Time really does fly, doesn't it? Hard to believe I haven't posted anything in a month. Been busy with non-gaming stuff, but I've also been pecking away at a little side project that I finally finished. It's an Excel spreadsheet that lists every system, their coordinates, and any major hyperlanes that pass through them from the galactic map on pages 328-9 of the Edge of the Empire core rulebook. By default it's sorted alphabetically by system so that you can locate any system easily on the map. While you can sort by hyperlane as well, it's probably easier to just look at the map to see what systems are along the route.
GMs and players alike might find it useful. Enjoy!
Saturday, September 28, 2013
Tuesday, August 27, 2013
Updated Reference Sheets for Edge of the Empire
I had some reference sheets floating around from the Beta, but now that my gaming group has started playing again with the core rulebook I decided I'd revise the sheets (since we went through that first session using slightly erroneous rules).
Here they are, for anyone who wants them. There's a general reference sheet with an extremely consolidated table for spending Advantage/Threat, a list of weapon qualities, and some other misc. bits of information that I found myself wanting to have handy in-game. Second is a starship reference sheet, which has benefitted from a more comprehensive overhaul since the beta version. It's got the pilot and crew maneuvers/actions (though I didn't include obvious and intuitive things like making Gunnery checks), the Chase rules, Astrogation details, and notes on Sensors and repairing Hull Trauma.
These sheets may not be absolutely perfect for everyone. Some people might prefer separate tables for Advantage and Threat, for example, but personally I like the concise table since many of the effects are mirror images of each other, and I tend to improvise a lot anyways. I also left out some information that probably wouldn't come up too often (Bacta rules, some of the less commonly-encountered weapon qualities), and certainly didn't clutter the sheets up with basics like dice symbols, which I've got down.
That said, I'm sure there are plenty of gamers out there who think along the same lines as me, so if these look useful use them!
Here they are, for anyone who wants them. There's a general reference sheet with an extremely consolidated table for spending Advantage/Threat, a list of weapon qualities, and some other misc. bits of information that I found myself wanting to have handy in-game. Second is a starship reference sheet, which has benefitted from a more comprehensive overhaul since the beta version. It's got the pilot and crew maneuvers/actions (though I didn't include obvious and intuitive things like making Gunnery checks), the Chase rules, Astrogation details, and notes on Sensors and repairing Hull Trauma.
These sheets may not be absolutely perfect for everyone. Some people might prefer separate tables for Advantage and Threat, for example, but personally I like the concise table since many of the effects are mirror images of each other, and I tend to improvise a lot anyways. I also left out some information that probably wouldn't come up too often (Bacta rules, some of the less commonly-encountered weapon qualities), and certainly didn't clutter the sheets up with basics like dice symbols, which I've got down.
That said, I'm sure there are plenty of gamers out there who think along the same lines as me, so if these look useful use them!
Flow of Information
The issue of Perception and how it grants PCs information in TTRPGs has been a popular topic in the blogosphere lately. It's also one that I've struggled with personally.
To start with, most players consider Perception to be the most powerful/useful skill in D&D 4E. I know I would train it with virtually all of my characters. But then a funny thing happened; I started reading and researching more narrative-centric RPGs with their fail-forward philosophies and what-not, and my character ideas began to deliberately ditch Perception. For one thing it's often not an "active" skill, but rather one that the GM calls upon PCs to roll, and second things can simply get more interesting (albeit more difficult as well) if you fail a Perception check. I'd rather have to claw my way out of a tight spot that I could have avoided if it was memorable as opposed to getting some piece of information that basically tells me what's up.
Unfortunately this doesn't always work in practice. In the Pathfinder campaign that I'm currently playing in there was a lot of "roll Perception" results as we were exploring a dungeon. Failure came with its typical problems; players knew something was up and then either got no information, or got a surprise scythe-blade trap to the back. But success was equally boring. "Rogue, you find another trap there." "I roll Disable Device." "Ok, you disabled the trap." Lather, rinse, repeat. I'm glad the Rogue got to be useful (he certainly hasn't been in combat), but it still wasn't very exciting.
A while ago there was an article on Thought Crime that explored this very issue.
Dungeon World
Since a lot of the blog articles reference Dungeon World, we'll step back for a second and examine how Perception is handled in that system. One of the Basic Moves in Dungeon World is "Discern Realities." You roll (2D6) +Wis and on a 10+ you can ask 3 questions, and one question on a 7-9 (the "partial success" ubiquitous in Dungeon World rolls). The list of questions is as follows:
That's a key difference with the classic Perception check - the GM isn't just going to tell the player "you find a trap," but rather they're answering a player's specific question. The detail of "there are traps here" might still be included, but the specifics will vary depending on what question was asked. Furthermore, if the player succeeds they will learn something even if the GM didn't plan for anything; by asking the question they are injecting a fact into the narrative based on the GMs response. As a further carrot for the PCs, when acting on the answers they get a +1 forward (bonus to a future action).
This sounds cool and all (I haven't actually played Dungeon World yet), but rolling a 6 or less is still a null result, and the player doesn't get to ask any questions. It's easy enough to incorporate a "fail forward" philosophy, which leads back to another blog post.
Query-Based Perception Hack
Yesterday there was a heavily Dungeon-World inspired article over at Mystic Theurge about Query-Based Perception. The hack draws questions from several *World games and applies them to several different systems, including 13th Age. In some ways this sub-system is more interesting than Dungeon World's. It doesn't offer the "ask 3 questions" option, but it does let PCs ask a question regardless of whether they pass or fail, and either way they'll gain a +2 bonus to any actions while acting on the information. On a failure, the information is wrong (or incomplete), but interesting results are sure to ensue when players risk acting on misinformation to get the +2 bonus. It's a clever way to inject fail-forward into the system.
Clues and Mysteries
Thought Crime posted an interesting sub-system that might serve investigative style games quite well. Ephemera are like temporary Backgrounds in 13th Age, and one such type is the "Clue." Clues can be earned through a Perception or other investigation-related check much like the above system (or Discern Realities in Dungeon World), but they can also be gained from Icon rolls or as loot. Though it's only orthogonally related to the Perception issue, I LOVE the idea of handing out Clues as loot, since they come with a built-in mechanism to entice players to play with the information (the ephemera bonus, which stacks with Backgrounds). A later post outlines how a GM can structure an adventure around these mechanics with an example mystery.
Lorefinder
We're getting a little further from straight Perception here, but that's ok because Perception is only one facet of the bigger issue - how the GM doles out information to the players. I've been eyeing a third-party supplement for Pathfinder for a while now; it incorporates the GUMSHOE system (which is the system that games such as Trail of Cthulu and Ashen Stars uses), and is called Lorefinder. As I understand it, the way that GUMSHOE/Lorefinder works is that simply having an investigative skill is enough to give you some basic information in a situation that relates to that skill. Your proficiency in an Investigative skill (which works differently from your standard skills like Climb, etc.) grants you a number of points that you can use per session rather than a modifier to a d20 roll. You can use one or more of these points from the pool to gain additional information beyond the baseline. The basic information will usually be just enough to get by without grinding the plot to a halt, while the "extra" information will obviously be more useful. The GM will just give the PC the information, no roll required. But the PC will have to decide when to spend those limited points, because some information will obviously be more useful than other.
