Planned Systems vs. DIY Systems

Some pen-and-paper games lay out everything for you and make your choices for your character as you level. You get a level, and the system says you get X and Y powers, ability scores, and hits. These are planned systems, and some good examples of them are:

• d20, Pathfinder, and D&D
• Basic Fantasy and Labyrinth Lord
• Fantasy Age and Dragon Age
• Most class-based systems
• Most MMOs

Some pen-and-paper games are DIY (do it yourself) games, and often these give you a number of "character development points" to use anyway you would like to improve your character. Some examples of this type of game include:

• Savage Worlds
• Legend and Runequest
• GURPS and Champions
• Mongoose's Traveller
• Star Frontiers and many of the TSR Boxed Games
• Most classless systems

And some fall in the middle:

• Fantasy Flight's Star Wars System

Planned systems are great for newcomers, because it is a lot easier to say "you get this and that" when you level instead of spending time sorting through the rules and the book asking the question "is this a good choice" over and over again. Believe us, we have been there, and you practically have to teach every new player the complete set of rules when they first level up with a DIY system. Otherwise, how would they know what is good?

Planned games protect new players from making bad choices, and balance the game based on prebuilt and predictable "endgame" builds.

We prefer DIY systems, because we like making our own choices when we progress characters, and we are more experienced players who know what we want when we build characters. Some planned systems have elements of choice (skill points and multiclassing), but a true DIY system foregoes classes and balances the game around skills and task resolution. Personally, when I level a character, I don't like feeling limited to the choices the game makes for me, especially if that wasn't the direction my character was going in during the last adventure.

If my warlock spent most of the last session socializing and roleplaying, why should he advance in "warlock power" at the end of the night? Shouldn't something reflect his learned ability in socializing and people skills due to this experience?

With a planned system, it is difficult to reflect those experiences and often you end up a better warlock and just as bad as a talker as you started. Warlocks aren't talkers, are they? That's a bard! So do I have to take a bard level now? Great, hand me a lute and paint it black.

With a DIY system, I put some skill points in a social skill reflecting what I did that night, and I am done. How did I get those XPs? Shouldn't those reflect my experiences? My warlock powers don't increase because I didn't use them, but who cares? If this campaign is all about talking, I am all setup for the next game with a little better oratory skills under my belt for next time, and I am happy. If next time we have a swashbuckling adventure I may pick up a sword skill or two.

Does it matter I am not progressing along a game designer's pre-planned class advancement track? Something the company spends countless hours balancing and tweaking to get "one" advancement experience perfect? No, it doesn't. My "advancement track" is the adventures I go on, and if I end up more of a glib, sword swinging practitioner of dark magic than a pure 100% power-level don-nothing-else factory-stamped-out warlock I don't care. My guy is my guy, and the adventures he went on made up the skills and powers he collected along the way.

DIY systems focus on organic advancement and balance the game on skill rolls and task difficulty.

DIY systems don't really have predicable "endgame" character builds, you just become very good at doing the things you do the most. You may end up the world's best talker, but if that is what you enjoy having your character do at the table, that is a good thing since your character advancement reflects what you are doing when you play.

Planned systems also tend to have these "pre-balanced" endgames, where the fighter will always have X attacks at Y to-hit, and be able to do Z damage a turn. Since the game designer "planned" this out, relative character power between classes is easy to calculate, and the "end game" monsters are easier to balance, Well, they should be, but a lot of planned systems typically don't take a lot of factors and exploits into consideration at the higher end (conditions, initiative, and turn denial powers) and things fall out of balance easily.

This is why a lot of competitive multiplayer online games are (or end up being) planned systems. You saw this in World of Warcraft's evolution, a lot of DIY systems were dropped to put characters in predictable, damage-and-healing-output-known envelopes. PVP and PVE balance in these games equals challenge and fun - at the cost of letting you level up your character how you choose to play.

D&D 4 was like this for us, at the high end the game fell apart for us because of the amount of stuns and other powers that rendered foes unable to act during a turn, and also our characters felt like they were getting competitively weaker versus the monsters they faced. The end-game tactics broke down into: go first, deny the enemy his turn, load it up with conditions, and beat on it with "whatever power you have" until it succumbs. The game wanted to be battle chess (which it was for us at low levels), but the high-end game did not work - at least for us.

With a DIY system, the endgame can be calculated if you do a little math, but the end-result is typically a flatter power level. The numbers usually don't get way out of balance, as the system is usually balanced around task resolution. Better skills can lead to a higher DPS and damage output in a DIY system, since you are hitting more and you may have access to special combat moves and abilities you purchased with your points. The Star Wars RPG by Fantasy Flight does a good job with talents and making those unlock higher levels of combat power, so there can be a calculated "end game build" with a DIY system - it just takes a little more design and forethought.

What character advancement system you like is of course, up to you. There are times when "I don't want to think" and I appreciate the simplicity of a planned system. I still like Fantasy AGE a lot, and I feel it is a great, stepped and balanced design that does a better job at planned advancement than most d20 based games. It is a more modern design with a hybrid "choice plus planned advancement" that I like, and it is a fun and simple model and great for new players. One problem with this model is that if the game designer doesn't think of a role, it is not viable - such as Dragon Age vs. Fantasy Age and the rogue archer issue.

We still like DIY advancement systems for our games, since it fits our play style better. We run wide and diverse games, and they don't always fit into the box of a planned class box that easily. For us, what happens at the table that night is how the characters advance, and if the players want to go sword swinging and combat one night, they can reward themselves with those skills at the end of the night and get a little better. If all we do is roleplay and socialize with NPCs, that is what is rewarded at the end of the night. It fits how we play and gives us a better sense of satisfaction when players figure out rewards, and it also reflects how we play and what happens around our table a little better than a planned system could ever account for.

Rules Anthropology and System Mastery

One thing that always amazes me about the d20 rules is how the rules feel stuck in anthropology. D&D 3, D&D 3.5, Pathfinder, D&D 4, and D&D 5 all rely on the theory of system mastery, which requires a set of rules to have a certain level of in-built complexity. This complexity means players need to learn the game, and it creates a class of  'player experts' who are walking encyclopedias of game knowledge and reference.

