As some of you may know, several months ago Cubicle 7 announced that they were printing a revised version of the core rulebook for The One Ring. Well, pre-orders are now open and the PDF is available right now as well. Whereas the original printing was a boxed set with two softcover books (an Adventurer's Book and a Loremaster's Book), the new core book is a single hardback volume. It's not quite a second edition, as it's been mostly re-organized so that the two books are now combined into one, and individual topics are not split up and difficult to find anymore. Considering that the book's organization and index were the biggest criticisms of the system when it was released, this is a huge improvement. If anyone has been on the fence about getting into TOR, now is the time to jump on board.
Even if it's not a second edition, there have been some errata incorporated into the new printing. A few specific player options have been re-balanced (i.e. the notoriously underpowered Beorning Cultural Blessing has been given a boost, and the even more notoriously overpowered King's Blade has been hit with the nerf bat, bringing it down to parity with other Rewards and eliminating the "Hobbit uber-swordman" issue). Preliminary rolls have been simplified into a unified mechanic between the three heroic ventures (Journeys, Combat, and Encounters), which was admittedly a houserule that the game's designer, Francesco Nepitello, had posted on his blog for a while. Now it's official. Favored skills are cheaper to upgrade, Fatigue from traveling gear has been increased, and the effects of the Intimidate Foe and Rally Comrades actions have been given a boost, making them more competitive options in combat. Hazards have been re-worked, as they now trigger when an Eye is rolled on any Fatigue test (succeed or fail), and the consequences have been streamlined into a table that you can then narrate (instead of having dozens of narrative examples scattered everywhere with sometimes similar effects).
All in all, it polishes up what is one of the most well-designed licensed RPGs I've seen. If you already have the original boxed set and don't plan on purchasing the new core book, never fear! All of the updates have been posted as a free PDF.
Wednesday, June 25, 2014
Saturday, June 21, 2014
Fate Accelerated Edition: Thoughts After Playing
I picked up the PDF for Fate Accelerated Edition a while back, and wrote a "first impressions" review of it. As I said in the review I couldn't see myself running the game in the near future, largely because I've got so many other things I want to run. But one of the players in my group was intrigued by it, bought it, and decided to run a three session mini campaign to test drive it.
The setting was a modern day alternate universe where the Cold War never ended, and recently Russian terrorists launched nuclear warheads at many major cities across the globe. The twist is that it was combined with a bio-weapon, and the resulting disease (called RadPox) wiped out most of the global population. The PCs began in Missoula, Montana. We had an interesting array of characters, which is perhaps to be expected from a modern game without a tight thematic focus (i.e. spies, or dungeon delvers, or fringers trying to get by under the radar of the Empire/Alliance, etc.). My own character was an old man (under description I wrote "current Harrison Ford") with the aspects Retired Border Patrol Ranger - Canadian Border (high concept), I'm Getting Too Old For This Shit (trouble), Sucker For a Pretty Face, Bruce Collins Is My Oldest Friend (refers to an NPC), and My Dead Brother's Shotgun. The other PCs were a large animal veterinarian and a quirky accordion player (part of a duo with an NPC mandolin player; like I said, quirky). The premise was that we were leaving Montana because of the imminent onset of winter, headed south to pursue rumors of a "holy land."
Approaches
Approaches are a great narrative "shortcut," but they definitely have their limitations. While it's easy to liken them to ability scores in D&D, they feel a bit more like watered down backgrounds in 13th Age. That is to say, they represent a philosophy or broad thematic archetype much more than a physical trait (and I say "watered down" in that it lacks the specificity and detail of a good 13th Age background, which isn't to say that it's "worse"). So having a high Sneaky approach doesn't just make you the stealthy (Dex) guy, but you're good at tricking people or lying to them in social situations as well. One big strength is right there in the name: it encourages players to think about different ways to approach a situation. Different GMs will draw the line differently insofar as how much they'll allow a PC to justify a shaky or borderline approach; it seems like too much leniency can lead to approach-spamming, whereas strict adherence to the GMs vision can stifle creativity.
There are two big issues that I have with approaches in play. The first is that sometimes (at least once per session) a PC will try something that doesn't neatly fit one of the approaches. It might not even kind of fit one of them. At that point you just have to try to shoehorn it into a category, which can feel like fitting a square peg into a round hole. It's awkward. It also means that certain approaches (Clever, Careful, and perhaps Forceful) tend to be more useful because it's easier to justify "off" actions as being one of those. Sneaky and Flashy seemed to be noticeably more limited than the others. It's worth mentioning that my character's highest approach was Sneaky, and the accordion player's was Flashy, and we both ended up using them less frequently than we would have expected. In contrast, the vet had Clever at the top and probably used it about half the time.
My second issue is unavoidable given the abstracted, streamlined nature of approaches, and it's simply that sometimes suspension of disbelief can be strained. Skill systems imply previous experience at a given task, but with approaches your potency with the same task will vary depending on which angle you're coming from. For example, I ended up using no less than 4 different approaches at different times to shoot a shotgun. Charging in guns blazing was Forceful, an ambush was Sneaky, a "quick draw" type situation was Quick, and most of the time it was assumed shots were aimed, and so Careful seemed most appropriate. Now I don't know about you, but I tend to be more accurate when I actually aim. Problem was, my PC's Careful was only rated at +1, and so I ran into this strange situation where I was more effective making more reckless shots. Fortunately the GM awarded us a milestone after session 2, and so I boosted Careful to +2.
Aspects and The Fate Point Meta-game
At its heart this game is all about the Fate Point economy. Oftentimes it would be necessary to invoke multiple Aspects in order to succeed at a roll, and so having more Aspects is useful, even if they're redundant. Indeed, redundancy can be really useful if the Aspects apply to common situations! I think more ideally though is that PCs should make judicious use of the Create Advantage action to get more Aspects into play, and while we didn't do that as much as we probably should have it probably becomes habitual the more you play.
The extent of the meta-game, and how players and their characters might have very different goals, really clicked for me in session 3 last night. The climactic final battle was an EPIC firefight, and I honestly thought it would end up being a TPK. Anyways, at one point I got shot at and hit for 1 shift, and decided to compel an Aspect against myself to turn it into a 3 shift hit so I could get a Fate Point out of the deal that would help me out with offense later. Yep, that's right, me as a player wanted my character to get more hurt, and the game actually rewarded me for it.
While a +2 bonus might not seem like much, especially if you come from a d20 background, Aspects (and sometimes Stunts) will determine whether you succeed or fail more often than what you roll on the dice. The results for a pool of Fate dice ends up being between -2 and 2 most of the time. We calculated a result of +4 on the dice as happening 1.25% of the time, which is sobering considering a natural 20 on a d20 happens 5% of the time. Exciting rolls are the exception (such as when I rolled +4 on my attack when the enemy's defense roll was -3), and so you really have to embrace Aspects as your primary "success currency."