What to Take Away from all of these Systems?
Clearly a case can be made for facilitating the flow of information between GM and PCs that minimizes both the tedium and roadblocks of straight Perception or investigative skill rolls. Query-based Perception (including that used by the *World games) allows players to steer the details a bit by framing the information they obtain in the form of specific questions. This works best when combined with a fail-forward philosophy, and a bonus when acting on the information further promotes player engagement and can lead to interesting consequences if the information is wrong or incomplete. Expanding the idea of such bonuses (or "ephemera") to investigation in general, temporary Backgrounds (13th Age style) in the form of Clues provide a tangible reward above and beyond the information itself, as well as possibly being used as a limited resource ("spending" clues to move toward solving the mystery). Lorefinder (and GUMSHOE in general) also does a great job of giving players a limited-use investigative resource, and is perhaps the most well-known system for handing out relevant information.
Have I used any of this in my own games? Not directly, no (aside from general "fail-forward"). But I can see the promise, and I wish something like this were in place for the Pathfinder game I'm playing in. Having spent much of the last few hours reading up on these various options, I'm not even sure if everything has really sunk in yet. Using everything would be redundant and, more importantly, overly complex, and I'm not quite sure what would suit my needs best. If my curiosity gets the best of me and I end up purchasing Lorefinder, I may have more to say on the subject.
To start with, most players consider Perception to be the most powerful/useful skill in D&D 4E. I know I would train it with virtually all of my characters. But then a funny thing happened; I started reading and researching more narrative-centric RPGs with their fail-forward philosophies and what-not, and my character ideas began to deliberately ditch Perception. For one thing it's often not an "active" skill, but rather one that the GM calls upon PCs to roll, and second things can simply get more interesting (albeit more difficult as well) if you fail a Perception check. I'd rather have to claw my way out of a tight spot that I could have avoided if it was memorable as opposed to getting some piece of information that basically tells me what's up.
Unfortunately this doesn't always work in practice. In the Pathfinder campaign that I'm currently playing in there was a lot of "roll Perception" results as we were exploring a dungeon. Failure came with its typical problems; players knew something was up and then either got no information, or got a surprise scythe-blade trap to the back. But success was equally boring. "Rogue, you find another trap there." "I roll Disable Device." "Ok, you disabled the trap." Lather, rinse, repeat. I'm glad the Rogue got to be useful (he certainly hasn't been in combat), but it still wasn't very exciting.
A while ago there was an article on Thought Crime that explored this very issue.
Dungeon World
Since a lot of the blog articles reference Dungeon World, we'll step back for a second and examine how Perception is handled in that system. One of the Basic Moves in Dungeon World is "Discern Realities." You roll (2D6) +Wis and on a 10+ you can ask 3 questions, and one question on a 7-9 (the "partial success" ubiquitous in Dungeon World rolls). The list of questions is as follows:
- What happened here recently?
- What is about to happen?
- What should I be on the lookout for?
- What here is useful or valuable to me?
- Who's really in control here?
- What here is not what it appears to be?
That's a key difference with the classic Perception check - the GM isn't just going to tell the player "you find a trap," but rather they're answering a player's specific question. The detail of "there are traps here" might still be included, but the specifics will vary depending on what question was asked. Furthermore, if the player succeeds they will learn something even if the GM didn't plan for anything; by asking the question they are injecting a fact into the narrative based on the GMs response. As a further carrot for the PCs, when acting on the answers they get a +1 forward (bonus to a future action).
This sounds cool and all (I haven't actually played Dungeon World yet), but rolling a 6 or less is still a null result, and the player doesn't get to ask any questions. It's easy enough to incorporate a "fail forward" philosophy, which leads back to another blog post.
Query-Based Perception Hack
Yesterday there was a heavily Dungeon-World inspired article over at Mystic Theurge about Query-Based Perception. The hack draws questions from several *World games and applies them to several different systems, including 13th Age. In some ways this sub-system is more interesting than Dungeon World's. It doesn't offer the "ask 3 questions" option, but it does let PCs ask a question regardless of whether they pass or fail, and either way they'll gain a +2 bonus to any actions while acting on the information. On a failure, the information is wrong (or incomplete), but interesting results are sure to ensue when players risk acting on misinformation to get the +2 bonus. It's a clever way to inject fail-forward into the system.
Clues and Mysteries
Thought Crime posted an interesting sub-system that might serve investigative style games quite well. Ephemera are like temporary Backgrounds in 13th Age, and one such type is the "Clue." Clues can be earned through a Perception or other investigation-related check much like the above system (or Discern Realities in Dungeon World), but they can also be gained from Icon rolls or as loot. Though it's only orthogonally related to the Perception issue, I LOVE the idea of handing out Clues as loot, since they come with a built-in mechanism to entice players to play with the information (the ephemera bonus, which stacks with Backgrounds). A later post outlines how a GM can structure an adventure around these mechanics with an example mystery.
Lorefinder
We're getting a little further from straight Perception here, but that's ok because Perception is only one facet of the bigger issue - how the GM doles out information to the players. I've been eyeing a third-party supplement for Pathfinder for a while now; it incorporates the GUMSHOE system (which is the system that games such as Trail of Cthulu and Ashen Stars uses), and is called Lorefinder. As I understand it, the way that GUMSHOE/Lorefinder works is that simply having an investigative skill is enough to give you some basic information in a situation that relates to that skill. Your proficiency in an Investigative skill (which works differently from your standard skills like Climb, etc.) grants you a number of points that you can use per session rather than a modifier to a d20 roll. You can use one or more of these points from the pool to gain additional information beyond the baseline. The basic information will usually be just enough to get by without grinding the plot to a halt, while the "extra" information will obviously be more useful. The GM will just give the PC the information, no roll required. But the PC will have to decide when to spend those limited points, because some information will obviously be more useful than other.
What to Take Away from all of these Systems?
Clearly a case can be made for facilitating the flow of information between GM and PCs that minimizes both the tedium and roadblocks of straight Perception or investigative skill rolls. Query-based Perception (including that used by the *World games) allows players to steer the details a bit by framing the information they obtain in the form of specific questions. This works best when combined with a fail-forward philosophy, and a bonus when acting on the information further promotes player engagement and can lead to interesting consequences if the information is wrong or incomplete. Expanding the idea of such bonuses (or "ephemera") to investigation in general, temporary Backgrounds (13th Age style) in the form of Clues provide a tangible reward above and beyond the information itself, as well as possibly being used as a limited resource ("spending" clues to move toward solving the mystery). Lorefinder (and GUMSHOE in general) also does a great job of giving players a limited-use investigative resource, and is perhaps the most well-known system for handing out relevant information.
Have I used any of this in my own games? Not directly, no (aside from general "fail-forward"). But I can see the promise, and I wish something like this were in place for the Pathfinder game I'm playing in. Having spent much of the last few hours reading up on these various options, I'm not even sure if everything has really sunk in yet. Using everything would be redundant and, more importantly, overly complex, and I'm not quite sure what would suit my needs best. If my curiosity gets the best of me and I end up purchasing Lorefinder, I may have more to say on the subject.