Following the theory of system mastery, the game in theory cannot be simple. There needs to be built-in exceptions, tricks, little twists and turns of rules, gotchas, and I-don't-know moments of vague presentation that require a college level of mastery of a particular rules set. The more arcane, the better, because this allows the 'player expert' to become more valuable to a particular group or setting.

Anthropology? You feel like a scientist digging through the history of these games to just be able to play them. They are incompatible with each other, have enough small changes between them that one game is realistically all an average person can play, and some of the assumptions you carried over from previous editions will trip you up. It's why I still like Labyrinth Lord or Basic Fantasy as my go-to D&D games, they stick to the core design, there isn't much to learn, and there isn't much to mess you up.

Self-Taught Experts

That "power of knowledge" is an important thing. It both creates a barrier to entry (noobs suck at the game), and it creates a barrier to exit (why would I give up all this knowledge and power). It gives those who invest the time a certain level of importance in communities, power over others, and value. If the game is widely played, the more value that person has in a community, gaming group, or forum. Also, if the books needed are expensive and voluminous, the investment in the game keeps people from leaving as well. No one wants to have wasted all that money.

You can short-circuit all of this and say, "I don't have the time," and walk out. You can go to a simple rules system. Many modern designs cater to people without the time to learn all this complexity, and these keep today's time and interest-strapped people in the hobby. They are also exit-points for people that are tired of the heavy games, as a group can only really maintain interest in one large game at a time.

Some modern non-d20 games follow the system mastery model as well, such as Fantasy Flight's Star Wars RPG. While the basic mechanic is simple (as presented in the starter sets), once you go all-in with the main rulebooks there are enough gotchas where you need an expert to sort things out. This is similar for Shadowrun, GURPS, and other games where the weight of expansions and rulings have turned a once-simple game into something more complex.

Games do not need to be that complex. Complexity is not depth. A simple game can have wonderful depth without complexity, take chess, for example. This is where great design comes into play. Some designers seem to give up on designing elegant, simple, yet very deep in strategy rules, and go for the arcane, complex, and exception-filled almost spaghetti computer-code level of complexity when depth by the base mechanic cannot be achieved. The depth is obfuscated in the complexity of the rules.

Modern Designs

Some games are by-design simple, and this applies to the OGL retro-clones, Savage Worlds, Legend, AGE System, FATE, and many modern designs. These games have simple rules of thumb, unified mechanics, and a simple set of core rules which are extended to handle anything. If you know how to do one thing in these games, you can assume many other things work similarly and you are on your way. Some players love the elegance of unified design simplicity, while others love system mastery and the power of that complex knowledge.

A lot of indie games embrace simplicity, because it is a lot easier to test and balance a small set of rules-of-thumb than it is an encyclopedia of specific and carefully-balanced rules. I feel the age of huge, complex systems is passing us by, as even D&D 5 has recognized the need to simplify to increase "what can get done" at the table during a session. They streamlined and simplified monster stats, character complexity, and the amount of modifiers and conditions you needed to remember, and players reacted positively to the changes. As a result, the games move faster, players can cycle through more encounters during a session, and a game session can end with a feeling of progress and completion in regards to a story.

Savage Worlds goes in a different direction than D&D 5, with combat meaning less and all actions taking on an equal level of importance in regards to story completion and advancement. Conversions of modules from Pathfinder, OGL games, and D&D 5 to Savage Worlds typically eliminate encounters meant to "level up" the party and focus more on tasks, social encounters, and roleplaying. D&D 5, in comparison, is the more 'video game' and 'XP and loot' type experience, where Savage Worlds is the more the story-based experience.

There Comes a Point...

When you don't have the time to invest in heavy games anymore. It is happening to us, and I have this feeling Bestiary 5 and Ultimate Intrigue will be the last Pathfinder books we will buy for a while. I love the world, I love the mod-able-ness, I love the art, and I love the system, but enough is enough. I can't run this much, and I can't manage this much complexity anymore. If I play, it will be with a subset of books, but even then I question if investing myself in a reduced subset of that complexity will be worth the payout. Learning and mastering a simpler game at this point may give us more bang for the gaming buck.

Even the new Star Wars RPG still feels bloated to us, and we've reduced the game to the base three books. It is the problem with everything being a heavy game, you want to play them all, but one person really can't master and maintain interest in this many large games. They makes these games complex with the theory of system mastery so you won't leave for another game, and then when you collect too many of them, everything in your gaming world collapses under the weight of complexity.

OGL games are cool, and they "get there from here" in terms of providing a dungeon experience for the complexity and time spent learning them. Savage Worlds is also cool and simple, and covers so many genres that it is worth learning because the payout in "fun for time" is very high. D&D 5 is interesting, but we haven't had the time or interest to put into it as much as I'd hoped, plus the OGL games do a good job at the dungeon and loot experience anyways so we haven't had much pressure to jump in.

In our group and for our time, Pathfinder, Shadowrun, and the new Star Wars RPG feel like the losers here. We don't have the time to put into and enjoy them as we would like, and something has to give. When you need to make choices, you typically start throwing the heavy systems overboard first (or you stick with one heavy system and throw out everything else). This isn't to say they aren't deep and fun games, it is just the complexity and time needed to put in to enjoy them fully is very high.

I will probably reorganize my shelves to reflect the new order, and focus on what is right for our group. This is also a consideration when you design a game, do you want it to be so complex that is pushes out other systems, or do you want it to be rules-light and easily accessible? I don't think many games nowadays can compete with the big heavy-hitters out there, so writing a large and complicated game will put you at a disadvantage of competing for attention of players and also being pushed off a shelf due to the heavy nature of your rules.

We do have a lot of large, complicated games sitting in boxes because we don't have the time or mental space to run them (Rifts, GURPS, and others). I feel bad about a couple more being on their way to storage, but really, what can we do? It is best to focus on the games you love, and the ones you have time for, rather than so many you are unhappy you don't have the time and mental effort to play them all.

Pathfinder: Ultimate Intrigue

So, Pathfinder: Ultimate Intrigue?

I feel this one is mostly a mess. It shows some of the worst failings of the d20 system in rules design, and attempts to rules-ify and feat-ify basic "I do this and I say that" roleplaying. What should be in-character banter between the player and referee is slogged down by rules, stat-blocks, and game systems.