What hit home in that third session, when I tried to get my character hurt to give him more Fate Points, is that the player's job is to orchestrate the tempo of their character's story as much as it is to roleplay them. The player can contribute to deciding when the character gets beat down, all so that they can come back swinging later, when the stakes are higher. It's an interesting twist, for better or worse, that can really only occur in a game with Fate Points (or Plot Points; hopefully I'll get to play Cortex+ Firefly soon!) as the game's major currency.
Stunts
I wrote up my first Stunt using the guidelines in Fate Accelerated Edition, but I found that implementation really dull. Yes, a +2 bonus is a pretty big deal in Fate, but when everything of consequence boils down to "another +2!", my interest starts to wane. Sure, the game is more about how you use the elements that give you the bonus, but there's already plenty of that with Aspects. If something is called a "Stunt," I want it to feel cool. Besides that, I find the "fill in the blank" statements of the FAE stunts to be pretty clunky. And the +2 modifier makes it feel like part of a skill system tacked onto the more abstract approach-based system.
The easy solution is to port in some of the ideas from Fate Core and the Fate System Toolkit when you're making your Stunts. Some of these also boil down to a situational +2 bonuses, but at least the wording is more free-form and so the stunts feel more organic. In addition to the modifier, Fate Core also outlines examples for creating rules exceptions, using balancing mechanisms like "once per session I can..." and for creating Stunt "trees" with effects that build off of each other. The Fate System Toolkit really goes into detail with Stunt costs, broader Stunts with smaller bonuses, triggered Stunts, combined Stunts, and tying Stunts to Aspects. Essentially as long as you keep in mind the refresh equivalency you have more flexibility in creating balanced Stunts. While some of these options might be considered to crunchy for FAE by some, others are just as simple (if not moreso) than the default FAE Stunts.
Final Thoughts
I can see why Fate is so popular, but it definitely requires a different mindset to play than most traditional games (even traditional/narrative hybrids like 13th Age and Edge of the Empire). We had a bit of a rocky transition period that made me really glad that my GM went with a 3-session arc; the first session was a messy disaster where we struggled to fully use the system (half the group are new to RPGs, having just played one campaign of Edge of the Empire that lasted a few months), the second went fairly smoothly, and in the third session things really started to click.
I don't see Fate becoming my go-to system (I prefer medium crunch, hybrid narrative/traditional games), but it was definitely an interesting change of pace and it makes me excited to try out Firefly (Cortex+ seems very similar to Fate). This also wasn't the last time I'll play it, though. In fact, I'll GM the next mini-campaign for this group, and at some point we'll probably have the main group try it out.
The setting was a modern day alternate universe where the Cold War never ended, and recently Russian terrorists launched nuclear warheads at many major cities across the globe. The twist is that it was combined with a bio-weapon, and the resulting disease (called RadPox) wiped out most of the global population. The PCs began in Missoula, Montana. We had an interesting array of characters, which is perhaps to be expected from a modern game without a tight thematic focus (i.e. spies, or dungeon delvers, or fringers trying to get by under the radar of the Empire/Alliance, etc.). My own character was an old man (under description I wrote "current Harrison Ford") with the aspects Retired Border Patrol Ranger - Canadian Border (high concept), I'm Getting Too Old For This Shit (trouble), Sucker For a Pretty Face, Bruce Collins Is My Oldest Friend (refers to an NPC), and My Dead Brother's Shotgun. The other PCs were a large animal veterinarian and a quirky accordion player (part of a duo with an NPC mandolin player; like I said, quirky). The premise was that we were leaving Montana because of the imminent onset of winter, headed south to pursue rumors of a "holy land."
Approaches
Approaches are a great narrative "shortcut," but they definitely have their limitations. While it's easy to liken them to ability scores in D&D, they feel a bit more like watered down backgrounds in 13th Age. That is to say, they represent a philosophy or broad thematic archetype much more than a physical trait (and I say "watered down" in that it lacks the specificity and detail of a good 13th Age background, which isn't to say that it's "worse"). So having a high Sneaky approach doesn't just make you the stealthy (Dex) guy, but you're good at tricking people or lying to them in social situations as well. One big strength is right there in the name: it encourages players to think about different ways to approach a situation. Different GMs will draw the line differently insofar as how much they'll allow a PC to justify a shaky or borderline approach; it seems like too much leniency can lead to approach-spamming, whereas strict adherence to the GMs vision can stifle creativity.
There are two big issues that I have with approaches in play. The first is that sometimes (at least once per session) a PC will try something that doesn't neatly fit one of the approaches. It might not even kind of fit one of them. At that point you just have to try to shoehorn it into a category, which can feel like fitting a square peg into a round hole. It's awkward. It also means that certain approaches (Clever, Careful, and perhaps Forceful) tend to be more useful because it's easier to justify "off" actions as being one of those. Sneaky and Flashy seemed to be noticeably more limited than the others. It's worth mentioning that my character's highest approach was Sneaky, and the accordion player's was Flashy, and we both ended up using them less frequently than we would have expected. In contrast, the vet had Clever at the top and probably used it about half the time.
My second issue is unavoidable given the abstracted, streamlined nature of approaches, and it's simply that sometimes suspension of disbelief can be strained. Skill systems imply previous experience at a given task, but with approaches your potency with the same task will vary depending on which angle you're coming from. For example, I ended up using no less than 4 different approaches at different times to shoot a shotgun. Charging in guns blazing was Forceful, an ambush was Sneaky, a "quick draw" type situation was Quick, and most of the time it was assumed shots were aimed, and so Careful seemed most appropriate. Now I don't know about you, but I tend to be more accurate when I actually aim. Problem was, my PC's Careful was only rated at +1, and so I ran into this strange situation where I was more effective making more reckless shots. Fortunately the GM awarded us a milestone after session 2, and so I boosted Careful to +2.
Aspects and The Fate Point Meta-game
At its heart this game is all about the Fate Point economy. Oftentimes it would be necessary to invoke multiple Aspects in order to succeed at a roll, and so having more Aspects is useful, even if they're redundant. Indeed, redundancy can be really useful if the Aspects apply to common situations! I think more ideally though is that PCs should make judicious use of the Create Advantage action to get more Aspects into play, and while we didn't do that as much as we probably should have it probably becomes habitual the more you play.
The extent of the meta-game, and how players and their characters might have very different goals, really clicked for me in session 3 last night. The climactic final battle was an EPIC firefight, and I honestly thought it would end up being a TPK. Anyways, at one point I got shot at and hit for 1 shift, and decided to compel an Aspect against myself to turn it into a 3 shift hit so I could get a Fate Point out of the deal that would help me out with offense later. Yep, that's right, me as a player wanted my character to get more hurt, and the game actually rewarded me for it.
