of the evening. Maybe a player learns that a ranged fighter wasn’t as exciting as being a melee swordsman. Maybe the idea of being a scout-type hunter wasn’t as exciting as being a bounty hunter. You will very likely see players getting a lot of different ideas about their characters after they get some time to work out their relationships with others.

So let them explore that with very generic characters initially, and then follow up with having them get the nuts and bolts ironed out on their character sheet. At the conclusion of the first session they should have their character details and stats completed and ready to go.

I had a lot of hesitation initially with my group. What do you mean you don’t want to hear my backstory? What do you mean you don’t want me picking all my skills? What do you mean it’s not important why I joined this group? And trust me, when I said that the group was forced into service in the merchant’s house for a year, plenty of eyes rolled up at the table.

However at the end, that perspective completely changed. That heavy handed story railroading lay a foundation for creating a shared experience for everyone. They could say they all knew each other for over a year (with some knowing each other even longer). They all had encountered difficulty and learned to depend on each other. It really allowed the group to gel and get past that uncomfortable part of getting to know one another. Give it a try sometime for your game. You will be surprised with how much backstory and adventure fodder will come from your players.

Review: Stone Age

Stone Age is a worker placement game for 2-4 players from Rio Grande Games. It has an interesting theme as you are a chief during prehistoric times, trying to ensure your tribe’s survival and success over other neighboring groups within an expansive valley.

Players try to complete buildings and accumulate civilization cards, scoring points as they do so. When the supply of building or civilization cards is exhausted, the game ends with the player having the highest point total being the winner.

Play rotates with each player assigning various members of their tribe to different areas within the valley. It’s a worker placement game with limited open spots for each area and is competitive. Once all the spots are claimed, no one else can put workers in that area.

Some areas produce resources, some gain civilization or building cards (for victory points), and others allow you to gain extra workers. Some are open to having a few different tribes working an area, however most are painfully restricted to just a few workers from a single tribe. While each area can hold a finite number, the only exception is the hunting grounds where all excess tribe members can go hunt (at least allowing some potential food resources to be earned).

Resources are primarily gained by dice rolls, with the total divided by a specific number that varies depending on the goods being produced (the lower the number, the easier it is to produce). Players roll dice equivalent to the number of assigned workers, so the more people in an area, the more likely goods will be produced. The dice total is rounded down with excess numbers being ‘lost’.

The workaround for this is having a supply of tools. Tools can be used to add to the dice total, allowing for an extra good to be produced. Tools themselves need to be produced by assigning workers (which in turn take them away from producing goods, erecting buildings, or gathering food).

At the end of each turn, players must feed their tribe. Hopefully, between gaining civilization/building tiles, actively hunting, or by some farming there is enough food on hand to feed everyone. If not, resources are given up in place of food, and if that is not enough players are docked victory points. You must feed your people every turn and increases in population mean more food is required.

Farming is a slow process, and you are not guaranteed a spot to assign workers each turn to increase your food production. Hunting can earn food fairly easily, but that means you are diverting workers from other resource gathering tasks. Players soon find themselves in a balancing act trying to gain resources and points, all the while ensuring they have enough food from turn to turn.

The Good – It’s an entertaining worker placement game with a different theme. There are some hard choices to be made and players will always find themselves with not enough people to do what they want. The added wrinkle is that other players can easily lock out other players from prime tasks for a turn. All the while, food stocks are slowly being used up, creating another pressure of having enough food for everyone each turn.

The components are very nice, with thick card stock tiles and nice resource components. The artwork is colorful and captures the theme quite well. The overall design of many of the civilization and building cards are well done, with the use of symbols being a prominent feature over text.

The Bad – At the heart of Stone Ages is it can be worker placement game at it’s worst. Players can lock down locations or building/civilization cards without the resources needed to claim them (and no penalty if doing so), effectively cutting off other players just because they can.

My biggest complaint are the civilization cards. These are used for massive point scoring at the end of the game and need to be collected in sets. While I don’t mind the huge bonus victory points that can be earned during the endgame, the scoring conditions can be cryptic at times. Each civilization card has a lot of symbols and it can be difficult to easily decipher them. As they are so critical to scoring points, it can be frustrating for new players to figure them out.

The Verdict – A few years ago I would highly recommend this game. It’s challenging, requires a fair amount of planning, and has a different theme from most of the other worker placement games out there. However there have been quite a few releases over the years that are a bit more streamlined in play.

The ding in rating this game for me are the civilization cards. I don’t play this game frequently enough, and it is always a slight learning curve to work out the sets and determine how many victory points are awarded. As this can make or break your game, you really need to plan out what civilization card sets to work on early in the game. Since it is so important, it seems that it’s glossed over a bit in the rules. I really wish that Rio Grande bit the bullet and printed out a single color page, detailing how to score these cards more.