DM judgement and player creativity are replaced by book reference and rules structure. It feels terrible, especially when compared with the elegance of other systems in these situations like Savage Worlds or FATE.

Why? Because what this book forces you to do is buy feats and sink character points into skills that take away from combat, which many players will not want to do. There is little support for 'well rounded' characters in most d20 systems, as you are making choices between "combat effectiveness" and "non-combat ability" every level, and combat effectiveness usually wins. You must keep up with the Jones' - aka, the monsters and opponents of the world, so choosing "combat" is typically the safer way to go.

So now, what should be "handle it with roleplaying" is now "we can build characters around social combat rules" and I feel something huge is lost here. If a player, without a character with a social build, roleplays wonderfully in a Game of Thrones moment of drama and heartfelt appeal - am I supposed to coldly refer to the rules, state they do not have the feats to make such an appeal, and deny the roleplaying based on a failing of "social combat?"

Please, d20 game designers, stick to combat rules, which the d20 system does well. Keep the rules out of the roleplaying area, and let people play. I feel anytime designers try to make d20 do something other than combat it usually results in a complicated mess of charts and rules that takes the fun out of the game (there are a couple exceptions of d20 designs that do this well, but not D&D as a whole). Especially if you start putting a "social feat tax" on characters who want to be social, and now they suck when standing in a party alongside the established builds and highly-tuned killing machines the game has gotten us used to.

If these options were in the game on the ground floor, I could feel differently, since the default assumption would be "you build balanced characters for combat and social play." But still, creating strict rules for social roleplay feels so backwards and against the spirit of the hobby I sit here and wonder why.

I want to play a diplomat who is just as good with a sword as the fighter is, and I want my diplomat to feel like he or she can contribute equally when in combat or out of it. Making me lose combat effectiveness just because I want my character to be talky takes away from the fun of the game, and it further pushes apart the "roleplay" players from the "combat" players when the game should bring them together.

To the book's credit, it provides some new character archetypes and  build options that are fun, but the whole notion of creating a class around a Batman-like "secret identity" vigilante seems odd. My rogue or mage could have a secret identity too, you know. I could even have my mage or rogue be a vigilante. Seriously. I don't need this level of classification, and I don't need making every job-based noun a character class. The build options are fun though, and the art is pretty.

Why give all these social rules for roleplaying, and then give us hundreds of spells meant to short-circuit it? We have spells to sense lies and motives, make others seem as dishonest, and all sorts of other spells which feel like they are "quick and easy outs" for mages in social situations. Why go through a whole Sherlock Holmes adventure interrogating suspects, putting together clues, and figuring out who has the motive to lie about who killed Mr. Boddy when this complete spellbook of "forensic lie detection" powers can do the same with the wave of a magic wand? The very thing the book tries to do, create a framework for social adventures, feels marginalized by the spells in the back of the book.

Seriously. If we are trying to find out the killer, are we going to go through the detective work, or just have someone cast a spell?

Someone cast the spell and let's get on to the next combat encounter. Yes, the book says "magic is frowned upon in polite company," but really? Bust out the lie-detector, we are trying to save the world here. Divination is already a huge deal-breaker when it comes to D&D and mystery games, and after this book's spells are introduced into the mix, running social and intrigue games feels worse. Yes, there are some tricky counter-counter spells in here meant to counter divination, but I don't want to play a game of divination-counter escalation and spell-counter-spell when doing the Sherlock Holmes thing.

And not in every mystery because it feels forced and artificial. Who done it? Whoever can cast the anti-divination and social magic is a prime suspect.

Other games do this better. If I want to play mystery and social, Pathfinder is not my first choice nor would I want it to be (see Divination magic, above). I expected a "how to run a mystery" or "how to create a social adventure" type material, and it feels like we just got a bunch of misguided rules that will be ignored because:

• People who play the game for tactical challenge will ignore
• People who play the game for roleplaying will feel burdened by
• Referees who are used to rewarding great roleplaying will ignore

And the rules drive these two groups apart instead of bring them together. You force social characters down a path buying social feats and powers (making them weaker when playing with the other side), and you put combat characters on their well-trodden path down of combat effectiveness (and also the path the game is balanced around).

There are times when I feel the old-school games of "roleplay is up to the players and referee" is the best way to go. If you need a stat that affects the chance of success, let it be charisma, and leave it at that. No feats needed. No skills needed. No rules or charts needed. Just your CHR modifier, and of course, the referee's judgement based on what you just said, how the NPC feels, and what is being asked for.

Come up with a DC, add your CHR modifier, and roll.

d100 vs. d20

In the older roll-under d100 systems, there was this one-to-one relationship between an ability score and the target number. The target number WAS your ability score, and if you raised your score, life got better.

Things flipped and became more dice-centric with d20 based games. Rolling high became the new thing, with the only exception being the older game Aftermath, a d20 roll-under system that worked a lot like the percentile systems. With the new d20 paradigm, rolling a natural 20 became the cool thing to do, and bang, that was it, you've made it in life.

Except when D&D 3 came along, and you had to confirm that crit.

Spoilsports.

It's funny the new versions of Car Wars followed GURPS and became a roll-under system too, because the math was easier than an open-ended roll. I still prefer GURPS as roll-under and Car Wars as roll-over though, there's no arguing with a 9+ to-hit on a heavy rocket and rolling double-sixes for a massive crit.

The original SBRPG was a 3d6 roll-over system.

For some things, I like roll-under and for others, roll-over. Percentile systems are classically roll-under, because the focus is different. I do not think all games have to be the same. One of the traps in being a game designer is taking your personal preferences and shoehorning them onto every other game you design or redesign.

A lot of D&D 3 came from the Magic the Gathering game. D&D 4's designers ported in some ideas from Iron Heroes and other games. D&D 5 borrows from yet others. It's not wrong to expand upon a good idea, but you need to weigh any addition against how it would fit within the original game.

One point being "healing surges" in D&D 4. D&D has classically been a game where a cleric can heal someone for X points of damage with the expenditure of a spell. In D&D 4, a cleric's healing ability used one of the target character's healing surges to heal them. If the target character was "all healed out" for the day, guess what, no heals for you. How does this make any sense with how clerics worked in the history of the game? It felt too alien, ported in from something else, and it wasn't how clerics felt their magic should work.

