Elitism and Hardcore Play

http://kotaku.com/i-cant-stand-overwatchs-quick-play-anymore-1794721206

I stumbled across this article about Overwatch team balance and how there has developed an entire roster of 'less desirable' characters. And them "meta" which is the current play-style intended to maximize the chances of winning. An example of that? this is a good one:

http://www.dorkly.com/post/82360/overwatch-characters-ranked-from-best-to-worst

And then I got to thinking of Pathfinder and character builds. I run a game where "you play what you want" and if you pick some non-optimized, my-favorite, sort of 'free love' build where you are a fan of a non-optimal class - you can play that. I will adjust the adventure so you have a chance to shine, like if you want to play a shape-shifting druid and have a chance to make your animal form matter in the adventure. Things will be cool. Build what you want. I can adjust.

It is the power-gamers that I have more of a problem with, to be honest. Especially in a group comprised of new and experienced players. You know, the ones who come in expecting to do MAX DPS and build a character off a forum post, and then have their character swagger in with the PWN-age confidence of that same forum post into my world.

I can do 250 hit points of damage per turn with this build!

My first reaction, as a dungeon master, to that sort of attitude is to knock them down a little. I am sorry, I just can't stand it, and I am probably a worse DM for feeling and saying that. In a pen-and-paper game, I can find a million ways to kill off a single-trick pony build, because the character build is typically only good at one thing.

Sure, your mage or archer or whatever can do sick amounts of damage, and then the evil gnome living in the back of my dungeon master's mind is going to say, "hit them with a poison trap behind an illusion, and then drop in a monster into the party's rear rank where LoS is going to be blocked."

And a part of me hates that feeling of playing against some of the players. I really do because it is ultimately unfair and targets someone for their rules knowledge or design skills (versus the rest of the group). But if I present everything as a straight up fight to a group of mew-players and min-max'ers, you know what is going to happen. The min-max'ers are going to absolutely own the encounter, that archer is going to finish off the encounter in two or three turns, and the rest of the party will be sitting there feeling the following:

• My character sucks
• I could not contribute

I love min-max'ing too myself in games, especially in video games where there isn't other people to upset - just the computer and me, But when there is other people involved, I get this feeling that min-max'ing is just being selfish and hurts the group more than it does the monsters. As a player in a group, I would rather design a well-rounded character when I play with others, especailly in a group of new players. I don't want to show off or outshine them, because all that does is make them feel bad and make me look good. I feel selfish when my character blows through the encounter and the other players are all sitting there wondering why their characters couldn't contribute.

Hardcore Play

There is a special case when you get a group of players that are entirely min-maxers, and you get into this death-match mentality with them that (as a DM) I find as a different level of enjoyment. If they are all min-max-ing - then all bets are off. I am going to find a weakness in your defenses and exploit it, because that is what you are trying to do to my adventure. And that is what, frankly, is what a player rolling a min-max'ed character is going to expect.

As a min-max'er myself, at times, I want to be challenged. I want my build's weaknesses exposed and take advantage of. I want my 'perfect build' to fail spectacularly against the evil dungeon master. I want it tough, and I am betting my character can survive your worst. As a player, I love that feeling, and it is a thrill to me.

There is, and I am not ashamed to say this, a fun in that style of play. Using the rules to your advantage. Knowing a rule better than the DM, and then as a DM, admitting defeat and saying "I have learned something," letting the player have that victory, and getting on with the next encounter. You know, really hardcore, competitive play that absolutely uses 100% of the rules to their limit, deadly traps, unfair encounters, the rules matter, and seat-of-your pants play.

And then smiling and thanking the players for dropping by today, and realizing we all love this hobby so much that we appreciate every chance we get to play together. Even in the "hardcore" style of play I like sometimes where players and the DM are in this hyper-competitive state, I like the thrill and the competition of the game. I want new players, if they so choose, to be able to join us in that elite club.

But not an elitist club.

If you played Warhammer Fantasy Battle or 40K competitively you know what I mean. There is this expectation, "When you come to the table, bring it." A good opponent with a great army is hard to find, and it is a joy playing against them. Someone who knows the rules well is a treat to fight, and especially one who takes the time to explain things to a newer player - despite the match taking longer than it should. I respect those players and love fighting them, since they bring out the best in me. My best build, my best sportsmanship, and the best fights on the table no matter who wins or loses.

But I feel there is a time to tone it down.

With new players at the table just looking to experience an adventure, I can shift gears and adjust to casual play. A good min-max player can sense this too and relax, build a whatever never-tried before fantasy character, and have fun as well in that setting. It is the players who continue to min-max in a mixed casual-hardcore group like that, who have no sense of toning it down, who tend to get on my nerves. Sometimes we are all here to have fun and not try to outwit each other, because we have some people playing that don't know the game as well. Chill. Tone it down. Have fun and play something you never would.

Maybe some of those new players will start to get the itch, and want to play in a hardcore game. We can move them up to that level later, and foster another elite player out of them. Welcome to the club, and I will do my best to challenge you.

Your 15 Minutes of Adventure Are Up

D&D 3E introduced us to this wonderful concept of the 15-minute adventuring day. It goes something like this:

"Hey guys, I used all my spells in that last encounter. Let's go back to town and rest."

Now, this existed before 3E to be fair, and this issue has really been seen more with D&D than other role playing games. Part of the problem is D&D itself, adventures are designed around a series of encounters with CRs that are supposed to balance play and use up resources at a predictable rate. This does not always work, and I feel CR misleads us in a number of ways:

• Randomness leads to greater or lesser resource usage
• The CR system is too simplistic to deal with the complexity of the game's classes and powers
• Players don't care about balanced fights and "burn down" every encounter

The first one is interesting, and yes, a series of bad rolls will double or use up your entire excursion's resources (spells, potions, powers) and you are stuck. Since the rest of the encounters in the dungeon were carefully balanced around you having some resources to deal with it, it's game over man, time to bug out. One encounter drops your party resources to zero, and if this is a "one time only" dungeon with an objective (like most should be), you have lost. That's it. Bad dice have let the bad guy get away with the princess, and that's the knocks of a story-based game.