Saturday, August 24, 2013
The End of the Axtalrath Campaign
I started my 13th Age campaign back in January, as a way to introduce the group to the game. Eight months later, I found myself surprised how long it actually lasted. I had intended to run a shorter campaign just to get people used to the system, but the ideas just kept flowing and it took on a life of its own. With everyone wanting to actually play Edge of the Empire, it seemed like a good time to draw 13th Age to a close, despite the fact that I still had plenty of material floating around in my head.
Finale Summary
We covered a lot of ground throughout this campaign, but the quick and dirty backstory is that there was a recently colonized island in the Midland Sea, where the PCs were residing at the start of the campaign, and about a week (game time) earlier a great red dragon named Axtalrath had taken up residence there. Somewhere in the middle of the campaign the wood elf Cleric had also freed an imprisoned Dracolich, meaning that there were TWO dragons loose now. After escaping the island via a portal at the end of a living dungeon, hanging around in Drakkenhall, and getting some magical aid from Arden, the Great Gold Wyrm's silver dragon counterpart (known as the Sea Dragon, she left the empire when the Midland Sea was tamed, and now guards the Sea Wall from the creatures of the Iron Sea), it was time to return to the island and put a stop to Axtalrath.
Now, Axtalrath was a Huge Red Dragon (the level 13 one from the core book), and the party had just hit level 5. The Dracolich was a Huge 8th level custom creation based on the dragons from the book. Clearly a face-to-face fight was out of the question. Fortunately, the magic that Arden gifted the PCs with would allow them to reverse the polarity of the island's sky-metal monolith (which has been drawing magical energy from the ley lines underneath), forcing it to siphon nearby elemental fire instead. If Axtalrath were nearby, it would destroy her.
With that plan in mind, the PCs began the session in an old cave system where the Dracolich's phylactery was hidden. The kobold guards were toast (all 30+ of them) after the last battle of the previous session, so after recovering the phylactery the party sought out the Dracolich and threatened to destroy it unless he challenged Axtalrath in single combat, drawing her to the monolith. After some negotiation which left the Cleric with cursed hands (think Dumbledore's) and cursed eyes (a self-inflicted complication from an Icon roll), the Dracolich grudgingly agreed.
Cue the big epic battle. The Monk's OUT was that he can climb impossible surfaces, so once Axtalrath was in sight he activated Arden's magic at the top of the monolith while the Fighter did the same at the base. It took a few rounds to charge up, during which the Dracolich occupied most of Axtalrath's attention, while Axtalrath sent some allies (courtesy of The Blue) after the PCs (a hill giant and several Hobgoblin warcasters). Just when things were looking dire for the Dracolich, the energy began arcing from the monolith to Axtalrath. It was then that she knew what was going on, so for 2 rounds before her death she focused her attention on the PCs. One breath weapon killed the Cleric outright in a single shot, and grievously wounded the others. The Fighter was unconscious, so I randomly rolled to see whether she would target her death throes on the Paladin or Monk. Paladin got the unlucky roll, and in a surprising bout of heroism the Monk intercepted, and I let him use Improbably Stunt to use a finishing move as part of the intercept. After 3 attacks from the dragon (2 of which hit; I think I fumbled the other one) the Monk was outright killed, too. Axtalrath swallowed him whole, and as the player noted that he'd had 2 vials of poison on his person, the dragon experienced some mild gastric distress before being immolated and siphoned into the monolith.
The Paladin used a magic axe with item-destroying powers to betray the Dracolich by destroying the phylactery anyways. This axe caused images from the destroyed item's past to be reflected in its blade, and destroying the phylactery therefore replaced the images from the last item the axe destroyed - images that would have implicated the Paladin's political rival and ended his exile, restoring his status in Dwarven society. A noble sacrifice, to be sure, but not so final as the one that the Cleric and Monk made. Of course, being inside of Axtalrath when she was consumed allowed the Monk's essence to be sucked into the island's ley lines through the monolith, so he IS the island now. And the Cleric got to meet the voice behind a mysterious amulet that talked to him - the voice of God. And the Fighter, well, he made the Great Gold Wyrm proud by defeated two rivals.
Icons
This session was interesting because I hadn't planned on having the PCs roll their Relationship Dice until the last minute. The final confrontation was pretty much set without much wiggle room if we were to finish in one session, and I'd had a 6 with the Emperor and a 5 and 6 with the Orc Lord banked from last session. But I figured I'd let them roll one last time, and got more results than usual. Three more 6's and three more 5's, to be precise. Even more surprising was that all of them got used except one of the 5's (for the Emperor).
So how'd I pull it off? Well, I decided to burn the Orc Lord relationship by making the Dracolich's phylactery a shrunken head - that happened to be an orc. No shame in having an Icon roll result in some interesting aesthetic detail. Were it not the last session, something like that could have taken on greater significance later. A 5 with The Three meant that a pair of kobold scouts happened to be discovering the massacre of their fellow guards just as the PCs exited the cave, and they were able to capture one of them and force him to take them to the Dracolich's camp. A 5 for the Priestess let the Cleric (by his suggestion) discover the ritual to destroy the phylactery by studying the various runes carved into the scarified face, but at the expense of getting cursed eyes (a negative background; too bad he didn't live long enough for it to come into play). The Fighter used a 6 with the Great Gold Wyrm (by his suggestion) to convince the Dracolich during negotiations that Arden had provided them with the means to destroy his phylactery (this was before the Cleric discovered its secrets), and the name-dropping also leant much weight to the plan to destroy Axtalrath. The Dracolich was, after all, very much outmatched in that fight. A 6 for the Emperor revealed that an old ally (Lord Taramos) was in residence at the Wizard tower beside the monolith, and being the most powerful wizard on the island he was able to aid them by animating the crystalline walls surrounding the compound during the fight. Rolls for the Dwarf King and Orc Lord determined the allies sent by The Blue through the portal (this is one that I'd actually planned on using BEFORE the session, even jotting down a list of possible allies associated with each Icon in the party).
And that about covered it. It turned out to be perhaps the most Icon-heavy session in the campaign, despite the fact that the plot was pretty much "set." I guess the moral of the story here is GMs shouldn't be afraid to stack the odds against the PCs, and let Icon rolls determine whatever little advantages they can eke out to level the playing field a little bit. It's usually pretty easy to come up with story-guidance results as a GM, but until that sub-plot resolves itself sometimes it's tough to interpret Icon rolls. But that's cool, because if you just increase the pressure on the PCs they might just come up with clever ways to leverage their connections with the Icons. In some ways I don't think that the player-input facet of the Icons hit its stride until later in the campaign, which makes me really excited for the next campaign now that the players know the ropes!
Finale Summary
We covered a lot of ground throughout this campaign, but the quick and dirty backstory is that there was a recently colonized island in the Midland Sea, where the PCs were residing at the start of the campaign, and about a week (game time) earlier a great red dragon named Axtalrath had taken up residence there. Somewhere in the middle of the campaign the wood elf Cleric had also freed an imprisoned Dracolich, meaning that there were TWO dragons loose now. After escaping the island via a portal at the end of a living dungeon, hanging around in Drakkenhall, and getting some magical aid from Arden, the Great Gold Wyrm's silver dragon counterpart (known as the Sea Dragon, she left the empire when the Midland Sea was tamed, and now guards the Sea Wall from the creatures of the Iron Sea), it was time to return to the island and put a stop to Axtalrath.
