Great Video: "Low Budget" Review of Tunnels and Trolls

Check this cool video out if you are interested in Tunnels and Trolls, and there is a free rulebook available over on Drive Thru RPG here:

http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/54407/Tunnels--Trolls-Free-Rulebook

And also the current version of the deluxe rulebook (at this time on sale for $20):

http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/152613/Deluxe-Tunnels--Trolls

And you can get a hard or soft cover here:

This version came about as a Kickstarted project (here), and this is essentially the best and most complete version on the shelf today.

The one thing I love about this video is how he points out Tunnels and Trolls has been developed by the same creative team for over 41 years, and it is the second roleplaying game ever developed. He knows his history, and even though the video is a bit 'low budget' the love and appreciation for the game shows through - and he has great information to share in this review. It is not a slick production, but it is from the heart, and that is what matters more.

More on this game soon, and this has been one we have been playing for a long time - and it is great to see it back.

Great Article: The Death of 'The Sleeper'

http://kotaku.com/the-surprising-and-allegedly-impossible-death-of-everqu-1785741600

Check the above out, it is a great article about the old Everquest game, and what happens when you pull the rug out from under your players - and then put it back, saying 'sorry.' Or not saying sorry, but blaming it on a software bug. Maybe there was a bug.

We will never know, but the story is a gaming legend.

Savage Worlds: World of Warcraft: Part 4

Non-cannon time, so break your lore sticks and let's talk.

The old World of Warcraft d20 game listed Stormwind's population at an incredible 200,000 people. This was later revised to somewhere down to 20,000 people, which for a medieval city is still huge. Medieval London from 1100 to 1300 grew from 15,000 to 80,000 people, so there is a nice real-world reference. Here is a map of 1300s London so you can get an idea of how big of a city you would need to fit 80,000 people:

Source: Wikipedia

I can tell you now that even fitting 20,000 people into the in-game city of Stormwind is going to be a stretch. The place can't even handle a couple hundred players as it is on a weekend night. But seriously, there is something to be said for the original 200,000 number.

Because 200,000 would work.

If you said that "Stormwind was it" and the rest of the lands around it were mostly wild and unsettled (save for a couple dozen miles of surrounding farms thinning out as you go), such a high population would work. The city would be massive and the central castle would likely look something like a spaceship towering above that mass of people, but as the sole population of the world for most of humankind, that number would work.

Take that map of 1300s London and multiply it by three to get an idea of scale. Check the scale of 2,000 feet. I could see a Stormwind of triple London 1300, being that size, with 200,000 people, and the majority of humans on the planet. If the world is dangerous, people would flock together for safety, and we could have a huge scale world of 100 or 200 times and still have the iconic cities spread far apart. Fill the rest in with "wild, dangerous, and unexplored land" and we are back on track.

No new lore needed, just a scale change. A scale change with lots of "unexplored land" is a whole lot easier for lore-obsessed players to swallow than is all these new imaginary places and locations. They only need to agree that the capitals are massive in scale compared to the game, and that is also an easier sell because who doesn't like massive and huge?

So that is the answer. I will go back to the non-cannon mega-population hundreds-of-thousands "race capitals" sort of design, scale up the lands to be epic in size, and fill in the rest with dangerous and wild places. Also, take note of this comparison from the Warcraft movie and the game - these look like cities that could support the 200,000 number, especially Stormwind (compared with ancient London):

http://www.techtimes.com/articles/163429/20160608/warcraft-perfectly-mirrors-world-of-warcrafts-azeroth-in-these-comparison-images.htm

Another added bonus is this sort of design creates high drama. Because Stormwind is the capital for all of humanity, if it gets destroyed, that's it, game over for the humans. Same goes for the elves, the orcs, and every other capital. We can still have smaller versions of the non-important places, as I can't see scaling up Booty Bay to be gigantic, but I could probably add a couple rows of buildings behind the docks just for fun and to maintain that sense of scaling.

With one or two easy pills of lore-breaking to swallow, most of the world's the lore is intact, a sense of scale is created, and the design has a built-in high drama.

Excellent.

My Savage Worlds conversion of World of Warcraft is back on track. Next time, powers and classes.

Great Article: Twilight Imperium Review

http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2016/08/twilight-imperium-a-board-game-with-meal-breaks/

I love this article, especially the content of the "meet the players" section, and around this quote:

Once upon a time, after our first few games, Jim discovered the hard way that a player’s reputation, once lost, is not easily regained. After reneging on a few treaties and making dodgy promises not to invade planets, he soon realized that no one would trust him in subsequent games and ended up as a miserable pariah, a victim of the metagame.

