What's important in D&D3 - what I (apparently) thought back then

I took out my D&D3 books yesterday, since I made a new character. I also found that I had put small coloured tabs on some sections of the book, like you can see below:

What was it that I found crucial to find when I played this edition every week? Let's take a look.

PHB
Equipment
This is nothing odd. This is the go to list once you get back from the dungeon and want to stock up on something. I also clearly remember that I often used it as a gauge to invent costs for oddities the characters wanted to get
 

Miscellaneous Actions
Beyond that innocuous phrase lies the biggest turd of the 3rd ed. The tables lists which actions are a Standard Action, Full-Round and Free Actions. While you can see where they came from when designing that, the fact that you had a table covering a whole page delineating which was was indicates it quickly got unwieldy. I've been told the revised edition even added a few classes of actions. I think there are two good ways to design things like that. Either roll a die, or say that you can each turn do three things like attack, dodge or Something Else(tm). Another thing this table was used for, was to list which of these actions provoked Attacks of Opportunity. Oh, how I hate those. In theory a great idea, but it forces you to use a battlemap and slows down play as there are constant interrupts from AoO. Can you do them well? I'm not sure. If you, e.g., let everyone take a "parting shot", you discourage a fluid field of combat, even if you can Dodge out of it. I'm not sure it's a good idea at all.

Index
When 3rd ed was released, they did like TSR did for 1st ed. they released the books in different years, and there was a small summary in the back of the PHB of magic items and monsters so you could play with just the PHB. In theory, a good idea. That do sound like a often repeated phrase when talking about 3rd ed, doesn't it? I had a tab on the page where the index started, since you could just start flipping from the back cover. Always include an index in your rule book, and if you have an appendix, but if before the index. Ok?

DMG
Treasure
This is the tables for generating treasure. You can roll to find how much is coins, magic items, jewels and how many tapestries sewn with gold thread. I used this a few times, more than once, actually. But, I have a vague recollection of the numbers being screwy in some way. Also, on this page is the big brain fart, expected wealth per level. Bollocks, I say!

Tables
Quick reference tables for just about everything. In theory this was a good idea (ahem), but I don't think I ever looked at this, since I was always flipping through the books to find something else and then the tables was always nearby anyway.

XP
This is one part where I felt 3rd ed. was inventive in a way I could appreciate. You match up the party average level against a rating for the encounter and see how much of a hindrance it is for that party, and you get XP accordingly. I liked the idea of a measly bunch of 2nd level dudes killing a dragon and scoring big, while the name level knight got nothing for killing kobolds. It felt like a more elegant solution than having different amount of XP per monster and it did take into account the mixed party levels. Neat math, simply. Nothing said you had to match party level and monster rating...

EL
Encounter Levels and Challenge Ratings. This is another thing which in some circles have caught a lot of flak. I like it. Even if you think that the dangers are there, and not scaled to you, I still think it's good to know as a DM of what to expect. I have no idea wiping out a party with a jumbo monster if they are too stupid to run, but I'd like it to happen because I planned it, not because I had no idea of what I was doing! I'm not very good at crunching the math and understanding what happens if I add another gnoll, or decide to reinforce them with a hill giant. Just look at a table and you have some idea. Nothing forces you to scale things to the party level...

Slime molds & fungi
So why did I put a label here? Because those monsters/threats are icky, gooey and very classic? Nothings screams dungeon as a patch of mould. Interestingly enough, there's also a table with spells found in magic traps on that page. I'm not sure if I ever used that. Quite a difference if you roll on that table and get a 2 or a 63. The chest wasn't trapped with an Alarm, it was Power word, Kill. Great!

NPC traits
In theory... well. This is a table I never used. I think I just made it up on the spot, or had NPCs be dispensers of information or there to be killed. Advanced, eh? I like the idea of tables like that, though.

I think in all that it's clear that I like random tables, and that the big EL, CR, XP scheme talked to me. Frankly, it's one of the things I think T&T is missing. I am not happy to be reminded of AoO, but who is?

ToC - Drives. Free will, again?

I just thought of something.

You know that Dirve your character has in Trail of Cthulhu? It's there to give the Keeper something to point to and prod you with to go head first into danger. Right? According to the rules you take a penalty to enforce your free will as a player, and not act in line with the character psychology you have on your sheet.

That sounds a lot like things I was pondering in my posts about free will. Sure, it does not involve NPCs or other PCs influencing your PC, but the Keeper. Interesting territory, indeed.