Now, Axtalrath was a Huge Red Dragon (the level 13 one from the core book), and the party had just hit level 5. The Dracolich was a Huge 8th level custom creation based on the dragons from the book. Clearly a face-to-face fight was out of the question. Fortunately, the magic that Arden gifted the PCs with would allow them to reverse the polarity of the island's sky-metal monolith (which has been drawing magical energy from the ley lines underneath), forcing it to siphon nearby elemental fire instead. If Axtalrath were nearby, it would destroy her.
With that plan in mind, the PCs began the session in an old cave system where the Dracolich's phylactery was hidden. The kobold guards were toast (all 30+ of them) after the last battle of the previous session, so after recovering the phylactery the party sought out the Dracolich and threatened to destroy it unless he challenged Axtalrath in single combat, drawing her to the monolith. After some negotiation which left the Cleric with cursed hands (think Dumbledore's) and cursed eyes (a self-inflicted complication from an Icon roll), the Dracolich grudgingly agreed.
Cue the big epic battle. The Monk's OUT was that he can climb impossible surfaces, so once Axtalrath was in sight he activated Arden's magic at the top of the monolith while the Fighter did the same at the base. It took a few rounds to charge up, during which the Dracolich occupied most of Axtalrath's attention, while Axtalrath sent some allies (courtesy of The Blue) after the PCs (a hill giant and several Hobgoblin warcasters). Just when things were looking dire for the Dracolich, the energy began arcing from the monolith to Axtalrath. It was then that she knew what was going on, so for 2 rounds before her death she focused her attention on the PCs. One breath weapon killed the Cleric outright in a single shot, and grievously wounded the others. The Fighter was unconscious, so I randomly rolled to see whether she would target her death throes on the Paladin or Monk. Paladin got the unlucky roll, and in a surprising bout of heroism the Monk intercepted, and I let him use Improbably Stunt to use a finishing move as part of the intercept. After 3 attacks from the dragon (2 of which hit; I think I fumbled the other one) the Monk was outright killed, too. Axtalrath swallowed him whole, and as the player noted that he'd had 2 vials of poison on his person, the dragon experienced some mild gastric distress before being immolated and siphoned into the monolith.
The Paladin used a magic axe with item-destroying powers to betray the Dracolich by destroying the phylactery anyways. This axe caused images from the destroyed item's past to be reflected in its blade, and destroying the phylactery therefore replaced the images from the last item the axe destroyed - images that would have implicated the Paladin's political rival and ended his exile, restoring his status in Dwarven society. A noble sacrifice, to be sure, but not so final as the one that the Cleric and Monk made. Of course, being inside of Axtalrath when she was consumed allowed the Monk's essence to be sucked into the island's ley lines through the monolith, so he IS the island now. And the Cleric got to meet the voice behind a mysterious amulet that talked to him - the voice of God. And the Fighter, well, he made the Great Gold Wyrm proud by defeated two rivals.
Icons
This session was interesting because I hadn't planned on having the PCs roll their Relationship Dice until the last minute. The final confrontation was pretty much set without much wiggle room if we were to finish in one session, and I'd had a 6 with the Emperor and a 5 and 6 with the Orc Lord banked from last session. But I figured I'd let them roll one last time, and got more results than usual. Three more 6's and three more 5's, to be precise. Even more surprising was that all of them got used except one of the 5's (for the Emperor).
So how'd I pull it off? Well, I decided to burn the Orc Lord relationship by making the Dracolich's phylactery a shrunken head - that happened to be an orc. No shame in having an Icon roll result in some interesting aesthetic detail. Were it not the last session, something like that could have taken on greater significance later. A 5 with The Three meant that a pair of kobold scouts happened to be discovering the massacre of their fellow guards just as the PCs exited the cave, and they were able to capture one of them and force him to take them to the Dracolich's camp. A 5 for the Priestess let the Cleric (by his suggestion) discover the ritual to destroy the phylactery by studying the various runes carved into the scarified face, but at the expense of getting cursed eyes (a negative background; too bad he didn't live long enough for it to come into play). The Fighter used a 6 with the Great Gold Wyrm (by his suggestion) to convince the Dracolich during negotiations that Arden had provided them with the means to destroy his phylactery (this was before the Cleric discovered its secrets), and the name-dropping also leant much weight to the plan to destroy Axtalrath. The Dracolich was, after all, very much outmatched in that fight. A 6 for the Emperor revealed that an old ally (Lord Taramos) was in residence at the Wizard tower beside the monolith, and being the most powerful wizard on the island he was able to aid them by animating the crystalline walls surrounding the compound during the fight. Rolls for the Dwarf King and Orc Lord determined the allies sent by The Blue through the portal (this is one that I'd actually planned on using BEFORE the session, even jotting down a list of possible allies associated with each Icon in the party).
And that about covered it. It turned out to be perhaps the most Icon-heavy session in the campaign, despite the fact that the plot was pretty much "set." I guess the moral of the story here is GMs shouldn't be afraid to stack the odds against the PCs, and let Icon rolls determine whatever little advantages they can eke out to level the playing field a little bit. It's usually pretty easy to come up with story-guidance results as a GM, but until that sub-plot resolves itself sometimes it's tough to interpret Icon rolls. But that's cool, because if you just increase the pressure on the PCs they might just come up with clever ways to leverage their connections with the Icons. In some ways I don't think that the player-input facet of the Icons hit its stride until later in the campaign, which makes me really excited for the next campaign now that the players know the ropes!
Monday, August 19, 2013
13th Age Mechanics in Pathfinder
Well, I did something I never thought I would do again - I started playing in a Pathfinder game. Largely because one of the players from my 13th Age campaign is GMing it, and he's incorporating some 13th Age mechanics into the game, outlined below.
On a related note, this week I'm wrapping up my current 13th Age campaign. I've been driving the plot to its conclusion for the last few sessions more quickly than I'd initially intended, with a ton of cool ideas still floating around in my head. But I'm itching to try Edge of the Empire, and so is the rest of the group, and I'm also a bit burnt out on GMing (this Pathfinder campaign aside, I haven't played a PC for about a year and a half). It's been going 8 months strong, but I look forward to the next game when everyone has a better idea of what to expect from the character classes (for example, my Paladin player hates his class).
Expect me to focus a bit more on Star Wars and a bit less on 13th Age coming up soon, but I'm sure I'll get another 13th Age game up and running after 13 True Ways is released.
- Icons. The published list is used as a base, though several of them have been changed to some degree or another. Also, there's only 10 or 11 of them. Icon relationships in the party include the High Druid, the General (sort of a combination of the Emperor and the Crusader, but not evil), the Prince of Shadows, the Archmage, the Great Gold Wyrm, and The Holy Mother (a slightly modified Priestess).
- One Unique Thing. This is used as-is, though some of the players have elected to keep theirs a secret. My character's OUT is "stolen" from Angel (The Buffy spinoff), as he can read someone's destiny when they sing (like Lorne, though the character is human, and even though he's a Bard he doesn't sing himself). Interesting, one of the other players completely independently said that his character's OUT is that he knows that his fate is death, but doesn't yet know how he'll die.
