Investigating Ability Scores

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When you sit down to create an entirely new RPG from scratch, where do you start? I don’t know if there’s a particular method used by more experienced game designers, but the handful of times I’ve attempted it, I always start in the same place: how does the player create their character? It’s the closest thing to a ‘logical’ starting place that I can think of. Nearly every mechanic in every RPG I’ve ever looked at relates either to how the characters can affect the game world, or how the game world can affect them. And since the character needs to exist before it can affect or be affected, it seems like that’s the best place to start. So when I began making notes for the game system I mentioned yesterday, that is what I did.

From there, I chose to start with the most fundamental building block of a character: ability scores. I’m sure there’s a system out there where characters don’t have any of ability scores, and it might be really good. But, for my purposes with this game, ability scores seem like the best way to go. Then came my first real decisions: how many ability scores, what do they represent, and how are they generated?

I am most familiar with the D&D base ability scores. There are six of them: Strength, Constitution, Dexterity, Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma. Numerous methods exist for determining the numbers associated with each ability, but all of them are just permutations on the original. The player rolls 3d6, six times. The basic score is a number between 3 and 18, weighted heavily towards scores of 10 or 11. When you look at OD&D or AD&D, it’s very clear why ability scores were set up this way. Rolling 3 dice makes the minimum and maximum scores very unlikely, so when a 17 or 18 is rolled, it’s a cherished event. Hell, I got excited when my OD&D Magic User Higgins rolled a 16 Intelligence. The maximum score of 18 also plays beautifully into the original “ability check” mechanic, where a player rolls 1d20 and compares it to the ability score they’re attempting to use. If the result of the d20 roll is less than or equal to their ability score, whatever they’re attempting succeeds. I love the way this mechanic makes the specific number of a character’s ability score significant, while also retaining an absolute 10% failure chance.

Modern versions of Dungeons and Dragons–including Pathfinder–retain the basics of this system, but have lost everything which made the systems elegant. By using larger dice pools, the game removes the rarity of high or low numbers. There are racial ability bonuses which can easily increase a character’s score to 20 at first level, and even extra ability points given to characters at every 4th level. This would kill that consistent 10% failure chance, if the ability check mechanic hadn’t been dropped in favor of rolling against a target number. As I understand it, D&D 4th edition dropped the die rolling aspect of entirely, using a ‘point buy’ system instead. The ability score range of 3-18 seems like nothing more than tradition at this point.

After seeing this example of a mechanic being used in a game where it doesn’t fit any longer, I wanted to make sure I didn’t just copy the system I was most familiar with. I needed to properly explore my alternatives, and thoroughly examining why a particular system was the right choice for this game. (Incidentally, this concern is what prompted me to question Reinventing the Wheel.) And what better way to explore my alternatives was to grab every game sourcebook I own, and look at how they handled ability scores, presented in no particular order.

Note that these are specifically from books I own, and not an exhaustive investigation into every system of ability scores ever used. I’ve also excluded the Adventurer Conqueror King and Dungeon Crawl Classic systems, since they both use a system based heavily on oldschool D&D.

The Deadlands RPG published in 1996 (which I picked up at a garage sale about a year ago, but have not yet taken a serious look at) has a whopping 10 ability scores, divided into two groups. There are the “Corporeal Traits,” which include Deftness, Nimbleness, Quickness, Strength, and Vigor; and the “Mental Traits,” which include Cognition, Knowledge, Mien, Smarts, and Spirit. Having not played the game it seems unfair to judge, but some of these seem awful similar to me. Deftness is defined as “Hand-eye coordination and manual dexterity. Great for shooting holes in things.” and Quickness is defined as “Reflexes and speed. Draw, pardner!” I get that there’s a difference, but is it really significant enough to add additional complication to a tabletop game? I would need a lot of convincing.

Ability scores are determined by drawing from a standard deck of playing cards, with the two jokers included. You draw 12 cards, discard 2. You then assign each card to one of your ten scores. The card is then compared to a chart. The number on the card determines which type of die you roll in association with that ability score, while the suit determines how many of that die you roll.

The game has a wild-west setting, so using playing cards as a mechanic makes sense. Aces & Eights did the same thing. But really it’s just a fancy method for assigning dice to abilities, and that idea has always interested me. The difference between having a 1d4 Strength and a 1d12 dexterity is a lot more interesting than the difference between a -2 Strength and a +4 Dexterity in Pathfinder.

The Serenity RPG was the first game I bought after D&D, but I still haven’t had the opportunity to play it! I blame none of my friends being big Firefly fans. And maybe it’s just as well–I’ve heard that the system is horribly broken.

Like Deadlands, the attributes in the Serenity RPG are die types, rather than numbers. Before play begins, the group selects which “heroic level” they’d like to play at, choosing from “Greenhorn,” “Veteran,” and “Big Damn Hero.” Each of the heroic levels has a different number of “Attribute Points” which are spent in creating a character. Again, they are divided into physical and mental, but with only 6 instead of 10: Agility, Strength, Vitality, Alertness, Intelligence, and Willpower. Dice are purchased for each of the scores, with each die costing a number of points equal to the number on its highest face. (A d6 costs 6 points, a d8 costs 8, etc.)

Personally, I’m not a fan of point-buy systems. I see their value as a means of balancing characters, but I find it far more fun when characters have a chance of being unusually flawed or gifted. None the less, I still like the dice idea. It’s something to think about.

Earthdawn is another system I picked up at a garage sale and never took a really look at. It appears to be more of a storytelling game, which is not my forte. Again it uses a sort of “point buy” system, ranging from 2-18, with the lowest numbers actually adding points to your pool if you take them. It also has an alternative method allowing characters to roll 3d6 for their scores. The actual scores are similar to D&D as well: dexterity, strength, toughness, perception, willpower, and charisma.

Whatever other interesting elements the game might have, it’s not particularly useful for this exercise.

Star Trek: The Next Generation RPG is notoriously bad. I couldn’t not buy it when I found it at a used book store a few years back, just for the sake of morbid curiosity. I’m honestly having a difficult time even understanding how this works. From what I can tell, there are actually only 5 attributes, which range from 1 to 5 for humans, and each attribute has two “edges” which a character can be particularly strong or particularly weak in. I honestly can’t decipher how this works by flipping through the book, but it seems similar to the WEG Star Wars RPG, which I’ll discuss below.

Gangbusters (first edition, 1982) has some seriously strange ability scores. It looks like each character has Muscle, Agility, Observation, Presence, Driving, and Luck. But each is rolled differently! For muscle, agility, and observation, the player rolls a percentile die. Modifiers go from +0 to +25, with a lower roll being better. The presence score is just rolled on a D10, with modifiers from 0 to 2. The driving score is the average of your agility and observation scores, and the luck score is just a percentile dice divided by two.

This is a mess. I don’t think there’s really any way to redeem it within the system’s mechanics. Though again, I should probably play it before I pass judgement. (If you haven’t figured it out: I own a great many systems I’ve never had an opportunity to play!)

I picked up the Batman Role Playing Game a little over a year ago because I found it at a used book store and was curious. Unlike some of the other RPGs I’ve picked up second had, I took a very serious look at it. My ladyfriend is a huge batman fan, and I had some fun ideas for a campaign where the players started out as thugs in Gotham city, constantly hounded by Batman. Unfortunately, I discovered that it was the worst system I’ve ever laid eyes on.