I don't think I have seen anyone comment upon them in that light. In my CoC games I have not yet remembered to use them! Interesting.

D&D character generation. Return of an old... friend?

So, tonight I made my first new D&D character in a while! Some friends of a friend have been playing in a campaign for the last five or six years, and now they had an opening. Never being one to pass an opportunity to play, I jumped at it.

Have you made a character in 3rd ed. D&D recently? I can tell you I haven't. I bought the book when they were new, never got on the revised bandwaggon, and ran a campaign for some years. I don't even remember how long time it was! Five years? Three?

I at once felt how some things in that game didn't make sense, already at the character generation step. Many skills are kind of wonky, and the cross class system is clunky. Also, the feat tree is something of a mess. The fact that I got to generate a level 8 character to be on par with the rest of the party might have made it fiddlier than usual, though.

Tinkerer as I am, I started thinking how you could streamline things. How about you take out the hierarchical system for the feats, making it all flat? How about you remove some skills like Use Rope and Escape Artist and merge agile manoeuvres into a few sensible skills, and social interaction skills into active and passive ones? There are many loose ends to start pulling on! I still really like the idea of metamagical feats, though.

I ended up with a multi-classed human Rogue 3/Wizard 5 character. It will be interesting to see how it feels in play!

The question of free will - part two

So, I started off with the situation where a PC want to convince a NPC to to do something. Let's now look at the much thornier issue, influencing a PC.

To begin with, can they do it? It's very easy to say that since that would rob a player of his free will, it can't be done. But, once again we have the question of how to model in a game the situation of a player with very limited social skills playing a character that is a fast talker. How do you do it?

I can see the argument that this is not part of the game. If someone like to play a smooth talker he should talk the talk. If it's not stats, AC or HP it is in the domain of the player. I don't agree. Also, someone might say that skills can do a lot, and it's ok to use Charm as a skill to make a NPC do something, but that it is not applicable to player characters. I don't agree.

The way I see it, if there are skills in the game for social interaction, they are to be used for social interaction! If you start to exclude some characters from effects of the game system, then the next step of course is to exclude the Boss monster or the NPC crucial for the story the GM has planned.

Yeah, I know I couldn't help myself. I slipped that one in. Deal with "story" another time. For now, just accept it exist.

Anyway. I was saying? Yeah, plot immunity. So, I think it makes more sense to have everyone in the game be affected by social interaction skills. Also, remember all those moments when the dice fell like they did and you talked about it for weeks? Now it can happen in more ways than combat! In addition, having your character be affected by an intimidation attempt will probably make that character behave like it really would, not like you would. That is, after all, what roleplaying is about. Regardless if you like to speak in funny voices or use your character like a chess piece, I might add.

So, if anyone can be charmed and intimidated I suggest everyone have skills to counter and handle such issues. Ideally you would have some influence over the way your character behaves, I'm not urging you to abandon that wholly. Instead, if there is a trait to roll for a specific kind of social interaction, that can also be used to defend against it. Needless to say, I think these should be capabilities that all characters should have.

To give you an idea of what this could mean, I present TORG as an example.

In TORG everyone have stats, skills and a set of numbers for Approved Actions. those are Maneuver, Trick, Test, Taunt and Intimidate. Those are all classes of actions that show up on those fancy cards you play to jazz up scenes in the game. Charm, Persuasion and Intimidate have their own chapter in the rules, and all these abilities are resolved on a specific chart, showing the result of the attempt. I think that even if you don't have a game system where there are cards in play, the idea of having these actions be clear and present options in every moment at the table is a great. Everyone has the abilities, everyone can defend against them, and everyone is always reminded that apart from rolling to whack that guy over the head I can also use these abilities. I think it suggests a more interesting and varied play experience.

This is becoming a very long post, I have not yet said anything about how to implement it in a game that is not TORG. Let's see if it can be done.

AD&D is in the air

I just browsed issue #183 of Knight of the Dinner Table, since I just came home from the local comic shop. In it was an ad for the upcoming "advanced" Hackmaster PHB. Guess how the cover looks like? I have no idea if it's a mock-up or the real deal, but let me say it sure is there to invoke nostalgia.

