Have you ever considered that Ikea might be the "holy grail" of RPG design? The phrase "Some Assembly Required" is really the watch-word of a solid RPG system. The boys (and girls?) over at Crafty Games have really nailed that in their new Fantasy Craft. Unfortunately, I happen to be a friend of one of the editors, Alex Flagg, so I'm going to have to really justify this positive review. Wouldn't want anyone to think I'm playing favorites! So I am going to break down what was done right, and hit a few points that probably could have been touched up.
First thing you are likely to notice as you crack the book (or scroll through the PDF) is the margin art. The top and bottom of each page has a small vignette drawn across it, adding a little ambiance to what can easily become a dry book of rules. I got a kick out of interpreting, and then reinterpreting the actions being presented on each small image. The artwork in general is highly reminiscient of the original Dungeons & Dragons and Advanced Dungeons & Dragons rulebooks, which will reassure us old hands at High Fantasy gaming, and intrigue the fresh faces who are just exploring the fun to be had with D&D 4th edition, Pathfinder, and now Fantasy Craft.
Crafty Games has done an excellent job of distancing themselves from their predecessors, with the Species options and Classes being sufficiently different from previous games of this type. As an owner of the old Council of the Wyrms boxed set, I was happy to see the inclusion of a draconic race, minus the anthropomorphism. The one thing I found a bit off-putting early in the rules was the high number of classes. Assassin, Burglar, and Explorer are three seperate basic classes in Fantasy Craft. Setting aside my general dislike of Assassin being a class (or prestige class! I'm talking to you, 3.5!), I feel like the flexibility of this approach could have been preserved without cluttering the system with so many classes. Perhaps using a system similar to the talent system from Star Wars Saga Edition or by giving a class different progression trees that can be chosen from. This would allow a new player to get their bearing in the character creation process a bit more quickly.
How about Action Points, you like those? Then you'll love Fantasy Craft. No, they don't give you action points, they give you Action Dice! And Action Dice explode! I like exploding dice. And the action dice in Fantasy Craft feel like more of a resource rather than a perk, which makes them more memorable to players, and more significant in their contribution to the flow of any given encounter. I also like the mutability of key abilities for skill checks. Did your Soldier use Charisma as a dump stat? You can still use Intimidate, just make sure that you are using it in a way that makes Strength a better key ability for it. That's the kind of flexibility that a game like this needs to be interesting.
Flexibility comes at a cost, though. Treasure is awarded and retained through a relatively arcane Reputation/Lifestyle system. The Gear section wouldn't have surprised me if I had seen an entry on one of the tables for the "Kitchen Sink." The adversaries in the game scale with the level of your players' characters (a nice touch, reminiscent of the method used by Bethesda Games in their Elder Scrolls computer games), making each encounter a small exercise in your math skills just to get your stat blocks in order. Fantasy Craft also does away with the discrete organization used by games like D&D 4th edition for encounters, splitting things by scenes, which are far more arbitrary and harder to ajudicate.
Final Word? The Sage gives Fantasy Craft the thumbs up. If you like your gaming simple, sit this one out. If you want to exert a little more effort, and try some new ways of engaging your players, pick this up. Just make sure you have some lead time, you're going to want to read through this rule system a couple of times.
August 25, 2009
August 19, 2009
Extended Adventuring
I'm currently playing in a long-running D&D campaign, and DMing a second. Both are 4th Edition games. One thing that has started to stand out to me is that the "Curse of the Wizard" has subsumed all classes in this new edition. In previous editions, the wizard, and to a lesser extent all spellcasters, had to treat their arsenal of spells like a precious commodity, only to be expended in times of great need. This led to a built-in limit on how long a party could continue adventuring without resting. Once the wizard had cast all his spells, he began whining about taking an 8-hour rest (now we call them "extended rests") and this led the party to try to find a defensible position and hope that their DM was kind enough to allow them some sleep. In 4th Edition D&D, now even the fighter and the rogue (traditionally the two classes that could keep going right up to their last hit point) are asking to take a rest every third encounter. At the lowest levels, this doesn't appear to be horribly problematic, but when your party has infiltrated the enemy's encampment and are stealthily disposing of the strongest pockets of resistance, it becomes difficult to justify huddling down in an empty tent for six or eight hours!