While a +2 bonus might not seem like much, especially if you come from a d20 background, Aspects (and sometimes Stunts) will determine whether you succeed or fail more often than what you roll on the dice. The results for a pool of Fate dice ends up being between -2 and 2 most of the time. We calculated a result of +4 on the dice as happening 1.25% of the time, which is sobering considering a natural 20 on a d20 happens 5% of the time. Exciting rolls are the exception (such as when I rolled +4 on my attack when the enemy's defense roll was -3), and so you really have to embrace Aspects as your primary "success currency."
What hit home in that third session, when I tried to get my character hurt to give him more Fate Points, is that the player's job is to orchestrate the tempo of their character's story as much as it is to roleplay them. The player can contribute to deciding when the character gets beat down, all so that they can come back swinging later, when the stakes are higher. It's an interesting twist, for better or worse, that can really only occur in a game with Fate Points (or Plot Points; hopefully I'll get to play Cortex+ Firefly soon!) as the game's major currency.
Stunts
I wrote up my first Stunt using the guidelines in Fate Accelerated Edition, but I found that implementation really dull. Yes, a +2 bonus is a pretty big deal in Fate, but when everything of consequence boils down to "another +2!", my interest starts to wane. Sure, the game is more about how you use the elements that give you the bonus, but there's already plenty of that with Aspects. If something is called a "Stunt," I want it to feel cool. Besides that, I find the "fill in the blank" statements of the FAE stunts to be pretty clunky. And the +2 modifier makes it feel like part of a skill system tacked onto the more abstract approach-based system.
The easy solution is to port in some of the ideas from Fate Core and the Fate System Toolkit when you're making your Stunts. Some of these also boil down to a situational +2 bonuses, but at least the wording is more free-form and so the stunts feel more organic. In addition to the modifier, Fate Core also outlines examples for creating rules exceptions, using balancing mechanisms like "once per session I can..." and for creating Stunt "trees" with effects that build off of each other. The Fate System Toolkit really goes into detail with Stunt costs, broader Stunts with smaller bonuses, triggered Stunts, combined Stunts, and tying Stunts to Aspects. Essentially as long as you keep in mind the refresh equivalency you have more flexibility in creating balanced Stunts. While some of these options might be considered to crunchy for FAE by some, others are just as simple (if not moreso) than the default FAE Stunts.
Final Thoughts
I can see why Fate is so popular, but it definitely requires a different mindset to play than most traditional games (even traditional/narrative hybrids like 13th Age and Edge of the Empire). We had a bit of a rocky transition period that made me really glad that my GM went with a 3-session arc; the first session was a messy disaster where we struggled to fully use the system (half the group are new to RPGs, having just played one campaign of Edge of the Empire that lasted a few months), the second went fairly smoothly, and in the third session things really started to click.
I don't see Fate becoming my go-to system (I prefer medium crunch, hybrid narrative/traditional games), but it was definitely an interesting change of pace and it makes me excited to try out Firefly (Cortex+ seems very similar to Fate). This also wasn't the last time I'll play it, though. In fact, I'll GM the next mini-campaign for this group, and at some point we'll probably have the main group try it out.
Wednesday, June 11, 2014
Number Inflation in 13th Age
Considering how frequently I write about it on this blog (with the exception of the past couple of months; blame a creative dry spell), it should come as no surprise that 13th Age is one of my favorite RPGs right now. My first long-term campaign went up to 5th level (barely), but it stretched each level out over a long period of time. An Incremental Advance every 2-3 sessions. For our current campaign (which features rotating GMs), we've been awarding an Incremental Advance every session, and after the 3rd one we gain a level. We've just now reached the same point at which I ended the last campaign - level 5 - but one of the explicit goals has been to experience high level play.
I already dislike it. Granted I've never preferred high level play in D&D, but 13th Age is especially egregious with its number inflation. Unfortunately, it's sort of a double-edged sword because the numbers scale the way that they do precisely to maintain an even progression over the course of a PC's adventuring career. In other words, damage scales at about the same rate as HP. Since you gain a weapon die for damage every level, HP has to become pretty inflated to keep up. While I haven't crunched the numbers in detail, my experience seems to be that PCs will drop after suffering around the same number of hits from an appropriately challenging foe regardless of level. In most editions of D&D it seemed like low-level characters were quite fragile, but at higher levels they could soak up more attacks due to their increasingly-inflating HP (to the point that high-level combat skewed even further toward "rocket tag" of save or die/suck abilities to bypass HP entirely). This smooth-scaling in 13th Age is desirable to me, but I really wish it could be more tightly bounded (like, and I can't believe I'm saying this, D&D 5E).
So why is this even a big deal? Well, mostly because when you start dealing with bigger numbers, the math gets just a tad slower. I've noticed that my PC's turns go a little slower than at low levels (though at least one player doesn't think it's a big deal), but the real annoyance has been GMing. I've got at least as many monsters to run as there are PCs in the party (and usually more), and I like to get through NPC turns quickly to maintain momentum. I feel like those few extra seconds per NPC (per turn) starts to add up, and I occasionally find that it distracts me from interesting tactical and narrative embellishments in combat.
A Possible Solution
Obviously I'm not going to stop playing 13th Age because of this. And as much as I prefer the alternative of "bounded accuracy" espoused by D&D 5E, from what I've seen of 5E so far 13th Age simply hits way more of my other preferences in an RPG. Besides that, my group has been instictively negative toward 5E despite knowing little to nothing about it.
Thus, I'd like to try to make high-level play in 13th Age more manageable. Based on the numbers that were being thrown around in last night's session (again, this is at level 5), I'm considering simply rounding monster HP and player damage to the nearest 5. None of this "always round down in D&D" legacy crap, either. Standard rounding rules simply make more sense because theoretically you should be rounding up about as often as you round down, and so your rounding would effectively "cancel" each other out. Obviously results will skew slightly up or down in any given combat, but is this really any different from earlier editions of D&D where monsters got variable HP by rolling Hit Dice?
Example:
Barbarian: "I crit for 94 damage" (because that literally happened last night, on the first attack, vs a 200 HP dragon)
GM: mentally rounds that up to 95 and notes that the dragon has 105 HP left
Wizard: "I deal 32 damage with Ray of Frost."
GM: Rounds that down to 30, so the dragon's at 75 now.