Porting in ideas doesn't always work or feel right within an established context. Nor does changing things too much to where things feel alien and strange given what came before. Just ask the Windows 8 team.

Can people "get" that they have to roll under a target number to succeed at an action? Yes. Does it feel good? Let me answer that with another question. How important is that feel-good of rolling high matter to your game, or does it just matter to you? Here's another thing to think about, rolling high invites open-ended dicing systems, because there are always larger positive and negative modifiers to throw around. Let's make our target number 913% and add +850% to the d100 roll!

With roll-under, you literally have 0% as your floor, and you do not want to go into negative numbers. You also get into this with d100, a 913% target number makes little sense other than being some obscenely high number you have to number-stack to reach. It means nothing percentage-wise. A 15% roll-under chance to-hit is simple, straightforward, and easily understood from anybody with a basic understanding of probability. A +10% chance to-hit modifier is also easily understandable.

Let's flip this around, and do this in a d20 roll-over system. Target number 21, and your modifier is a +3. What is your probability of success? Sure, rolling high is great now, but you have taken most people's understanding of odds and straightforward success and risk calculations out of the game. At least the average player's without some mental arithmetic. You get a further +2 to-hit, now what is your chance?

Hint: both examples are the same.

So as a game designer you ask yourself the question, do I want the "roll high" thrill, or do I want people to be immediately aware of their odds with roll-under? For certain types of games your answers will be different. For a hard-science sci-fi game, we may want percentage roll-under, because this game is supposed to be about science, odds, and the raw hard-probability chance of success. For a competitive game, like a PvP Car Wars game, roll-high is cool, since players around the table are now competing for the best and highest rolls.

If you choose roll-over, you are now opening yourself up to the unbalancing aspects of open-ended rolls. If you choose roll-under, your maximum ability scores and success chances are capped at or near 100%. There are trade offs to both approaches.

You tailor your game design decisions based on the types of behavior and feelings you want to promote at the table. One size or dice does not fit all, and roll-under or over is really a per-game decision. Never accept game design zeitgeist, and you make the right decisions for your game based on math, feel, and user experience.

D&D Classics: Every Edition on Sale!

Very good news from Wizards and the great guys at Drive Thru RPG. It seems like every edition of D&D is now for sale via PDF up at the www.dndclassics.com store. Not all the core rulebooks are up yet, but there are sections for Basic/Expert, 1E, 2E, 3E, and yes, even 4E - and some of the releases are old, out of print rulebooks. This is a great thing, and brings Wizards back up to the times in our tablet and smartphone world. The prices are great too, plus regular sales, very cool.

This is a positive step, and one that is very welcome. Credit where credit is due, thank you Wizards and the team out there for making this happen.

I shall repeat the call for some of the classics as PDFs as well; such as Star Frontiers, Top Secret, Gangbusters, Gamma World, and all the old TSR greats. You are doing an incredible job with the store guys, keep it up, and they deserve our support. Get out there and play these as well, they deserve to be seen again by new players and new faces!

Design Room: Eberron

Welcome back to another edition of Design Room, not really a review of a number of gaming books, but more of an in-depth look into the game design aspects around a series of books and the implications on game play. For reviews, I shall steer you to other sources, like Amazon, we are interested primarily here in game design, theory, and impact on referees and players. Today we look at one of the biggies in a retrospective, D&D's Eberron game world.

It is important to note that Eberron is still the setting of games like D&D Online, but it doesn't seem to be getting any D&D Next love as of yet. It had a number of 4E supplements, which we will get into, but the fate and status of the world is very much up in the air right now. It is not a good thing, Wizards has far too many worlds to support for the company's focus, and it leads to none of them being supported all that well. Let's start with the D&D 3E Eberron Campaign Setting as the starting point for our delve into the world of Eberron. Mind you, this is not a complete review, nor can we cover everything, we will be hitting some high-level stuff, and reflecting upon the world and game design implications and consequences of these choices.

3E Origins

Eberron started out as a contest-winner in the D&D3 days of a 'create a new D&D game world' contest Wizards put on in the waning days of D&D3. Why they did this is strange, they already had a number of incredibly well designed game worlds, including Faerun, Greyhawk, Dark Sun, and the shelved worlds of Mystara and Birthright. One thing you need to remember was this was the heady days of the beginnings of a number of modern MMOs, and the bug one at the time was World of Warcraft. Perhaps Eberron was the first step to making D&D relevant to that crowd, a fantasy world with steampunk elements with an over-the-top look sounds a lot like...World of Warcraft to me. If true, this makes Eberron the first D&D4 product released, a change in tone from what came before, and also a clear statement of change in the direction of the product.

Eberron is very much one of those worlds that never really had a place. Faerun was the home of the big-money fiction, and Greyhawk was the official setting of D&D3. This seems to harken back to the old TSR's habit of creating too many game worlds to support, and D&D3 always had this multiple-personality complex where the main books were heavily Greyhawk-centric, and the other worlds were' oh yeah, them too' add-ons. Eberron seemed the least-liked child, but it was definitely the most unique and cool. A smart choice would have been to keep all the Greyhawk stuff out of the main three books, and support all worlds equally. You shall see this 'what world do we support?' question come up later, so keep this in mind.

3E Theme: Factions and Kingdoms

The MMO elements are clearly here, a number of strongly rethought races with motivations and a unique flavor, a ton of internal orders and organizations which fight and shift alliances, and a number of pseudo-governments that serve as the backdrop to the larger conflicts. It is important to note that point, the governments of Eberron are backdrops, thematically, they aren't as important to the world as the major players, the Dragonmark Houses being the largest and best defined, followed by all the local factions unique to each kingdom. Again, this is like your typical MMO, and again World of Warcraft. While major nations can fight and even the players can take part, for the most part, the big stories are with the organizations that control the world, and most of these reside between and even above the governments. The kingdoms are 'zones' and the interesting action happens across them.