But lets stick to the attributes. This game has a nine of them. When I first read it, that seemed extremely excessive. But then, I hadn’t read anything about Deadwood yet. The attributes make up a cross-section, which I do find somewhat interesting. Three attributes are physical, three are mental, and three are spiritual. Of those, one in each category is an “Acting/Opposing” attribute, one is an “Effect Attribute,” and one is a “Resistance Attribute.” Once again, point-buy is used during character creation, so this isn’t of particular interest.

The Mouse Guard Roleplaying Game is god damned beautiful. It is based on the Burning Wheel role playing system, which I’ve had no prior experience with. Despite appearing to focus more on storytelling than gaming, the system is very interesting and I would like to learn more about it.

The game doesn’t have ability scores in the traditional sense, but it does have Nature, Will, Resources, and Circles. These can used and depleted through play, however, so perhaps this would be a good example of a system without ability scores.

Shadowrun, 1st edition, has 8 attributes for most characters, but has a 9th if the character is a magician. In some ways, this seems like a poor design choice to me. The purpose of ability scores, as I view them, is to be the most basic, fundamental, and universal expression of what a character can do. An Orc Barbarian who cannot cast spells still has an Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma score.

But, on the other hand, I can see this making a certain amount of sense in a setting where mystical abilities are completely inaccessible to those who were not born with them.

The way attributes are generated is also interesting. It’s a point-buy system, with some complexities that are a little reminiscent of Gangbusters, but much more refined. There are five columns to choose from in creating a character from scratch: Magic, Attributes, Skills, Tech, and Race. The player is given five importance ratings, 0 through 4, and they must assign one rating to each of the five columns. They will receive more or less resources in each of the five categories, depending on how important they rate them. Giving attributes an importance rating of 0 gives you 15 points to spend, while an importance rating of 4 gives you 30 points.

The six physical and mental attributes can each range from 1 to 6 for humans. The three mystical attributes each work a little differently. All characters start with an Essence of 6, which decreases as they add cyberware implants, or if they are healed improperly. Reaction is the average of Quickness and Intelligence, but is also reduced by cyberware implants.

Magic rating is the ninth attribute which only magic users posses, and I don’t actually understand why it exists based on these rules. It starts at 6, and “declines with essence rating.” I can’t figure out why they would need a seperate ability if–by all appearances–magic should always be equal to essence. But as I’m not intimately familiar with the system, I’m sure there’s something I’m missing.

Traveller (2008, Mongoose) has one of the coolest character creation systems ever, wherein the players must make a number of decisions and roll on a number of charts to generate their character’s entire lifetime prior to the point that play begins. Rolling the six basic ability scores, however, is straightforward. Roll 2d6 six times and assign them in any order. It’s simple, but works.

I like the idea of using two dice to generate an ability score rather than 3. The roll is still weighted towards the center, but both high and low scores will be more common.

And lastly, we come to the West End Games Star Wars Role Playing Game. I love this game. And, as it turns out, I’ve written about its ability scores before. So if you don’t mind, I’ll just quote myself:

WEG Star Wars characters have six basic attributes; Dexterity, Knowledge, Perception, Strength, Mechanical, and Technical. Each of these has a certain number of six sided dice attached to it during character creation. (WEG Star Wars only uses six sided dice.) For example, a human character gets 18 dice total, and has a minimum of 2 dice and a maximum of 4 dice in each of the six attributes. After filling the minimum requirements, players have 6 dice to spread between their six abilities. Once in play, any action which requires a roll will be associated with one of the six abilities, and the player gets to roll however many dice they allocated for that attribute. For example, hitting something with a blaster requires the ability to aim the blaster accurately, so you would roll your dexterity. If you went ahead and maxed out your dexterity, then you’d be able to roll 4d6 against your opponent’s dodge. And if he or she rolls lower than you did, the blaster bolt hits! And given how dangerous combat is treated in this game, there’s a good chance getting hit by that blaster bolt killed them.
There’s also a skills system for more specific tasks. Each character starts out with 7 dice to apply to skills. So even though you have 4 dice in dexterity, you could put another 2 dice in the Blasters skill, and be able to roll a whopping 6 dice whenever you try to hit somebody. Dice can also be split up. Each die counts as 3 “pips,” which is WEG’s code for bonuses. Essentially, if you’ve put 2 skill die into blasters, 3 into medicine, and 1 into starfighter piloting, and can’t decide where to put your last die, you can just break it up. Add a +2 to starfighter piloting (making the skill 1d6 + 2) and a +1 to blasters.

The system is elegant, and beautiful. Despite using what is essentially a point-buy system, it doesn’t feel bogged down with number crunching, nor do you ever feel obligated to build an “optimized” character.

This has been a weird post. When I started it, my intention was to examine all of these different game systems, and figure out how their use of ability scores could be adapted to the game I’ve been working on. Instead, I’ve really just listed all the different systems I found next to one another, with some commentary attached.

This might be a bad post…but it doesn’t seem bad to me right now, at 1 in the morning. Maybe I’ll feel differently later, but I’ll let you be the judge.

Reinventing the Wheel

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During my spare time for the last few days, I’ve been working on a new game system. It’s not a particularly ambitious project, nor am I taking its development very seriously, but I was struck by inspiration and have enjoyed putting those ideas down on paper. Whether or not I’ll ever finish this project, I don’t know, but for the time being it has been an entertaining process. Going through the motions of putting an entire system together from scratch has given me a new appreciation for the challenges involved, and raised a few questions I don’t think I would have considered previously.

Many of the mechanics I’ve come up with for this game are unique in my experience. I’ve never played another game where all spells are equally powerful, or where additional hit points are gathered as treasure. I’m not saying nobody has ever done it before, I’ve just never seen it myself. For a lot of mechanics, I have specific ideas about how they should work, and how I will adapt them from my source material. For other mechanics, however, I…well, don’t.

Take combat, for example. There’s something you want to kill, so you attack it with a weapon. This is a fundamental part of fantasy adventure games, and most everyone would agree that it requires a resolution mechanic. Unless you want to stand up from the table and start LARPing, you need a standardized procedure to easily determine the success or failure of an attack. Personally, I’m from the school of thought which says that since war is chaos, a wide variance of random probability is appropriate when determining the success or failure of an attack.

I’ve seen this handled a couple different ways in the various games I’ve played, but I am most familiar with the method D&D, and later Pathfinder, have used since their beginning. Every player and NPC has an ‘Armor Class’ number representing how difficult they are to hit. The attacker must roll a twenty sided die, and if their result is equal to or better than their target’s AC, the attack is successful and damage can be rolled. Various editions have had more or less complexity on top of this basic system, but the fundamental mechanic has remained unchanged from the early days of OD&D. Why change what works, after all?

This is one of the problems I’ve encountered while developing this game. For some things, including conflict resolution with regard to attacks, I don’t have any ideas better than the ones which have been used in D&D for decades. And while I wouldn’t go so far as to call using D&D’s attack roll system ‘plagiarism,’ there is something that feels wrong about it. If I use a mechanic someone else came up with, without adapting it to make it my own, then am I really making my own game, or am I just regurgitating something that already exists with a few superficial tweaks?

It’s not as though it would be difficult to come up with a reasonably unique mechanic, either. Just off the top of my head I can think of a few different ways to handle this kind of conflict resolution. The attacker and the defender could make opposed rolls, which would increase the chaos of battle. I could replace the 20 sided die with a 30 sided die. Perhaps the attacker doesn’t even make a ‘to hit,’ roll. Every attack immediately results in a damage roll, and every character has a minimum amount of damage which must be rolled in order to hurt them at all. Or perhaps “defense” and “attack” numbers are static, and can only be modified with clever tactics described to the GM. Give me 30 minutes and I’ll give you a dozen more ways it could be done.