Multiples of 5 are easy, because we deal with them every single day. I have to think for a couple of seconds longer when I subtract 94 from 200, and if I'm starting from a value that's not an easy multiple it takes longer still. Like, say, subtracting 32 from that dragon that now has 106 HP if tracked by RAW. In my head I would generally do this in 2 steps by first subtracting 30 from 106, and then subtracting 2 from 76. Which is tougher if I'm dealing with odd numbers, and tougher still when one or more players is talking (especially if they're correcting their damage, whether that's from math errors or forgotten bonuses. Sometimes I have to start the mental math over from scratch when that happens).
Some people might be faster at mental math than me, and others still might not be but don't mind the cumulative time lost. For me though? Rounding seems like a really promising solution, because those huge numbers are just an unnecessary amount of granularity.
The Gumshoe Precedent
After coming up with this solution, I was reminded of a rule from the Gumshoe game "Night's Black Agents." To quote from page 215 which is a summary of Hit Threshold Modifiers: "In games using the full range of options and tactical rules, Hit Thresholds can vary widely. Try to rebalance those values if you can: if one combatant has a Hit Threshold of 7 and one has a Hit Threshold of 9, run their combat as if they had Hit Thresholds of 3 and 5, respectively. This keeps fights shorter and more dangerous, and therefore more exciting."
This is particularly useful to keep in mind in Night's Black Agents because the die that you use to resolve actions is a d6. The principle isn't as mechanically necessary in 13th Age, but it sure helps to simplify that math. You're effectively treating each increment of 5 as a value of 1, turning a 100 HP creature into one with effectively 20 HP. That 30 damage attack becomes 6 damage. 14 out of 20 is the exact same ratio as 70 out of 100.
Once you get into Epic tier and the numbers get higher still, it will become practical to mentally round to the nearest 10. I'm not quite sure where the best cut off points will be (I haven't playtested this yet), but I'm thinking it will probably feel pretty intuitive once you start dealing with numbers of a certain size.
Also worth noting is that you don't have to necessarily institute a sweeping house rule for this. You don't even have to tell your players you're doing it. Just do the conversion to simplify the math, and they may never be the wiser. It's the best of both worlds, actually: your players get to feel uber powerful by throwing around high damage attacks, but by rounding the values you don't have to deal with the mathematical challenges of quickly adding and subtracting high value numbers to the nearest one.
I already dislike it. Granted I've never preferred high level play in D&D, but 13th Age is especially egregious with its number inflation. Unfortunately, it's sort of a double-edged sword because the numbers scale the way that they do precisely to maintain an even progression over the course of a PC's adventuring career. In other words, damage scales at about the same rate as HP. Since you gain a weapon die for damage every level, HP has to become pretty inflated to keep up. While I haven't crunched the numbers in detail, my experience seems to be that PCs will drop after suffering around the same number of hits from an appropriately challenging foe regardless of level. In most editions of D&D it seemed like low-level characters were quite fragile, but at higher levels they could soak up more attacks due to their increasingly-inflating HP (to the point that high-level combat skewed even further toward "rocket tag" of save or die/suck abilities to bypass HP entirely). This smooth-scaling in 13th Age is desirable to me, but I really wish it could be more tightly bounded (like, and I can't believe I'm saying this, D&D 5E).
So why is this even a big deal? Well, mostly because when you start dealing with bigger numbers, the math gets just a tad slower. I've noticed that my PC's turns go a little slower than at low levels (though at least one player doesn't think it's a big deal), but the real annoyance has been GMing. I've got at least as many monsters to run as there are PCs in the party (and usually more), and I like to get through NPC turns quickly to maintain momentum. I feel like those few extra seconds per NPC (per turn) starts to add up, and I occasionally find that it distracts me from interesting tactical and narrative embellishments in combat.
A Possible Solution
Obviously I'm not going to stop playing 13th Age because of this. And as much as I prefer the alternative of "bounded accuracy" espoused by D&D 5E, from what I've seen of 5E so far 13th Age simply hits way more of my other preferences in an RPG. Besides that, my group has been instictively negative toward 5E despite knowing little to nothing about it.
Thus, I'd like to try to make high-level play in 13th Age more manageable. Based on the numbers that were being thrown around in last night's session (again, this is at level 5), I'm considering simply rounding monster HP and player damage to the nearest 5. None of this "always round down in D&D" legacy crap, either. Standard rounding rules simply make more sense because theoretically you should be rounding up about as often as you round down, and so your rounding would effectively "cancel" each other out. Obviously results will skew slightly up or down in any given combat, but is this really any different from earlier editions of D&D where monsters got variable HP by rolling Hit Dice?
Example:
Barbarian: "I crit for 94 damage" (because that literally happened last night, on the first attack, vs a 200 HP dragon)
GM: mentally rounds that up to 95 and notes that the dragon has 105 HP left
Wizard: "I deal 32 damage with Ray of Frost."
GM: Rounds that down to 30, so the dragon's at 75 now.
Multiples of 5 are easy, because we deal with them every single day. I have to think for a couple of seconds longer when I subtract 94 from 200, and if I'm starting from a value that's not an easy multiple it takes longer still. Like, say, subtracting 32 from that dragon that now has 106 HP if tracked by RAW. In my head I would generally do this in 2 steps by first subtracting 30 from 106, and then subtracting 2 from 76. Which is tougher if I'm dealing with odd numbers, and tougher still when one or more players is talking (especially if they're correcting their damage, whether that's from math errors or forgotten bonuses. Sometimes I have to start the mental math over from scratch when that happens).
Some people might be faster at mental math than me, and others still might not be but don't mind the cumulative time lost. For me though? Rounding seems like a really promising solution, because those huge numbers are just an unnecessary amount of granularity.
The Gumshoe Precedent
After coming up with this solution, I was reminded of a rule from the Gumshoe game "Night's Black Agents." To quote from page 215 which is a summary of Hit Threshold Modifiers: "In games using the full range of options and tactical rules, Hit Thresholds can vary widely. Try to rebalance those values if you can: if one combatant has a Hit Threshold of 7 and one has a Hit Threshold of 9, run their combat as if they had Hit Thresholds of 3 and 5, respectively. This keeps fights shorter and more dangerous, and therefore more exciting."
This is particularly useful to keep in mind in Night's Black Agents because the die that you use to resolve actions is a d6. The principle isn't as mechanically necessary in 13th Age, but it sure helps to simplify that math. You're effectively treating each increment of 5 as a value of 1, turning a 100 HP creature into one with effectively 20 HP. That 30 damage attack becomes 6 damage. 14 out of 20 is the exact same ratio as 70 out of 100.
Once you get into Epic tier and the numbers get higher still, it will become practical to mentally round to the nearest 10. I'm not quite sure where the best cut off points will be (I haven't playtested this yet), but I'm thinking it will probably feel pretty intuitive once you start dealing with numbers of a certain size.