So, what to do? We want to keep the game exciting, and we want to make sure that there are plenty of reasons to take extended rests, but is there a way to extend the amount of time a party can continue toward their goal? For DMs, this is even a way to retain suspense and build tension, because nothing kills the tension and excitement like a group of players afraid to do anything because they are out of daily powers and surges.
The first potential solution is to create a median between Short Rests, about 5 minutes of in-game time long, and Extended Rests, which are at least 6 hours long and must be seperated by 12 hours of activity. We'll call them Moderate Rests, lasting at least 30 minutes. A moderate rest should refund one daily power, and a quarter of the character's healing surges. Moderate rests should not be allowed more than once every two milestones (four encounters) in heroic and paragon teirs. Once the characters have hit epic teir, don't allow a moderate rest until three milestones (6 encounters) have elapsed.
If you feel that the real stumbling block is simply the fact that the effectiveness of the characters drops off too steeply when all daily powers are expended, consider giving the option of recharging a daily power instead of receiving an action point. This option should be restricted in some way, because players may choose to abuse such largess on the part of the DM. First, make sure that the character does not have an item which awards action points for some circumstance. No matter how unlikely the circumstance, this could lead to all players seeking out such items, and would mean that the players are not truly giving something up to gain another use of their daily power. Second, once the character has more than one daily power, consider restricting this option to only when they have two fewer than their maximum number of daily powers. This way, you won't have a character who is able to bring themselves back to a full compliment of daily attack powers by forgoing action points.
If you are open to something a little more drastic, a more significant adjustment to the system would be to boost the number of healing surges each character has, and to recharge daily powers half as often as you award action points. Take the final number of surges for each character and multiply it by 1.5 to give the total number of surges. Every four encounters, let the characters choose one expended daily power and return it to their "unused" pile. This system will allow for more encounters within a single day of game time. It might also unbalance the characters slightly against the level progression model of the core rules. If you use this option, consider slowing down the XP gain, perhaps by awarding only three quarters of the original experience. However, you might find that no balance problems arise, and if they do not, avoid instituting any penalties for the system.
Remember, the purpose of these rule options is to increase the number of encounters a party can tackle before running out of gas and needing some sack time. It's about increasing the entertainment factor, and keeping the game running smoothly. If you aren't having any problems with that, don't try these out, as they will simply tend to unbalance the game and potentially could ruin everyone's fun. However, if you're like me, and hate having to try to take a quick 6 hour nap in the Antechamber of Death's Dwelling because the four encounters getting to the antechamber, and then the fight with the red dragon in the antechamber, have completely wiped out your attack powers and healing surges, perhaps these slight tweaks might help to alleviate some of those problems.
So, what to do? We want to keep the game exciting, and we want to make sure that there are plenty of reasons to take extended rests, but is there a way to extend the amount of time a party can continue toward their goal? For DMs, this is even a way to retain suspense and build tension, because nothing kills the tension and excitement like a group of players afraid to do anything because they are out of daily powers and surges.
The first potential solution is to create a median between Short Rests, about 5 minutes of in-game time long, and Extended Rests, which are at least 6 hours long and must be seperated by 12 hours of activity. We'll call them Moderate Rests, lasting at least 30 minutes. A moderate rest should refund one daily power, and a quarter of the character's healing surges. Moderate rests should not be allowed more than once every two milestones (four encounters) in heroic and paragon teirs. Once the characters have hit epic teir, don't allow a moderate rest until three milestones (6 encounters) have elapsed.