There is a balance between governments and power groups in the campaign guide which is interesting. The government is given one section, and all the power groups their own following. This is done for every major area of the world. This tells you two things. The first is that unlike other game worlds, the big players are the power groups - they are clearly given more weight than the governments. While a power group may be itself the government, this is not supposed to be a forever thing, different groups can get the upper hand and control the government. It is a fluid and dynamic situation that is clearly different than any previously published D&D game world. The second is that this is a game about these groups and all the plots between them, again, the governments are supposed to take a back seat to the games these groups play.

Again, you can find a mirror in World of Warcraft, with groups like the Cenarion Circle, Order of the Silver Hand, the Guardians of Hyjal, Hellscream's Orcs, and all the other classic WoW factions. Orgrimmar is a kingdom, yes, and it has a government and background all its own - but who controls it on any given day can shift and change depending on what is currently going on between all the background groups that are fighting over it, playing politics, and running plots. Eberron is the same way, and it is important to understand. Friends characters make in one kingdom may or may not be there when they come back, and their political situation may have changed dramatically as well depending on the current stature of things.

Contrast this with other D&D game worlds, where nothing much changes. In Faerun we get the stereotyped belief of, 'Oh I can always go to kingdom X and contact NPC Y for help, they are always good, and enshrined here by the fiction.' In Greyhawk, the same can be said, although it is typically, 'Oh, Kingdom X is lawful good, that is a safe place and they can help.' In Eberron, nothing is guaranteed, and if the players want change, they will need to get out there and do the leg work to support the factions on their side. Note this point, this is clearly the #1 most important thing about Eberron and why it is different than any other world that came before - or after.

World Design In 3E: The Wow Factor

Another clear point of differentiation between Eberron and any other world is the 'WOW' factor. Throughout the original 3E Eberron book, a series of incredible art pieces lays out the world. Cities aren't boring concentric castles surrounded by urban sprawl and squalor; they are grand matte paintings of towers built on top of spires of rock, floating castles, cities built in alien ruins, and a whole imaginative smattering of out-there ideas.

It is perfectly normal in Eberron to have cities built in underwater domes, in the middle of volcanoes, built on the underside of floating mountains in the sky, on crawling robots made out of stone, floating on rivrs of magical ley lines, warping in and out of reality, or anything else you can imagine. Similarly, temples, ruins, fortresses, and any other adventure locale can be just as way out there and cool, and in fact - it is expected. We can go as far as placing monsters and magic items under the cool umbrella as well - these need to be unique, fun, different, and engaging. If it is not cool and unexpected - it is not normal. This is major point #2 about the world, note this.

One of the cardinal rules of Eberron goes like this, "If it is in D&D - it has a place in Eberron." Note that for some things in D&D, like the Drow, they get pushed to the side in this world, they are clearly not as important as they are in either Faerun or Greyhawk. This brings in a lot of material, for good and bad. On the bad side, it is a very chaotic world, with a lot of stuff going on at once, and a lot for the DM to grasp. The 3E Eberron book does a lot to sort this out, and attempts to give everything its own spot so you don't have too much going on at once.

The good part is that this opens up the door for unlimited creativity for the DM. "In D&D" covers a lot of ground, any book Wizards put out, anything from other D&D game worlds, D&D Modern and Future stuff, anything from third-party publishers - anything. You can literally beg, borrow, and steal any idea out there and put it in your game world. This is not only allowed, it is encouraged. Eberron is uniquely situated to be the "game world to end all game worlds" and is written to be that way.

3E: Magic in the World

The magic in Eberron is uniquely designed. Low-level magic is so common it is ubiquitous, everyone has it, and magic is a part of everyone's daily life. A farmer could have a magical self-powered cart to haul hay, magical robots to tend crops, a magical hot-water tap, and all sort of other pseudo-conveniences taken from the modern world, fiction, or any other source the DM can imagine. High-level magic is ultra-rare, even more so than other D&D worlds. You simply don't have a thousand wizards living in the world that can cast the wish spell willy-nilly. You don't have high-level interventionist NPC spell-casters shaping the world with magic. High-level magic has been pushed back, is rare as Hades, and is a special thing again. Resurrections don't happen every day, bucko.

This is another interesting point, and a fun design element. The factions of the world are left duking it out with lower-level spells, casters, and powers. They can't simply scry or cast their way to victory, they have to put boots on the ground to get what they want. This is a good thing, and it keeps the world interesting. See that group of enemy soldiers? They may have a low-level caster or two with them, but they were sent here by that faction that does not get along with you, and they really want to recover that high-level magic artifact before you do. Oh yes, shades of Indiana Jones are back, and they are groups in the world that want those items of power more than you do, and are willing to use force to get them. Cue the music, we need to get in and out fast, Indy.

Having high-level magic reduced also makes high-level PCs more powerful and special, and they are now major players in the world rather than 'one in a million high level NPCs.' This also puts PCs at a distinct disadvantage, once you think about it. All these lesser powered factions will start to notice high-level characters in the world, and the pressure on them will increase. Having a high-level PC allied with an opposing faction may cause another faction to try to eliminate the high-level PC just to keep the balance, so the world gets a 'self correcting' power-balance that is a very interesting place for PCs to operate in.

All of a sudden, it isn't wise to flaunt your power, you never know who might be jealous of you, and there just may be someone else out there who really doesn't like you all that much for who you are. Come to think of it, maybe the reason this world has limit of high-level magics is because it tends to kill of ff and weed out high-level threats ll its own through the groups and politics of the land. An element of danger for high-level PCs just because of who they are? Unthinkable in every other D&D game world. Major point #3 here, note this.

4E: Things Change

Along comes a new edition of D&D, and things change. Picking up the Eberron Campaign Guide, you will notice one thing right off: where did all my cool art go? Gone are all the cool pictures of floating castles, amazing contraptions, and cities perched on the top of rocky spires and alien ruins. There are a couple, but a disturbing trend happens in the book of normal art of castles surrounded bu urban sprawl and squalor.

Where are the cool illustrations of the dragonmarks, especially the large ones? Those took up a huge portion of the book in 3E, and they are now gone. Where is the cool Heavy Metal style Mobius art in the chapter starts? You know, those pieces that gave a tone and flavor to the world, almost like a mature comic book? Gone again. A lot of art was removed here, so much so it changes your perception of the world.

Point #2, the coolness of the world, has been severely reduced.