Yes, the d20 with its wide variance is partially to blame here, it isn't the best die to use if you want a strong average, but with D&D it's what we got.

Another side note. D&D 4E tried to solve this problem with at-wills and encounter powers. the designers of D&D 4 were trying to solve a lot of problems, and this one they did a pretty good job at (tactical miniatures wise, not role playing wise). They introduced the concept of regenerating powers and healing surges, and that kept the party going into the next part of the story. For story-gaming, D&D 4 had a lot of nice improvements over D&D 1-3 and D&D 5. Mind you, the design of D&D 4 did not lend itself to roleplaying all that well, but as a tactical miniatures game where you played stories, it was interesting (counting the first 3 books or so before everything started going to the lower planes).

The second point is also interesting. In some ways I feel the CR system is overly simplistic and it does not take a lot of factors into account. One the other side, if it did the CR calculation system would be something as complex as calculus to figure out encounter balance. With Pathfinder, I have seen reports that modules designed against earlier versions of the game are now too easy with the power creep introduced in later books, and that encounters need to be toughened up to be a challenge again. Old CR does not equal the new CR, and the rating slips as time goes on.

Burn downs. This I have been waiting to talk about, because every player coming from an MMO knows about this one, and this is how most videogames train players nowadays. When you are in a MMO, in each encounter you 100% burn down all your powers and abilities in order to beat it. It does not matter if it is a hall fight or a boss fight, you keep pressing every button, keep hitting every power as its timer comes up, and maximize your damage output to 100% in every fight. In the old Everquest, this wasn't the case and you had to practice careful resource management through a zone. Past that, most modern MMOs make you burn down as fast as possible in order to get through a fight.

The reason? It's flashy! It's more exciting! It solves players from complaining the dungeon is too hard and filling up your customer service system with too many tickets.

So many videogame and MMO players are trained to burn down.

Now, many players get it when they begin playing pen-and-paper. They get the careful resource management game. The games fight this though, and try to make things easier on players by giving them infinite-use attack cantrips (D&D 5), or multi-shot built-in class attack powers (Pathfinder). D&D 4 had infinite-use at-will powers and auto-recharging encounter powers. Even 3E had a plethora of multi-use wands, scrolls, and other items that let you blast away with rechargable wands of magic missiles and fireball staffs. You see the burn-down starting to creep back in.

Player power has increased dramatically over the last 15 years of D&D to keep up with the MMO arms and expectation race.

Personally? I find burn downs boring and resource management more compelling. I like story-based play (a separate topic entirely), but I appreciate games that force you to make hard choices.

In old-school gaming like Basic Fantasy or Labyrinth Lord, giving a magic user infinite ranged attack cantrips would be unthinkable. Today, shooty and flashy are the new thing and the new norms. In the past, you didn't doll up with magic items and carry around enough rechargable magic items to blow through days of content. If your DM was stingy, you pulled the "go back to town" thing. If he wasn't, you loaded up for bear with enough magic to blow a hole in the side of White Plume Mountain.

In older editions of D&D and today's OGR games, the magic item economy is sparse, and you don't get into it as much. A wand of magic missiles is rare and special. A +1 sword is Excalibur. You survive on your wits and a player's ability to coax room descriptions out of the DM's head to avoid the trap of doom in the next room. Then again, the story in old-school games was a lot like today's 'sandbox" games. Do you survive? What do you do? Old-school games focused on the stories of the characters in that personal survival story, and not the DM's or module writer's story.

I blame Vampire: The Masquerade back in AD&D 2E days for this "module as story" stuff really. Vampire showed us a wonderful roleplaying game focused on personal stories, and AD&D had to follow suite and try to make dungeoning "story gaming" as well. Vampire did story gaming elegantly. AD&D had a lot more trouble making that leap because of the abstraction and resource management, and that theme of "story dungeoning" has stayed with us ever since, even across 3E's magic-card-if-i-cation of the rules.

So this pesky resource management game is getting in the way of completing tonight's story dungeon! Let's punt, take a mulligan, and head back to town to ignore this archaic D&D resource management system and continue on, shall we? If you are going to be in any way realistic about this dungeon master and reset the encounters, make us roll for wilderness encounters, or make us 'lose' the story for taking a break in the middle, then I guess you are a horrible dungeon master who hates well-told stories and famous module designers, right?

I am being sarcastic, but I have had those feelings come up at my table before so they are there.

There is an internal struggle here that I feel D&D has never gotten over. There is a simulation side to old-school D&D with the resource game, and if you have never played an old-school game, I recommend you do to see what I am talking about. It is a different game. Health does not auto-recharge. What you take in is it for possibly 100 rooms. The game is simple and deadly. Characters die frequently. You struggle. There is a mental game going on where you pry descriptions out of the DM, be clever, avoid fights, and survive.

3E and Pathfinder? Stuck in the middle of storytelling and resource management. Deck-building RPGs at heart.

4E and D&D 5E? Storytelling games at their heart and trying hard to shed old-school D&D's resource management game. Heavily MMO-influenced with recharging and infinite-use powers, with D&D 4 being the more MMO game, but D&D 5 shooting for the feel of 2E's story-dungeoning feel.

None of them are bad, and players love each for different reasons. This is not an argument one is better than another. You play what you love. But, you need to understand what each one brings, and where the conflicts are. If I ran D&D 5, I would go for more story than resource management, because that's what that game does best. I would adjust the story if players felt their party needed to take five, and advance the story in a logical way that reflects them having to take a breather. The show would go on. There wouldn't be a 15-minute adventuring day because the story reacts.

In old-school games? Yes, you can bet I would come down like a ton of bricks on a party that wasted its resources in wasteful burn-downs and had to retreat to town. Old school games are the Old Testament of resource management sims. Roll for wilderness encounters to and from the dungeon. Roll for wandering monsters all the way down to the point you left off. The dungeon's residents react and adapt to the last incursion, setting up traps, moving to rooms deeper (or to ones you thought you cleared), clearing out, or calling for reinforcements. You take a 15-minute day, and I will make you regret it for the next 15 days, but that is the old-school dungeon master's job.