But would any of them be better?

I would have to be stupid to be different, simply for uniqueness’ sake. It’s possible I’ll think of a mechanic which better suites the tone aiming for than the D&D attack roll does. It’s also possible that I won’t, and if that happens, then why should I shoehorn something different into the game just so I don’t feel as though I’m being derivative? I believe that every choice made in game design should be made because the designer believes it improves the way the game plays. I can’t think of any other consideration which matters at all by comparison.

True as that may be, however, it doesn’t stop me from feeling bad when I lift something wholesale from another game. Even a game as time honored as Dungeons and Dragons.

Termite Suicide Bombers: How the Animal Kingdom Should Influence Your Game

A new species of termite was discovered recently. That, in itself, is hardly news. New species are discovered all the time, and in fact, I recall hearing that there are many thousands of undocumented insect species in particular. But what makes this species worthy of note is that they explode. No, seriously. When the worker termites grow old, they can fill a cyst on their backs with toxic crystals which have been produced throughout their lifetime. Once the ‘backpack’ cyst is full, it bursts, killing both the termite, and any enemies unfortunate enough to be caught in range of his toxic explosive.

My first thought when I read about these was “Wow, all those video games with exploding insects suddenly have a lot more grounding in reality.”

The scientists who documented this find even released some brief video footage of the phenomena. It’s a little difficult to make out, and it only shows the cyst filling, not exploding. None the less, it’s a fascinating discovery, and one which prompted me to finally cover a subject which I’ve been thinking about for several months now.

Animals are strange. Exploding termites aren’t even the most bizarre creatures I’ve heard of. Did you know that many species of shark fight their siblings to death while still growing in their mother’s womb? Or that some species of hermaphroditic gastropods fight each other to determine which one of them has to be the female? And then there’s shit which just looks strange, like the soft shelled turtle. And for me, the strangest part about these creatures, is that I’ve never seen anything in a tabletop game based on them. The world is filled with potential monsters, all we need to do is make ’em big enough to eat an adventurer.

Angler Fish: I’ve linked before to The Oatmal’s excellent description of the life of a male angler fish, but I’m linking to it again, and if you haven’t read it, you should. Anglers are fascinating, and still very mysterious, creatures. You could base a dozen different monsters off of them, but here I’m specifically interested in the fact that the skin of the female absorbs the male, and uses his remains for reproduction. A Pathfinder monster could do the same thing. Except instead of luring the males of the monster’s species, the creature could instead lure male adventurers. Once their skin touches the monster’s flesh, the contact poison the beast secretes would begin to melt the adventurer, until nothing was left but his testicles. (Or, if you’d like to go more creepy and less vulgar, nothing is left but his expressionless face).

Speaking of angler fish, I just noticed…were they the inspiration for the modern design of the Beholder?

Traumatic Insemination: One of the most interesting things about animals is the way they have sex. Often that’s where the truly unique and bizarre aspects of an animal really come out. I’ve made an effort to avoid filling this list with dicks (which was not easy, let me tell you)! But this one has fascinated me for years, and it translates well to a game.

Essentially, many species of invertebrates do not have external female genitalia. Not even a Cloaca. So since there’s no opening, the male’s phallus makes one. It stabs the female in the abdomen with a sharp phallus, and that’s how insemination is handled. It’s gruesome, kinda disturbing, and a perfect way to fuck with your adventurers. I’m not saying your game should be filled with dagger-dicks (though I did once post a dick-dagger…) but why not have a prehensile blade extending from a monster’s chest, or back? The creature gets an extra attack with it, and upon scoring a critical hit, the monster implants a parasitic larva within the victim, a-la the Alien films.

The Almighty Squid Worm I really don’t have anything specific to say about this creature, or how it acts, or the abilities it has. But I marvel at it’s profoundly alien shape. These are the dreams of a mad god.

The Hagfish: Ocean life is often the most unusual. As humans, we’re at least somewhat familiar with what it’s like to live on land. Legs are a good way to get around, warmth is needed to keep our bodies functional, light is useful to help us understand our surroundings, and so on. Creatures which have adapted to living deep underwater need none of these things. And, as such, serve as perfect inspiration for game masters hoping to create interesting monsters.

The Hagfish is one such creature. For starters, it has a skull, but no column of vertebra. To my knowledge, it is the only known species where this occurs, and that is awesome. But far more interesting to potential monster-creators is its slime. Hagfish can exude insane amounts of slime which reacts with the water around it. If the Hagfish is captured, this slime can clog the gills of an attacking fish, suffocating it. And after it does so, the Hagfish needs to literally tie itself into a knot to clean itself off, restoring its own gill function.

Imagine a creature which could excrete goo which expanded into a foam capable of filling dungeon corridors. Or a giant hagfish which waited until adventurers tried to swim across its pool, only to quickly turn the water around it into a thick gooey substance which is impossible to swim through.

Elephants: A long time ago, Elephants captured the imaginations of the western world. They were huge, majestic, and interesting. And because of the way Elephants captured the imaginations of our ancestors, they had become ubiquitous by the time we were born. While we were growing up, we regularly saw elephants depicted in drawings and cartoons. Most of us even saw them up close at a zoo. I personally, find them somewhat boring.

Then I remember that they have a FUCKING THIRTEEN FOOT LONG, PREHENSILE NOSE. WHAT THE FUCK!?

It’s funny, actually, because I have a difficult time imagining a fantasy creature where such a thing doesn’t look goofy. Yet on an elephant it has a certain majesty, appearing almost regal.

Vampire Squid:Vampire is an acquired template which any intelligent creature can gain if their life force is completely drained by another vampire. But if a mer-person gains the vampiric template, surely they don’t turn into a vampire bat, right? So what do they turn into?

This:

Based on what I’ve read, the Vampire Squid is quite unique. Its order is somewhere between that of a squid and an octopus. It is almost entirely covered in a special organ called a Photophore, which can produce light. The creature can either use a quick flash to disorient attackers, or can sustain its light for several minutes at a time. The vampire squid’s “cape” is covered in spines which, while technically harmless, look quite dangerous. When threatened, it will turn its cape inside out, making itself appear larger, and covered in dangerous-looking spines.

This post could keep going on forever. There are hundreds and thousands of creatures with unusual anatomies or abilities ripe for use crafting monsters. I’m sure the subject will come up again in the future–though someone with a better grounding in biology would probably do a much better job than I can.

The Beauty of Character Death, and a Shameful Confession

In the many years I’ve been a devotee of role playing games, I’ve very rarely had a chance to be a player. For the most part that’s fine by me. What initially drew me to the game was the mystique of the GM. He or she is master of the entire world, knows what’s behind every door, understands the desires of every NPC. I like playing that role, which is why I’ve spent almost a year of my life writing about it. None the less there’s something to be said for being a player. GMs never get to experience the game’s most exciting moments in the same way the players do, largely because the GM never faces any real struggle within the game. The player characters might live or die, but the world that the GM embodies is eternal.

