Saturday, January 19, 2013
More Potions for 13th Age
I posted an article up on 13th Age Homebrews detailing 18 new types of potions. Feel free to use in your own games, and let me know how they work out!
Friday, January 18, 2013
So 13th Age and Dungeon World walk into a bar...
Recap - Last Session
The last time I posted about my 13th Age campaign the party was still in the middle of a living dungeon. During our session after that they continued onward, at a somewhat slower pace than I'd anticipated. Two encounters away from a full heal up, the party was beat down pretty good. The Barbarian had only a single recovery left, and was right around Staggered. I let the player rebuild him because he was noticeably underpowered (lesson the first - don't use a shield as a Barbarian!), but it was impossible to tell how much that really helped given the disadvantage the character was already at.
Their next fight was really tough; a trap-filled room that could be somewhat circumvented by climbing up 20 foot tall mushrooms and jumping from one cap to the next in order to reach the door out. Unfortunately, an earth elemental fell from the roof onto one of the mushrooms, blocking their way forward. I used a slightly modified re-skinned ogre, which is a tougher opponent than I'd realized for a 1st level party of mostly weapon users (go figure). The environment was against them, multiple people were dropping every round, and the Cleric was funneling his own recoveries into the Barbarian thanks to the Healing Domain feat that he'd snagged for an incremental advance after the last session. Eventually I finally hinted that the players don't necessarily need to kill the elemental to progress, and that they should probably just go for the door. So they did, and survived - barely.
After traveling through some eery tunnels filled with purple tentacles they finally reached the "heart" of the dungeon, but not before their enemy had gotten there first! A dark cleric was "plugged into" the dungeon, connected to tentacles which allowed him to "drive" it. A mage guarded by two knights proclaimed that they were driving the dungeon straight to hell, and then ordered the attack. The Ranger managed to hit the mage with two ranged attacks early on, one of which was a crit, and also applied Cruel. In one round he nearly one-shotted him (but not before the mage got an Acid Arrow off), and the ongoing damage then finished him off two rounds later without anyone else having to attack him. This made the fight significantly easier, and the Barbarian very happy. After killing all of the enemies, the Barbarian stabbed the "heart" of the dungeon, killing it but sending it flying through the earth at breakneck speeds. It shot them out on top of a mountain (the psychic, rune-inscribed door appeared on a cliff on that mountain), along with the Derro that had lived there and the Gnome, Nilku.
Enter Dungeon World
Sort of. No, we didn't play it, but I decided I would test the Fronts mechanic from Dungeon World in my 13th Age game. I used the sample front in the infamous Dungeon World Guide, The Great Wyrm Axtalrath. For such a short write up (6 pages of fairly large print, with half of one page consisting of new races specifically for Dungeon World) there is a LOT of useable information packed in here! I'll probably use Fronts, or a modified version of them, as my GM organizational tool for pretty much every game I run now. Granted, a Front doesn't provide the same level of detail as a pre-made adventure; it doesn't have stat blocks, dungeon maps, etc. But I suck at running published adventures. They're usually a lot of reading relative to the amount of game time I'll get out of them. A Dungeon World Front is minimal reading (with text that's organized VERY well for reference), and you can get many sessions worth of game time out of them. Dozens, in this case, I think.
On overall background summary sets up the premise. A list of points of interest, accompanied by a map, provides enough inspiration for getting a picture of each place in your head, without overwhelming you with details. Fill them in as needed, and leave room for expansion (the Dungeon World mantra "play to find out what happens" fits very well with 13th Age's narrative, icon and background based design). The Dangers provide the main players that might oppose the party. Simple description, short motivation, and some "Grim Portents" which are events that will transpire without any PC intervention. They're basically well-organized plot points that give you some options for where to "go next" when your players are stuck or you've played out a different option. These, of course, can be altered or change depending on what the players do so the whole structure of the narrative is affected by PC actions. Which is how a roleplaying game SHOULD work. The Front is rounded out with some Stakes (miscellaneous questions and handy reminders; I like to think of these as things unrelated to the Dangers that could become major plot points) and a short cast of NPCs. I quite simply assigned each cast member an associated Icon, and then created more NPCs for Icons that didn't yet have any associated with them. I detailed those that PCs had a relationship with more heavily, but given random Icon influence it's helpful to have at least an idea for who might act on behalf of other Icons.
Ultimately, I think Fronts are going to help me improve my improvisational skills by providing just enough of a safety net. There's plenty of room to build upon each and every short description in the front, and there's always a few things going on "in the background" (or just "waiting" to be incorporated later) so that the narrative won't ever really grind to a standstill.
Session Summary
So how did all of this work out in play? Beware that there are SPOILERS for the Great Wyrm Axtalrath in this section, though because of the flexible, sandbox-y nature of the Fronts you can probably play through the whole thing and have an entirely different experience.
Well, the first major issue was the Derro. The PCs destroyed their home, and even though they convinced the Derro that this was better than plunging into hell, they still demanded reparations. The party led them down the mountain, left them under the canopy of the trees (since it was daylight, which they hate), and went into the town of Rockbreak. Being midday, most of the citizens were either working in the mine or logging, but the Cleric found the local temple and they had a nice chat with the priest there. He gave them all of the background info that they'd need to know (dragon destroyed all the roads, all the boats, but left the townspeople alive, Monolith glows every quarter moon, etc.), and seemed concerned about the prospect of a whole village of Derro refugees looking for a new place to settle.
In pure reckless fashion, the potionless PCs didn't bother to look for any shops or anything, but returned to the Derro, who demanded the PCs scout out some possible caves (they'd do the same after nightfall). Their first lead was a bust, but they noticed fires approaching from the coast. They investigated, and I invoked the Grim Portent "Magmin appear on the western coasts," thanks to a roll of 5 for the Diabolist last session. The party didn't attempt to ambush them and didn't make use of any good tactics whatsoever. My homebrew Magmin beat the snot out of them (to be fair, auto-damaging fire auras were more powerful than I'd anticipated). They only attacks that they landed were on minions (they destroyed 2 of 4), and the Cleric went down early removing the party's only source of healing. PCs were dropping and hoping for death saves to bring them back up. Nobody ever rallied, though the Barbarian used his Dwarf racial power. I advised them to use the Retreat rule several times but they didn't. Eventually after being VERY generous with the results of the Ranger's Terrain Stunt power I had the Magmin simply move on after everyone in the party was knocked out. The Fighter rolled high on his death save just before the Barbarian was about to fail his last one, and he was able to stabilize him. The party then fled toward Port Taramos, and I had no choice but to advance to the next Grim Portent under the Magmin danger (to be fair I would have given the PCs one last chance to beat back the Magmin, since they had a river to cross before reaching Rockbreak).
A botched direction-finding roll from the Ranger (a fumble) led the party right into the swamps. They were ambushed by Lizardmen, but got very lucky (in that I couldn't seem to roll higher than a 9, and Lizardmen get really nasty if you have a string of good rolls in a row). After 2 of the 5 were killed, one of them told his allies to stand down, and demanded to know why the party broke the truce (here the party learned about the truce, obviously). The Lizardman had his allies back away slowly, and eventually they swam off, and the leader asked the party to leave him gold and leave the swamp immediately. Otherwise, they wouldn't leave the swamp alive. The party cheaped out (left 1 gp each), which may come back to bite them in the ass later.