Also worth noting is that you don't have to necessarily institute a sweeping house rule for this. You don't even have to tell your players you're doing it. Just do the conversion to simplify the math, and they may never be the wiser. It's the best of both worlds, actually: your players get to feel uber powerful by throwing around high damage attacks, but by rounding the values you don't have to deal with the mathematical challenges of quickly adding and subtracting high value numbers to the nearest one.
Magic Item Vault
Here are a handful of magic items that I worked up for the PCs in my game.
Champion Tier Magic Items
Dwarven Cloak
+2 to PD
You can enter stone and walk in it as if it were a very thick fluid, but you can't "swim."
Quirk: You season your food with sand and small bits of stone.
Lifedrinker (sword)
+2 to attack and damage
Recharge 11+: When you kill the target the blade absorbs its soul, which you can use to either heal using a recovery, or you can animate a corpse* that you touch.
Quirk: Your beverage of choice: blood.
*When you animate a corpse you create a zombie mook of the same level as the original creature.
Level Attack Damage HP AC PD MD
1 +5 3 10 14 12 8
2 +6 4 12 15 13 9
3 +7 5 15 16 14 10
4 +8 6 18 17 15 11
5 +9 8 23 18 16 12
6 +10 10 28 19 17 13
7 +11 16 33 20 18 14
8 +12 20 42 21 19 15
9 +13 18 52 22 20 16
10 +14 34 61 23 21 17
Demonbane Axe (axe)
+2 to attack and damage
Always: The axe blade glows red when demons are nearby, and its surface depicts a compass that points to the nearest hellhole.
1/battle: +4 to attack and +1d12 damage (hit or miss) when attacking a demon.
Quirk: You talk to fire.
Deflection Staff (staff)
+2 to attack and damage
Recharge 16+: When you're hit with an attack, take half damage and the attacker takes half. If the attack inflicts a condition, roll a normal save; on a success, the attacker suffers it instead of you.
Quirk: You constantly admire yourself in mirrors.
Coatl Ring
Recharge 6+: At the start of your turn roll a save against one effect.
Always: When falling from a great distance, you float to the ground unharmed.
Quirk: You adorn yourself in bright feathers.
Iron's Will (Hammer)
+2 to attack and damage
Recharge 11+: As a quick action you can magnetize the hammer and pull a metal weapon out of a foe's hand, or pull and enemy wearing metal armor into engagement.
Quirk: you like to grab objects out of people's hands.
Captain Crow's Glaive (2-handed reach weapon)
+2 to attack and damage
The first time you roll a natural even miss each battle make a magi's lightning chain attack: +11 vs PD - 15 lightning damage and each natural even attack lets you target an additional creature.
Quirk: The glaive wants to be returned to the hands of an ogre mage...
Champion Tier Magic Items
Dwarven Cloak
+2 to PD
You can enter stone and walk in it as if it were a very thick fluid, but you can't "swim."
Quirk: You season your food with sand and small bits of stone.
Lifedrinker (sword)
+2 to attack and damage
Recharge 11+: When you kill the target the blade absorbs its soul, which you can use to either heal using a recovery, or you can animate a corpse* that you touch.
Quirk: Your beverage of choice: blood.
*When you animate a corpse you create a zombie mook of the same level as the original creature.
Level Attack Damage HP AC PD MD
1 +5 3 10 14 12 8
2 +6 4 12 15 13 9
3 +7 5 15 16 14 10
4 +8 6 18 17 15 11
5 +9 8 23 18 16 12
6 +10 10 28 19 17 13
7 +11 16 33 20 18 14
8 +12 20 42 21 19 15
9 +13 18 52 22 20 16
10 +14 34 61 23 21 17
Demonbane Axe (axe)
+2 to attack and damage
Always: The axe blade glows red when demons are nearby, and its surface depicts a compass that points to the nearest hellhole.
1/battle: +4 to attack and +1d12 damage (hit or miss) when attacking a demon.
Quirk: You talk to fire.
Deflection Staff (staff)
+2 to attack and damage
Recharge 16+: When you're hit with an attack, take half damage and the attacker takes half. If the attack inflicts a condition, roll a normal save; on a success, the attacker suffers it instead of you.
Quirk: You constantly admire yourself in mirrors.
Coatl Ring
Recharge 6+: At the start of your turn roll a save against one effect.
Always: When falling from a great distance, you float to the ground unharmed.
Quirk: You adorn yourself in bright feathers.
Iron's Will (Hammer)
+2 to attack and damage
Recharge 11+: As a quick action you can magnetize the hammer and pull a metal weapon out of a foe's hand, or pull and enemy wearing metal armor into engagement.
Quirk: you like to grab objects out of people's hands.
Captain Crow's Glaive (2-handed reach weapon)
+2 to attack and damage
The first time you roll a natural even miss each battle make a magi's lightning chain attack: +11 vs PD - 15 lightning damage and each natural even attack lets you target an additional creature.
Quirk: The glaive wants to be returned to the hands of an ogre mage...
Sunday, April 27, 2014
Musings on Turning 13th Age into a 2d10 System
I was once again thinking about how one might add more of a bell curve to a d20 system, and specifically the problems associated with doing so for 13th Age. I often mentally reference two articles from the Gaming Security Agency when I'm thinking such thoughts - Die, d20 die! and Extreme Makeover, d20ish Edition. If these sound familiar, it's because I referenced them in a previous post about revising d20, a post that specifically addressed the problems associated with increasing the maximum value via large modifiers, especially in Pathfinder where such modifiers get really out of hand (and where skills you don't invest resources into don't automatically advance, increasing the "skill disparity" even more as you level).
While the comments of that post did touch on whether or not this is as much of a problem in 13th Age (compared with Pathfinder, it's not), there's still a lot to be said for trading in the uniform distribution of a d20 for the bell curve of 2d10. But in 13th Age this makes characters with flexible attacks, like Fighters and Bards, problematic. Even if you don't have those classes in your game, the GM will still have to worry about this issue since most monsters have triggers based on the natural result of the d20 roll. So how can you get around this?
The solution I came up with (which is very much theoretical) requires differentiated d10s. Different color dice will work, but considering that your standard set of dice already includes differentiated d10s to be used as percentile dice, it's not much of an issue. You designate one d10 as the primary die, and the other as the secondary. The primary die alone can handle a lot of the more common natural die roll triggers. A natural even or odd result works just fine with the same probability as a d20 roll. But what about a natural 16+, which has a 25% chance of occurring on a d20 roll? Or for that matter, critical hits that normally have a 5% chance of triggering (usually on a natural 20)? Critical hits are important for some classes, like Fighters (most of which pick up Carve an Opening since it's a rare odd-roll trigger) and Rangers.