The trouble comes when the game's designers try to please everybody, and tell you that the game is good for all types of play. It's cool marketing speak, but it isn't true. Some games do things better than others, and that's okay. Another problem arises when the game's designers put in systems geared to resource management when the game shines in story-based play. I can't blame them, the marketers said 'make it appeal to everybody' so sometimes you get systems in games better ignored than used. It happens, and game design isn't a perfect science.

Know what you like. Know what your players like. Most importantly, know what you expect from a game, and how a game shapes that experience.

The Level System

This one started over coffee. DarkgarX mentioned to me that once levels were put into the game, the dynamic of the game changes from story to advancement. The feeling goes from "what am I doing in the game world" to "how can I get points?"

Now, admittedly, this is a pretty negative view of level-based games, but it is an interesting "advancement dynamic" that I am sure is present in all games. Everyone wants to do well, and everyone wants to get levels or skill points in a non-level based system to get rewarded at the end of the night and advance their characters. So this pressure is present in any game system with an advancement system present.

But do levels change things?

Levels, the Elephant in the Room

I always found it funny that levels are the one thing you can't talk about in-game in-character, yet in D&D they control everything, from character power to spells to monster hit dice. My Pathfinder world design, Realms of Proteus, tries to do away with that and allows in-game characters to speak freely of their level and stats, so there is a fun bit of power and meta gaming going on there, but for the most part we use euphemisms, "seasons" or some other sort of relative explanation of power and strength.

But do levels change things? Is the primary focus on hit-points and levels a factor in making the game more mathematical and cut-throat?

In a pure story-based game, you have this outward focus on how your character fits into the current story and overall game world. Your stats can be increased, and the focus of improvement is to allow your character to better be able to influence the story. A higher persuasion skill lets you persuade more NPCs, and thus your influence over that story grows. You can think of story based games as a fight to control the ever-shifting narrative between the players and the referee-controlled NPCs.

Levels. Hit dice. Tactical combat. Damage per turn. Whiff rate. Condition spells. Attacks of opportunity. Advantage and disadvantage. Here we go with traditional D&D style level based games, and a whole host of hard mathematical statistics comes into play. Not only do you have to be good at controlling the narrative, you have to be able to know how this hard math works, and master the combat rules. Levels make this easier, but also complicate things as you go up.

Levels vs. Narrative

Do levels fight the narrative push and pull? They certainly distract from it a bit, because all of a sudden you are not purely worried about narrative influence, to do good and control the narrative, you need to master the combat system too. You need levels to get better at this system, because roleplaying matters little in raising combat power. You need XP to get better, and you need to defeatefoes and solve problems.

Note how D&D type games lump problem solving and combat in the same pile of XP. If you solve problems with roleplaying and get XP, you get better at controlling the narrative (roleplaying skills), but you also get better in combat. You could have a 20th level character who just got roleplaying XP in their career and never touched a weapon, yet this person would be a better fighter than 99% of the people on the planet. You could have the inverse, a combat-only barbarian who never spoke a word being a diplomatic master negotiator at the narrative-influencing social skills just because of their level.

I think it is this connection between the ability for a high-level character to influence the narrative and the "let's have combat for XP" part of the game that troubles me. In a purely story-driven narrative game without levels, all you are doing with advancement is ticking up the skills you want. If you just want to be a talker, all you buy are social skills. If you just want to be a fighter, you work on fighting skills. Levels remove that granularity and ability to specialize, now yes, there are more social style classes in the D&D style games, like bard or thief, but those classes typically force you into a skill-monkey role and take away your ability to excel at combat.

D&D's classes make those choices for you.

You want to fight? Be a fighter! You want to be a fighter who excels at narrative control and social situations? You are out of luck, roll a rogue or a bard. Yes, as a fighter you can put skill points and feats towards social abilities, but typically (Pathfinder is a good example), the more skill-point heavy and social-focused classes are going to have an easier time of buying these feats and skills.

In D&D, King Arthur is King Arthur because he can kill very well, not because he has the skills and social power over the kingdom's narrative that a king should have. There's a disconnect there, and a simplification that I feel makes pure-story based games focused on the narrative a better choice for pure roleplayers than D&D style games.

Levels vs. Storytelling

I have had pure roleplayers at my table who played D&D 3-5 because that's what our group played. I always felt bad for them because they could care less about this mess of combat rules and gaining levels, and they just wanted to have fun. We did a good job accommodating them, but the game we played (D&D 4) required an attention to builds and rules that I felt turned them off to the whole game. We had some that loved the battle chess aspect, and we still like this part of the game, but the combat and level rules felt like an artificial limitation put over the game for players who were more interested in narrative control than "kill for treasure and XP."

If your players are more concerned with mathematical concerns and tactical battles, D&D works better, and I will go as far to say that D&D 4 works the best for players who want a Warhammer style figure tactical combat experience. D&D 5 tries to bring the story back to the table, yet it still has the baggage of a tactical game based on resource management, and a level system that connects narrative control and combat ability into one lump sum of XP. D&D style systems also pre-choose your character's lifetime ability to perform narrative control and combat contributions from game #1 with your choice of class.

Yes, you can switch careers and multiclass in mid-stream, but King Arthur is not a bard nor a rogue.

Answers?

I don't feel there is a good answer for this in the modern D&D style games. Again, we are hit with the abstraction of the class and combat systems, and this limits our choices. Of course fighters are the ones with the swords that never think their way out of a situation. The game assumes "fighters fight" and gimps their skills and gives them the best damage output and choices in swinging swords. I would love to see a D&D system "off the rails" that let people be people, reward skills used, and got rid of the abstract class and level system entirely.

Yes, Legend, Runequest, and other games do this, and they do it well.

There is a choice here of how much control you feel you should have (as a player) over your control over what happens at the table. If I choose to be a social character, I don't want my choices limited to, "well, pick a social class and suck at combat for as long as you have that character." If for a couple sessions I want to improve combat skills, let me improve combat skills. If for some others, I want to be the master of parlay, let me do that and improve my social prowess.