I’ve played in perhaps a half dozen campaigns, the majority of which have used D&D 3.5. The most notable among these is the Zalekios game, which has lasted for the better part of a decade, and which I’ve written about several times. Until recently, only one person had ever GMed for me. We’re old friends, and after all these years we’ve got a rhythm going which is always a lot of fun when we get a chance to play together. Much as I enjoy my friend’s games, though, I’m excited to finally have an opportunity to broaden my horizons in my fellow blogger Brendan‘s Vaults of Pahvelorn game. He’s a fantastic game master, and I’ve already learned a lot after seeing his GM style from a player’s perspective.

The other night was our second game session. We had a new member in our group, and returned to the vault to continue our dungeon delving. It was a damned lot of fun, but I won’t bore you with the details. If you’re interested our fighter has already taken care of the session recap, but I’ll skip straight to the important part. The party encountered a number of undead, and eventually came upon a necromancer controlling them. There was a lot of scary stuff on the battlefield, so I didn’t think it was right for me to stay completely out of danger. My party needed me. My character, Margo, hefted a sledgehammer he’d brought along with him. I thought it would be particularly effective against the skeletons. He took a swing, and missed. In retaliation, the skeleton punched Margo in the face.

And that’s how Margo Waggletongue, first level Magic User, met his untimely end. The skeleton’s mighty punch was just too much for Margo’s measly 3HP. And after I failed my saving throw against death, it was all over. The party mourned, and I was already rolling stats to promote Margo’s squire, Higgins. The game went on. And here’s the part I hinted at in the title of this post; my shameful confession:

This is the first time any character of mine has ever died.

How did I feel? I was disappointed and sad! Margo Waggletongue was an awesome character, and I had a lot of plans for him. Like my serious in-game goals of building a tower someday, filling it with books, and being the most educated wizard in all of Pahvelorn. If this setting ended up with any kind of longevity, I wanted future players to encounter Margo the Archmage, and learn spells like “Margo’s Black Disk,” “Margo’s Floating Tentacle,” or “Margo’s Flinging Roof Tiles!” I had a lot of fun character traits I wanted to work into the character as well, such as the fact that his robe was literally just a blanket, or that he was a virgin. But none of that will ever happen, because he was punched in the face by a skeleton, and died. God damn, it was awesome.

Honestly, it was. I’m sad that all of my plans were foiled before they could ever get off the ground, but more than that, I’m exhilarated to know from personal experience just how dangerous this game world is. True, no young magic user will ever shout “Margo’s Floating Tentacle!” in the heat of battle, but if my next character does achieve success on that scale, then that success will be all the more meaningful because I will know I was always just a skeleton punch away from complete failure. And as it turns out, my new character, Higgins Dreadgrin, has an even higher intelligence score than his former master did, so I may not need to scrapall of my plans just yet.

I’ve written before about the importance, and the fun, of character death. But when I did so, I wrote it as a GM. I was drawing on what I’ve read, and what I’ve observed, and what non-tabletop experiences I could draw conclusions from. And now I reaffirm that statement with player experience to back it up: character death is fun. The game would be diminished without it.

By the way: welcome to all my new readers from the Penny Arcade Report. There has been quite an influx of you, and I hope you like what you’ve seen and choose to stick around for awhile.

Dungeon Crawling at a Crawl

During my recent Google+ game of OD&D with Brendan, one of my biggest surprises was how little the system surprised me. Prior to that game, the oldest form of Dungeons and Dragons I’d ever played was 3rd edition. So when I logged in to Google+, I thought I was about to encounter something unlike anything I’d ever played before. Maybe it’s because I’ve spent the last year reading OSR blogs, but the truth is, the game worked pretty much how I suspected it would. The mechanics were simpler than Pathfinder’s, but in exchange the game got off of the ground quickly and still had a lot of depth and action.

None the less, I have some things to consider. I’ve already mentioned how I was taken aback by the elegance of the initiative system we were using (which, as it turns out, is actually from Chainmail, not the OD&D booklets themselves). Today I’d like to briefly discuss something else which surprised me: how entertaining it can be to move at a snail’s pace.

If someone had told me a month ago that they’d played a 3-hour game where the party only investigated 5-ish rooms of a dungeon, I would have assumed the game was very boring. Unless those 5 rooms had an immense amount of things to do in them, I couldn’t have imagined enjoying an average of 36 minutes in each room. I was familiar with Game Masters who expected their players to treat every little thing as potentially lethal, and in fact I have a lot of respect for some of those game masters, I just didn’t think it was something I could enjoy myself.

Yet that’s exactly what we did, and I loved every minute of it. I not only prodded things that looked dangerous with my 10ft pole, I also detailed how I prodded them. When I opened the door, I didn’t say “I open the door with my 10ft pole.” I said “The door opens into this room, right? Alright, I stand 10ft away from the door, against the wall on the side with the hinges. Then I use the hook on my 10ft pole to latch onto the door handle and pull the door open.” I played that way because I was easy to hit, had 1hp, and didn’t want to die. And when I didn’t die, it felt like a god damned accomplishment.

I’ve been puzzling over why something which sounds so boring was so much fun, and I think the serious lethality of the game was a major factor. Most of the party had more survivability than I did*, but for my own part, any damage whatsoever would cause my death.** Finding ways to participate while still keeping myself relatively safe was a real challenge, and one I enjoyed. And as I said above, when the adventure was over and I had actually survived it, I felt special.

Another reason I think this style of play worked is that there were very few die rolls to speak of. The last time I ran a dungeon for my Pathfinder group, the rogue commented that he found checking for traps to be tedious. Rolling a D20, adding his modifier, comparing it to a number, over and over again. I talked about this and the problems with it way back in my skills overview. However, the other day was the first time I really saw the alternative in action, and it was beautiful. We only encountered a single trap—a pressure plate which activated a hidden crossbow—but we didn’t find it by rolling any dice. We found it because we said we walked around the room carefully, testing the ground with our 10ft poles as we went. Had I not done that, and found the body on the floor, I fully suspect Brendan would have shot me dead right there.

I also wonder if the simple process of character creation has anything to do with it. The characters were created almost entirely by rolling on tables, and my character sheet was literally written on an index card. Perhaps we were able to enjoy the lethality which necessitated our slow movement because we knew that even if we failed, and died, we could have our next character ready to go within minuets. In a game of Pathfinder, players have already invested so much in even level 1 characters, that a dungeon lethal enough to kill them in a single blow seems like an insane place to enter until much higher level.

It’s funny how something can sound extremely unpleasant until you actually give it a try. I don’t think this is something I could implement in a Pathfinder game. Player characters are too durable for a spike trap to terrify a Pathfinder Wizard anywhere near as much as it would terrify my OD&D Magic User. Still, I wonder if my players would enjoy this as much as I have. I may need to run an OD&D session or two sometime in the future!

*By ‘more survivability,’ I don’t mean much. Everybody started out by rolling 1d6 for their HP, with no bonuses to it based on constitution. On top of that, all weapons dealt 1d6 damage. So yes, any damage at all would kill me for sure. But any damage they took still had a potential to kill them as well. It’s not as though the fighter could be confident that he would be able to survive a few hits.

**I should note that my constitution is high enough that I am allowed to roll a saving throw to be unconscious, rather than dead. But that’s not exactly a safety net I want to rely on.

Tabletop Items from A Link to the Past

I don’t know about you, but I really enjoyed my post from a couple weeks back about adapting the magic systems from Final Fantasy games to work in tabletop. As you may have noticed, I’ve been giving a lot of my attention to video games for the past few weeks. And while this is strictly a tabletop blog, it’s always more fun to write when I can write about something which is already on my mind, as opposed to trying to force myself to write about something I’m not really interested in at the moment. When I try to force it like that, I just end up doing a half-assed job. Besides: combining tho relatively unrelated things is always a great way to come up with some creative ideas.