This hurts, and yes, some of the original art is maintained, but a lot of the important pieces are lost. In the beginning of the Campaign Guide, we get Sharn, a floating city, and a pretty typical castle on a lake. Most of the rest of the art is the typical 4E 'character battle' art, and not really world-specific. Sharn seems like the only cool place here, and the 'open door' to creating fun adventure sites and cities seems to have closed some. This is a great example between the 3E and 4E books of how art can totally change the perception of a game world, and really needs to be recognized and studied.

4E Eberron Factions

Even the iconic sections of the area governments and factions have been muddled, done away for and replaced by random adventure seeds, monster stat blocks, mini-adventures, and plot hooks. Another huge step back, and the individual sections for each kingdom just seem like articles in Dungeon rather than something that lays out tense political conflicts. There doesn't seem to be a coherent world anymore, and even though some of the same factions are mentioned, there is no focus, and each area just seems like a single adventure to burn through.

If you have both books, compare the worldbook sections. Sure, the 4E maps are pretty, but the 3E books seems a lot tighter on focus of the lands, factions, government, places, and interesting sites. We get huge stat-blocks for monsters, and mini-adventures. The factions are either gone, or moved into the adventures. We don't get the feeling that these places are really fought over anymore, or that anything can change, nor are NPCs that important anymore. The 4E 'War on Powerful NPCs' continues here, with a majority of Eberron's big players missing or sidelined. With no powerful NPCs, and a lessening of the important of factions, something is lost.

Could it be, point #1, the focus on factions, is gone?

The 4E Campaign Guide is a huge step back. Room had to be made in the Eberron Player's Guide for all those lists of rote 4E powers, and the referee's book has devolved into a copy-and-paste section of DC History checks that take up way too much space. If all you know about Eberron comes from the 4E Guides, you don't know Eberron. Seek out the original Eberron Campaign Setting book and prepare to be blown away.

The 4E Rules in Eberron

Granted, I like 4E's rules a lot better for Eberron-style action roleplaying, as they are more cinematic; but then again, something major has been lost here. Once thing you notice is that the art in the 3E Eberron book to a point looks like the art in the 4E books, in fact, most all of the 4E books. It is like Wizards decided to transplant the cool from Eberron and place that into every D&D world - yeah, it is all like that now.

I like this tone, but as for putting it in every D&D world? It didn't make much sense in dramatic-novel Faerun, and it surly doesn't fit all too well in old-school Greyhawk. They took Eberron's coolness, turned it into a whitewash, and painted it all over everything they could to make everything seem just as cool. It didn't happen, nor was it correct in many cases. For Nerrath, yes, it worked, and it worked well - but realizing where this cool came from is just as important, and how it can mess things up is another thing.

Faerun is more of a LARP-y, dramatic, almost romance-novel world full of dramatic action. Geryhawk is the original gangster of old-school death-trap dungeons, dour and deadly in its outlook and survivability. Dark Sun is even the way it is, different, Mad-Max, post-apocalyptic, and cool. They each bring a unique 'cool' to themselves, but they are not the over-the-top Eberron 'cool' - nor should they be. They each are special, they each deserve their own tone, and they are not the same as Eberron. To do so is to not respect their special culture and flavor of the worlds. You can't transplant a new 'cool' onto a world without a reboot, nor can you make a world something it is not.

4E Magic in Eberron

Magic too, has been changed to the 1 to 30 D&D4 run, where everyone lives in this MMO-style progression path. Gone is the unique low-level/high-level magic disparity, and the world loses yet another interesting and cool aspect. In the old world, level 6 to 8 characters were the movers and shakers. In the new, it seems like we are back to the lets-get-to-30 grind, and we lose that have and have-not fight in the original world.

Remember, in 4E you start plane-hopping at level 10, and the original world goes away for the Feywild, Elemental Chaos, and all the other theme parks of the 4E cosmos. In Eberron, the focus is solely on the world - it is the center of the universe, and the place to play in all the way up to max level. All of a sudden, Eberron is just for the first 10 levels of play, and we quickly move in a whole new group of worlds into the mix. This water-down syndrome affects all the 4E worlds, including Faerun and Dark Sun - both of which should not have a Shadowfell and Feywild, but they do, since that is what 4E is, and the game loses something without them. For a world to be the central focus, we need to stay in it.

With the loss of magic and clear focus on the world, point #3 seems to be gone too.

What are we left with? Something that is definitely 4E, with some of the action-adventure cool, but none of the original fun stuff that made the 3E world so special and cool. Note that some of these things were tied to the original implementation of the 3E rules (like magic level), others were because 4E tried to adopt the Eberron coolness (Faerun, didn't work), and the others I cant explain (the loss of factions and the focus of the world). Part of this can possibly never transfer correctly, like the magic-level, due to the change in rules.

The loss of focus on the world's unique faction setup is the most puzzling here. It seems like they used the same model for all of the D&D4 campaign books, the DC History checks, the turning every area into a mini-adventure Dungeon magazine article, and general same-ness of the treatment of each worldbook for 4E. It didn't work for Eberron, and a lot was lost. Another thing was a lot of material just didn't convert in all too well, and some of the most interesting parts were ignored, like the dargonmarks - losing the higher-level art for them was huge.

The connection to old-school World of Warcraft is weakened too, while the D&D4 1-30 MMO track is here, the original world inspired by the fantasy-steampunk inspiration seems missing, and all the cool movers and shakers have been replaced by mini-adventures. Remember, the focus of a 4E world is away from ppowerful NPCs, so the 'powerful factions and NPCs control the world' theme of the original Eberron can't happen in 4E - the focus is supposed to be on the adventurers, Points of Light, and the whole 'alone in the world' adventure theme. This is one of the fundamental differences here, 4E's focus is incompatible with 3E Eberron's focus.

Where Art Thou, Eberron?

Part of me thinks they put out too many campaign books for 4E, and maybe they should have just stuck with Eberron as the only and official 4E world. Granted, they needed to keep what was cool and not cut so much art, but then again, it is probably a limitation of book size and format than purposefully limiting content; or they just didn't understand what the 'cool' was here and thought it was just like any other game world, medieval and static.