This is not about being a "fan" of a game, I collect them all and love reading them, so count me in as a fan for them all, as my shelves will attest. What this is about is taking a look inside yourself and asking, "am I getting rewarded for the things I want to do at the table?" Does a game force you into a role that later on you may regret or limit your contributions? Yes, a good referee can adjust things and give chances for everyone to have fun, but if your game takes a turn for the political, can your combat-focused character adapt?

It is again about understanding what each game does best, and finding games that fit your view of gaming and how your contributions are rewarded. We have moved beyond the "network effect" where every game has to be a modern version of D&D, and we are moving into an era where games are designed around a almost niche "way it plays" and the reward and contribution systems are designed to fit that game. You see this in videogaming with indie gaming. The big-box games are always there like the Call of Duties and D&D games, but a huge market is developing for custom and unique experiences that are off the level system tracks and as diverse as the players in our hobby.

Fantasy Age vs. Pathfinder

I was struck by the simplicity of Fantasy Age versus a more complicated game like Pathfinder. Both are high-fantasy RPGs and they do what they set out to do well enough.

Fantasy Age is a simple game with a simple, unified core mechanic. It plays fast, is super easy to pick up, and does a great job with progression and the sort of lighter adventure and solve the mission job it sets out to do. I have a slight issue with post-roll stunting and still feel Legend does this better, but it is a good mechanic (with tweaking) and I look forward to Blue Rose's release next year using the same system.

But then again, I still get this feeling that Pathfinder just captures my imagination better. It feels like fantasy to me. The worlds and options presented in its books (both first and the excellent third party supplements) open up infinite worlds of adventure. Despite some of the issue I have with how large the game has gotten and the almost too-many choices now availible, I feel there is still a strong core of fun to be had that a more simple game such as Fantasy Age just can't capture.

Complexity vs. Depth

Pathfinder has depth, and loads of it. While yes, some of the depth presented has a great deal of complexity to it, you can use as much as you want (as is the case with every game). But as I drill down into Pathfinder's depth, I find a lot of reward for paying the price and using the complexity in my games. The deeper you go, the moer tedious the game becomes, but also there is another deeper and strategically rewarding game at the highest level of complexity.

You can play Pathfinder two ways, the first being an almost a Pathfinder Beginner Box style of game that plays like an action game. Ignore encumbrance, AoOs, and limit actions to something more simple and straightforward. The game becomes an action game, and you get 75% of the reward of playing. Nothing stops you from house-ruling in PBB as the way you play and keeping things simple, so it's all good.

The second way of playing the game is by drilling down to a level of complexity you enjoy, and playing at that level. For some, that means playing 100% by the rules, using all the tactical combat rules, encumbrance, and playing the game almost as a fantasy combat simulator. It is admittedly a more difficult game, becuase something as simple as what loot you choose to pick up could be a matter of life or death later as you are fleeing an encounter. I like this level of detail, and while it slows things down, it gives players more choices during a play session other than "where do I swing my sword next?" Action-gaming is fun and great, but sometimes I like to see how a group of players gets together and deals with a world hostile to their presence in it, and watching them make decisions and survive in a rules-set that is unforgiving and applied with a firm hand.

It is the same reward you feel when you beat a video-game on its hardest mode. You get this real sense of accomplishment and feeling of mastery that a more simple game just does not provide.

Simple for the Right Reasons

Yes, if I am here for the good times and story, I am more apt to play a simple game such as Fantasy Age with the group. Perhaps this is our first few times together and we need a simpler game to get the ice broken and see how the personalities and play styles mesh.

If this is a game about romance and I purposefully want the rules to get out of the way (such as in Blue Rose's case), I am also more apt to prefer a simple game that gets out of the way so we can focus on the drama and relationships. I perhaps could play romance-style games with Pathfinder, but the urge to drill down into full-simulation and combat mode is there, and I prefer players at the table to not focus on those aspects of the game.

I could bring up D&D 5 here because it relates to the discussion. D&D 5 at its current state just feels like it captures a more basic dungeon-ing experience centered on the brand's core worlds. It feels like a Fantasy Age in a way where the game is streamlined and simplified, and that is a good thing for playing stories focused on the conflicts and characters in those worlds. But again, for me and my groups, it feels like there is something missing, and it feels like the Fantasy Age thing again. I like depth. D&D 5 is early in its run, where Pathfinder is settled in and comfortable.

Sometimes, I want and I crave depth. It's not an all-the-time thing, as I love my pick-up-and-play games too, and also the simple and focused experiences. I like for my games to dive in and give me those complicated character design choices. I like for options to be fiddly and force you to learn. Gaming is never a One Ring thing where one game rules all; as gamers, I feel it is cool to have different games for different moods.

Depth Budgeting

Depth is also a thing you budget, just like complexity. You an put depth in different places, but you need to pick and choose what areas of your game you desire a deeper experience, and which areas should be simplified and kept streamlined. Where and how much complexity and depth is one of those game design choices you can plan out, or stumble into - but you need to plan this out to have a game that feels like it has a balance of simplified areas and complex ones that deliver a great and deep play experience.

So Pathfinder still calls to me in a way as it sits there in all its refined and voluminous glory. I like the game, and I like the world. Is it simple and fast-to-play? No, it is clearly not a fast food sort of game for fast food sorts of moods. But it does have depth and a complexity I can appreciate and embrace for what it does. It is a classic version of a classic game, and it does a good job on a couple of levels, both simple and complex, and it has the weight of both first and third party support that is second to none.

Fantasy Age, by contrast, is also a young game with support to be seen. I look forward to the refinement that may come out in future games, and I love the core 3d6 mechanic. It is a fun ice-breaker game with simple rules and quick options, and it is focused on storytelling - not survival and character building. It does what it sets out to do well, and is an interesting option to the Dragon Age game (or an upgrade of it, if seen another way). It does not have the depth of a more mature game, and I don't feel it needs it for what it sets out to do, so there is that to consider.