Despite this, Stone Age is a fun and challenging game. If you haven’t delved too deeply into worker placement games, it’s a nice buy and a great family game. However, if you have a few worker placement games in your collection, I would be hard pressed to suggest picking this up. It doesn’t have much that stands out from other games as most of it is about locking out other players and working on sets of cards for scoring. I think there are some other similar-mechanic games that do it a bit better and are more entertaining (Kingsburg as an example). Stone Age is a fun game, but think twice if you’ve got a few worker placement games on your shelf.

Doing a Dark Sun hack using Savage Worlds

MapofUrikRegionSo the consensus of my group was if they were to dip their toe into fantasy, it would be a setting far away from traditional Tolkien-like high fantasy. Likewise, I think 4E was just not in the cards. Many of the players had that ‘been there, done that’ feeling with the game. After a year and a half, it was time to try something new.

So I took the plunge into Savage Worlds. A big part of the reason was that if we got tired of our regular campaign we could jump into something else without too much of a learning curve. I wanted modularity and Savage Worlds offered that. Also, I liked the streamlined system that Savage Worlds has. GURPS is a bit clunky for me and the character creation system, while very detailed, seems a bit of a chore to dig into.

We had made a short stint with a Savage Worlds hack of Traveller but that petered out due to extended summer vacations and a bunch of new folks coming into the group. The crew of High Hopes is still wandering the stars, but put on the back burner for now. Given some of the folks were acclimated with SW, likely we would stick with that for our next campaign.

With the game system decided, the next task was the setting. Supernatural horror and campy super hero stuff was on the table. Fantasy was initially a no go however I got to worrying about adventure ideas. I did not want to craft a huge overarching campaign story like last time and keep things pretty much a sand box. This was a bit of a kink for me if we dabbled in a more modern setting, as even with fantastical elements, I’d likely hit a wall with adventure ideas. Lately, fantasy settings seem to get my creative juices flowing more.

So I thought about using Dark Sun. Fortunately there is a ton of stuff that you can find online that has used Savage Worlds rules for the setting. Armed with a lot of good resources, I was able to whip up a rules a mishmash from different sources and other conversions to get a framework together of the different races and magic system.

One thing I did tweak a bit was the rules for weapons breakage. So in my game non-metal weapons will break on a critical failure for a fighting roll. If being used against a foe wearing metal armor, a roll of 1 on either fighting die results in the weapon breaking. Metal weapons are exempt from this rule. Further, metal weapons do +1 damage to targets not wearing metal armor.

It’s a small tweak, but I wanted something simple to remember and allowed for some advantages for wearing metal armor. Definitely this is something that will creep up on my player’s wish list of gear to get.

So far the group has been having fun in the setting. They have started in Raam and are making their way to the newly freed, Tyr. I think there will be lots of exciting things for them to do. Expect more posts in the future about the game.

Review: Essentials Rules Compendium

RulesCompendiumI’m thinking about what 4E books I’ll keep and what I’ll get rid off. I imagine that a lot of 4E stuff will start getting pretty cheap to pick up. I never did get into 4E essentials, but I have picked up the Rules Compendium for the new essentials line.

As a quick overview, the book is a hefty volume covering all the rules fit to print about 4E, updated and incorporating the various errata that has trickled out from WotC since the release of the new edition over 4 years ago. It is packed with text going into detail about just about any rules question that would likely pop up during a game, with plenty of examples and a fair amount of artwork. All in all, a fairly good volume for a ‘rules book’.

There are a few new tweaks to the existing rules buried in certain chapters. The skill DC values have been modified bumping up the values for most checks. Also higher level skill challenges utilize an advantage system. As players score successful checks, these are little perks to give the players a chance to get more successes as the challenge progresses.

Treasure now can be classified by rarity, with items having a flat bonus being common items. Most items with a daily ability fall within the uncommon to rare range. Again, a nice idea giving the DM a little more guidance on how items compare with each other, rather than just being based on the relative level. This rarity also translates to the value of an item, with more rare magic items fetching a greater price.

There are some other nice additions. Randomized treasure is a possibility now, with a DM rolling several times to determine the amount of coins, gems, artwork, or possibility of getting a magic item. Still not quite that definitive D100 chart, but passable. I also like that the standard arrays for ability scores have been expanded a bit. Two options of a specialized array (maxing out a key stat with an 18), or dual specialist are now choices (2 high stats of 16). Which is nice to give those looking for a quick build another option besides the point buy arrays listed.

I also really liked the skills section. Not only do they give a run down of each skill, but they also give a little summary of some out-of-the-box uses for skills. Some great information for both players and DMs to see how skills can be stretched and applied as unique solutions to problems.

However as I started to go through the book, I became to realize more and more what was missing. I figured this would be a comprehensive ‘go to’ book for just about any rules question. Instead I found some things to be what I consider as glaring omissions. This leads me to the problem I see with the Rules Compendium, a lack of focus for its audience.