They would have also had to consider Eberron's magic-balance as well, and wrote 4E around that balance. It is an interesting problem, the design of a generic rules system for all D&Ds seems to have gutted the world of its unique mechanics and flavor, even though Eberron was designed under the generic 3E system. Part of the world depended on those items and rules in 3E worked, and in fact, the "anything in D&D" rule is part of that. Eberron is a redefinition of the 3E world in a new and interesting way, a new way to look at things. If all of a sudden, we lay 4E on top of that, we lose what we were looking at in the first place, and the world just becomes another implementation of the 4E ruleset. We are not looking at anything differently here, this is the same 4E, just with different kingdoms and peoples.

You also potentially have a situation where players coming into Eberron having played 3E understand the world and what is cool, and players introduced to it via 4E are sitting there wondering what the fuss is about. Why is this any cooler than Nerrath or Faerun, it's all 4E action-adventure, right? Well, people that understand the original source material know, but the new players have a different perspective on the world. Combine that with the loss of focus on the world's factions and unique magic setup, and Eberron becomes another 4E world with nothing really special about it other than two new classes, some magic items, and a map.

Eberron is cool, and the 4E version is a nice piece of work - but it is not the same world. From a design perspective, there is a lot to learn here about world design, reboots, rules systems transplants, and a whole bunch of other stuff just waiting to be explored. There are two different design goals here, one for 3E to present a new and exciting world, and another for 4E to transplant the rules and theme of the new game into the existing world. Like Faerun, the transplant is not 100% successful - but for different reasons. Examining why this happened tells you a lot about the subjects we study here on the blog, game design, world design, and what makes something interesting and fun.

The Network Effect: Dungeon Masters Run the Game

As I see it, referees run most every traditional pen-and-paper game. There should be a special website you can go to register to be a dungeon master for DnD, and you should get all of the books and materials needed to run the game for free. Before you laugh, stop and think about it. Would there be weekly pen-and-paper games anywhere without a referee?

It is a unique that most very pen-and-paper game has built in the dependency of having a referee in order for the game to be played at all. Let's take away the "referee as a playing participant" for a moment, and just use the referee as someone that runs the numbers, controls the monsters, and lets the players know what happens next in the module - sort of like a computer (much like DnD4's referees). It's like every computer game needing someone in the home office manually scrolling the Mario level, spawning monsters, and advancing the game to the next world.

Modern Boxed Games

Modern boxed adventure games do without a referee, and even have the players round-robin control of the monsters. There are rules set about how monsters attack, when goals are completed, and how the game works without a referee. Games like Magic the Gathering or Warhammer don't need referees either, although competitive games tend to be easier to run without one. Cooperative games without referees are gaining popularity, and many of the modern boxed games we review are like that.

This brings us to the 'network effect' another one of those terms introduced into the pen-and-paper lexicon back with DnD3's introduction. What the network effect means is this: you will play the game that most of your friends are playing, because it is hard to find a game otherwise. In the 50's this was called peer pressure, and of course you needed to have your officially licensed Davy Crockett musket and coon-skin cap, because all the other kids had one. It is a situation that lives in the dreams of marketers and product managers, for sure.

The Network Effect

What makes the 'network effect' so powerful is the previously discussed 'system lock in' - you can't find another game because people don't want to spend money on them or spend the time learning them. Combine this with the game literally being controlled by a select group of hard-core players, the referees, and you have setup a system that lives and dies by how many referees in the world that are willing to spend the time and money to learn and run your game. Referees should get the game for free, because you are asking so much of them, and one good referee can bring a whole group of players into the hobby.

It is a bit of a cynical view, I admit, but there is a lot of truth to the legacy that is setup around the DnD3 rules set and the descendants of those rules. The worst part about the OGL and the DnD3 ruleset is the lack of support in the license for anything other than tabletop play, so every game that comes from this hierarchy is limited in how it can be played - more on this in a later post. What is interesting is that the 'referee is required' mantra is being repeated in the next edition of the game, when a lot of the modern tabletop games are actually moving away from having a referee to play.

I will admit being a referee is one of the most enjoyable and satisfying parts of playing for me, but we need to think outside the rulebook when we do a true next-generation design. Every player at the table should be able to just pick-up-and-play, and referees should be an optional way of playing, and I dare even say they should not be the preferred way to play. Good game design can overcome this, to take a game to the next level.

Referees in Monopoly

Like roleplaying, a referee can be introduced into any game, even Monopoly. Technically speaking, a referee is someone who introduces story situations and out of the rules elements to the game, decides difficulty and success, and hands out optional rewards for completing those goals. In Monopoly, a referee could rule that everyone goes to Vegas, and the players get to bust out a deck of cards and play blackjack with the game's money for the next 15 minutes. This is incredibly fun, but the core assumption is the game still works when the referee is removed. The referee-less aspect of the game is preserved, and "no referee" is the default mode of play.

Boxed games covering fantasy and all types of adventure are re-discovering the magic in making everyone a player, and moving back to the Monopoly standard of play. The fun happens when you make having the referee optional, and the referee does not have to worry about the manual parts of the game (like moving around the board), and be the creative fae spirit introducing random stories and challenges to the game. Making a game play without a referee actually frees the referee up to work incredible magic.

System Lock In: Bad for New Players?

Part of what cemented the term 'system lock in' into the pen-and-paper lexicon was D&D3. For those in the know, system-lock-in is a term taken from the world of computer operating systems meaning, "It would be hard to switch to another operating system because all my data and applications are on this operating system." In other words, switching, trying something new, or changing things on the computer would mean a substantial amount of pain involved for the consumer.

In the roleplaying world, system lock in means, "I have so much money invested in this system, and I have spent so much time learning the rules I would never even think about switching to another game system, or even trying one out." To enforce system lock in, pen-and-paper games are typically expensive, complex, and huge. Since all your friends have invested the same in buying books and learning rules, the system lock in is strengthened, and we get a 'network effect' - meaning if all your friends are locked into X, you will play X.

This is all well and good, and companies are free to write games however they want them - I support the free market of ideas. But the question comes up, is system lock in hurting the new player experience? To have system lock in, we need three things: buy-in, size, and complexity. Let's break this down in three short sections.