Do you find a player's reputation and play-style in one game extends to later games? This is a fascinating subject, how a player's psyche not only determines strategy (in all play-thoughs), but also how other players treat him in future play-throughs. There are great descriptions of player types in here, the careful, the min-maxer, the long thinker, the dynamic player, the one-true-way player, and others. It is great stuff, and worth reading the article for.

Check it out, another great article today to ponder and sink your teeth into, especially if you are into game design.

Great Article: D&D 5 vs. Pathfinder

http://lifehacker.com/tabletop-rpg-showdown-dungeons-dragons-5e-vs-pathfi-1785545326

Check this one out, a comparison between D&D 5E and Pathfinder. What I like about this article is it plays to the strengths of each system and doesn't fall into the 'system wars' mentality by picking a winner before the article is written. It is a fair comparison which highlights the strengths of each, and hits upon the great 'why should I play' points of each system.

Good stuff. Worth a read for those looking to get an overview of the differences between the systems.

Tunnels and Trolls: Magic Weapons

Magic weapons in Tunnels and Trolls Deluxe don't typically add more than a couple adds to the weapon, you could have a longsword forged by a master swordsmith and get +2 adds to 5d6. High quality steel would add another +1. Balancing it would add another +1, and forging it in a volcano would add another +1.

5d6 + 5 is what you would end up with should you make a 'great' weapon such as that, about 16% more powerful than a normal longsword, or in D&D terms, on the same power level of a +1 sword. It doesn't go much higher than that, really, you could probably get this up to +10 with a heavier weapon, elven steel, a super-master smith, and all sorts of other incredibly rare materials and forging, which comes out to a +2 weapon in D&D terms of power level.

Consider warriors add +1d6 per level to their combat adds (+4 per level by our own house-rule), and you will quickly find levels are vastly more important than weapon quality.

The 10d6 Longsword? Doesn't Exist

There are no rules (I have found) for artificially amping-up a weapon's dice with extra damage, like a longsword that does 10d6 damage. I am sure possibly weapons like this may exist in modules as one-offs or house-ruled weapons, possibly, but by the base rules the "+damage dice" magic weapons aren't in there.

So let's say "this is cannon" and go with the idea there are no MMO-style 300dps damage artificially elevated to that of a tank gun weapons in this world. You know them, they are the ones you find in MMOs like World of Warcraft where a paper cut  from the epic Thunderfury sword would blow a level one peasant's arm off.

Warning: EPIC LEVEL WEAPONS MAY BE HAZARDOUS TO EVERYONE ELSE'S HEALTH.

No, you may not clean my sword, and I will be more careful next time I brush by someone with my magic quarterstaff. I will pay to clean up the inn, and I didn't realize there was a crowd there tonight.

But seriously, let's say there are no "juiced" magic weapons in this world, and the great weapons are only a couple adds here and there. Where does that leave us?

The Innate Power of the Warrior

Here's where we go all Conan on everybody. With warriors, it doesn't really matter what weapon they use, you could pick up a spoon and maul a crowd of evil snake cultists with the utensil. A two-handed sword would help, but the spoon will do until I defeat someone with a better weapon.

Or maybe I will stay "metal" and keep using the spoon in spite.

You kick butt with ordinary weapons. You don't really need to be dolled-up with a load of specialized gear, like pretty magic armor, entitlement weapons, and all sorts of gear meant to keep you grinding away for something incrementally better. There is no gear game, and your warrior's power is not directly gear dependent. You need some armor and some weapon, but putting your gear on some progression track that has you going from level 1 gray items to level 105 orange items doesn't happen.

Your warrior's innate power is what makes them kick butt. It is a situation much like the wizard, with a wizard, you may want a wand, but a whole lot of magic gear, mana storing robes, and other magical trinketry and paper-doll items are not needed to make your wizard a butt kicker. Your wizard's innate power makes them who they are.

Rejecting the MMO Item Game

So then, what incentive is there to go out and get treasure? There aren't a plethora of magic items scattered out there in the world, but there is always the lure of wealth and a better life. There isn't a "gear game" so adventuring life in T&T is a bit different. You adventure to increase your own personal power. You get money to live better and maybe fix your gear and sleep in a better bed tonight. It makes me want to play the cash-finding game in T&T a little tighter, since naturally if money is the biggest 'loot game' in town, then referees will want to be careful about handing out piles of coins.

You aren't going out to find green bracers that give you +1 STA and +1 STR, or a ring that increases your fire resistance by 2%. While those are very cool things to find in an MMO, and finding them gives you a certain sort of fun, that's not this game.

In this game, money should be a little tighter and harder to come by. The world should be a little darker. Power is gained from increasing your stats and growing in personal power. You are not going to buy your way to success, or "doll up" with magic items to make up for personal power you don't have. Who you are and how you build yourself up matters more than trinkets and gear.