They arrived in Port Taramos, learned of the Dragon Cultists, and bought some potions. The Fighter (who had pocketed some gems back in the dungeon which melted - around all of his coins!) sought out an alchemist to help free his coins from the block of gem-glue (attempts to smash it earlier were met with the realization that the glue had seeped into the gold, making it impure and brittle). And with that, the session ended.
On Sandboxes
Most of my attempts at running more sandbox-style games with this group have failed in the past. The players just don't seem to want to take the initiative to go out and explore on their own; they simply wait for my next obvious hook. When they've taken turns at the GM seat, they've very much resisted any attempts by me (as a player) to "go off the rails." Well, this Front kind of forces them to do stuff, especially with the added pressure of the Derro refugees at the beginning. They all want to get off of the island, but they recognize that there's no way they're facing down that dragon. They're very interested in the Monolith, and they need some cash really badly, so there's two possible directions that they can take things next time. I'll also need to remember to throw some fights their way that they're likely to win, to boost morale a bit and give them a shot at some loot. I think they learned their lesson about dismissing basic tactics, so hopefully I see some smart playing in the future.
In other news, I'm starting up a game of 13th Age with my other gaming group as well. And I'm starting a game of Edge of the Empire with this current 13th Age group, starting with the Beginner Box. So stay tuned for developments on those fronts!
The last time I posted about my 13th Age campaign the party was still in the middle of a living dungeon. During our session after that they continued onward, at a somewhat slower pace than I'd anticipated. Two encounters away from a full heal up, the party was beat down pretty good. The Barbarian had only a single recovery left, and was right around Staggered. I let the player rebuild him because he was noticeably underpowered (lesson the first - don't use a shield as a Barbarian!), but it was impossible to tell how much that really helped given the disadvantage the character was already at.
Their next fight was really tough; a trap-filled room that could be somewhat circumvented by climbing up 20 foot tall mushrooms and jumping from one cap to the next in order to reach the door out. Unfortunately, an earth elemental fell from the roof onto one of the mushrooms, blocking their way forward. I used a slightly modified re-skinned ogre, which is a tougher opponent than I'd realized for a 1st level party of mostly weapon users (go figure). The environment was against them, multiple people were dropping every round, and the Cleric was funneling his own recoveries into the Barbarian thanks to the Healing Domain feat that he'd snagged for an incremental advance after the last session. Eventually I finally hinted that the players don't necessarily need to kill the elemental to progress, and that they should probably just go for the door. So they did, and survived - barely.
After traveling through some eery tunnels filled with purple tentacles they finally reached the "heart" of the dungeon, but not before their enemy had gotten there first! A dark cleric was "plugged into" the dungeon, connected to tentacles which allowed him to "drive" it. A mage guarded by two knights proclaimed that they were driving the dungeon straight to hell, and then ordered the attack. The Ranger managed to hit the mage with two ranged attacks early on, one of which was a crit, and also applied Cruel. In one round he nearly one-shotted him (but not before the mage got an Acid Arrow off), and the ongoing damage then finished him off two rounds later without anyone else having to attack him. This made the fight significantly easier, and the Barbarian very happy. After killing all of the enemies, the Barbarian stabbed the "heart" of the dungeon, killing it but sending it flying through the earth at breakneck speeds. It shot them out on top of a mountain (the psychic, rune-inscribed door appeared on a cliff on that mountain), along with the Derro that had lived there and the Gnome, Nilku.
Enter Dungeon World
Sort of. No, we didn't play it, but I decided I would test the Fronts mechanic from Dungeon World in my 13th Age game. I used the sample front in the infamous Dungeon World Guide, The Great Wyrm Axtalrath. For such a short write up (6 pages of fairly large print, with half of one page consisting of new races specifically for Dungeon World) there is a LOT of useable information packed in here! I'll probably use Fronts, or a modified version of them, as my GM organizational tool for pretty much every game I run now. Granted, a Front doesn't provide the same level of detail as a pre-made adventure; it doesn't have stat blocks, dungeon maps, etc. But I suck at running published adventures. They're usually a lot of reading relative to the amount of game time I'll get out of them. A Dungeon World Front is minimal reading (with text that's organized VERY well for reference), and you can get many sessions worth of game time out of them. Dozens, in this case, I think.
On overall background summary sets up the premise. A list of points of interest, accompanied by a map, provides enough inspiration for getting a picture of each place in your head, without overwhelming you with details. Fill them in as needed, and leave room for expansion (the Dungeon World mantra "play to find out what happens" fits very well with 13th Age's narrative, icon and background based design). The Dangers provide the main players that might oppose the party. Simple description, short motivation, and some "Grim Portents" which are events that will transpire without any PC intervention. They're basically well-organized plot points that give you some options for where to "go next" when your players are stuck or you've played out a different option. These, of course, can be altered or change depending on what the players do so the whole structure of the narrative is affected by PC actions. Which is how a roleplaying game SHOULD work. The Front is rounded out with some Stakes (miscellaneous questions and handy reminders; I like to think of these as things unrelated to the Dangers that could become major plot points) and a short cast of NPCs. I quite simply assigned each cast member an associated Icon, and then created more NPCs for Icons that didn't yet have any associated with them. I detailed those that PCs had a relationship with more heavily, but given random Icon influence it's helpful to have at least an idea for who might act on behalf of other Icons.
Ultimately, I think Fronts are going to help me improve my improvisational skills by providing just enough of a safety net. There's plenty of room to build upon each and every short description in the front, and there's always a few things going on "in the background" (or just "waiting" to be incorporated later) so that the narrative won't ever really grind to a standstill.
Session Summary
So how did all of this work out in play? Beware that there are SPOILERS for the Great Wyrm Axtalrath in this section, though because of the flexible, sandbox-y nature of the Fronts you can probably play through the whole thing and have an entirely different experience.
Well, the first major issue was the Derro. The PCs destroyed their home, and even though they convinced the Derro that this was better than plunging into hell, they still demanded reparations. The party led them down the mountain, left them under the canopy of the trees (since it was daylight, which they hate), and went into the town of Rockbreak. Being midday, most of the citizens were either working in the mine or logging, but the Cleric found the local temple and they had a nice chat with the priest there. He gave them all of the background info that they'd need to know (dragon destroyed all the roads, all the boats, but left the townspeople alive, Monolith glows every quarter moon, etc.), and seemed concerned about the prospect of a whole village of Derro refugees looking for a new place to settle.