I think a viable solution for such scenarios that would preserve their relative probabilities would be to combine the result on the primary d10 with a high/low (coin flip) on the secondary die. In other words, a result of 10 on the primary die would count as a natural 20 if the secondary die is 6 or greater, or a 19 if the secondary die is less than 6. A natural 9 would count as an 18 if the secondary die is greater than 6, and so on. Of course the secondary die doesn't necessarily have to use a high/low dichotomy (evens or odds would work just fine, too).
To use another example, a natural 16+ would include a natural 9 or 10 on the primary die, but also a natural 8 if the secondary die is "high." Therefore while you're totaling 2d10 for the purposes of determining success/failure, any given roll can also generate natural result triggers in 5% increments just like a d20 roll. Granted it's not the most elegant or intuitive fix, but for those who dislike the probability of a d20 roll and would prefer a dice pool mechanic to get more of a bell curve, it might be a tradeoff worth making without changing how specific options in the system work.
The GSA articles also suggest adding dice to your pool instead of piling on static modifiers, keeping the highest 2 results for your total. This results in skilled characters tending to get results at the high end of the distribution and getting fewer low results (the bell curve shifts to the right), but without increasing their maximum results. In other words, skilled characters succeed more reliably than unskilled characters, but don't hit DCs that are unreachable for unskilled characters. One possible way to integrate this into the 13th Age background system while still allowing some flexibility when designing backgrounds would be to assign each character 4 background dice. While this results in less granularity than 8 background points distributed as you see fit, most PCs typically have between 4 and 2 unique backgrounds, with 3 being quite common. Having 4 background dice allows you to have 4 single-die backgrounds, 2 backgrounds that would add 2d10 to your pool (again, keeping only the highest 2 results to total), or 1 background with 2 dice and 2 backgrounds with 1 die. This roughly parallels having four 2 point backgrounds, two 4 point backgrounds, or three backgrounds with two at 3 points and one at 2 points (odd that a 3 background character will have 1 good background with the dice pool system vs 2 good backgrounds with the point system, but it's not a deal breaker). Further Backgrounding would give you 1 background die (as would any talent or other ability that grants you 2 background points), while the higher-valued background talents like the Ranger's "Tracker" would give you a 2d10 background.
Obviously once you start rolling more than 2d10 it becomes a lot tougher to model the natural d20 result triggers, but such triggers don't come up on skill checks. If for some reason you were to add one or more dice to an attack roll that has triggers, you'd simply need to complicate things a little more. You'd need 3 or 4 unique, individually identifiable d10s and you'd need to rank them. Then whichever two dice came up with the highest result, you'd use the higher-ranked die as the primary and the lower one as the secondary. For example, I have a light blue percentile set and a dark blue percentile set, so the dark 10s die could be ranked highest, and then in descending order would be the dark 1s die, the light 10s die, and light 1s die. For "roll twice" effects like Barbarian Rage I'd simply keep the two light dice together as equivalent to one d20 roll, and the two dark dice as the second roll.
While the comments of that post did touch on whether or not this is as much of a problem in 13th Age (compared with Pathfinder, it's not), there's still a lot to be said for trading in the uniform distribution of a d20 for the bell curve of 2d10. But in 13th Age this makes characters with flexible attacks, like Fighters and Bards, problematic. Even if you don't have those classes in your game, the GM will still have to worry about this issue since most monsters have triggers based on the natural result of the d20 roll. So how can you get around this?
The solution I came up with (which is very much theoretical) requires differentiated d10s. Different color dice will work, but considering that your standard set of dice already includes differentiated d10s to be used as percentile dice, it's not much of an issue. You designate one d10 as the primary die, and the other as the secondary. The primary die alone can handle a lot of the more common natural die roll triggers. A natural even or odd result works just fine with the same probability as a d20 roll. But what about a natural 16+, which has a 25% chance of occurring on a d20 roll? Or for that matter, critical hits that normally have a 5% chance of triggering (usually on a natural 20)? Critical hits are important for some classes, like Fighters (most of which pick up Carve an Opening since it's a rare odd-roll trigger) and Rangers.
I think a viable solution for such scenarios that would preserve their relative probabilities would be to combine the result on the primary d10 with a high/low (coin flip) on the secondary die. In other words, a result of 10 on the primary die would count as a natural 20 if the secondary die is 6 or greater, or a 19 if the secondary die is less than 6. A natural 9 would count as an 18 if the secondary die is greater than 6, and so on. Of course the secondary die doesn't necessarily have to use a high/low dichotomy (evens or odds would work just fine, too).
To use another example, a natural 16+ would include a natural 9 or 10 on the primary die, but also a natural 8 if the secondary die is "high." Therefore while you're totaling 2d10 for the purposes of determining success/failure, any given roll can also generate natural result triggers in 5% increments just like a d20 roll. Granted it's not the most elegant or intuitive fix, but for those who dislike the probability of a d20 roll and would prefer a dice pool mechanic to get more of a bell curve, it might be a tradeoff worth making without changing how specific options in the system work.
The GSA articles also suggest adding dice to your pool instead of piling on static modifiers, keeping the highest 2 results for your total. This results in skilled characters tending to get results at the high end of the distribution and getting fewer low results (the bell curve shifts to the right), but without increasing their maximum results. In other words, skilled characters succeed more reliably than unskilled characters, but don't hit DCs that are unreachable for unskilled characters. One possible way to integrate this into the 13th Age background system while still allowing some flexibility when designing backgrounds would be to assign each character 4 background dice. While this results in less granularity than 8 background points distributed as you see fit, most PCs typically have between 4 and 2 unique backgrounds, with 3 being quite common. Having 4 background dice allows you to have 4 single-die backgrounds, 2 backgrounds that would add 2d10 to your pool (again, keeping only the highest 2 results to total), or 1 background with 2 dice and 2 backgrounds with 1 die. This roughly parallels having four 2 point backgrounds, two 4 point backgrounds, or three backgrounds with two at 3 points and one at 2 points (odd that a 3 background character will have 1 good background with the dice pool system vs 2 good backgrounds with the point system, but it's not a deal breaker). Further Backgrounding would give you 1 background die (as would any talent or other ability that grants you 2 background points), while the higher-valued background talents like the Ranger's "Tracker" would give you a 2d10 background.
Obviously once you start rolling more than 2d10 it becomes a lot tougher to model the natural d20 result triggers, but such triggers don't come up on skill checks. If for some reason you were to add one or more dice to an attack roll that has triggers, you'd simply need to complicate things a little more. You'd need 3 or 4 unique, individually identifiable d10s and you'd need to rank them. Then whichever two dice came up with the highest result, you'd use the higher-ranked die as the primary and the lower one as the secondary. For example, I have a light blue percentile set and a dark blue percentile set, so the dark 10s die could be ranked highest, and then in descending order would be the dark 1s die, the light 10s die, and light 1s die. For "roll twice" effects like Barbarian Rage I'd simply keep the two light dice together as equivalent to one d20 roll, and the two dark dice as the second roll.