I’ve always been a fan of the Zelda games published by Nintendo. And while I lost interest in new titles after literally falling asleep during the endless sailing of Wind Waker, I still regularly go back to re-play the games published before that. And the best among those, as well as my personal favorite game of all time, the The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past. I could go on for pages about why this game is so good (and I’m pretty sure I have) but that’s all beside the point. Like most Zelda games, A Link to the Past contains a multitude of items which the player must collect in order to complete their quest. Some are pretty standard fare, while others are so unusual that they never really showed up again in later Zelda games.

I’ve always wanted to play a Zelda themed tabletop game, but never really encountered a group that would be right for it, or a system which would fit it well. (Though I am aware of the D20 Zelda system). None the less, there’s no reason elements from the games can’t find their way into your Pathfinder or D&D campaign!

The bow and arrow are kind of a weak start to this post, since they’re already pretty standard fare in fantasy adventure games. However, in LttP, the player must eventually acquire silver arrows. These are significantly more powerful (equivalent to about two or three times the damage of normal arrows, if I recall) and are required if you wish to defeat the game’s final boss. The idea of a creature which is immune to anything but a certain kind of arrow is interesting. But, I’ll grant you, not particularly special.

Now this is a little more interesting. Boomerangs are a fascinating and exotic weapon which I don’t think I’ve ever seen in a tabletop game before. And while its real-world use is far less impressive than the fantastical variations found in anime and video games, the mundane item is none the less worth thinking about on its own. With regards to the boomerangs specifically show in A Link to the Past, however, they were primarily used for two things. First, when they struck one of the game’s bad guys, the character would normally freeze in place for a few moments, unless it was particularly powerful. Secondly, the boomerang could be used to retrieve items which were out of reach.

That second use might be a little too video-game-y for a tabletop game, but a “Boomerang of Freezing” or “Boomerang of Time Stop” could be a really fun item to give to your PCs. It would allow them to dispose of enemies in a much stealthier manner if they can be quick about it, or could provide an important edge during a large combat. The only thing I would change is that, like a real boomerang, this one shouldn’t return to the wielder if it hits something.

This is probably the single most peculiar item which appears in LttP. None the less it has gone on to become one of the most iconic tools in Link’s inventory throughout the series: the hookshot. In its function its pretty simple; you hold onto the handle with one hand, and can fire a heavy-duty spearhead attached to a chain from one end. The spearhead lodges itself in wood, and some other surfaces, and the chain then retracts, pulling you towards whatever object you hooked on to. It was a lot of fun to use in the game, and was probably the only fantastical item which was mechanical, rather than magical.

In a tabletop game, I don’t think this has quite as much potential. Firstly, the nature of a tabletop game doesn’t really allow for Zelda-style puzzle solving, which is largely what the hookshot was used for. Secondly, while it could certainly still be used as a climbing implement, I think players would probably have some questions about how it works. If the spearhead is buried deep enough into a surface that it can support a character’s weight, then how is the character ever able to remove it?

Maybe that problem could be solved by replacing the spearhead with a magical adhesive which comes un-stuck with a command word? If that was the case, then this could be a game-changing item for low level characters. It’s almost as potent as a fly spell for avoiding obstacles. They could use it to scale walls, cover gaps, easily hide on ceilings, and so much more! Though perhaps a ‘grip’ mechanic would be in order. Something like they can only hold on to it for a number of minutes equal to their strength modifier?

I’m funny when it comes to gunpowder in my campaigns. For the most part, I prefer to avoid guns. I’m sure it can be done very well, but it takes away from my preferred flavor of gameplay. Despite that, I have no problem with cannons, or explosive devices like bombs. I like the idea that a major city might have one or two people in it who make explosive devices, and sell them at a high price. Players would have a difficult time carrying more than a few at a time, but if they could get them into a strategic location, they could blast their way through a dungeon wall, or obliterate a powerful monster.

The magic dust was a bizarre little item. Functionally, it was really only needed once in the entire game, as part of a little side-quest to halve the amount of magic each of your spells consumed. But it also transformed some of your enemies into different kinds of creatures, making them much less dangerous, or even helpful! And that sounds like a blast to me. The players find a small leather pouch which appears to be filled with glitter. Anytime a handful is sprinkled on something, the GM comes up with a random, wacky effect. And after a few handfuls, the pouch is empty, preventing it from becoming over-used.

A rod which shoots fire from it is just about the most mundane magical item I can imagine. But when I think about the Rod of Fire in LttP, I realize that its primary function wasn’t in combat. More than anything else, it was used to light torches, and that I find interesting. What if a fantasy adventure game had a Rod of Fire which was able to shoot a ball of non-magical fire up to a great distance. Maybe 60 feet. If this fire struck an enemy, the damage it dealt would probably be minimal. The primary use of such a rod would be lighting something flammable, like a pool of oil, or a thatched roof cottage. Because of its limited function, it could have more uses than we’d normally allow with a similar item. Perhaps 10 uses per day, or 20, or even an unlimited number.

The ice rod in A Link to the Past is (obviously) very similar to the fire rod. So I see no reason why it shouldn’t be converted in the same way. It shoots a blast of freezing air up to 60ft, and covers anything it touches with a layer of ice. The trick with this is that it might be far more useful, or far less useful, than the fire rod, depending on what the GM wants ‘a layer of ice’ to mean. If it can actually freeze an enemy solid, then it should probably have more limited usage than the rod of fire. If its not powerful enough for that, but could instead be used to trip an enemy on a ice-slicked floor, then it could have unlimited uses as with the above.

Um…I’m not really sure what to do with this one. Or with any of the medallions, actually. They cause some extremely powerful magical effects. In the game, the Bombos medallion causes a pillar of fire to spiral outwards from your character, followed by dozens of explosions which kill absolutely everything on the screen. If I were to include these three medallions in a game, I think the only way to do it would be to boost their power way up, but make them extremely difficult to use–and probably more likely to be in the hands of a villain. The Bombos Medallion, for example, can only be used during a lunar eclipse. It causes a pillar of fire to descend from the sky, and spiral outwards from the location of the caster until the end of the eclipse. Its destructive force could easily level a city. This is the hydrogen bomb of a fantasy world.

Interestingly, the Bombos medallion is the only one which actually has a powerful effect. The other two medallions have impressive animations, but are functionally single-use items, which are needed to enter certain dungeons in the game. When you use the Ether medallion, lightning comes down from the sky to strike your sword, and a dozen orbs of light start to spin around your character. In the game, all this does is allow you to is illuminate invisible walkways. It also opens the entrance to Misery Mire, but that’s not very easy to translate.

In a tabletop game, the Ether medallion can only be used during a solar eclipse. It creates 12 balls of light which can be moved only by someone holding the Ether medallion. These balls of light are permanent creations, and can never be unmade. The light they emit functions as a True Seeing spell, destroying any illusions or invisibility spells which may exist in the area.

In the game, this is even less useful than the Ether Medallion. It literally has only one function: opening the entrance to the Turtle Rock dungeon. Given the fact that it not only causes a massive earthquake, but also creates lightning which arcs across the ground, I am not sure why this item doesn’t harm enemies. Well fuck that, we’re changing it.