In pure reckless fashion, the potionless PCs didn't bother to look for any shops or anything, but returned to the Derro, who demanded the PCs scout out some possible caves (they'd do the same after nightfall). Their first lead was a bust, but they noticed fires approaching from the coast. They investigated, and I invoked the Grim Portent "Magmin appear on the western coasts," thanks to a roll of 5 for the Diabolist last session. The party didn't attempt to ambush them and didn't make use of any good tactics whatsoever. My homebrew Magmin beat the snot out of them (to be fair, auto-damaging fire auras were more powerful than I'd anticipated). They only attacks that they landed were on minions (they destroyed 2 of 4), and the Cleric went down early removing the party's only source of healing. PCs were dropping and hoping for death saves to bring them back up. Nobody ever rallied, though the Barbarian used his Dwarf racial power. I advised them to use the Retreat rule several times but they didn't. Eventually after being VERY generous with the results of the Ranger's Terrain Stunt power I had the Magmin simply move on after everyone in the party was knocked out. The Fighter rolled high on his death save just before the Barbarian was about to fail his last one, and he was able to stabilize him. The party then fled toward Port Taramos, and I had no choice but to advance to the next Grim Portent under the Magmin danger (to be fair I would have given the PCs one last chance to beat back the Magmin, since they had a river to cross before reaching Rockbreak).
A botched direction-finding roll from the Ranger (a fumble) led the party right into the swamps. They were ambushed by Lizardmen, but got very lucky (in that I couldn't seem to roll higher than a 9, and Lizardmen get really nasty if you have a string of good rolls in a row). After 2 of the 5 were killed, one of them told his allies to stand down, and demanded to know why the party broke the truce (here the party learned about the truce, obviously). The Lizardman had his allies back away slowly, and eventually they swam off, and the leader asked the party to leave him gold and leave the swamp immediately. Otherwise, they wouldn't leave the swamp alive. The party cheaped out (left 1 gp each), which may come back to bite them in the ass later.
They arrived in Port Taramos, learned of the Dragon Cultists, and bought some potions. The Fighter (who had pocketed some gems back in the dungeon which melted - around all of his coins!) sought out an alchemist to help free his coins from the block of gem-glue (attempts to smash it earlier were met with the realization that the glue had seeped into the gold, making it impure and brittle). And with that, the session ended.
On Sandboxes
Most of my attempts at running more sandbox-style games with this group have failed in the past. The players just don't seem to want to take the initiative to go out and explore on their own; they simply wait for my next obvious hook. When they've taken turns at the GM seat, they've very much resisted any attempts by me (as a player) to "go off the rails." Well, this Front kind of forces them to do stuff, especially with the added pressure of the Derro refugees at the beginning. They all want to get off of the island, but they recognize that there's no way they're facing down that dragon. They're very interested in the Monolith, and they need some cash really badly, so there's two possible directions that they can take things next time. I'll also need to remember to throw some fights their way that they're likely to win, to boost morale a bit and give them a shot at some loot. I think they learned their lesson about dismissing basic tactics, so hopefully I see some smart playing in the future.
In other news, I'm starting up a game of 13th Age with my other gaming group as well. And I'm starting a game of Edge of the Empire with this current 13th Age group, starting with the Beginner Box. So stay tuned for developments on those fronts!
Thursday, January 10, 2013
Adding to Mobility Denial in 13th Age
13th Age has a short list of status effects, and I consider that a
big plus for a tabletop RPG. One of my big pet peeves is when a game
uses multiple different "flavors" of what is essentially the same effect
(i.e. D&D 3rd Edition's Shaken, Frightened, Cowering, and Panicked;
Fatigued and Exhausted; Dazed and Dazzled; Sickened and Nauseated;
Paralyzed and Stunned; etc.). I much prefer a minimum amount of rules
which serve to represent a general concept. The 13th Age "Dazed"
condition does a good job of this, as it can stand in for any situation
where you'd have trouble attacking (but aren't prevented from doing so
altogether).
However, the list of Conditions is missing some functional concepts that many D&D players are used to. Up until EE6 there wasn't a single form of mobility denial, but thankfully "Stuck" made it into the game. Having anything in between "can't move at all" (Stuck) and "can move fully" is difficult in a system where movement is handled in abstract range bands, especially when granularity is so low that we have only "nearby" and "far away." That's not to say I don't like the simplicity of the range bands, because I do. It just means that we need to get creative to represent things like "slow," "difficult terrain," or "prone."
Quick, streamlined combats and combats where you can take tactical advantage of the terrain are not mutually exclusive. Sure, 13th Age advises a "don't sweat the modifiers" approach but it can be really difficult for some players to describe their character's action if they don't have any mechanical incentives to work with. Why try to put difficult terrain between you and an enemy if it has no effect in-game? More importantly, this is a case of the game rules not supporting the game fiction.
The following houserules can be incorporated as new Conditions, or simply as guidelines that a GM can use as rulings in case players decide to get creative.
Slowed
Whether an enemy is hobbled by a weapon strike to the leg, slowed down by a spell (perhaps as a result of Vance's Polysyllabic Verbalizations), or is forced to move through terrain affected by another creature (i.e. an enemy triggers a rock slide, or a spellcaster magically animates the vegetation) this quick and dirty condition can be used.
If the slowed creature attempts to move it must roll a save. On a failure, it fails to reach its destination. Usually this is a normal save (11+), but depending on what is slowing the creature and how far they're attempting to move, the GM may rule that it's an Easy (6+) or a Hard (16+) save.
Difficult Terrain
This is a variation of the "Slowed" Condition.
Sometimes it makes more narrative sense to allow a Slowed creature to make a skill check instead of a save. Generally this will be the case when the terrain is not being affected by another creature. This check will usually use DEX (icy terrain, rubble), STR (dense vegetation that needs to be muscled through), or WIS (if a good path can be found), though whatever ability makes most sense given the type of terrain or the player's approach to the problem should be used. The DC is determined by the Environment, as with other skill checks. On a failure, the slowed creature fails to reach its destination.
Cover*
Quick, duck behind that barrel!
If you use a move action to get behind an item that grants a substantial amount of cover, ranged attacks are made against you as if the attacker were Dazed.
Prone
Characters can drop prone to avoid ranged fire, though it's not as effective as taking cover, or they may be knocked prone by powerful attacks.
You can drop prone as a quick action. Standing up can be done as part of a move action, but if you wants to move anywhere else you must succeed at a Normal Save (11+). While prone you are Vulnerable to melee attacks, but ranged attacks made against you take a -2 penalty.
*Note: GMs should be careful about introducing reliable ways for players to gain bonuses like this. For some, part of the fun of ranged combat is trying to find cover and eliminate the enemy's cover. However, it does have the potential to slow the game down. After all, the intent of the "don't sweat the modifiers" rule is to ensure that things run quickly and smoothly. Keep in mind that if the players can take advantage of the environment, then the monsters should too. Make sure that combats don't devolve into both sides hiding behind cover, hoping to get lucky with their debuffed attacks before the enemies do.
Originally posted by me on 13th Age Homebrews.
However, the list of Conditions is missing some functional concepts that many D&D players are used to. Up until EE6 there wasn't a single form of mobility denial, but thankfully "Stuck" made it into the game. Having anything in between "can't move at all" (Stuck) and "can move fully" is difficult in a system where movement is handled in abstract range bands, especially when granularity is so low that we have only "nearby" and "far away." That's not to say I don't like the simplicity of the range bands, because I do. It just means that we need to get creative to represent things like "slow," "difficult terrain," or "prone."