But what strikes me here is how depth can be seen two ways, as complexity that should be simplified (as D&D 5's direction went in), or as something to be enjoyed and savored and as a feature of the game that reflects maturity and something more to consider than just story-based action gaming. You worry about more from everything to character design to in-game choices, but you are rewarded more for maing the correct decisions based on the moment in time you make them.

Legend: Play Test Report #1

We had some fun with the Legend system over the weekend, and I wanted to share our experiences.

The combat system is fun to play and run, it has this 'medieval armor simulation' thing going on, and it also allows for way more player involvement than your standard D&D or Pathfinder combat. It does feel like combat is very old-school with hit locations and sectional hit points, but we were amazed at the constant choices the game gave you when it came to offensive and defensive special moves.

Players had choice in how they wanted a blow to land, or what special way they wanted to put an enemy at a disadvantage. Enemies had this choice as well, which makes the game very deadly and tactical. It all depends on skill and being able to get a roll good enough to start pushing the combat the way you wanted it to go, with the possibility out there of a lucky hit sending your entire plan into the garbage bin.

My players preferred it instantly to D&D and Pathfinder's combat system, and had a lot more fun with it the first couple fights.

I can see this system not surviving players used to D&D on the first night, it is shocking to see your "average Joe" go down in one hit. It is also very satisfying to dispatch an goblin with a bonk to the head with a club, knocking the monster out. It is a system that takes time to learn and get good at, and there is a point where you know how it works but not how to be great in it that could lead you down the path of frustration.

As a simulation-ist combat system, it is a blast and incredibly fun to play and learn. It also is an eye-opener for players used to the "hit it and forget it" style of D&D, where atomic rolls happen and have little lasting impact other than taking the enemy's hit points down by a couple points.

And then we hit a small snag.

We had an issue where a player reported he felt he needed armor to survive, and felt the game forced him down that path. This was a tough one to deal with, because of the simulation-ist nature of the game, of course you need armor. It was true then in combat, and it is true today. But it didn't fit his character concept of an Assassin's Creed style character to start dolling up in plate armor. But this character got taken down in a single blow because he wasn't wearing armor. But isn't that realistic? But is that fun? But that's how this game works, and to be honest, D&D forces you to wear the best armor as well. But I don't like feeling forced to wear plate armor for a game benefit. But soldiers need armor and helmets! But I feel something is wrong, and I am being forced into this. But your character is an average low-level guy. But it still feels wrong.

You can see where this went.

Stealthy lightly-armored assassins are possible in this game, but I got the feeling this type of character only opens up at higher levels of play. You are not going to start out a ninja in this game, and you will be lucky to survive your first encounter with rats. If you are fighting anything intelligent with weapons and smarts, be prepared for a 50-50 fight if you are matched in numbers. This is very much a "medieval weapon simulator" at low levels, and you need to don the ye olde armored vest and helm in order to survive. It feels a lot like Warhammer Fantasy in that regards.

Part of it feels like a collision between not knowing the combat options well enough to be able to survive, and having a lower-level character in play who frankly can't survive being hit with a wet rat on a stick. This is one of those common points when learning a roleplaying game where you understand the dicing and game systems, but not much about how the rules can help you survive. It is that 'deadly phase' where you do all sorts of stupid stuff later on you would laugh at (if you are still playing the game and didn't get discouraged), and this takes real effort to get over and achieve that golden chalice of 'system mastery'.

This is also the time where players flee back to other games and go with what they know and feels right. It is the danger of unfamiliarity, and wanting to play a game that gives that immediate gratification and supports notions of character concepts as seen in video games, TV, and movies. If a game supports the notion of the Assassin's Creed character better and easier (at low level) than this game does, then that game is a better game. Right?

There's a danger in fantasy that caters to fantasy, where the fantasy is so divorced from reality that some player's notion of what's real becomes the fantasy.

For a game that is more focused on delivering a semi-realistic experience such as Legend, it is a problem. Expectations are all out of whack, and players come into the game expecting what they see in video games and in the movies to be the 'game reality'. This applies to in-game choices, such as an expectation of all armor choices to be of equal value, even 'no armor' versus plate. Video games give us this option and put clear benefits behind wearing no armor, such as increased movement, dodge rates, and a package of other benefits making the 'no armor' choice equally attractive when compared to 'full armor'. If it is this way in Call of Duty then it should work the same way in tabletop games, right?

But you get on a real-life IRL battlefield a thousand years ago or today, and the notion of 'no armor' being a equal and valid choice to adequate protection starts to seem pretty silly. Yes, some soldiers are lighter armored than others on every battlefield, but the ones up on the front lines (in every age) typically wore good stuff. To be fair, Legend has some benefits for the 'no armor' choice, but still, armor is generally a good thing to have, and this comes from real life medieval warfare simulation and history.

But it is a fantasy game!

But this game is supposed to be realistic.

But games are supposed to be fun! Realism does not equal fun.

I like realistic combat simulators, in both RPGs and computer games. There is a tactical challenge you are trying to overcome, an impossible world you are trying to survive in, and a set of behaviors you are bleeding through in order to beat the system and come out on top. I am reminded of classic games like X-Com, Jagged Alliance, and others that gave you those tough and deadly choices to make, and many hard lessons to learn. Easier games may give you that 'feels good' easy-mode story and action focused experience with the same weapons and scenarios, but this doesn't 'feel right' to me.

I like story-based and action-based games for lighthearted fun and movie-like entertainment as well. But I like hard-core tactical realism also.

It is a problem I don't feel we are going to get past with this game. I hope we do, because I like the system a lot. I just see other games being easier for players to get their 'expected fantasy experience' from, and Legend becoming an interesting experiment.

Maybe it's me as a referee, maybe I am playing this too hard-core. Maybe I should be fudging dice rolls, or handing out tons of hero points to spend for cinematic action. A hero point can take the place of a helmet in this game, so maybe players should have that many to throw around.

And so it goes. I think the real issue here is my expectations as a referee versus my player's expectations as fantasy gamers.