If you feel that the real stumbling block is simply the fact that the effectiveness of the characters drops off too steeply when all daily powers are expended, consider giving the option of recharging a daily power instead of receiving an action point. This option should be restricted in some way, because players may choose to abuse such largess on the part of the DM. First, make sure that the character does not have an item which awards action points for some circumstance. No matter how unlikely the circumstance, this could lead to all players seeking out such items, and would mean that the players are not truly giving something up to gain another use of their daily power. Second, once the character has more than one daily power, consider restricting this option to only when they have two fewer than their maximum number of daily powers. This way, you won't have a character who is able to bring themselves back to a full compliment of daily attack powers by forgoing action points.
If you are open to something a little more drastic, a more significant adjustment to the system would be to boost the number of healing surges each character has, and to recharge daily powers half as often as you award action points. Take the final number of surges for each character and multiply it by 1.5 to give the total number of surges. Every four encounters, let the characters choose one expended daily power and return it to their "unused" pile. This system will allow for more encounters within a single day of game time. It might also unbalance the characters slightly against the level progression model of the core rules. If you use this option, consider slowing down the XP gain, perhaps by awarding only three quarters of the original experience. However, you might find that no balance problems arise, and if they do not, avoid instituting any penalties for the system.
Remember, the purpose of these rule options is to increase the number of encounters a party can tackle before running out of gas and needing some sack time. It's about increasing the entertainment factor, and keeping the game running smoothly. If you aren't having any problems with that, don't try these out, as they will simply tend to unbalance the game and potentially could ruin everyone's fun. However, if you're like me, and hate having to try to take a quick 6 hour nap in the Antechamber of Death's Dwelling because the four encounters getting to the antechamber, and then the fight with the red dragon in the antechamber, have completely wiped out your attack powers and healing surges, perhaps these slight tweaks might help to alleviate some of those problems.
August 15, 2009
Welcome, One and All!
The subtitle might have misled you somewhat. I am something of an RPG aficionado, but I have very strong propensities toward the most mainstream of games. Most of this blog will revolve around Dungeons & Dragons (tm) and Star Wars: Saga Edition (tm). I will occasionally examine other games, with some favoritism shed in the direction of my good friend Alex Flagg, over at Crafty Games (look for an upcoming review of Fantasy Craft, from Alex and his cohorts).
Many topics will revolve around ideas for players, GMs, and even those of us who dabble in both. Some of these things might seem overly ambitious, or even down-right stupid. Tell me what you think, or if you give something a try, let me know how it turned out. If you'd like some thoughts from the sage on a topic, I'll even break a fundamental tennant of the blog (see: the title of said blog) and provide solicited material when asked!
Now, while you can peek over at the "About Me" on the right, let me establish some credentials before we get too far into this. I am NOT an employee of Wizards of the Coast (tm), WotC, or Crafty Games (tm). I have done some freelance work for WotC, such as writing this article with my buddy Greg Bilsland, who IS an editor at WotC. So, I've done some work, I have semi-regular conversations with industry insiders, and I play alot. That really comes out to pretty thin credentials. Fortunately, this is unsolicited sagacity, so I'll keep blathering on whether I am qualified or not.
Look for updates on Wednesdays. Hope to see you then!
Many topics will revolve around ideas for players, GMs, and even those of us who dabble in both. Some of these things might seem overly ambitious, or even down-right stupid. Tell me what you think, or if you give something a try, let me know how it turned out. If you'd like some thoughts from the sage on a topic, I'll even break a fundamental tennant of the blog (see: the title of said blog) and provide solicited material when asked!
Now, while you can peek over at the "About Me" on the right, let me establish some credentials before we get too far into this. I am NOT an employee of Wizards of the Coast (tm), WotC, or Crafty Games (tm). I have done some freelance work for WotC, such as writing this article with my buddy Greg Bilsland, who IS an editor at WotC. So, I've done some work, I have semi-regular conversations with industry insiders, and I play alot. That really comes out to pretty thin credentials. Fortunately, this is unsolicited sagacity, so I'll keep blathering on whether I am qualified or not.
Look for updates on Wednesdays. Hope to see you then!
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