Quick, streamlined combats and combats where you can take tactical advantage of the terrain are not mutually exclusive. Sure, 13th Age advises a "don't sweat the modifiers" approach but it can be really difficult for some players to describe their character's action if they don't have any mechanical incentives to work with. Why try to put difficult terrain between you and an enemy if it has no effect in-game? More importantly, this is a case of the game rules not supporting the game fiction.
The following houserules can be incorporated as new Conditions, or simply as guidelines that a GM can use as rulings in case players decide to get creative.
Slowed
Whether an enemy is hobbled by a weapon strike to the leg, slowed down by a spell (perhaps as a result of Vance's Polysyllabic Verbalizations), or is forced to move through terrain affected by another creature (i.e. an enemy triggers a rock slide, or a spellcaster magically animates the vegetation) this quick and dirty condition can be used.
If the slowed creature attempts to move it must roll a save. On a failure, it fails to reach its destination. Usually this is a normal save (11+), but depending on what is slowing the creature and how far they're attempting to move, the GM may rule that it's an Easy (6+) or a Hard (16+) save.
Difficult Terrain
This is a variation of the "Slowed" Condition.
Sometimes it makes more narrative sense to allow a Slowed creature to make a skill check instead of a save. Generally this will be the case when the terrain is not being affected by another creature. This check will usually use DEX (icy terrain, rubble), STR (dense vegetation that needs to be muscled through), or WIS (if a good path can be found), though whatever ability makes most sense given the type of terrain or the player's approach to the problem should be used. The DC is determined by the Environment, as with other skill checks. On a failure, the slowed creature fails to reach its destination.
Cover*
Quick, duck behind that barrel!
If you use a move action to get behind an item that grants a substantial amount of cover, ranged attacks are made against you as if the attacker were Dazed.
Prone
Characters can drop prone to avoid ranged fire, though it's not as effective as taking cover, or they may be knocked prone by powerful attacks.
You can drop prone as a quick action. Standing up can be done as part of a move action, but if you wants to move anywhere else you must succeed at a Normal Save (11+). While prone you are Vulnerable to melee attacks, but ranged attacks made against you take a -2 penalty.
*Note: GMs should be careful about introducing reliable ways for players to gain bonuses like this. For some, part of the fun of ranged combat is trying to find cover and eliminate the enemy's cover. However, it does have the potential to slow the game down. After all, the intent of the "don't sweat the modifiers" rule is to ensure that things run quickly and smoothly. Keep in mind that if the players can take advantage of the environment, then the monsters should too. Make sure that combats don't devolve into both sides hiding behind cover, hoping to get lucky with their debuffed attacks before the enemies do.
Originally posted by me on 13th Age Homebrews.
Tuesday, January 8, 2013
End of a "Campaign"
So I've spent most of this year out-of-state, and therefore haven't gotten much time to run my (very intermittent) game of The One Ring. Well, one of my three players is moving to CA, so tonight was our last session. Pity, really, as I had planned on starting up Tales From Wilderland.
I spent as little time as possible tying everything in and getting the players to the Easterly Inn (since I'd already borrowed a lot of stuff from Don't Leave the Path, the idea was to start with Of Leaves and Stewed Hobbit). Unfortunately, getting through the entire adventure in one night was a futile endeavor. Finished up the battle at the Ringfort, but with about a half hour left to play I decided to just cut it off there. One of the players wanted the group to go out in one big fight, another wanted to survive, but because this was going to be our last session for the forseeable future I had a Mountain-Troll stumble upon their camp and it killed them all. Keep in mind that the Dwarf had previously rolled 4 Eyes in a row and I hadn't made good on a single Hazard, so this wasn't even completely outside the realm of fairness.
In any case, I ended the campaign with a feeling of frustration more than anything. The guys in this group aren't really huge Tolkien fans, and they weren't playing to theme all that well. The Dwarf's Treasure Hunter calling was played as a very one-dimensional "all I care about is getting gold!" as if he'd had 4 flaws already. Not ideal in a system where gold is de-emphasized to the extent that it's counted in abstract "treasure points." The Beorning was constantly making un-heroic comments and decisions to the point where I eventually just started throwing Shadow points at him for misdeeds. While I LOVE the system, I don't think I'd recommend playing it with the "wrong" group.
Some end-of-session discussion of the system as a whole occurred afterwards, and while the players enjoyed the game I got the sense that they were ready to move on. They were starting to get up-in-arms about the way that skills were sometimes used; for example, when I told them that they needed to use Stealth to squeeze their way through the tunnel in the Ringfort I got a lot of backlash. They were taking the skill names more literally than the system intends. Stealth is at the intersection of Movement and Wits, and so "moving carefully" can cover maneuvering through a tight space just as much as it can cover moving without being detected. Finally one player said he'd probably be fine with it if they just labeled it differently.
They also mentioned that combat was a little overly simplified for them, but they understood when I reiterated that the system assumes more narrative engagement then they were giving me. I felt the same with skills as well; at one point the Barding said "I'm using Courtesy." I asked "what exactly are you saying?" to which he replied "I don't know, I'm introducing myself in an appropriate way." Perhaps I'm just being spoiled by my Play-by-Post game (which I think the system is really well-suited for).
The biggest complement about the system was the way that Hope worked. Oddly enough, they weren't as keen on Shadow, and I think it's largely because Shadow is dependent on roleplaying the internal struggle of the character which they just weren't interested in doing.
Next week I'm starting up a 13th Age game with this group (so I'll be running 2). I'm think that this group might actually benefit from a few sessions of Dungeon World, but then again that might end up being a disaster.
I spent as little time as possible tying everything in and getting the players to the Easterly Inn (since I'd already borrowed a lot of stuff from Don't Leave the Path, the idea was to start with Of Leaves and Stewed Hobbit). Unfortunately, getting through the entire adventure in one night was a futile endeavor. Finished up the battle at the Ringfort, but with about a half hour left to play I decided to just cut it off there. One of the players wanted the group to go out in one big fight, another wanted to survive, but because this was going to be our last session for the forseeable future I had a Mountain-Troll stumble upon their camp and it killed them all. Keep in mind that the Dwarf had previously rolled 4 Eyes in a row and I hadn't made good on a single Hazard, so this wasn't even completely outside the realm of fairness.
In any case, I ended the campaign with a feeling of frustration more than anything. The guys in this group aren't really huge Tolkien fans, and they weren't playing to theme all that well. The Dwarf's Treasure Hunter calling was played as a very one-dimensional "all I care about is getting gold!" as if he'd had 4 flaws already. Not ideal in a system where gold is de-emphasized to the extent that it's counted in abstract "treasure points." The Beorning was constantly making un-heroic comments and decisions to the point where I eventually just started throwing Shadow points at him for misdeeds. While I LOVE the system, I don't think I'd recommend playing it with the "wrong" group.