This book was rolled out with the essentials line. I imagine it was marketed as the ultimate rules resource for players and DMs alike. At the same time, the book had been hyped as a great buy for the guy that’s been with 4E since launch, and this book finally has all the updated rules in one volume, all at their fingertips. Because of being tied in with the essentials line, I tend to think there are some critical parts of the book that have been left out, simply to be covered in other products. If you are an essentials player, no worries. But if you bought this book to serve as a one volume rulebook for older 4E material, you are out of luck.

This mixed bag also rears up with some of the material presented. The powers section covers a small explanation of augmentable powers, which is great. But then in the first chapter you find quite a few pages dedicated to explaining roleplaying games and what D&D is all about. Not to mention quite a few tips for new DMs running their game. Good info is there, but I tend to think shouldn’t the new DM material be presented in the essentials Dungeon Masters Kit?

Again, if the Rules Compendium is going to straddle that line between brand new players and folks very familiar with 4E, and also with both players and DMs alike, there is quite a few missing chunks of rules. This is a slight for a book that claims to be a definitive rules compendium.

No rules for rituals (a little information provided in a sidebar, but still missing some key points), and the same could be said for alchemy. Nothing on feats, especially those related to multiclassing. Nothing on class hybrids either.

Do we need a complete list of every feat or ritual? Nope. However just a summary of the nuts and bolts rules would have been great. How does a player obtain and master a ritual? How many rituals are in a PC book? How do choosing multiclass feats differ from regular feats?

This isn’t just the player side of things either. Why not provide rules for designing traps? At least have the chart for typical damage output for a given player level please. How about the monster design rules? Even a quick summary chart for creating a monster of a specific role (covering the attack bonus, damage output, and defenses per level), or typical minion damage per level would have been great. I’ll also take a moment to point out what I consider a glaring omission, no weapons table. Not even a typical equipment cost list. For a book trumpeted as a handy reference, I’m astounded this was not included.

This last part is also a quibble, but how about summarizing some of the more key tables and charts in the back of the book as another appendix. Yeah, I don’t have to flip through 4 different books to find something now, but I’m still flipping through pages with this book to find the right chart (I guess the deluxe DM screen that came out covered that).

The Good – There is a lot in this book. Much of it is well presented and the ease of reading it (avoiding a lot of rules heavy language) shows through. I’m a fan of the concise format and it encourages people to grab it, throw it in their backpack, and go game somewhere.

The Bad – I think it suffers from trying to be a book for both the essentials only crowd, longtime 4E players, and serve as a guide for DMs and players all at the same time. Trying to cover everything in a single manual likely meant something in the rules had to be left out. And I tend to think these omissions keep the book from really being a stellar product.

The Verdict – For a brand new essentials player, I’m unsure if this is something they would want. I think much of the material is in the red box and a lot more has trickled out in the player’s series of books (Heroes of the Fallen Land) and the Dungeon Master’s Kit. They have quite a bit of rules in only a few books, and much of it is not heavily modified by errata. For the longtime 4E player, I think they will get a bit more out of this book.

This book is at my gaming table when I play 4E. I like using it. I’m glad I bought it. If you hit the convention scene a lot (or need to haul around a lot for games at other people’s houses), the availability of a concise book of updated rules for 4E is nice. But the omissions from this book means I still have to crack open the occasional DMG and DMG2, even the PHB sometimes (or move to the online compendium which is likely going under). I think if portability is an issue, buy this book. Otherwise I think this is an optional buy. Nice to have, but not quite an ‘essential’ rulebook.

Magicians (a language learning RPG) Kickstarter campaign wrapping up

Kyle Simons approached me a while back about his project on kickstarter, Magicians. It’s an interesting hybrid RPG that uses traditional storytelling along with a free dictation application to teach a foreign language. The game itself is a modern fantasy setting in Seoul, where the players discover they can wield magical power. Players soon discover that all around them is a secret hidden world of fantastical forces (some good, some evil).

There are a couple of intriguing things about the game:

Educational – I hear this sometimes about how RPGs have a positive impact on education. It’s refreshing to see a game that directly promotes learning. The key to character advancement is paired with mastering Korean. Language pronunciation and improving vocabulary is a front and center with the game.

Use of voice dictation software – While focusing on the written language is great, having additional utilization of oral communication is also important. As a westerner struggling to learn Korean, I’ve found I have to relearn how I produce certain vowels and consonants. It’s a very subtle thing to master and you don’t get this by focusing only on reading and writing comprehension.

Unique Setting – While modern urban fantasy is something touched on with different games, I think traditional Asian folklore is something that has been either ignored or glossed over. I consider it a plus learning about different legends and mythologies through the game. It can also serve as adventure fodder for other settings, and allow you to learn a bit more about other cultures.

I’m happy to say that their kickstarter campaign has been funded. However it’s wrapping up in a few days. If you have any interest in this, now is the time to pitch in. You’re jumping in on a funded project, and I dare say a unique educational application of RPGs. I think it might be something that could catch on as an alternative language teaching method. Would be neat to get in on the ground floor of this project. Check it out!