D&D 5: In Favor of Role Playing Rules

D&D 5 adds mechanical rules for role-playing to the game. Through a system of five defined personality traits that the DM uses to grant a one-use, rechargeable, Inspiration Point, which can be saved and gives the play advantage on a roll (or used for other player's rolls).

I'm not too positive on this system, since I believe it limits the rewards DMs can give to players for good roleplaying, and it is also slightly exploitable. Unless there are other systems in the DMG that are added, I feel a little limited by this system and I find it isn't needed during the sessions we play.

However, let me think of the reasons why you may want to use this system.

Perhaps this is intended for new players and DMs who don't understand the concept of rewarding good roleplaying with in-game bonuses. If you are coming in from another more structured fame environment, how is a new DM supposed to judge and reward play that adheres to a character's personality limitation or belief system? It is an interesting thought, one that makes me think D&D 5 is actually aimed at people outside the hobby.

Think about it, if you never played a pen-and-paper game, and you don't know anyone who does - how are you supposed to know how to reward roleplaying?

This reasoning may also be behind why things are so simplified, like not including map-based combat rules. Nothing intimidates new players more than a map with figures, I have seen people freeze up, not want to touch things, and ask constantly, "Can I do this?" or "Is this okay?" It is part of learning yes, but it can be overwhelming to a new player.

It extends to the Monster Manual as well, with the simplified statistics, lower amounts of special attacks and abilities, and simplified and graphical presentation. Things feel simple because they are intended to be that way for new players.

I see some of that in the Player's Handbook too, there aren't many detailed character build options because those are intimidating, the number range is tighter because it is supposed to work across many levels, and the role of magic items has been reduced to make character builds and gear less important.

It is interesting to think of D&D 5 as a level 1 through 20 version of the Pathfinder Beginner Box, and this may be really what the game is the closest to in spirit.

Another reason why you may want to use the roleplaying rules is in organized play. As a DM, you may want to wash your hands of favoritism accusations from troublesome players or people you don't know, and use the system as a safeguard to make sure everything appears fair. It takes away some of the dynamic and social aspects of the game, but it is sort of a 'protection system' where a DM can coldly award inspiration if action X fulfills motivation Y.

You are never giving advantage to rolls that are fun or entertaining here, but in a public session with people you don't know, you don't want to appear to be playing favorites with certain outgoing players and have some people turned off by that. Removing the DM's role from some of the more interpretative parts of the game has been a theme since D&D 4, and it's possible some people are turned off by a creative and involved DM.

"Well, I can't be that entertaining or creative, and that DM is playing favorites with certain players, so I don't want to play that game."

"I would never play that. I don't even know how to act or what good that does."

You may laugh, but I have seen these feelings out there among people. It's odd, in order for the game to be more socially acceptable, the creative and interpretative parts are being ruled down into strict "yes or no" paths. To us old-schoolers where we want everyone to be involved and we don't think twice about rewarding creative play, it may seem strange to us. But to outsiders in the hobby, having these types of rules is actually "protection" for them and it is seen as something that ensures their contributions to the game will be rewarded.

Part of me feels sad roleplaying has fallen so far out of the mainstream this needs to be taught or enforced with defined rules. I guess it is like remembering the days of computing before antivirus programs were needed for everything, and picking and possibly paying for one was a requirement to get online and doing anything. I suppose I may use those rules with newer players in public settings, but then again, I will abandon them is a group feels like they are limiting their fun and we are all comfortable with my 'reward good play' DM-ing style.

Ultimately, you will play the way you want to play, but I find it very helpful to know why these systems were put in place, and knowing when they can help a group of players.

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.

Where Are Our Immersive Experiences?

George was playing Call of Duty 2 on the big screen TV, and I watched him climb up sheer walls of ice (often falling off), race snowmobiles, hang from cliffs, and do all sorts of other cool stuff that just blew my mind. In reality, a lot of the Battlefield and Call of Duty games go like this, they break up the monotonous shooting levels with in-your-face action, car chases, hang-on-for-your-life moments, and plenty of cinematic spills and chills.

Contrast this with tabletop games such as Descent and roleplaying games like D&D4 and Pathfinder. In tabletop strategy games such as Descent, they place varied sub-goals on the map to break things up, but often the same turn-denial tactics win the day, and you are left with just the math and random chance to provide the excitement. My four figures against your ten, with infinite monster replenishments providing the impetus to end the scenario quickly. You can't run across a flaming log bridge only moments from collapse, dodge falling pillars as the temple crumbles around you, or leap aross an ever widening crevasse to safety. Scenario design could alleviate some of these problems, but too often tabletop games seem mired in the thought of 'math is fun' and expect that combat alone will solve all problems.

Roleplaying games fare a bit better - but you need a spectacular referee and players willing to throw caution to the wind to have a great time. A party that turtles up and avoids running through the collapsing temple, looking for another way around is going to kill your seat-of-your-pants fun; and similarly an unimaginative referee who presents a dull and structurally sound temple full of the same old goblins will get you back to that same old boring experience.

Players could revolt at the entire idea, and shout 'railroading' at the collapsing temple scene and they would be partially right. You need to give and take though, and the cry of railroading can be a method of refusing to participate; you have total freedom in there to escape, and you need to give a little to see how the story comes out. You could call everything in roleplaying games beyond a generic sandbox as railroading, but where is the fun in that? The referee needs the freedom to setup cinematic deathtraps for the players to escape and beat, and these are the challenges in which heroes are made. If I am a player, I accept your railroad, and I shall beat this train in my own way - with style.

So back to the question, where are our cinematic and immersing experiences? The old game Paranoia had it right: if you are boring, you are dead. Take chances, and you shall be rewarded. Your character's survival, however, is not guaranteed. Smart play, daring risks, and decisive action are the path to victory - but even then, a bad dice roll could turn your brave plan into a fool's folly. The only certainty is failure through inaction or cautious play. This is the unwritten contract between players and referees that made that game work so well, and the groups that understood it had a blast. The groups that played the game like some 1984 psychological drama or post-apocalyptic game had less fun.