Some end-of-session discussion of the system as a whole occurred afterwards, and while the players enjoyed the game I got the sense that they were ready to move on. They were starting to get up-in-arms about the way that skills were sometimes used; for example, when I told them that they needed to use Stealth to squeeze their way through the tunnel in the Ringfort I got a lot of backlash. They were taking the skill names more literally than the system intends. Stealth is at the intersection of Movement and Wits, and so "moving carefully" can cover maneuvering through a tight space just as much as it can cover moving without being detected. Finally one player said he'd probably be fine with it if they just labeled it differently.
They also mentioned that combat was a little overly simplified for them, but they understood when I reiterated that the system assumes more narrative engagement then they were giving me. I felt the same with skills as well; at one point the Barding said "I'm using Courtesy." I asked "what exactly are you saying?" to which he replied "I don't know, I'm introducing myself in an appropriate way." Perhaps I'm just being spoiled by my Play-by-Post game (which I think the system is really well-suited for).
The biggest complement about the system was the way that Hope worked. Oddly enough, they weren't as keen on Shadow, and I think it's largely because Shadow is dependent on roleplaying the internal struggle of the character which they just weren't interested in doing.
Next week I'm starting up a 13th Age game with this group (so I'll be running 2). I'm think that this group might actually benefit from a few sessions of Dungeon World, but then again that might end up being a disaster.
Sunday, January 6, 2013
Review: Lake Town Book and Loremaster's Screen
I got this product for Christmas and I think I've had enough time to digest everything by now. You can purchase it here.
Loremaster's Screen
This is the first GM screen that I've ever purchased. I've seen other screens (the 3rd and 4th edition D&D screens), and from what I can remember they were not as high-quality as this one. The material is heavy and sturdy, and it folds up really well. The player side of the screen is a big panorama of Lake-Town with Smaug's ribs sticking out of the water in the background. Superb artwork, as we've grown to expect from The One Ring. Unfortunately, I'll most likely use the screen by laying it down, tables-side-up. We usually play on a carpeted floor and so this will make a great surface to roll dice on. Besides that, I usually don't feel the need to conceal rolls from my players.
The tables themselves are a mixed bag; some are so obvious that IMO they didn't merit inclusion (ex. the TN Difficulty Table), but most will be very much appreciated in my group. The one I like the most is a table of the Adversary Special Abilities. Knowing I would need these referenced, I'd been using a sheet of notebook paper where I'd hand-copied everything. Given the legibility of my handwriting, it wasn't a perfect solution. Glad I can toss that in the recycling now. I've also had to look up the rest and recovery rules several times in-game, but those are conveniently on the screen now. The situational tables such as falling and fire damage are great because they don't come up often enough to have memorized, and now they won't need to be looked up. There are also tables which I don't even remember being in the book, like cursed treasures and general examples of bouts of madness. A general table on evaluating the outcome of encounters is provided, and it uses the structure found in Tales from Wilderland.
Further page numbers are provided for other important topics that obviously wouldn't fit on a screen (skills, virtues, etc.). Off the top of my head, about the only thing absent that I would have liked included would be tables on how to spend Experience and Advancement Points. I suppose those things only need looking up when there's already a break from the narrative anyways, and players are often looking up new virtues or rewards at the same time. Can't include everything, though, and I think the screen hits the really important tables. There's 24 tables in all (not including additional page reference tables), so they've clearly squeezed a lot of information onto this screen!
Lake-Town Sourcebook
At 33 pages the book is slim, but it's packed pretty densely with content. Despite being a stapled softcover, the production value is every bit as high as the core books. The pages are thick, high-quality glossy paper. Stats are given for all kinds of generic LM Characters such as town guards, dwarf smiths, raft elves, etc. These are accompanied by descriptions, and provides a good overview of the types of people you're likely to encounter in Lake-Town. There's a lot of variety here!
The center pages are a full 2-page map of Lake-Town. It's an overhead view painting with numbers marking various features, and an inset in the corner provides a more schematic map that shows how the city is divided into its 7 quarters. There's enough detail that players can get a good sense of what the place looks like, while still showing the whole city and how everything is spatially laid out.
There are several new Fellowship Phase undertakings, and they're more cleverly designed than the somewhat bland options from the core book. You can go to the Market Pool to pick up high-quality items that give you bonuses to certain skills, you can collect marsh herbs which will benefit you in various ways during the next Adventuring Phase, and you can receive a title of Burgess which gets you a house in the city, and causes your Standing to apply to Esgaroth as well as your home town. Very neat stuff!
The festival of Dragontide is detailed, as well as its archery contests. These work much the same as the games from the Crossings of Celduin adventure. Side bars clarifying the Blighted Places rules, and an optional rule for converting treasure points to coins, are also neat additions. Finally, new monsters from the Long Marshes are also provided (3 of them, to be precise).
The book also details the new Men of the Lake culture, of course, and personally it's one of my favorites (2nd only to the Woodmen for me). The cultural blessing lets you earn experience when bad things happen to you (costs Hope), and a new Specialty (Minstrelsy) is present on their list. Their cultural skills are very well-rounded, with many skills at rank 2, only two skills at rank 1, and no skills at rank 3. The Lake Men are cosmopolitan, almost jack-of-all-trades, and this leaves a lot of room for customization. The backgrounds have Heart as their best attribute on average, with Wits as their lowest (but they can get a lot out of using shields, so it should even out). Endurance and Hope uses the Barding values, and they also use the list of Barding names.
The cultural virtues and rewards are very well-crafted and evocative. Virtues can improve your skill with a bow (not surprising), gain you a servant, allow you to make a good impression during encounters (increase tolerance), make you better with a shield, and demonstrate your balance thanks to a life on the water. Personally, my favorites are Shield-Fighting and Water Legs. The first provides some serious offensive punch (presumably you're shield-bashing), while the latter lets you play around with bonus success dice in interesting ways (such as those from a Battle roll), and will even give you a free one in certain situations. The rewards are pretty awesome as well, and normally the cultural rewards don't really do much for me. The armor seems a bit risky (bonus to protection rolls against certain weapons, but penalty against others), but the Keening Bog-stone oozes with flavor and minor magic, and the Serpent Scimitar basically lets you bypass enemy shields.
The book ends with a new pre-gen, Frida, Daughter of Finnulf.
Conclusions
To be quite frank, the price tag is a little steep, at least coming from the perspective of someone who doesn't normally use GM screens. That's actually why I waited to see if I got it for Christmas instead of going with the pre-order (ok, so the lack of PDFs is also a strike against the pre-orders now). That said, what content that's present is genuinely good stuff. Most groups will spend a lot of time in Lake-Town. There's probably more dollar-worthy, useable stuff here than in an "X Power" D&D book 5 times its length. Which is a good way of looking at it. I'll only ever use 15% of the content of many of the D&D splatbooks I've bought, but I'll use almost 100% of the stuff from the Lake-Town book at some point or another. And now that I have the LM Screen, even if I lay it flat and don't use it as a proper screen, my games will run more smoothly.