- The Escalation Die is in, but the GM is capping it at 4 to keep the bonuses from getting out of hand (not sure how long fights will last; many of the PCs are more social/exploration oriented as opposed to strong combatants).
- Backgrounds, much to my dismay, are NOT in. Yep, still have to deal with that long, fiddly skill list (one of the things I like least about Pathfinder). Oh well, I'll live.
- The GM has let me swap out Bardic Performance (like I said, my Bard doesn't sing) for the Storyteller talent from 13th Age. It's already come into play beautifully. As we were searching through the house of a murder (and theft, but at that point does it really matter?) victim my Bard mentioned that the Rogue really looked like he knew his stuff when it comes to breaking and entering, and asked if he recognized any patterns or anything about the way the place was searched (only very specific things were stolen). The Rogue got to re-roll his story-guide relationship with the Prince of Shadows, and got a 6! So we got some info, confirming the killer as belonging to his old guild.
On a related note, this week I'm wrapping up my current 13th Age campaign. I've been driving the plot to its conclusion for the last few sessions more quickly than I'd initially intended, with a ton of cool ideas still floating around in my head. But I'm itching to try Edge of the Empire, and so is the rest of the group, and I'm also a bit burnt out on GMing (this Pathfinder campaign aside, I haven't played a PC for about a year and a half). It's been going 8 months strong, but I look forward to the next game when everyone has a better idea of what to expect from the character classes (for example, my Paladin player hates his class).
Expect me to focus a bit more on Star Wars and a bit less on 13th Age coming up soon, but I'm sure I'll get another 13th Age game up and running after 13 True Ways is released.
Wednesday, July 31, 2013
The Mazarbul Gamble
I recently posted my views on improvisational stunt systems in TTRPGs. In it, I described my own version of such a system that I'd "codified" in 13th Age, as well as a similar system from the Thought Crime blog called Gamble! Ever the tinkerer, in this post I'll combine the two systems in my quest for a fun, simple, and intuitive houserule for the game.
Due to the very nature of the fact that these are "improvisational" stunts, this set of rules is really more of a guideline. Sometimes players will come up with stuff that doesn't necessarily fit well into this framework, but hopefully it provides a solid enough framework for GMs to build off of and adjudicate fairly.
THE BASIC IDEA
A Gamble is whatever the player would like to achieve. The options below should cover a wide variety of possibilities, with the mechanics reflecting the intent of the action. The intended effect can be described in whatever narrative way that the player sees fit.
Gambles are usually a quick action skill check, but some of the more impressive effects require a standard action.
Risks are consequences chosen by the GM. If the skill check for the Gamble fails, then the Risk is triggered.
Any quick action Gamble can be used as a standard action to avoid a Risk.
The DC for skill checks will either be based on the standard difficulty for the environment, or if the action directly opposes an opponent then their PD or MD is used instead. For simplicity, targeting PD or MD is equivalent to a Normal difficulty. If the action would normally be a Hard difficulty, add 5 to PD/MD.
GAMBLES
Combat Maneuver (quick action): Make a skill check (usually Str or Dex) against your opponents PD (usually). Optional - stronger effects may additionally require you to hit with your next attack this turn, or may be triggered with a natural 16+ roll on the skill check.
Examples:
Trip - The target is Stuck until they spend a move action to stand up. Optional stronger effect - melee attacks get a +2 bonus to hit the target.
Bull Rush - The target is pushed back a few feet, popping them free of any engagements except the bull rusher (and potentially pushing them into new engagements) Optional - if pushing the target into dangerous terrain (a fire, off of a cliff, etc.) you have two options. You can use PD + 5 as the DC (or a Hard DC), or you can allow the target a Normal Save to negate the effect. I prefer increasing the DC personally, because it minimizes die rolling and speeds things along. If the target is Large or Huge, add an additional +5 to the DC (so it's Very Hard to push a larger creature into dangerous terrain).
Grapple - The target takes a -2 penalty to disengage checks (you must have at least one hand free).
Gain the Advantage (quick action): Make a skill check against the target's MD or PD, or use the Normal DC for the environment. Choose 1 of the following effects (or similar), which lasts until the end of your next turn:
Optional - double the bonus on a natural 16+.
Players that really like to gamble may want a stronger effect. Feel free to give it to them, with a Hard DC (or adding +5 to PD/MD). Instead, they may choose from these effects:
Examples: Anything that falls into the umbrella of an Agility or Smarts trick in Savage Worlds probably works here. Taunting the opponent, throwing sand in his eyes, feinting, using footwork to improve your relative positioning, etc.
Massive Attack (standard action): First, make a skill check (Hard DC) with an ability appropriate to the action you're describing. If successful, you can make a basic attack against 1d3 nearby enemies in a group (whether it's a melee or ranged attack depends on how you describe the action).
Examples: Sweep attack, cutting/shooting the rope of a chandelier, throwing a table, etc.
Increase Momentum (standard action): First, describe how you're increasing the momentum of the battle and then roll a skill check with an appropriate ability (Normal DC). Immediately raise the escalation die by 1 on a success. This should probably be limited to 1 attempt per battle, but if you're feeling generous you should at least require a different narrative description for additional attempts (in other words, momentum gained from the same description doesn't stack).
RISKS
Reversal: One enemy (usually the target, but a ranged leader or lurker works well too) makes an immediate basic attack against the character. If it makes more sense that the action would endanger an ally, then an ally can suffer the reversal (this will usually only happen if the character that took the Gamble is in a fairly safe position).
Vulnerable: Until the end of the battle, the character is Vulnerable (+2 crit range to all attacks targeting the character).
Lost Momentum: Decrease the escalation die by 1. This should usually be a pretty dramatic event, so you shouldn't overuse it (in other words, don't do it more than once per battle, but see Increase Momentum).
Backfired: Something went wrong, and now the character is either Dazed or Stuck (save ends).
Due to the very nature of the fact that these are "improvisational" stunts, this set of rules is really more of a guideline. Sometimes players will come up with stuff that doesn't necessarily fit well into this framework, but hopefully it provides a solid enough framework for GMs to build off of and adjudicate fairly.
THE BASIC IDEA
A Gamble is whatever the player would like to achieve. The options below should cover a wide variety of possibilities, with the mechanics reflecting the intent of the action. The intended effect can be described in whatever narrative way that the player sees fit.
Gambles are usually a quick action skill check, but some of the more impressive effects require a standard action.
Risks are consequences chosen by the GM. If the skill check for the Gamble fails, then the Risk is triggered.
Any quick action Gamble can be used as a standard action to avoid a Risk.
The DC for skill checks will either be based on the standard difficulty for the environment, or if the action directly opposes an opponent then their PD or MD is used instead. For simplicity, targeting PD or MD is equivalent to a Normal difficulty. If the action would normally be a Hard difficulty, add 5 to PD/MD.
GAMBLES
Combat Maneuver (quick action): Make a skill check (usually Str or Dex) against your opponents PD (usually). Optional - stronger effects may additionally require you to hit with your next attack this turn, or may be triggered with a natural 16+ roll on the skill check.
Examples:
Trip - The target is Stuck until they spend a move action to stand up. Optional stronger effect - melee attacks get a +2 bonus to hit the target.