So, this makes me think of Hackmaster, WotC and AD&D. There's no secret that WotC wants to have the old gamers back. Whether they will succeed, nobody knows. But, reprinting AD&D sure is a good way to flirt with nostalgia. I do wonder why they did such a moronic thing as to limit the sales, though. If they really wanted all old gamers back, they would have sold as many as they could, right? Well, maybe not if they want anyone to by 5th ed. aybe they think that those guys have gotten their fix, and the rest have to buy 5th ed...

Poor us.

Anyway.

I'm thinking that Hackmaster, since it's also using the same AD&D nostalgia thing, might be a better choice for the rest of us. I have read Hackmaster Basic (but have not made a review, since I really couldn't make a review without lot of whining, and that's boring) and in some respects I can see that game as a successor to AD&D. It's filled with fiddly bits, and could work decently as a generic fantasy system in a way that, SRD and all those OGL games withstanding, 3rd ed never was. There are even parts there that are obnoxious and makes no sense, just like 1st ed.

So, is this a love letter to Kenzer and their Hackmaster line? No, not really. I have never played AD&D and many parts of it I find outright bizarre, and like I said I never managed to write a Hackmaster review that was very positive.

But, AD&D is in the air. Right now you see that Trampier cover every way you turn. I'm thinking that someone are right in line with the current. I wish them luck.

The question of free will - part one

I saw a new episode show up in the feed from Happy Jacks rpg podcast and downloaded greedily to devour my new favourite show. It turned out that it was a few days too early, and due to a hiccup in the feed, it was an episode from season two that showed up. I listened to it anyway, and not only was it as good as the last episodes, the guys talked about an issue which I find interesting and am thus going to post on. It is the question of to what extent you are allowed to influence other characters in the game, regardless of they are played by a player or the GM. Let's dive into it.

So, let's say you want your PC to convince the guard to let you in to the castle, how do you do it?

• 1. You roll your skill roll for bluff/persuade
• 2. You bring out your thespian skills and make it sound good. The GM then let it succeed if it was convincing/funny/dramatic appropriate enough.
• 3. You bring out your thespian skills, and the GM then gives you a bonus/penalty for the bluff/persuade skill roll.
• 4. You convince the GM that it would make sense for the character you are playing to succeed in these circumstances.

There might be more variants, but those illustrate some different approaches to the problem.

1. The issue here is that it is pure game mechanics and player skill and immersion is severely limited. The good thing is, this helps a socially disadvantaged person play a suave bard, or what not. That is one of the reasons we play make believe with dice after all, to be somebody else.

2. The issue here is obviously that it is all down to social skills, intangibles like friendship with the GM and all possible issues of power play at the social level. Also, this is the territory in which the free form pretentiousness dwells, beware.

3. This looks like a middle of the road choice from the two above, right? Some immersion, some feedback from the game system and both gamers and thespians gets to play to their strengths. I like this option.

4. This is kind of the social douche bag version of option one. It's what can happen if you have no game mechanic to fall back upon, and you try to rely on player skill but there are only rules lawyers and people playing the rules around. This as bad as option two, I think.

Now let's consider something more complicated. Imagine a player wishing to influence another player character. How do you handle that?

I have some ideas, which I will post next.

Making deities matter

I just browsed the Players Guide for the 3rd ed setting Kingdoms of Kalamar. In the chapter on clerics it had some options I found interesting. Those who have followed me through the years know I have a soft spot for KoK, and this was something I felt could be imported to other games.

You know how clerics can turn undead? In newer editions of D&D, that it because the channel some kind of positive energy from their god. That sounds kind of iffy to me, but you can take the concept and run with it.

If your cleric is channeling power from the gods when casting spells (from a spell list that is mostly identical to all), why not take one effect that conceptualize the area of influence of that god, and make that a power of the cleric?

So, a cleric of the god of merchants should be able to channel the power of smooth talking, charming or something similar. A cleric of the god of death should be able to somehow be more deadly once in a while. A cleric of the god of love could... Well, you get the idea.

How about that?

You could make it happen on a d20 lower than the character level, on a 1 in 6 or just once every session. Scalable to every power setting. Also, if the death channeler just gets +1 dmg or kills outright is also one of those "setting dials". Even a +1 could be fun. Everyone likes to be somewhat special.

You say it sounds like those fiddly "daily" powers from my post on old school "feats"? Yeah, it will take some bookkeeping unless you make it happen just once every session. Everyone should be able to remember if they have used their power this night, unless very drunk while gaming, right?

Then you could just tweak the spell list to be unique for every god/temple/whatever. I think the power channeling idea is more fun, though.