The Quake Medallion can only be used when all of the planets are aligned. When this happens, the wielder can create a titanic earthquake which will devastate the landscape, and cause one major geological shift. By exerting a great force of will, the wielder can attempt to control what form this geological shift will take. Perhaps a towering mountain range will rise from the earth, or a dizzying crevasse will open at the wielder’s feet. Truly powerful wielders could even use it to create a permanent intersection with the elemental plane of earth.

Truth be told, in the game, the only use for the ‘magic’ hammer is to pound in giant pegs which block your path. I guess they must be ‘magic’ pegs, which nobody can climb over. I can’t think of a good way to convert this to a tabletop gaming system, but there’s no reason to ignore the idea of a magic hammer. It’s a cool idea. Just use it to smash walls, or giant rocks, rather than pegs.

While the Ocarina would come to play a central role in the Nintendo 64 Zelda games, in A Link to the Past, it was a pretty minor item. After the player completed a relatively simple side quest, the flute could be used to summon a miraculously strong duck which could whisk Link to a number of set locations on the world map. While that, again, is pretty video-game-y, I think the idea of a musical instrument which summons animal companions has a lot of potential. Not only is it flavorful, but it has the potential to grow more useful over time. Lets say that the flute has a simple song inscribed on it, which will summon a horse for the character to ride. But if the character decides to invest more time in the instrument, he can discover other songs which summon other types of animals to come to his or her aide.

The hammer is an ostensibly magical item which turns out to be pretty mundane in function. The opposite is true of the bug catching net. Supposedly it’s just a mundane net, owned by a kid who likes to study insects. But clearly it’s quite a bit more than that, since it can be used to deflect balls of magical death fired at you from sorcerers.

No, seriously.

While I don’t see that being really useful in a tabletop game, one of its other uses in LttP was catching faeries. In the game these are used as an ‘extra life,’ but in a tabletop game their use could be more grounded. Perhaps faeries are required to cast a single spell for anyone who captures them? Could be a fun alternative to always telling your players that they need to find a wizard.

I’ve already written absofuckinglutely extensively about language, so I won’t return to that concept here. The Book of Mudora allows Link to read tablets written in ancient Hylian, which often causes a big effect. Since it apparently magically allows him to read a different language, what about a book which does that same thing? Either the book allows the wielder to read one specific language, or all languages. It functions by touching the book to a sample of writing which you would like to read, then opening the book. Whatever page you open to will have that same writing on it, but you will magically be able to read it.

While the Hookshot is definitely the most peculiar item to appear in A Link to the Past, I think The Cane of Somoria is probably the most interesting. At least in terms of its potential tabletop applications. Using the cane creates a block, very much like a standard stone block which might be found in numerous locations throughout the game. The block can be pushed around, or even picked up and thrown. Only one block can be created at a time, but if the cane is used while a block is already created, the block is destroyed, sending blasts of energy in four directions.

Now, a tabletop game is never going to be able to support puzzles the way a zelda game can. Putting blocks on top of buttons, or pushing blocks around so you can use them to climb, is simply not interesting in a tabletop game. But that doesn’t matter, because the ability to create a block out of nothing is both strange, and useful. Players could find a multitude of applications for it, even if you were to remove the ability to cause the block to explode. Though, regarding that, I think perhaps instead of beams of energy, the exploding block should simply send shrapnel 10ft in all directions.

The Cane of Byrna is, unfortunately, not as interesting as its red counterpart. At the cost of rapidly draining your magical energy, it makes you invulnerable to any kind of damage. I suppose the best way to adapt this for tabletop would be to make it usable only by casters. Upon using it, they become invulnerable to any kind of damage for 1 minute, at the cost of the top half of their remaining spellcasting ability for the day. As an example, if a Wizard has three 1st level spells and one 2nd level spell remaining for the day, they lose their second level spell, and one 1st level spell of the GM’s choosing.

If I had to give A Link to the Past one criticism, it would be that some of the items should have been more useful, and had less overlap. Functionally, the Magic Cape is identical to the Cane of Byrna. It drains magic extremely quickly, and in turn makes you invulnerable. The only difference is that it also makes you invisible, and allows you to pass through a certain kind of in-game hazard called a ‘bumper.’

Capes of invisibility, or capes which allow you to pass through walls, are hardly ideas foreign to fantasy adventure games. I have nothing of value to add.

The Magic Mirror was part of the game’s central mechanic. In order to work properly in a tabletop game, the entire campaign would need to be designed around it. (Or, at least, the entire adventure where the mirror was featured). Essentially, A Link to the Past had two similar world maps: the ‘Light World’ which was the game’s primary setting, and the ‘Dark World’ which had been corrupted by the villain. Many of the game’s puzzles involved strategically traveling between the two worlds, which the mirror allowed the player to do–though only in one direction, from the dark world to the light one.

I think it would be really fun to build an entire campaign around the concept. Have an alternate universe where everything is much worse. For example, in the game’s main world, a dragon is attempting to destroy the kingdom. The same is happening in the dark world, but on top of it, the king is a tyrant. The players could find a way to gain audience with the goodly king, then use the mirror in his throne room to change realms, and take the tyrant by surprise!

Again, tabletop games are not well suited to Zelda style puzzles. So you can’t have a ton of rooms in your dungeon where the players must use their shields to reflect a beam of light onto the right spot. However, in LttP, the mirror shield is largely used to deflect lasers, which got me thinking: what about a shield which can ‘bounce’ a spell back at the caster?

It couldn’t work 100% of the time, of course. The wielder would need to identify that a spell was being cast, and they’d need to get between the caster and the target for it to work. And perhaps the shield would only work 1-5 times per day. But it could be a very interesting magical item for a party to have. Fighting an evoker? No problem, bounce those fireballs right back. Doing battle with a necromancer? Bang, she just finger-of-death’d herself.

The Pegasus boots allow link to charge up, and dash quickly in a straight line, which is a little more interesting than boots which simply make you move more quickly. Perhaps these boots could double the effectiveness of a character’s charging maneuvers?

Note that the power glove (lol, obscure product placement?) doesn’t necessarily increase Link’s carrying capacity, only what he can lift. I find that much more interesting. Sure, with enough bags of holding, encumbrance stops being a problem for players. But they can still only lift so much weight. But with these amazing gloves, they could lift boulders equal to four times their weight! That would be pretty cool.

This post ended up going on for far longer than I intended, so I’ll wrap it up quickly here. I will note that there are a handful of items I skipped because I honestly can’t think of anything to say about them. I mean…the lantern? Whoop-de-doo. It’s a lantern. They cost 2 silver pieces and are part of most adventurer’s starting gear. But if you can come up with a neat way to adapt the lantern, or the jars, or the flippers, etc. to a tabletop game, leave it in the comments! Or if you’ve got a better idea of how to adapt one of the items listed above, leave that too!

EDIT: Oh, holy shit, this is my 200th post. Go me!

Tabletop Magic from Final Fantasy

For the past few weeks, my mind has been wandering. Other projects and hobbies have been pulling at my attention, and I’ve devoted much less of my time to tabletop than I normally do. Aside from installing new shelving and reorganizing my apartment, I’ve enjoyed several evening spent playing Cthulhu Saves the World. It’s a game created in the style of classic 16-bit RPGs like Chrono Trigger, Secret of Mana, and of course, the Final Fantasies 4 through 6. It celebrates their artistic style and gameplay, while incorporating new ideas to improve upon the failings of those older games. The whole thing is very ‘Old-School Renaissance’ in its style.