Bull Rush - The target is pushed back a few feet, popping them free of any engagements except the bull rusher (and potentially pushing them into new engagements) Optional - if pushing the target into dangerous terrain (a fire, off of a cliff, etc.) you have two options. You can use PD + 5 as the DC (or a Hard DC), or you can allow the target a Normal Save to negate the effect. I prefer increasing the DC personally, because it minimizes die rolling and speeds things along. If the target is Large or Huge, add an additional +5 to the DC (so it's Very Hard to push a larger creature into dangerous terrain).
Grapple - The target takes a -2 penalty to disengage checks (you must have at least one hand free).
Gain the Advantage (quick action): Make a skill check against the target's MD or PD, or use the Normal DC for the environment. Choose 1 of the following effects (or similar), which lasts until the end of your next turn:
- the target is Vulnerable
- you or 1 ally gains a +2 bonus to attack rolls against the target
- you or 1 ally gains a bonus to damage against the target equal to your level.
Optional - double the bonus on a natural 16+.
Players that really like to gamble may want a stronger effect. Feel free to give it to them, with a Hard DC (or adding +5 to PD/MD). Instead, they may choose from these effects:
- the target is Dazed
- the target is Hampered
- choose one of the Normal DC effects, and make it Save Ends.
Examples: Anything that falls into the umbrella of an Agility or Smarts trick in Savage Worlds probably works here. Taunting the opponent, throwing sand in his eyes, feinting, using footwork to improve your relative positioning, etc.
Massive Attack (standard action): First, make a skill check (Hard DC) with an ability appropriate to the action you're describing. If successful, you can make a basic attack against 1d3 nearby enemies in a group (whether it's a melee or ranged attack depends on how you describe the action).
Examples: Sweep attack, cutting/shooting the rope of a chandelier, throwing a table, etc.
Increase Momentum (standard action): First, describe how you're increasing the momentum of the battle and then roll a skill check with an appropriate ability (Normal DC). Immediately raise the escalation die by 1 on a success. This should probably be limited to 1 attempt per battle, but if you're feeling generous you should at least require a different narrative description for additional attempts (in other words, momentum gained from the same description doesn't stack).
RISKS
Reversal: One enemy (usually the target, but a ranged leader or lurker works well too) makes an immediate basic attack against the character. If it makes more sense that the action would endanger an ally, then an ally can suffer the reversal (this will usually only happen if the character that took the Gamble is in a fairly safe position).
Vulnerable: Until the end of the battle, the character is Vulnerable (+2 crit range to all attacks targeting the character).
Lost Momentum: Decrease the escalation die by 1. This should usually be a pretty dramatic event, so you shouldn't overuse it (in other words, don't do it more than once per battle, but see Increase Momentum).
Backfired: Something went wrong, and now the character is either Dazed or Stuck (save ends).
Saturday, July 27, 2013
On Improvisational Stunt Systems
I've been thinking a lot about improvisational actions in tabletop RPG combat lately. I suppose it was initially triggered by arguments during the early D&D Next playtest process, specifically over the issue of simple vs complex mechanics. Some favored a minimalist, "old school" rule set because you're forced to get narratively creative to do things in the game world since you can't fall back on "I use X skill," or "I use my ____ power." Furthermore, complex and tactical rule sets can actively discourage this type of thinking because the existence of a feat/power/whatever that says you can do X means that characters without that thing CAN'T do the action. In other words, it has "No" built into the system, which runs counter to the "Yes, and..." philosophy of many modern RPGs. Kind of ironic, since old school D&D came out on the side of the modern "Yes, and...".
The thing is, though, that I like tactical games too. I'm also not convinced that the two philosophies are mutually exclusive, and playing 13th Age has taught me that. And so I will examine the influence that several game systems have had on my thoughts on the matter, and hopefully will arrive at some generic principles that can be applied to most any system to allow a more improvisational style of play.
Savage Worlds
I'll admit that I've never actually played the system, but I have the Deluxe Explorer's Edition and I've read enough forum threads to have a good idea for how the system plays. Granted I don't like everything about the system, but I can't help but appreciate the elegance of the Combat Survival Guide. There are just so many ways that so many different types of characters (including non-combat types) can contribute toward taking down a foe, and everything's on one very simple reference page.
It should be noted that the system is very streamlined, and small modifiers make a big difference because of how the core dice mechanic works. Turns also go really fast, and there isn't any HP so stunting an enemy to make him easier to hit later will be much more effective than attacking for a non-so-solid hit.
Ultimately, the system works well because it's simple and generic. "Agility Trick" covers everything from throwing sand in someone's face, to a wild flurry of sword strikes that tire the foe or leave him open without any intent of hitting him, to running toward a wall while being pursued and then jumping off of it, flipping over the foe's back at the last minute to leave him off balance and facing the wall. The sky is the limit in terms of the narrative.
Pathfinder/D&D 3.x
Now, for a completely diametrically opposed rules set. This is an important system to cover because of its sheer popularity, and the fact that many gamers cut their teeth on it (myself included). Thanks to the SRD, it's extremely easy to get into it, and there are a lot of other games that use the basic d20 system (all the same arguments apply).
In Pathfinder/3.x, you have a HUGE list of feats (a prolific amount of splatbooks doesn't help here), and so there's effectively a HUGE list of "you can't do that unless you have this feat" restrictions. It's also a very rules-heavy, fiddly system that strives toward simulationism (though it often falls short, especially compared with the "common sense" approach of a more narrative system). There are very specific and complicated rules for grappling, tripping, sundering, etc. In other words, the basis for stunts. The problem is that the baseline options for these stunts are extremely poor choices. You give up your attack to do them, the roll is heavily penalized, and there's often a risk of taking opportunity attacks on top of that. The designers might as well have just saved the page space and just wrote "don't do any of this."
Except, of course, for the feats. There are feat chains that modify these options, but with feats being such a limited resource (and a grab bag of EVERYTHING, from attack/damage bonuses to new options to knowing new languages) it's a pretty big deal to specialize in these "stunts." A melee character can be a grappling master, or a tripping master, sure, but then it becomes a non-choice essentially. Since he's spent so many character resources into that thing he'd damn well better press his "trip" or "grapple" button as much as possible, as opposed to thinking creatively in terms of what's going on in the game world. If he does think creatively and tries something off-the-wall (that he hasn't invested feat support in) he's less likely to succeed.
That is a fundamental failure of any stunt system. The whole point is to make meaningful decisions in the moment, based on the fiction. For example: Oh, this guy's wearing really heavy armor with a big visor on his helm, so that means if I dart around, keep moving, and try to stay out of his field of vision I should gain some kind of advantage. Maybe he'll tire himself trying to chase me, or simply be less able to hit me, or maybe I'll try to maneuver him into a position so that I can take advantage of the environment. This kind of stuff would happen all the time in Savage Worlds, but it just never comes up in a PF/3.x game. Rather, you're reduced to your "auto-choices" of flank to better hit him, and then use whatever toys you've specialized in to wear him down. Creativity is actively discouraged by default, but that's not to say that it has to be that way. The precedent set by other d20 games may provide insight into house rules that can be adapted to the system.