"Buy-in" is investment, and this typically means the game books are a substantial purchase. For a game like D&D4 this would typically include the player's book, a referee's book, monster book, and maybe one or two others. New players are reluctant to part with that much cash, so asking a new player to invest in that many books is going to be a challenge. Beginner sets are not the answer to this, they are merely an enticement to make the big purchase. System reference documents are not an answer to this either, they are often unwieldy and require hundreds of pages to be printed. Contrast this to a more new-player friendly game, like Labyrinth Lord or Basic Fantasy RPG. These games can be bought for $20 or less, and you get everything you need to play and referee the game. An argument can be made that cost scares away new players.

"Size" is the cost of ownership, and also the amount of space the game takes up on your shelf and in your mind. This is both a physical quality (space the books take up), and also a mental one (how important the game is in your mind). Good art can increase the mental size of a game, and Pathfinder gets this down in spades. Once you have invested, the size of the game controls how often you keep coming back to it and using it. Some people equate size with fun, what is more fun: a 5' long shelf of Pathfinder books, or a quarter-inch thick copy of Labyrinth Lord? Size definitely drives away new players, it is a commitment to store and use the books.

"Complexity" is how much effort it takes to learn the rules. A game that is easily learned is also easily put aside for something new. Granted, I like complex games with a lot of options, but there is something to be said for a game that is easy to learn, but conceptually deep. Forcing new players to learn the rules for flat-footed and attacks of opportunity is cruel, we have had to do it many times, and a player new to roleplaying often gets the wrong idea about the game, "I can't get into this." The skill system in D&D3 and Pathfinder is similarly difficult to use correctly and teach, and all these complex systems intended to create options mostly make the game difficult - without adding real options. If my thief character needs lockpicking X at level Y, why make me go through this complicated skill system to get there?

Again, these are just more random thoughts on the state of the pen-and-paper industry, where things are driving players away, and how things can be made better. It seems the more we go in hobby shops, the more space is devoted towards big-box tabletop games, and less space is devoted to traditional pen-and-paper games. All the innovation in the gaming industry seems to be in the board game area nowadays, and a lot of today's pen-and-paper innovation seems stuck in the past.

It seems like we are long overdue a revolution in pen-and-paper gaming, and we get back to games made to be entertainment. Aping the tactics Microsoft and Apple use to lock in users may lock in some players, but aren't they driving off the majority or new players to just keep a few legacy users?

My feelings are if you make my pen-and-paper game more like a computer, a real computer will beat it any day of the week. New players seem to understand this concept very well, but most roleplaying game companies don't. We have to learn from the successes of companies doing well in the board game market, and innovate like they do. Really, this is the same type of game, and the same type of player. The question needs to be asked, where are all the new players going, and what is keeping them away?

Preview: 13th Age

13th Age is a d20 based RPG put out by Pelgrane Press, due to be released in March 2013. It has a fascinating linage of designers, primarily Rob Hiensoo and Jonathan Tweet.  For those in the know, these are the lead designers of D&D's 4th and 3rd editions, respectively. This is like Prince and Jimi Hendrix coming together to do an album, so I was surprised to just discover this myself. Why this isn't getting more press, I don't know; since based on the preview PDF (pre order), this is a solid design and take on a d20 game, with a lot of what we liked about 3rd and 4th editions all in one game.

This is a d20 based game, maxing out at 10 levels. This is an interesting choice, but understandable. It seems that one level in TA equals about three in D&D, at least in character power. For those of you coming from D&D4, all the parts that require a computer are gone, which I thank the gods for! It is a simpler game, stripped down to the bare essence of a d20 based game, with the powers, magic, and monsters you would come to expect. The differences lie in character creation (backgrounds), and the way the characters interact with the world (icons and the relationship system).

There are a significant amount of differences here to set it apart form the sea of d20 clones, George doesn't agree, but I see quite a few evolutionary steps, along with a couple revolutionary ones. One of the most interesting is your base damage is equal to your weapon damage per level of character. A fifth level fighter using a longsword does 5d8 + stat mods. Spells can be upgraded with upgrade slots every level, which is another cool thing (a max-ed out magic missile does 10d6 - yowza). There are a bunch of things that scale like that, from spell damage to hit points, so it does definitely feel different. The difference in power between levels is dramatic, which is nice.

If I had to pin it down, I would say it feels like if someone took 3rd Ed D&D and made a scaling MMO system out of it - but retained the 3rd Ed feel. Where 4th Ed went off the rails with it's thousands of powers and computer required system, this is closer to the book, and keeps everything simple, while still allowing for the MMO power scale curve to take place. It does not feel like the MMO-ish 4th Ed, but rather a like a cool version of the Final Fantasy SNES game's power curve applied to a 3rd Ed ruleset.

The world is great, if you likes the whole 'points of light' world crafting of 4th Ed, you are in for a treat. Here we have 'points of light 2.0' with epic (godlike) beings that live on the world, a faction and relationship system, a destiny thing going on, unique backgrounds, and an avoidance of infinite planes of existence. The world is split into three parts, the normal world, an underworld, and a plane-of-air style place up above.  Ad nauseam wheels, parallel worlds, infinite earths, and other tropes are not mentioned here - you can safely assume heaven, hell, the realms of the gods, and everything else can be reached in the normal world by foot, hoof, boat, or wing.

The world also has normal area, champion areas, and 'even the thorns on the rose bush will kill you' epic areas - really cool. I like this feel, where places in the world are catastrophically dangerous - you don't get that in Pathfinder or other games. Even D&D4 reduced that dynamic in later books, so it is fun to see it come back. It allows for interesting world setups, such as, "The entryway to Hell is on the map, over there, knock yourself out." If you are looking for a spiritual successor to D&D4's fascinating world setup, you will find it here. George is pumped about this setup as well, and we both agree, it is one of the best parts about this game.

We will be play testing this more as we read through things, and eagerly await our pre-order book. Until now, the quest for "What comes after 4th Ed?" seemed to be a two-way race between Pathfinder and D&D5. Now, the best of both of those games comes together and throws a hat into the ring. 13th Age is an underdog in this race, but it is an important game - both in design, creativity, and history. Watch for this, it is not just another D&D clone, it is actually exciting and dare I say it (for a d20 game), cool.

Releases March 2013, pre-order on the publisher's site, and receive the preview PDF for free.