I'd call it a near-must for anyone who finds themselves in the Loremaster's seat, but if you're just a player it's probably only worth it if you're really interested in the Lake Men culture (but it would make a great gift for your LM). Yes, The One Ring has been beset with delays and legal issues, but if they keep pumping out consistently high-quality products like this one and Tales from Wilderland (coming from someone who doesn't normally purchase published adventures either, lol), then I'll remain a loyal customer. This stuff is worth the wait.
Loremaster's Screen
This is the first GM screen that I've ever purchased. I've seen other screens (the 3rd and 4th edition D&D screens), and from what I can remember they were not as high-quality as this one. The material is heavy and sturdy, and it folds up really well. The player side of the screen is a big panorama of Lake-Town with Smaug's ribs sticking out of the water in the background. Superb artwork, as we've grown to expect from The One Ring. Unfortunately, I'll most likely use the screen by laying it down, tables-side-up. We usually play on a carpeted floor and so this will make a great surface to roll dice on. Besides that, I usually don't feel the need to conceal rolls from my players.
The tables themselves are a mixed bag; some are so obvious that IMO they didn't merit inclusion (ex. the TN Difficulty Table), but most will be very much appreciated in my group. The one I like the most is a table of the Adversary Special Abilities. Knowing I would need these referenced, I'd been using a sheet of notebook paper where I'd hand-copied everything. Given the legibility of my handwriting, it wasn't a perfect solution. Glad I can toss that in the recycling now. I've also had to look up the rest and recovery rules several times in-game, but those are conveniently on the screen now. The situational tables such as falling and fire damage are great because they don't come up often enough to have memorized, and now they won't need to be looked up. There are also tables which I don't even remember being in the book, like cursed treasures and general examples of bouts of madness. A general table on evaluating the outcome of encounters is provided, and it uses the structure found in Tales from Wilderland.
Further page numbers are provided for other important topics that obviously wouldn't fit on a screen (skills, virtues, etc.). Off the top of my head, about the only thing absent that I would have liked included would be tables on how to spend Experience and Advancement Points. I suppose those things only need looking up when there's already a break from the narrative anyways, and players are often looking up new virtues or rewards at the same time. Can't include everything, though, and I think the screen hits the really important tables. There's 24 tables in all (not including additional page reference tables), so they've clearly squeezed a lot of information onto this screen!
Lake-Town Sourcebook
At 33 pages the book is slim, but it's packed pretty densely with content. Despite being a stapled softcover, the production value is every bit as high as the core books. The pages are thick, high-quality glossy paper. Stats are given for all kinds of generic LM Characters such as town guards, dwarf smiths, raft elves, etc. These are accompanied by descriptions, and provides a good overview of the types of people you're likely to encounter in Lake-Town. There's a lot of variety here!
The center pages are a full 2-page map of Lake-Town. It's an overhead view painting with numbers marking various features, and an inset in the corner provides a more schematic map that shows how the city is divided into its 7 quarters. There's enough detail that players can get a good sense of what the place looks like, while still showing the whole city and how everything is spatially laid out.
There are several new Fellowship Phase undertakings, and they're more cleverly designed than the somewhat bland options from the core book. You can go to the Market Pool to pick up high-quality items that give you bonuses to certain skills, you can collect marsh herbs which will benefit you in various ways during the next Adventuring Phase, and you can receive a title of Burgess which gets you a house in the city, and causes your Standing to apply to Esgaroth as well as your home town. Very neat stuff!
The festival of Dragontide is detailed, as well as its archery contests. These work much the same as the games from the Crossings of Celduin adventure. Side bars clarifying the Blighted Places rules, and an optional rule for converting treasure points to coins, are also neat additions. Finally, new monsters from the Long Marshes are also provided (3 of them, to be precise).
The book also details the new Men of the Lake culture, of course, and personally it's one of my favorites (2nd only to the Woodmen for me). The cultural blessing lets you earn experience when bad things happen to you (costs Hope), and a new Specialty (Minstrelsy) is present on their list. Their cultural skills are very well-rounded, with many skills at rank 2, only two skills at rank 1, and no skills at rank 3. The Lake Men are cosmopolitan, almost jack-of-all-trades, and this leaves a lot of room for customization. The backgrounds have Heart as their best attribute on average, with Wits as their lowest (but they can get a lot out of using shields, so it should even out). Endurance and Hope uses the Barding values, and they also use the list of Barding names.
The cultural virtues and rewards are very well-crafted and evocative. Virtues can improve your skill with a bow (not surprising), gain you a servant, allow you to make a good impression during encounters (increase tolerance), make you better with a shield, and demonstrate your balance thanks to a life on the water. Personally, my favorites are Shield-Fighting and Water Legs. The first provides some serious offensive punch (presumably you're shield-bashing), while the latter lets you play around with bonus success dice in interesting ways (such as those from a Battle roll), and will even give you a free one in certain situations. The rewards are pretty awesome as well, and normally the cultural rewards don't really do much for me. The armor seems a bit risky (bonus to protection rolls against certain weapons, but penalty against others), but the Keening Bog-stone oozes with flavor and minor magic, and the Serpent Scimitar basically lets you bypass enemy shields.
The book ends with a new pre-gen, Frida, Daughter of Finnulf.
Conclusions
To be quite frank, the price tag is a little steep, at least coming from the perspective of someone who doesn't normally use GM screens. That's actually why I waited to see if I got it for Christmas instead of going with the pre-order (ok, so the lack of PDFs is also a strike against the pre-orders now). That said, what content that's present is genuinely good stuff. Most groups will spend a lot of time in Lake-Town. There's probably more dollar-worthy, useable stuff here than in an "X Power" D&D book 5 times its length. Which is a good way of looking at it. I'll only ever use 15% of the content of many of the D&D splatbooks I've bought, but I'll use almost 100% of the stuff from the Lake-Town book at some point or another. And now that I have the LM Screen, even if I lay it flat and don't use it as a proper screen, my games will run more smoothly.
I'd call it a near-must for anyone who finds themselves in the Loremaster's seat, but if you're just a player it's probably only worth it if you're really interested in the Lake Men culture (but it would make a great gift for your LM). Yes, The One Ring has been beset with delays and legal issues, but if they keep pumping out consistently high-quality products like this one and Tales from Wilderland (coming from someone who doesn't normally purchase published adventures either, lol), then I'll remain a loyal customer. This stuff is worth the wait.
The Full Attack Trap
The last thing I want to do here is to throw more fuel onto the ever-raging edition war fire. But I've been thinking lately about my aversion to D&D 3.x/Pathfinder. I have a game group that still plays the system, and they've asked me several times if I want to join their game. I haven't yet, because so far the flaws of 3.x and my desire to avoid them have overpowered wanting to play in another game with this group (I do still game with them, just not Pathfinder).
I did try Pathfinder a couple of times. The thing that stood out the most was that combats lasted longer than in 4E, but were far less interesting. I'm cool with more simplified, streamlined combat systems, but they need to a) support narrative contributions by the player in a fun and engaging way, and b) run more quickly. Why would I want to spend 2 hours in one fight when I'm just saying "I use Power Attack" every round? Yes, that actually did happen.
What follows are several observations from a game design perspective; while these are not my only complaints with the system, they are some of the major contributing factors.