D&D 4E
In some ways the system fails just as much as PF/3.5 in terms of providing an improvisational stunt system. While a unified power structure did wonders for ensuring that all classes were balanced and everyone had interested options, the game still usually devolved into "button mashing" in the same way that PF/3.5 did. Fights mostly involved choosing whichever power would work best in any given round. Now, the good news is that choosing powers wasn't a resource sink that could have been spent on something else; it was its own little resource pool, and everyone got a good number of interesting, tactically meaningful choices.
Furthermore, the flavor of a given power was often extremely mutable. 4E was written in a very clear "technical writing" style that defined the game mechanics that were being used. Those mechanics were intentionally more streamlined than PF/3.x so that the focus would be on the narrative rather than the fiddly rules. Instead of 5 flavors of "sickened," "dazed," or "afraid" 4E would me inclined to lump everything like that under "Dazed." Seriously, whereas PF has 3 pages of extremely tiny (8 point font?) text in "wall" format of conditions, 4E has a single page of larger-font, stat-block-style conditions with bullet points. Having very specific conditions is limiting, whereas having a broad mechanic that can be interpreted multiple ways opens the door for narrative "stunting."
Unfortunately, the devil's in the details. You're still just picking from a list even if you're doing something different in the game world each time you use the power, but worse is the fact that the long combats, the large amount of powers available, and the tactical complexity means that there's often not time to think about combat in terms of the narrative. Most of the time players just say "I use X power" and call it a day (and fights still take forever). Granted there's also a table in the DMG (the infamous "Page 42") that provides a baseline for improvisational actions, but a) the effects are inferior to most powers (though not to the extent that the baseline PF/3.x maneuvers were), and b) at mid to high levels most players can get overwhelmed with the sheer number of options their character has, let alone trying to think "outside the box," as it were.
13th Age
Ah, 13th Age. The beauty of this system (which is technically a d20 system but uses a lot of narrative indie-game mechanics) is that it's streamlined even further than 4E, and less tactically complex. On top of that, it also has extremely transparent math, sidebars discussing the designer's intents and/or disagreements, and encourages improvisation and house-ruling.
But for all that there's no codified stunt system.
Individual classes do have options that grant them improvisational carte-blanche. We'll examine the Rogue's, which is the Swashbuckle talent, because it hints at unwritten general stunt rules. Swashbuckle basically boils down to "do a fun stunt, and you'll probably want to make an attack as part of it." Like 4E (and unlike PF/3.x) you're not given up your attack, but rather adding a "rider" on top of it. Unlike 4E the rider is whatever makes sense given your description. Interestingly, the last paragraph reads "Of course, 13th Age is a game where everyone might attempt stunts like this at some point. But you're the swashbuckler who is prone to automatically succeeding, often, instead of needing a difficult skill check to pull the stunt off."
Unfortunately, the core book has no guidelines on how to implement such a skill-based stunt system in combat.
I eventually settled on houseruling it like this:
Edge of the Empire
I'll end how I started, by discussing a non-d20 system to illustrate how different core mechanics can be more or less improvisational friendly out of the gate.
EotE is a huge divergence from your classic d20 experience because not only does it use a dice pool system, but it employs narrative dice. The faces have no numbers, but rather different combinations of success and failure symbols (which cancel each other out), advantage and threat (which cancel each other out and add additional effects, positive or negative, independent of success), and Triumph and Despair (rare symbols that don't cancel, an indicate something REALLY good or REALLY bad).
Like Savage Worlds, combat rounds tend to move quickly so it's less of a big deal to give up your attack in order to do something else. It's also really easy to represent different effects and circumstances by simply adding, upgrading, or removing dice from the dice pool.
Each roll results in improvisation and interpretation of the results because there are so many possible combinations and variations of outcomes (which can be generally grouped as success, failure, success with complications, success with additional benefits, failure with complications, and failure with benefits). In some ways, an improvisational stunt system is inexorably entwined into the core mechanic.
Conclusions
Obviously something like Edge of the Empire's core mechanics are pretty impossible to introduce into other systems without a massive re-write of the rules. But the effects on gameplay are certainly valuable to keep in mind, as they can probably be achieved in other ways. I'll certainly be keeping this in mind as I play more EotE.
Savage Worlds is a good model to use in 13th Age, as both are narrative-centric (add whatever "trappings" onto the mechanics) games with intentionally streamlined systems designed for ease-of-use. They're very different systems, of course, but they do have those common themes. Even though I've never run or played Savage Worlds, its rules have certainly influenced by own stunt system, and I can see the influence in the Gamble! system as well.
By adopting some principles from Savage Worlds into 13th Age, 13th Age may serve as a "bridge" for incorporating some of these mechanics into a more traditional d20 game like D&D 4E or Pathfinder. I'm going to be playing in a Pathfinder game soon, after having sworn off 3.x and its ilk in favor of less fiddly systems. Mostly because the group still wants to play Pathfinder (I'll never DM it, though), and because the DM is looking to incorporate some 13th Age mechanics into the game (definitely One Unique Thing, and ED and Icons are likely as well). It intrigues me, and I'm curious whether those additions will make Pathfinder more palatable to me. Perhaps once I re-familiarize myself with its rules I can begin to adapt some form of improvised stunts rules to the system.
The thing is, though, that I like tactical games too. I'm also not convinced that the two philosophies are mutually exclusive, and playing 13th Age has taught me that. And so I will examine the influence that several game systems have had on my thoughts on the matter, and hopefully will arrive at some generic principles that can be applied to most any system to allow a more improvisational style of play.
Savage Worlds
I'll admit that I've never actually played the system, but I have the Deluxe Explorer's Edition and I've read enough forum threads to have a good idea for how the system plays. Granted I don't like everything about the system, but I can't help but appreciate the elegance of the Combat Survival Guide. There are just so many ways that so many different types of characters (including non-combat types) can contribute toward taking down a foe, and everything's on one very simple reference page.
It should be noted that the system is very streamlined, and small modifiers make a big difference because of how the core dice mechanic works. Turns also go really fast, and there isn't any HP so stunting an enemy to make him easier to hit later will be much more effective than attacking for a non-so-solid hit.
Ultimately, the system works well because it's simple and generic. "Agility Trick" covers everything from throwing sand in someone's face, to a wild flurry of sword strikes that tire the foe or leave him open without any intent of hitting him, to running toward a wall while being pursued and then jumping off of it, flipping over the foe's back at the last minute to leave him off balance and facing the wall. The sky is the limit in terms of the narrative.
Pathfinder/D&D 3.x
Now, for a completely diametrically opposed rules set. This is an important system to cover because of its sheer popularity, and the fact that many gamers cut their teeth on it (myself included). Thanks to the SRD, it's extremely easy to get into it, and there are a lot of other games that use the basic d20 system (all the same arguments apply).
In Pathfinder/3.x, you have a HUGE list of feats (a prolific amount of splatbooks doesn't help here), and so there's effectively a HUGE list of "you can't do that unless you have this feat" restrictions. It's also a very rules-heavy, fiddly system that strives toward simulationism (though it often falls short, especially compared with the "common sense" approach of a more narrative system). There are very specific and complicated rules for grappling, tripping, sundering, etc. In other words, the basis for stunts. The problem is that the baseline options for these stunts are extremely poor choices. You give up your attack to do them, the roll is heavily penalized, and there's often a risk of taking opportunity attacks on top of that. The designers might as well have just saved the page space and just wrote "don't do any of this."