Wednesday, April 16, 2014
Improvised Chases (System Neutral)
For gamers coming from a D&D background, chase scenes are often overlooked. Many D&D players simply don't run chases, or when they do they resort to speed comparisons, or counting squares while taking potshots with ranged attacks or spells. Many powerful control spells will outright end a chase by immobilizing one side or slowing them down. In other words, when chases do come up they are dry and soulless affairs.
Granted, this might not be everyone's experience, but these are the solutions that make the most obvious use of the rules of the more recent editions of D&D. I'm sure plenty of GM's ignore the square counting and go for a more skill-challenge type solution. But skill challenges (as presented in 4E D&D) have their own set of problems, namely that the strict number of failures vs number of successes doesn't necessarily match the narrative description of the scene. If a skill should end the challenge even if the requisite number of successes hasn't been reached, the GM will usually either fudge it and say that the players succeed, or you'll get frustrated players who don't feel like their specific actions mean anything more than "checking a box."
I know I never really had many chases in my games, but recently I've been sprinkling them in. In general, I've been using a modified version of the Thriller Chase rules of the Gumshoe game "Night's Black Agents." The framework works really well for virtually any system, ignoring of course the Gumshoe-specific rules. The result is a narrative, fast-paced system for resolving chases with skill checks.
So give it a try next time you have to run a chase scene. If it's completely on-the-fly, consider dropping the chase track down to +/-4, or even 3, because that will keep the number of scenes that you'll need to come up with to a minimum. Note that a +/-3 could be resolved in as few as 2 "rounds," but if there's more back and forth it might take longer. If you need to adjust the pace, make the next scene harder if the PCs are doing better that you anticipated, or easier if they're floundering (especially the latter!). If it starts to get repetitive or you run out of scenes, better to end the chase in an exciting way (some sort of complication?) than slog through the chase track just for the sake of finishing it. This isn't meant to be a hard-and-fast resolution system; it's more of a tool for the GM to ballpark their pacing.
Granted, this might not be everyone's experience, but these are the solutions that make the most obvious use of the rules of the more recent editions of D&D. I'm sure plenty of GM's ignore the square counting and go for a more skill-challenge type solution. But skill challenges (as presented in 4E D&D) have their own set of problems, namely that the strict number of failures vs number of successes doesn't necessarily match the narrative description of the scene. If a skill should end the challenge even if the requisite number of successes hasn't been reached, the GM will usually either fudge it and say that the players succeed, or you'll get frustrated players who don't feel like their specific actions mean anything more than "checking a box."
I know I never really had many chases in my games, but recently I've been sprinkling them in. In general, I've been using a modified version of the Thriller Chase rules of the Gumshoe game "Night's Black Agents." The framework works really well for virtually any system, ignoring of course the Gumshoe-specific rules. The result is a narrative, fast-paced system for resolving chases with skill checks.
- First, create a chase track. I like to have the PCs start at a value of 0, and track lead by going up or down on the track. A good default is to cap the track at +/-5. If one or more PC gets to 5, they win. If all PCs get to -5, they lose. This works regardless of whether they're pursuing or pursued (just inject whatever narrative description fits the scene).
- Most importantly, describe a dynamic environment and let the PCs react to it. Picture each round as a leg of the chase that takes place in a discrete scene. Running through a busy city street, a pursuing NPC might make a check to convince guards/police (or upstanding citizens) to stop the PCs. The key here is to not let the chase devolve into "I sprint," "ok, roll Athletics," etc. That's the equivalent of fighting generic orcs in a featureless 30x30 room. As a GM, you'll probably have to play the NPC as a proactive party, actively creating problems/opposition that the PCs are forced to react to.
- Each "leg" or point of lead is a narrative unit; it doesn't have to equal a specific number of feet or squares. The chase is broken up into units of "interesting scenes," and each scene should be summarized with a single skill check for all parties involved.
- As a baseline, a successful skill check will bring the PC up 1 step on the chase track. A failure will drop them down 1 step. Conversely, a success by the NPC (or group of NPCs) might bring all PCs down 1 step, and a failure bring all PCs up 1 step. Depending on the narrative, multiple NPCs might only effect one or some PCs.
- If the difficulty of a check is going to be harder than typical (i.e. the action is riskier), reward that by letting a success increase the lead by 2. Don't get too generous with this option, and typically only use it if there is an easier alternative and the contrast between the options is noticeable. A failure doesn't necessarily have to drop the PC down by 2, though. Equally interesting is a penalty to their next skill check, or even a penalty to an ally's check. Feel free to adjust the "pacing" of the track if the chase stalls or seems to look like it's going to be a back-and-forth for a long time.
- The option of increasing/decreasing lead by multiple increments could also be used if the system has a "degrees of success" mechanic, even if it's as simple as a "crit" (natural 20) in a d20 system. Things like succeeding with style in Fate, great/extraordinary successes in TOR, or getting a raise in Savage Worlds would apply here.
- If the system uses a resource-management mechanic (like Vancian spells), feel free to grant an auto-success for the expenditure of resources, or at least force the NPC to make a difficult skill check that can benefit the party (will increase their position), but won't set them back if the NPC succeeds.
So give it a try next time you have to run a chase scene. If it's completely on-the-fly, consider dropping the chase track down to +/-4, or even 3, because that will keep the number of scenes that you'll need to come up with to a minimum. Note that a +/-3 could be resolved in as few as 2 "rounds," but if there's more back and forth it might take longer. If you need to adjust the pace, make the next scene harder if the PCs are doing better that you anticipated, or easier if they're floundering (especially the latter!). If it starts to get repetitive or you run out of scenes, better to end the chase in an exciting way (some sort of complication?) than slog through the chase track just for the sake of finishing it. This isn't meant to be a hard-and-fast resolution system; it's more of a tool for the GM to ballpark their pacing.
Sunday, March 23, 2014
Obligation in 13th Age
I've been intrigued by the idea of porting the Obligation mechanic from EotE into other games ever since our first campaign. Since 13th Age has been the other main game that our group plays it seemed like a good candidate, but I never really pursued the notion since OUT, Backgrounds, and Icon relationships are existing narrative mechanics that can serve the same purpose (though not as well), and I figured adding a fourth would just be too much.