In itself, math is not fun. A new way of rolling dice does not make a game fun. Having plenty of character design options does not make a game fun. Putting twenty figures on the map for your team of heroes to fight does not make the game any more fun than placing ten. In fact, more figures and more stats means less fun and more work. Combat is dull if it is just a dry calculation of AC versus combat modifiers. We need those moments of excitement. We need for characters to fail and fall. Without failure, there is no risk, and thus, no fun. The definition of a game is an activity in which you can fail.

Where do we go from here? You need to look inside yourself, as a referee, and make that choice to take the game into your own hands - and provide those cinematic experiences to your players despite what the rules say. As a player, you need to rise to the challenge, and accept fate. If the bridge ahead of you is burning and falling to pieces, you should go for it. As a referee, they should have a chance to cross that bridge based on skill, luck, or ingenuity - it is not a 100% certain deathtrap. This is more changing ourselves than the rules or the game, to accept action-oriented cinematic experiences as our personal playstyle - no matter what the game.

Players: Take chances and accept fate. Inaction is failure.

Referees: Present cinematic experiences, and to hell what the rules say.

Referee's Screen: Star Wars Edge of the Empire II, part 4

Part IV: A New Hope

Let's continue our unboxing coverage of Star Wars: Edge of the Empire with some thoughts on campaign creation for the new game. There is a significant amount of game design in campaign creation, and the process can make of break the game. Let's look at some traditional pitfalls of Star Wars campaigns first, continue on to theming, and then layout a framework for building a new campaign.

Where Star Wars Games Go Wrong

I have played in a number of Star Wars games, and I have seen a number of areas where Star Wars as a game can fall apart. Usually these are story and campaign reasons, and a lot of them are common to sci-fi games in general. Let's look at the top three that I have seen and discuss them:

Theme Creep: Readers of SBRPG may recognize this one. A game centered around criminals on the edge of space shifts into a Sith versus Jedi war, alien invasion, son of Darth Vader plot, or some other 'do not want' nonsense. The reason that attracted the players to the game in the first place has been sidelined for the new 'big bad plot' and the players are showing up to just see what happens next to their characters. When the players are not driving the story and the GM is, expect things to break apart in a couple games.

The Great War: I have been in a couple Star Wars games that lost focus, and just turned into a big wargame. The Empire versus Rebellion fight gradually escalated, and the next mission had to become bigger and better than the last - with the stakes even higher. It's only a matter of time before super star destroyers and the latest and greatest superweapon (Sun Crusher, Death Star III.V, Plot Smasher, etc) shows up at this point. Players start racking up TIE fighter kills in the hundreds, the players form STAR Team 6, and the intimate feel of the game is lost.

Supervillain Escalation: This is a common one in Jedi and Sith games, and it happens all the time in superhero RPGs. The big bad is defeated, and the power level goes up for the next battle. Pretty soon, both sides raise their power levels, and the game then becomes about who can throw the biggest attack and most dice around. We saw this in our d6 System superhero game, "Well no, I got 18 dice of attack! The big-bad has 24 dice of defense! Pah-shissshhhh, let the dice tsunami roll!" The game degenerates into a power-versus-power battle, and pretty soon, the big-bad is threatening other planes of existence.

What to Do Padawan?

A good bit of general advice to avoid the above is to keep the game focused on characters, not conflicts. Nobody cares about "The Empire hates the Rebels" in an adventure where the PCs are supposed to be interacting with NPCs face-to-face. The galactic conflict should be in the background, with personal conflicts between characters taking center stage.

Let's look at this closer. If a colony manager is short of water because a local trading cartel is jacking up the price with the help of a local Imperial governor, then things start to become interesting. The 'Rebel vs. Imperial' conflict is still in there, but it is a subtext, and the smaller more personal conflict between characters is driving the plot. It is up to the PCs to interact with those characters, and resolve the situation however they want to.

Never let an ideology be the reason for the adventure! It makes as much sense as M calling James Bond into her office and this exchange taking place:

M: "James, your mission this time is the Cold War. Good luck 007."

James Bond: "WTF? omg lol"

Peeling Back the Onion

Ideologies, conflicts, wars, cartels, trade embargoes, and other large ideas should be backdrops and affect characters in the world - giving them motivation to do specific acts. It is better even yet to have these large ideas being the reason 'something else happened' and a character is involved. The more layers you can write into your adventures the better. Let's layer one out and see if we can craft a beautiful situation:

1. The Empire hates the Rebels, so...
2. The Empire supports a local Hutt boss, who...
3. Runs the local Water Cartel, that is...
4. Run by an Imperial Governor, who is...
5. Raising prices on a colony world, that is...
1. Bonus points for going deeper than this!
6. Causing a shortage of minerals from the asteroid mines, which is...
7. Causing pirates to raid ore ships, which...
8. Caused one ship to disappear, that is...
9. The reason the daughter of the captain contacted the PCs, who wants them to...
10. Find her father.

Wow. The more layers you add, the more fun you can have. Now that we have this, we can fill out each layer with NPCs the players can interact with, factions who have interests going one way or the other, and locations for all of this fun stuff. You should also keep most of the middle layers secret, and let the PCs discover them for themselves! This gives them the satisfaction of unraveling the mystery themselves, and this 'peeling back the onion' is an important part of letting the players have the satisfaction of solving a problem.

Most of the problem will be finding out the who and what, and shadowy forces will be hunting them and trying to stop them at every turn. You typically start out with generic baddies, like Imperials and monsters; and then as the bad guys figure out someone is on to them, the cartel thugs and adventure-specific bad guys start showing up. The opposition that appears is driven by the PCs actions, events in the galaxy, and what happens next.

Remember, the conflicts are driven by the NPCs, the Water Cartel should never order an attack 'because it is'; the NPC leader of the faction should order the attack in response to a specific incident by one of the groups (or PCs). If you played SBRPG and recognize Factions and Faction Reactions at work here, give yourself bonus points. It is the same system, and it works very well in Star Wars: Edge. You can incorporate "ripples" from the events that happen in the galaxy, and have the factions react to them as well, and all of a sudden you have a cool sandbox model for running your game.