Playing this game over the past week or so has got me thinking about the games I wasted my youth on, and the Final Fantasy series in particular. I know it’s the hip thing to pretend we all hate the Final Fantasy series for one reason or another. But I’ve never been very hip. Partially because I still use terms like ‘hip.’ The Final Fantasy series has always fascinated me, particularly the way that each game starts largely from scratch. The series does have a formula, and a number of traditional elements which show up in each game, but each installment in the series always tries something new. The magic system for each game is an area where this is particularly evident.

Magic systems in tabletop games also fascinate me. Perhaps because magic has no real-world analog, it’s much easier to be creative about how magic is accessed by characters in a game world. So while my mind is adrift, I thought I’d use this post to examine the magic systems in the first 10 Final Fantasy games. Specifically with regards to how adaptable they might be to a tabletop gaming system. Let me be perfectly clear: most of these will probably not translate well to a tabletop system. This is intended primarily as a thought experiment, and not as a serious attempt at game design.

Final Fantasy: In the first game of the Final Fantasy series, players must choose four classes to make up their party. Among the available classes are a few different types of mages, which can each learn a different array of spells. Most towns in this game’s world have a white (healing/protection) and black (offensive) magic shop, where spells can be purchased and taught to members of the appropriate mage class.

This idea would adapt easily to a tabletop game, you wouldn’t even need to change anything about it. All you need to do is come up with prices for spells, and roll some random inventories for shops. The only potential problem I see with allowing players to access magic this way is that PCs often become ludicrously wealthy, and might be able to purchase all the spells they want. But that could be easily handled by restricting what spells are available, and pricing spells so as to drain your player’s coin purses.

I could honestly see myself using a system like this.

Final Fantasy II: Spells in Final Fantasy II were purchased in much the same way they were in the original game. However, they could be taught to any character in the party, as opposed to only those who were mages. Most games in the series would follow suit, allowing any character to learn spells. Additionally, only basic spells were available for purchase, and the spells ‘leveled up’ separately from the character, based on how frequently they were used.

This is not as simple to convert to a tabletop format. Tracking the level of multiple spells implies a lot of bookkeeping on the player’s part. More bookkeeping than I think most players would enjoy. Though, perhaps, a system could be set up where all of a magic user’s spells start at a basic level. Each time the character levels up, they can select a certain number of spells in their repertoire (perhaps equal to their relevant spellcasting ability modifier) to ‘level up’ with them. Assuming this number remains relatively static, the player is given an interesting choice: would they like to have only a few very powerful spells, or a larger number of moderately powerful spells?

Final Fantasy III: I must be honest, I did not play this game past the opening, and thus don’t have any personal experience with the magic system. My understanding is that spells were learned by characters of magic-using classes as they leveled up. I believe characters were able to change their class, but aside from that, this isn’t particularly unusual. So I won’t expound on it further.

Final Fantasy IV: Unlike Final Fantasy III, this game stands as one of my favorites in the entire series. I’ve played through it several times, and every time I cheer when Cecil becomes a paladin, and get teary eyed when Edward crawls from his sickbed to save his friends. I even adapted the game’s Dwarven Tanks for use in Pathfinder. However, the magic system is very dry. Characters who can cast spells learn them at per-determined levels (or, occasionally, during story events). It works well enough in a video game, but in a tabletop game it would just be boring.

That being said, one of these days I will grant a character the ‘Meteo’ spell during a dramatic moment, just for kicks.

Final Fantasy V: The fifth game in the series was focused on multiclassing, and it was pretty complicated. So complicated, in fact, that it was intentionally never released in North America because it was assumed American gamers would not be smart enough to understand it. There were a large number of classes to choose from, and characters could switch between them easily. Anytime a character’s class was changed, the player could select one ability from another class which they could continue to use. So if, for example, you chose to level a character in the Black Mage and White Mage classes, then when the character was a Black Mage, you could give them the ‘White Magic’ ability. The game had a vast array of different magic using classes, which might be compared to the different magical schools of a game like Pathfinder. Often these different casting classes learned their spells in different ways, and those spells had vastly different effects.

Consider Pathfinder’s various magical schools. Abjuration, Conjuration, Evocation, Necromancy, etc. What if a system forced you to specialize in one of these schools, and when specialized, you could only cast spells from that school? However, once you attained a certain level of mastery in that school (lets say, Necromancy), you could begin studying a secondary school (lets say, Enchantment). While studying the Enchantment school, you would still be able to cast Necromancy spells. However, the maximum level of spell you could cast would be reduced by half.

So a Necromancer able to cast 8th level Necromancy spells could then begin to study Enchantment, and learn to cast 1st level Enchantment spells, but he could not cast any Necromancy spell above 4th level. I suppose the character could go on learning as many new schools as the player wanted, but they would only ever be able to cast from two schools at a time: the school they were currently learning, and one other school they already know, reduced by half. As a flavor explanation, perhaps the caster needs to carry a gem of a certain type in order to access each school, and the gems interfere with each other when in close proximity.

Having written that out, I don’t know how interested I would be in playing such a system, but it’s an interesting idea none the less. Maybe if the exact numbers were played with a bit, it could be made more serviceable for a tabletop environment.

Final Fantasy VI: This game is, in my opinion, the best in the series, and its magic system represents that. The world of FFVI is one of technology, but early in the game the characters are introduced to Espers. Espers are magical beings from another world, many of whom have been killed by the villains of the character’s world. By equipping ‘Magicite,’ which are stones left behind when an Esper dies, the characters can gradually learn spells associated with that Esper as they defeat monsters and gain exp, and retains these spells even when a different magicite is equipped. Additionally, characters can summon the spirits of their deceased Esper to aid them in battle occasionally. Though, unlike spells, this ability does not stay when the character switches to a different magicite.

Despite the apparent complexity of the system, I think it would translate easily to a tabletop environment. Every magic user would have a necklace, or a ring, or some other device where they could mount a magical stone. These stones would be the remains of powerful magical beings that introduced magic to the world. Each magic user would start with one, but after that they would need to obtain them through adventuring. Only one stone can be used at a time, and the stone which is being used grants the magic user access to a magical ability.

Each time the magic user levels, they gain spells (and other abilities, perhaps) based on the stone they currently have equipped. But each stone only has enough magic in it to support perhaps one or two levels of advancement. So it is important for magic users to seek out new stones, so they can continue to advance in power.

The cool thing about this system is that it is not only flavorful, but could have interesting game effects. Magic users would be desperate to never advance a level without possessing a stone they could learn from. If the GM chose to make such stones scarce, the search for them would drive every magic user to take risks in the pursuit of them. The system could certainly use a lot of polish, but I think this could be fun to use.

Final Fantasy VII: Seven attempted to give magic a bit of a scientific twist with its Materia system. Materia are gems formed within the earth which allow characters to access unusual abilities, such as summoning blasts of fire, healing wounds, etc. Each materia starts out weak, but gains its own kind of experience over time. Materia slowly level up, and can give characters access to more powerful effects. What is interesting about this system is that materia can always be traded between characters. So if a character starts with a “fire” materia which can barely conjure a spark, but levels it up until it can summon a conflagration, they can easily hand that materia over to someone else and allow that character to summon a conflagration.

Essentially, this is a system with no magic users. Everything is handled by naturally formed magic items, which level up over time. If you wanted to run this, you could just adapt Paul’s magic item leveling rules and run with it. Surprisingly simple.