Then I came across this adaptation of the Warlock for 13th Age, from the Mystic Theurge blog. The genius of the Warlock is that it's not a class per-se, but rather an add-on that really gets down to the core concept for what makes it unique - the fact that you've made a pact with a powerful being. The additional class feature very simply gives you a free 1 point Icon relationship (which you can invest more points into) with whatever being you've entered into a pact with. Most likely this will not be an established Icon. Any 5 or 6 is more or less resolved as normally, but with a supernatural flair reflecting the fact that it's a magical pact boon. When you roll a 1, though, your patron has an Agenda for you. As the blog entry states, this was based on Obligation from Star Wars, but obviously re-skinned to fit into the existing paradigm for Icon rolls.
I began to think more about this idea when I was creating my Druid (playtest version) for our current 13th Age game. His OUT is that he was the only survivor of a town swallowed up by a hellhole, but in the process he was infected with the blood of a demon (he's a Tiefling). He has a 2 point negative relationship with the Crusader because they want to hunt him down, as they consider him an abomination. He's always on the run, thus creating the perfect set-up for Obligation! Just interpret any 1's rolled as his Obligation being triggered.
There are a few things to keep in mind when using this mechanic, though. As-is, it's adding a strictly "negative" consequence for your PC with nothing positive to compensate for it, though a certain type of player (myself included) enjoys the narrative complications that crop up even if the character wouldn't. Some players might not necessarily view it as fair though, especially if others in the group don't have this extra burden. There are a few different ways of handling this that I can think of off the top of my head. Like with Obligation, the PC could gain access to additional resources. This is basically how the Warlock works, since you get an extra relationship die with which 5's and 6's can be rolled. This is a good, tangible benefit for a player with "Obligation." Alternatively, you might extend the benefit of the existing dice instead of granting more dice, so that a roll of 4 counts the same way as a 5. In this way the negative results of rolling 1 are countered by the fact that you expand your chances of rolling a benefit by 1/6 as well. In both of these scenarios there is an additional burden placed on the GM, however. For some GMs who have an easy time using Icon rolls already, this might not even be considered a burden. But in our current campaign we're rotating GMs, and it's becoming clear that everyone but myself is having quite a bit of trouble actually using Icon results. The GM tends to groan when a lot of results are rolled for a session, and adding even more results would only exacerbate the problem.
This can be ameliorated by trying to replicate the Obligation mechanic from EotE even more faithfully. First up, in Star Wars a PC can increase Obligation for the chance to get more starting funds or some extra starting XP. Give the 13th Age character with "Obligation" some starting resources, too! A true magic item seems like a good candidate, though it might be a bit more powerful than some groups are comfortable with. A handful of runes and/or potions might work nicely, though. Another hallmark of Obligation as it works in EotE is that you can voluntarily take more on during play in order to gain some immediate benefit. The classic examples are taking on debt to get some gear you can't afford, or agreeing to some future favor that can be called in (probably at an inconvenient time). The Icon mechanic can handle this, too, since one of their suggested uses is an event-based roll for dramatic events. Simply give players with "Obligation" ample opportunity to utilize event-based rolls. Along those same lines, for groups that want to handle it in as simple a way as possible you can simply balance out the "bad things happen on a 1" mechanic by saying those good things that happen on a 5 or 6, those tend to be better than they are for players who don't have "Obligation." Because of your special status as a thorn in that Icon's side, the enemy's of that Icon are apt to look more favorably on you, and are willing to go that extra mile to help you out.
Then I came across this adaptation of the Warlock for 13th Age, from the Mystic Theurge blog. The genius of the Warlock is that it's not a class per-se, but rather an add-on that really gets down to the core concept for what makes it unique - the fact that you've made a pact with a powerful being. The additional class feature very simply gives you a free 1 point Icon relationship (which you can invest more points into) with whatever being you've entered into a pact with. Most likely this will not be an established Icon. Any 5 or 6 is more or less resolved as normally, but with a supernatural flair reflecting the fact that it's a magical pact boon. When you roll a 1, though, your patron has an Agenda for you. As the blog entry states, this was based on Obligation from Star Wars, but obviously re-skinned to fit into the existing paradigm for Icon rolls.
I began to think more about this idea when I was creating my Druid (playtest version) for our current 13th Age game. His OUT is that he was the only survivor of a town swallowed up by a hellhole, but in the process he was infected with the blood of a demon (he's a Tiefling). He has a 2 point negative relationship with the Crusader because they want to hunt him down, as they consider him an abomination. He's always on the run, thus creating the perfect set-up for Obligation! Just interpret any 1's rolled as his Obligation being triggered.
There are a few things to keep in mind when using this mechanic, though. As-is, it's adding a strictly "negative" consequence for your PC with nothing positive to compensate for it, though a certain type of player (myself included) enjoys the narrative complications that crop up even if the character wouldn't. Some players might not necessarily view it as fair though, especially if others in the group don't have this extra burden. There are a few different ways of handling this that I can think of off the top of my head. Like with Obligation, the PC could gain access to additional resources. This is basically how the Warlock works, since you get an extra relationship die with which 5's and 6's can be rolled. This is a good, tangible benefit for a player with "Obligation." Alternatively, you might extend the benefit of the existing dice instead of granting more dice, so that a roll of 4 counts the same way as a 5. In this way the negative results of rolling 1 are countered by the fact that you expand your chances of rolling a benefit by 1/6 as well. In both of these scenarios there is an additional burden placed on the GM, however. For some GMs who have an easy time using Icon rolls already, this might not even be considered a burden. But in our current campaign we're rotating GMs, and it's becoming clear that everyone but myself is having quite a bit of trouble actually using Icon results. The GM tends to groan when a lot of results are rolled for a session, and adding even more results would only exacerbate the problem.
This can be ameliorated by trying to replicate the Obligation mechanic from EotE even more faithfully. First up, in Star Wars a PC can increase Obligation for the chance to get more starting funds or some extra starting XP. Give the 13th Age character with "Obligation" some starting resources, too! A true magic item seems like a good candidate, though it might be a bit more powerful than some groups are comfortable with. A handful of runes and/or potions might work nicely, though. Another hallmark of Obligation as it works in EotE is that you can voluntarily take more on during play in order to gain some immediate benefit. The classic examples are taking on debt to get some gear you can't afford, or agreeing to some future favor that can be called in (probably at an inconvenient time). The Icon mechanic can handle this, too, since one of their suggested uses is an event-based roll for dramatic events. Simply give players with "Obligation" ample opportunity to utilize event-based rolls. Along those same lines, for groups that want to handle it in as simple a way as possible you can simply balance out the "bad things happen on a 1" mechanic by saying those good things that happen on a 5 or 6, those tend to be better than they are for players who don't have "Obligation." Because of your special status as a thorn in that Icon's side, the enemy's of that Icon are apt to look more favorably on you, and are willing to go that extra mile to help you out.
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