In Closing

Keeping your games focused on situations and a layered adventure model keeps your game on track, and keeps you from having to make it up as you go along. You can't sustain winging adventures from week to week, and that typically causes one of the three failure conditions to happen for your campaign. Layer your situations, keep things secret, and have NPCs drive the conflicts between factions. Doing these three things will help you manage a successful game, and keep the players involved in your galaxy.

Referee's Screen: Star Wars Edge of the Empire II, part 3

Part III: Revenge of the d6

Understanding Star Wars: Edge

It is important to get the feel of play right for the game. Star Wars: Edge is different than other RPGs you may be used to, and it threw us when we began playing. In this Referee's Screen, I want to go over some of the issues we saw with macro versus micro play, and how to run Star Wars: Edge at its best given the dicing system and results. Let's dive today into micro versus macro play.

Micro Play

RPGs that play in the 'micro' are almost totally simulation games. Every blow is vectored out with a to-hit, every wound tracked, and every skill roll broken down into subtasks. Some games have marco elements (hit points, AC), but still play with a micro feel, such as D&D3.5. SBRPG had a very micro play style, with the spending of action points towards making attacks and parries, and a detailed blow-by-blow combat system. Car Wars, Aftermath, Champions, GURPS, and many other old-school games played in the micro style.

Macro Play

Remember the old D&D thru D&D2 combat explanation, which went something like this: "An attack roll covers more than just one blow, it is all the activity of the round, including defending, feints, dodging, attacks, and maneuver"? Macro play is like that, a series of actions or activities is aggregated into one roll, such as an attack roll in Arkham Horror. In these games, you are not rolling blow-by-blow to-hits, tracking bullets, and rolling to parry incoming attacks one at a time. You likely are making a 'combat roll' based on 'combat power' for your turn based on your weapons and abilities. The original D&D and its OSR clones are great examples of macro play, along with Star Wars (d6 System).

Star Wars: Macro Dipping Into Micro

Star Wars: Edge is a macro style game that dips into the micro style of play when needed. Combat is a perfect example, especially with minions. When you make an attack roll against a group of minions, you make one attack roll, and you can eliminate multiple minions with that roll. You assume the attack roll is a series of shots, and you are figuring out the result of that sequence of attacks with one roll. This is a great example of macro-style play, and the game encourages skill checks be made in a similar manner.

For example, Chewie would probably make one skill roll to repair the Falcon's broken comm dish. Busting the repair out into a sequence of events into a series of skill checks is discouraged, such as: weld the O-ring, replace the fuses, rewire the main comm line, install the dish, and test the installation. That 5-skill roll repair process would probably make sense in a game such as Space Opera or Traveller, but not here. In Star Wars: Edge, this is one skill roll with a degree of success and failure, along with the positive or negative consequences.

This is not to say Star Wars: Edge is all macro. The game can dip down into the micro when needed, and the dice can simulate what happens when that one photon torpedo shot into the ventilation shaft is needed. The game should play in the macro for the most part, and even things like star travel should utilize the dicing system to determine what happens when you jump into a star system. Life in Star Wars: Edge is controlled by those dice, and the rolls should cover a good amount of action, with those occasional 'one shot' micro rolls.

How This Plays

Now that we understand the macro vs. micro play styles, how does Star Wars play for us? Coming off Arkham Horror with its extremely macro system of task and combat resolution, we get it. The game should play more like a European-style boardgame, with the referee proposing problems to the group of players, and the players working as a team to solve them with their skills and abilities.

The micro-style play that feels like an episode of '24' doesn't really fit here, something that is typical of games like Pathfinder or GURPS, or games where you worry about penalties for switching targets, attacks of opportunity, or other micro-tropes. The game is not a sim, it is more an adventure game where you are solving a series of larger problems. Do not worry about haggling with a shopkeeper over every stim pack (in an hour long RP session); you are solving big problems with a single roll, moving to the next location, and taking on the next challenge.

Here's a good example of how this plays the best, at least in our experience:

GM: You land at the star port of the ice world, ship heavily damaged by that fight with the pirates. You will need a new reactor core, and you also have that encrypted holo-message to deliver to the contact named Jerak, who is supposed to be here, but you don't know how to contact him. All you know is that he is an alien, an asteroid miner, and is wanted by Imperial Intelligence.

Bob: Okay, Sam, you fix the ship, I'll put your pog here on the starport where our ship is. I will take Jane out to the local watering hole and start asking around for asteroid miners, where are the starport bars?

GM: Here, and a really dangerous looking one over here near the salvage yard.

Bob: Okay, let me put our pogs on the dangerous bar at the salvage yard, and we will take Vex-4 along so he can drop by the yard to shop for a new reactor. Does anything happen on the way?

GM: Make a streetwise roll, are you avoiding trouble, or doing something else along the way?

Bob: Avoiding trouble. [makes roll] 2 successes and 1 threat, what happens?

GM: No one beats you up, but it does look like a rough neighborhood. You bump into an Imperial patrol looking for troublemakers, and they take note of you and move on. You arrive at the bar, which looks like a total hole-in-the-starport-wall. Sam, make a roll for your first repairs on the ship....

The game works best with that conversational style, with a higher-level play using a large map. When something happens, either handle it with RP and skill checks, or bust out a quick tactical map for combat. Most checks should be macro, with the advantages or threats from these macro rolls guiding the action.

Use micro play on the zoomed-in combat and tactical maps, such as a roll to pick a lock, repair a distress beacon, or for one-on-one combats. Zoom back out to the macro play style as soon as possible, and don't get bogged down in the details.

Understanding how to zoom in and out like this, and keeping your game focused on macro play will give you greater enjoyment, and also keep that Star Wars feel in your game sessions. Star Wars is about the big picture, and you need to be able to aggregate action into dice rolls, keep players moving, and avoid everyone being bogged down in a dungeon hall.

Games that focus on dungeon halls are rightfully more micro and work better that way, but for dramatic sweeping sci-fi action, you need to play with a larger focus and picture. The Star Wars: Edge dice are designed to help you do this, and you need to understand how they will work for you to get the most out of the game.

-Hak