Except, of course, for the feats. There are feat chains that modify these options, but with feats being such a limited resource (and a grab bag of EVERYTHING, from attack/damage bonuses to new options to knowing new languages) it's a pretty big deal to specialize in these "stunts." A melee character can be a grappling master, or a tripping master, sure, but then it becomes a non-choice essentially. Since he's spent so many character resources into that thing he'd damn well better press his "trip" or "grapple" button as much as possible, as opposed to thinking creatively in terms of what's going on in the game world. If he does think creatively and tries something off-the-wall (that he hasn't invested feat support in) he's less likely to succeed.
That is a fundamental failure of any stunt system. The whole point is to make meaningful decisions in the moment, based on the fiction. For example: Oh, this guy's wearing really heavy armor with a big visor on his helm, so that means if I dart around, keep moving, and try to stay out of his field of vision I should gain some kind of advantage. Maybe he'll tire himself trying to chase me, or simply be less able to hit me, or maybe I'll try to maneuver him into a position so that I can take advantage of the environment. This kind of stuff would happen all the time in Savage Worlds, but it just never comes up in a PF/3.x game. Rather, you're reduced to your "auto-choices" of flank to better hit him, and then use whatever toys you've specialized in to wear him down. Creativity is actively discouraged by default, but that's not to say that it has to be that way. The precedent set by other d20 games may provide insight into house rules that can be adapted to the system.
D&D 4E
In some ways the system fails just as much as PF/3.5 in terms of providing an improvisational stunt system. While a unified power structure did wonders for ensuring that all classes were balanced and everyone had interested options, the game still usually devolved into "button mashing" in the same way that PF/3.5 did. Fights mostly involved choosing whichever power would work best in any given round. Now, the good news is that choosing powers wasn't a resource sink that could have been spent on something else; it was its own little resource pool, and everyone got a good number of interesting, tactically meaningful choices.
Furthermore, the flavor of a given power was often extremely mutable. 4E was written in a very clear "technical writing" style that defined the game mechanics that were being used. Those mechanics were intentionally more streamlined than PF/3.x so that the focus would be on the narrative rather than the fiddly rules. Instead of 5 flavors of "sickened," "dazed," or "afraid" 4E would me inclined to lump everything like that under "Dazed." Seriously, whereas PF has 3 pages of extremely tiny (8 point font?) text in "wall" format of conditions, 4E has a single page of larger-font, stat-block-style conditions with bullet points. Having very specific conditions is limiting, whereas having a broad mechanic that can be interpreted multiple ways opens the door for narrative "stunting."
Unfortunately, the devil's in the details. You're still just picking from a list even if you're doing something different in the game world each time you use the power, but worse is the fact that the long combats, the large amount of powers available, and the tactical complexity means that there's often not time to think about combat in terms of the narrative. Most of the time players just say "I use X power" and call it a day (and fights still take forever). Granted there's also a table in the DMG (the infamous "Page 42") that provides a baseline for improvisational actions, but a) the effects are inferior to most powers (though not to the extent that the baseline PF/3.x maneuvers were), and b) at mid to high levels most players can get overwhelmed with the sheer number of options their character has, let alone trying to think "outside the box," as it were.
13th Age
Ah, 13th Age. The beauty of this system (which is technically a d20 system but uses a lot of narrative indie-game mechanics) is that it's streamlined even further than 4E, and less tactically complex. On top of that, it also has extremely transparent math, sidebars discussing the designer's intents and/or disagreements, and encourages improvisation and house-ruling.
But for all that there's no codified stunt system.
Individual classes do have options that grant them improvisational carte-blanche. We'll examine the Rogue's, which is the Swashbuckle talent, because it hints at unwritten general stunt rules. Swashbuckle basically boils down to "do a fun stunt, and you'll probably want to make an attack as part of it." Like 4E (and unlike PF/3.x) you're not given up your attack, but rather adding a "rider" on top of it. Unlike 4E the rider is whatever makes sense given your description. Interestingly, the last paragraph reads "Of course, 13th Age is a game where everyone might attempt stunts like this at some point. But you're the swashbuckler who is prone to automatically succeeding, often, instead of needing a difficult skill check to pull the stunt off."
Unfortunately, the core book has no guidelines on how to implement such a skill-based stunt system in combat.
I eventually settled on houseruling it like this:
- Make a skill check as a quick action. DC could be for the environment, or the foe's PD/MD.
- If you succeed, you can tack on an improvisational effect on your next attack appropriate to the stunt's narrative description.
- If you fail, the opponent gets an opportunity attack.
- If you're feeling really cautious, you can roll the skill check as a standard action instead of a quick action, giving up your attack but avoiding the risk for an opportunity attack.
Edge of the Empire
I'll end how I started, by discussing a non-d20 system to illustrate how different core mechanics can be more or less improvisational friendly out of the gate.
EotE is a huge divergence from your classic d20 experience because not only does it use a dice pool system, but it employs narrative dice. The faces have no numbers, but rather different combinations of success and failure symbols (which cancel each other out), advantage and threat (which cancel each other out and add additional effects, positive or negative, independent of success), and Triumph and Despair (rare symbols that don't cancel, an indicate something REALLY good or REALLY bad).
Like Savage Worlds, combat rounds tend to move quickly so it's less of a big deal to give up your attack in order to do something else. It's also really easy to represent different effects and circumstances by simply adding, upgrading, or removing dice from the dice pool.
Each roll results in improvisation and interpretation of the results because there are so many possible combinations and variations of outcomes (which can be generally grouped as success, failure, success with complications, success with additional benefits, failure with complications, and failure with benefits). In some ways, an improvisational stunt system is inexorably entwined into the core mechanic.
Conclusions
Obviously something like Edge of the Empire's core mechanics are pretty impossible to introduce into other systems without a massive re-write of the rules. But the effects on gameplay are certainly valuable to keep in mind, as they can probably be achieved in other ways. I'll certainly be keeping this in mind as I play more EotE.
Savage Worlds is a good model to use in 13th Age, as both are narrative-centric (add whatever "trappings" onto the mechanics) games with intentionally streamlined systems designed for ease-of-use. They're very different systems, of course, but they do have those common themes. Even though I've never run or played Savage Worlds, its rules have certainly influenced by own stunt system, and I can see the influence in the Gamble! system as well.
By adopting some principles from Savage Worlds into 13th Age, 13th Age may serve as a "bridge" for incorporating some of these mechanics into a more traditional d20 game like D&D 4E or Pathfinder. I'm going to be playing in a Pathfinder game soon, after having sworn off 3.x and its ilk in favor of less fiddly systems. Mostly because the group still wants to play Pathfinder (I'll never DM it, though), and because the DM is looking to incorporate some 13th Age mechanics into the game (definitely One Unique Thing, and ED and Icons are likely as well). It intrigues me, and I'm curious whether those additions will make Pathfinder more palatable to me. Perhaps once I re-familiarize myself with its rules I can begin to adapt some form of improvised stunts rules to the system.
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