Full Attack Action
It sounds innocuous at first glance, but in reality this is one of the most piss-poor design elements I've ever encountered in any game. Ever. Multiple attacks aren't a great way for character power to scale anyways. The more attacks you roll, the more damage you end up rolling, and the end result is a lot of dice. There's no change to the narrative action, nor the intent of that action; the only difference (besides the obvious increase in power, which can be accomplished through other means) is that the task resolution system is becoming more complex and time-consuming. Needlessly, I might add.
But that's not the only problem with Full Attack. The worse offender is that it makes combat far less interesting by restricting your options. Full Attack isn't just a standard action, but takes up all of your actions for your turn. Because making 2-5 attacks is far more powerful than making just 1, it's a non-choice - if you can use a full attack, you really should do it. Instead of being dynamic, combat devolves into what some call "stand and bang." You walk up to a dude, and you both throw a bunch of dice at each other until one of you falls down. There's very little incentive to use a skirmisher-style of play, to change opponents, to move around to tactically advantageous terrain, etc. Those fun, interesting things are made so drastically suboptimal that they simply don't come up in play.
Ultimately, when I play a tabletop RPG I want things to do during my turn. I want to make choices based on what makes narrative sense, and I want those choices to carry over and have meaningful mechanical consequences. That usually doesn't happen with martial-type characters in 3.x/PF, but that brings us to...
Spellcasters
This subject has been covered far and wide, pretty much everywhere on the internet. So I'll keep this brief. Martial characters are boring, so if you want to do something interesting you need to play a spellcaster. This type of design is repellent to me because it punishes players for liking a certain archetype.
Oddly enough, this goes both ways. You see, spellcasters aren't universally more interesting. At low levels they have enough spells to count on one hand (with fingers to spare!) and are otherwise reduced to taking potshots with a crossbow (this is somewhat ameliorated in Pathfinder, but the weak attack spells are a) still quite limited instead of being at-will, and b) are noticeably weaker than weapons. Since I almost always played at low levels (1-3) back when I played 3.5, the fact that I preferred spellcasters made for some frustrating experiences (even if I wasn't aware of how frustrated I was at the time).
Of course at high levels spellcasters are notorious for making some party members obsolete, but while they're no doubt effective, they're not necessarily fun. First of all, being noticeably better doesn't leave you with a sense of achievement. You've done cool things not because you made better choices than the Fighter, but because you were handed better toys. But those toys can also be a pain. I remember having multiple sheets of notebook paper to keep track of all of my spells, and I still had to look stuff up constantly.
Final Notes
The gap between the "boring" and "interesting" classes is just far too wide. On one end of the scale you have the guy with the non-choices. "I full attack" is what he says every round when it comes to his turn. On the other end a player could get downright overwhelmed by all of his choices. "Why am I forced to play a micromanaging bean counter just to do interesting things?"
Like I said, these aren't my only problems with the system, but I think they're two of the biggest contributors to making combat really boring, especially for players of martial characters. Why should an increase in power come with a reduction in meaningful choices? Perhaps if someone comes up with houserules that mitigate these problems I'd consider joining a Pathfinder game. Maybe.
I did try Pathfinder a couple of times. The thing that stood out the most was that combats lasted longer than in 4E, but were far less interesting. I'm cool with more simplified, streamlined combat systems, but they need to a) support narrative contributions by the player in a fun and engaging way, and b) run more quickly. Why would I want to spend 2 hours in one fight when I'm just saying "I use Power Attack" every round? Yes, that actually did happen.
What follows are several observations from a game design perspective; while these are not my only complaints with the system, they are some of the major contributing factors.
Full Attack Action
It sounds innocuous at first glance, but in reality this is one of the most piss-poor design elements I've ever encountered in any game. Ever. Multiple attacks aren't a great way for character power to scale anyways. The more attacks you roll, the more damage you end up rolling, and the end result is a lot of dice. There's no change to the narrative action, nor the intent of that action; the only difference (besides the obvious increase in power, which can be accomplished through other means) is that the task resolution system is becoming more complex and time-consuming. Needlessly, I might add.
But that's not the only problem with Full Attack. The worse offender is that it makes combat far less interesting by restricting your options. Full Attack isn't just a standard action, but takes up all of your actions for your turn. Because making 2-5 attacks is far more powerful than making just 1, it's a non-choice - if you can use a full attack, you really should do it. Instead of being dynamic, combat devolves into what some call "stand and bang." You walk up to a dude, and you both throw a bunch of dice at each other until one of you falls down. There's very little incentive to use a skirmisher-style of play, to change opponents, to move around to tactically advantageous terrain, etc. Those fun, interesting things are made so drastically suboptimal that they simply don't come up in play.
Ultimately, when I play a tabletop RPG I want things to do during my turn. I want to make choices based on what makes narrative sense, and I want those choices to carry over and have meaningful mechanical consequences. That usually doesn't happen with martial-type characters in 3.x/PF, but that brings us to...
Spellcasters
This subject has been covered far and wide, pretty much everywhere on the internet. So I'll keep this brief. Martial characters are boring, so if you want to do something interesting you need to play a spellcaster. This type of design is repellent to me because it punishes players for liking a certain archetype.
Oddly enough, this goes both ways. You see, spellcasters aren't universally more interesting. At low levels they have enough spells to count on one hand (with fingers to spare!) and are otherwise reduced to taking potshots with a crossbow (this is somewhat ameliorated in Pathfinder, but the weak attack spells are a) still quite limited instead of being at-will, and b) are noticeably weaker than weapons. Since I almost always played at low levels (1-3) back when I played 3.5, the fact that I preferred spellcasters made for some frustrating experiences (even if I wasn't aware of how frustrated I was at the time).
Of course at high levels spellcasters are notorious for making some party members obsolete, but while they're no doubt effective, they're not necessarily fun. First of all, being noticeably better doesn't leave you with a sense of achievement. You've done cool things not because you made better choices than the Fighter, but because you were handed better toys. But those toys can also be a pain. I remember having multiple sheets of notebook paper to keep track of all of my spells, and I still had to look stuff up constantly.
Final Notes
The gap between the "boring" and "interesting" classes is just far too wide. On one end of the scale you have the guy with the non-choices. "I full attack" is what he says every round when it comes to his turn. On the other end a player could get downright overwhelmed by all of his choices. "Why am I forced to play a micromanaging bean counter just to do interesting things?"
Like I said, these aren't my only problems with the system, but I think they're two of the biggest contributors to making combat really boring, especially for players of martial characters. Why should an increase in power come with a reduction in meaningful choices? Perhaps if someone comes up with houserules that mitigate these problems I'd consider joining a Pathfinder game. Maybe.
Friday, December 28, 2012
Edge of the Empire Beginner Box!
Today I picked up the Edge of the Empire Beginner Box from my FLGS. I thought a great deal about whether or not I would actually purchase this since between the Beta version that I already bought and the Beta updates that Fantasy Flight Games provides on their website for free, I essentially have the full game already. This won't be a review, namely because I haven't really had enough time to go over everything in the box, and because I've already reviewed the Beta. I will simply attempt to answer the question "what was I thinking?" No, I'm not trying to rationalize the purchase, I'm just summarizing what the game offers.