Itemization: Videogames vs. Pen-and-Paper

I still like the videogame-style item games, like Diablo and other games where finding loot and upgrading is a part of the game. I feel videogames do this better though, as we haven't really found a pen-and-paper game that does itemization as well as MMOs or rogue-like games. In D&D, there are a lot of cool items, but wizards outrank fighters in fun and character power by a long-shot, so the fighter gear game (at least for us) is moot. It's tough to say (because we love D&D), but for us, video games (with balanced classes and gear choices) do itemization better for fantasy gaming.

You a Better Hero Because of You

But having a game without the 'gear game' is interesting, and focusing purely on your stats and having the world limited to normal weapons and armor only is a fascinating take on fantasy gaming. T&T is different in this way, and it keeps to the 'savage barbarian' model of play where the difference between the defeated and the victors comes down to how much of a bad ass you are. There is no magic sword that can make up for a personal power deficit or trinkets to collect because you need the stat bonuses, it is just all you.

Nothing else is between you and being a hero, and you can't buy your way to greater power. What everyone else uses is what you use, and the big difference is you are the hero.

Savage Worlds: World of Warcraft, part 3

 

I am being vexed in my Savage Worlds: World of Warcraft project by the maps. The maps of the MMO are not realistic at all, since they only cover about a 9 mile by 9 mile area. Both continents. You could see across those if you were high up enough. Here's a cool version of Google maps for the game's world, and it is cool.

So then I wanted to scale the maps and expand them, say by a factor of 100, so we have a 900 mile by 900 mile area, which honestly for a continent is still small (the size of the Western US; from California to the east side of New Mexico, and all the way up to Canada). That size could work, maybe, if the planet was smaller than Earth. Still, it's small if you want Booty Bay to be down by the Equator and the north side of the continent to touch the Arctic Circle. So maybe I need to scale by a factor of 200.

But we have another problem, once I scale this up by a factor of 100 or 200, there is a lot of room to fill. A lot of room. So much so that Elwynn and Stormwind are going to be hundreds of miles apart, when we want them within 10 or 20 miles. Add to that, just having one city and a small town isn't going to cut it for a powerful medieval kingdom, so there HAS to be something else here except Westfall and Redridge.

I know, there needs to be more cities and an expanded map...

...and the lore breaks here.

It was broken when I scaled the map, but it is really broken now. It is the Kingdom of Stormwind, right? Kingdom means "more than a city plus one small village with three buildings" in my book. Even the movie...looks like it takes some liberties.

Maybe I scale by a factor of 20 and give up trying to fill in new locations. Videogames are poor places to base worlds on, for one, because the distances are not realistic and they tend to be simplified "best of" mash ups, like GTA5's version of Los Angeles, Los Santos. Well, actually, GTA5 is huge and well laid out, honestly, and they are really sharp about how they lay things out to make each area appear bigger than it actually is.

Even the Chronicle volume 1 maps have no scale printed on them (my book is still in the mail, so I go by the preview), so this is a tough one. The world looks larger than it is. When I scale it up, I will need to fill things in. Now, if filling things in isn't a problem for me, I will go right ahead and do so.

But will my players agree? If I make two kingdoms of Hawkshire and Silverwind within the "Stormwind sphere" and have them fight over something, that will break lore. Those places don't exist, but if Stormwind was a "real" place and a "real" Kingdom, they should. Just like medieval England is not just London and some land around it. And maybe one or two villages.

If my players are cool with expanding the universe, this will work. If they are strict lore followers, this will not fly at all. Then again, do I even want to play in a universe where everything is so tied to the lore? The lore is cool but very strong, and I feel if using it makes life more difficult, then...why?

Some projects are easy, this one is not. If the big attraction here is WoW, then breaking lore is going to mess things up. But keeping the lore as-is introduces a sort of "videogame sized" world into a reality where it doesn't make much sense. I want there to be more room, more places, and the freedom to expand upon the world other than "game standard" places. If I am going to go and play only in game locations with game-standard content I might as well just play the MMO.

I wonder how the old d20 version of this RPG handled this, I never got into that because most of it is non-cannon now and the books are of lesser value to me.

So I am stuck. I don't want to do a lot of fill-in work (that players won't accept) and I don't want to break lore too much, so I am feeling the "go with what's in game" burn. And instantly my interest is lessened, and this is possibly another casualty of conversion-itis. It's a problem of converting a videogame to a pen-and-paper game - what lore we have is based on the game and that is hard to escape. WoW maybe will just be something that will be difficult to be anything more than just a videogame.

Is the lore even there for a larger, more realistic world?

Maybe Golarion is a better fit for this project. Maybe I can adopt the WoW feeling and make it work in that universe. Some things just may convert easier than others because they are based on something closer to reality. Still, I want this conversion to work. It's a tough thing.

I need to think more about this.