First off, the dice. Fans of Warhammer Fantasy Roleplaying Game (WFRP) have mentioned online that the custom dice for that game are pretty pricey. Like, we might expect $15 a pop for a set of these Star Wars dice once they come out. That's almost as much as the whole box set on Amazon, and half what I paid at my FLGS. Can't remember the source, but in any case it's the only way to get the physical dice at the moment. I put the stickers from the Beta on some dice but something about them just feels off. Which I'm sure is mostly psychological, but still. Having 2 sets of dice will be nice in play.
Next is the novelty of it. I've actually never bought one of these "box sets" for an RPG before, so I was pretty curious exactly how a somewhat crunchy game could be distilled down for beginners. The included adventure does a really good job of it, and even for the experienced roleplayers who are new to the custom dice thing that might be really helpful. Besides, I've actually taught people brand-new to RPing how to play using various systems, so it's cool to finally see a product designed to do exactly that.
Another motivating factor is my preference for more rules-light systems. Not that Edge of the Empire is particularly crunch-heavy, but it's not quite as "clean" as it could be. There are some subsystems that are a little more complicated than they need to be, and it can be tough to sift through everything to expose the bare essentials of the system. That Beta book is 222 pages of almost all crunch, after all. I really like having a bare bones, streamlined version of the system. The "lowest common denominator" as determined by the designers themselves. I can add in the more complicated bits as necessary, or simply use them to fuel my own improvisation from the "base."
New and improved character sheets and stat blocks. Ok, so the stat blocks in the Rulebook are still the crappy space-saving pieces of trash that were in the Beta book, but the adventure includes stat blocks that are easy to reference in combat. They're organized and laid out in a much more user-friendly way, and most importantly include graphical representations of relevant dice pools! Same with the character folios; there's a column in the skill lists that shows the dice pools (2 green diamonds and a yellow hexagon for Pash's Charm skill, for example). Anything that helps players (and GMs!) quickly grab the exact handful of dice that they need to roll is great in my book! When I ran a quick solo playtest combat I didn't like having to look at two different numbers (the characteristic and the skill rank), then the difficulty, etc. every time I made my dice pool. Those numbers just don't jump out at you when you quickly glance at the stat block or character sheet. These graphical dice pools do, and I'll be using stat blocks and character sheets that make use of them exclusively when I play. By the way, here you can find revised stat blocks for the adversaries from the Beta book (much thanks to the author who spent so much time putting those together!). I'm working on my own custom character sheet with hollow green diamonds and yellow "o"s in a column on the skills list. These can then be filled in to represent the dice pool. Perhaps not as visually striking as the character folios, but much more practical for character advancement.
Finally, tokens and maps. I started using tokens instead of minis when D&D 4E launched its Essentials line (thank you Monster Vaults I and II!). They take up less space and they're WAY cheaper, making it much easier to accumulate (and carry!) enough to have multiple representations of whatever creature you're likely to need. Plus cats don't find them as enticing as minis (too bad the dice still aren't safe...). Now I have some Star Wars tokens, which will be a big help for such a little thing. The maps, while just a simple 4-folded sheet of heavy paper, have more value than just the included adventure. The cantina is generic enough to be used over and over again, perhaps making note of any differences without having to draw out a separate map. The Mos Shuuta street map will be useful for groups that return to the city. Most importantly, however, is the large map of the Krayt Fang, the YT-1300 Freighter that the party acquires at the end of the included adventure. Heck, even if you don't use the included adventure most groups will probably have a YT-1300 anyways.
First off, the dice. Fans of Warhammer Fantasy Roleplaying Game (WFRP) have mentioned online that the custom dice for that game are pretty pricey. Like, we might expect $15 a pop for a set of these Star Wars dice once they come out. That's almost as much as the whole box set on Amazon, and half what I paid at my FLGS. Can't remember the source, but in any case it's the only way to get the physical dice at the moment. I put the stickers from the Beta on some dice but something about them just feels off. Which I'm sure is mostly psychological, but still. Having 2 sets of dice will be nice in play.
Next is the novelty of it. I've actually never bought one of these "box sets" for an RPG before, so I was pretty curious exactly how a somewhat crunchy game could be distilled down for beginners. The included adventure does a really good job of it, and even for the experienced roleplayers who are new to the custom dice thing that might be really helpful. Besides, I've actually taught people brand-new to RPing how to play using various systems, so it's cool to finally see a product designed to do exactly that.
Another motivating factor is my preference for more rules-light systems. Not that Edge of the Empire is particularly crunch-heavy, but it's not quite as "clean" as it could be. There are some subsystems that are a little more complicated than they need to be, and it can be tough to sift through everything to expose the bare essentials of the system. That Beta book is 222 pages of almost all crunch, after all. I really like having a bare bones, streamlined version of the system. The "lowest common denominator" as determined by the designers themselves. I can add in the more complicated bits as necessary, or simply use them to fuel my own improvisation from the "base."
New and improved character sheets and stat blocks. Ok, so the stat blocks in the Rulebook are still the crappy space-saving pieces of trash that were in the Beta book, but the adventure includes stat blocks that are easy to reference in combat. They're organized and laid out in a much more user-friendly way, and most importantly include graphical representations of relevant dice pools! Same with the character folios; there's a column in the skill lists that shows the dice pools (2 green diamonds and a yellow hexagon for Pash's Charm skill, for example). Anything that helps players (and GMs!) quickly grab the exact handful of dice that they need to roll is great in my book! When I ran a quick solo playtest combat I didn't like having to look at two different numbers (the characteristic and the skill rank), then the difficulty, etc. every time I made my dice pool. Those numbers just don't jump out at you when you quickly glance at the stat block or character sheet. These graphical dice pools do, and I'll be using stat blocks and character sheets that make use of them exclusively when I play. By the way, here you can find revised stat blocks for the adversaries from the Beta book (much thanks to the author who spent so much time putting those together!). I'm working on my own custom character sheet with hollow green diamonds and yellow "o"s in a column on the skills list. These can then be filled in to represent the dice pool. Perhaps not as visually striking as the character folios, but much more practical for character advancement.
Finally, tokens and maps. I started using tokens instead of minis when D&D 4E launched its Essentials line (thank you Monster Vaults I and II!). They take up less space and they're WAY cheaper, making it much easier to accumulate (and carry!) enough to have multiple representations of whatever creature you're likely to need. Plus cats don't find them as enticing as minis (too bad the dice still aren't safe...). Now I have some Star Wars tokens, which will be a big help for such a little thing. The maps, while just a simple 4-folded sheet of heavy paper, have more value than just the included adventure. The cantina is generic enough to be used over and over again, perhaps making note of any differences without having to draw out a separate map. The Mos Shuuta street map will be useful for groups that return to the city. Most importantly, however, is the large map of the Krayt Fang, the YT-1300 Freighter that the party acquires at the end of the included adventure. Heck, even if you don't use the included adventure most groups will probably have a YT-1300 anyways.
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