Final Fantasy VIII: This was the pinnacle of the series’ complexity, and for the record, I loved it. Each character was able to use a turn during battle to ‘draw’ spells from the enemy creatures, and spells were treated as a shared resource between everyone in the group, with a max number of 100 per each type of spell. The spells could then be ‘junctioned’ to an individual character’s various statistics, giving that statistic some property of the spell it was juncitoned to, with an effect proportional to the number of spells of that type. So if you junctioned 10 “fire” spells to your attack, then your attacks would deal a small amount of elemental damage. Whereas if you junctioned 100 fire spells, your attacks would be entirely elemental in nature.

I honestly don’t think this system has any chance of being adapted for tabletop. Not unless everyone at your table is much better at doing mathematical caluclations than I am.

Final Fantasy IX: While I did play Final Fantasy IX a great deal, I find it very difficult to remember how the game’s magic system worked. From what I’ve read online, it seems as though it was very similar to the Esper system of FFVI, where players learn spells by equipping an item. The primary difference being that abilities are learned from items such armor and weapons, rather than the remains of magical creatures.

Like Final Fantasy VII’s system, I think this would work best in a game with no magic users. Where every character has the potential to learn spells as they level up. Finding a magic suit of armor would offer characters more than just additional protection. If they found it and wore it until they leveled up, then they could permanently learn a spell such as Cure or Magic Shield.

Final Fantasy X: The sphere grid. This was a huge deviation from leveling systems we’d seen before in the series. Truth be told, I’ve never seen anything quite like it, before or since.

Every character starts at a predetermined location on a massive, interconnected grid. Characters gain levels very quickly, and each time a character levels, they can spend that level to move themselves one ‘space’ along the grid’s paths. Each space has a single ability or attribute bonus on it which the character can learn.

The interesting thing about the system is that it simultaneously established characters as certain Archetypes (Lulu, pictured left, is a Black Mage) but at the same time allowed each character to develop in any way the player desired. As an example, Lulu’s starting location on the grid is surrounded by Black Mage abilities; spells, extra magic power, and so on. But if the player so chooses, they can gradually move Lulu out of the Black Mage area of the grid, and into the White Mage, or Warrior areas.

If we were adapting this for a tabletop game, I think the first step would be to drop everything but spells from the grid. Using a system like this for for general character advancement would be both too complicated, and too limiting for a tabletop RPG. But if the entire grid is nothing but spells, it could be a very interesting way of representing a magic user’s advancement and specialization. Instead of different areas of the grid representing different classes, they could represent different schools of magic. Players would need to select a starting spot in one of the enchantments, and spend their first few levels learning spells from that school. But as they moved through the sphere grid, they could guide their progress towards secondary, and tertiary schools.

The only downside I can see is that it would be next to impossible to model the system at the table. In order to track a character’s progress along the grid, it needs to be small enough for each player to have a copy, which means it would need to fit on an 8.5″ x 11″ sheet of paper, or thereabouts. Perhaps each space on the grid could be three spells, instead of only one?

Final Fantasy X+: When it was announced that Final Fantasy XI would be an MMO, I lost interest in the series. The god-awful failure that was Final Fantasy X-2 only solidified that feeling for me. I haven’t played any of the games since X, and cannot make an honest attempt to adapt magic systems I don’t know.

Let me know if you have any thoughts. This is just random brainstorming for me, so input would be fun.

The Crazy Straw of Race as Class

In April, after watching some people play a board game called Small World for the first time, I was struck by what I considered to be a pretty novel idea. What if a character’s race, and a character’s class directly affected one another? Rather than having the two be mutually exclusive like some games have done in the past, or having them be completely independent from one another as some modern games do, what if there was a middle ground? I wrote a detailed post on the idea, which I titled A Twist on Race as Class. The idea is thoroughly explained there, so I won’t recap it any further here. If you haven’t read that post, it may help you understand where I’m coming from with this one.

I recently noticed that I have a lot of posts–such as that one–which deal with ideas and theory. That’s because I like ideas a lot! (I did major in philosophy, after all). But it becomes problematic when those ideas are never put into practice. I have a bad habit of thinking that once I’ve satisfactorily expressed an idea, I can set it aside and move on to something new. (Again: philosophy major). The truth is, though, that ideas don’t have a lot of value if you don’t follow through with them. So this is me attempting to build on my ideas. For the twist on race as class, I figure my first step is to draft a very simplified version of the system, and see if I can root out its flaws.

For this experiment, I’ve created four classes: Fighter, Wizard, Cleric, and Rogue. They each progress through five levels, and have abilities that are a cross between what you’d find in Pathfinder, and what you’d find in an oldschool game like first edition D&D. They are not what you would call ‘fleshed out,’ but they don’t need to be. They exist to provide a framework, not to be playable.

Fighter

1st level: Select a combat bonus.
2nd level: Select a combat bonus.
3rd level: Select a combat bonus.
4th level: Select a combat bonus.
5th level: Select a combat bonus.

Wizard

1st level: Ability to cast 4 first level spells. May select a specialization school, must select one ‘banned’ school which can never be cast from.
2nd level: Can summon a familiar. Ability to cast 5 first level spells.
3rd level: Ability to cast 2 second level spells, and 5 first level spells.
4th level: Ability to cast 3 second level spells, and 5 first level spells.
5th level: Ability to cast 2 third level spells, 4 second level spells, and 5 first level spells.

Cleric

1st level: Ability to cast 4 first level spells.
2nd level: Ability to turn evil. Able to cast 5 first level spells.
3rd level: Ability to cast 2 second level spells, and 5 first level spells.
4th level: Ability to cast 3 second level spells, and 5 first level spells.
5th level: Ability to cast 2 third level spells, 4 second level spells, and 5 first level spells.

Rogue

1st level: Move silently in any environment.
2nd level: Able to pick locks and disable traps.
3rd level: Can hide in shadows.
4th level: Able to climb sheer surfaces.
5th level: Backstab.

As I said above, none of this is fancy or well balanced. Though, I must confess, I am kind of in love with the idea of a rogue gradually gaining all of their sneaking abilities before they learn how to backstab. Teaches newbie rogues how to play correctly!

To combine with these four classes are three races: Human, Elf, and Dwarf. Again, little to no attempt has been made to balance these abilities, but I did make sure to utilize meaning-first design for each of them. My goal was first to envision what a paragon member of each race/class combination would be like, and then to design towards that. For example, an elven fighter is never going to be a brutish, axe wielding warrior. But elven grace lends itself well to a more refined fighting style. In some cases this was difficult, such as with the dwarven wizard, but I’m relatively happy with what I came up with there.

Elf (Medium creature, 30ft base land speed, Enhanced Hearing, Enhanced Sight)

Fighter

1st level: +2 Dexterity
3rd level: When using a ranged weapon, the range increments of that weapon are increased by 50%
5th level: The critical range of light weapons (such as a rapier) is widened by 1.

Wizard

1st level: +2 Intelligence.
3rd level: Able to cast one additional spell of each spell level known.
5th level: If a specialty school was selected, that school now casts as if the character were one level higher than they are. If no specialty school was selected, select any one school of magic to receive this bonus.

Cleric

1st level: +2 Wisdom
3rd level: Healing spells have their effects doubled in a forest environment.
5th level: A number of times per day equal to the character’s wisdom modifier, they may command any natural animal to obey them.

Rogue

1st level: +2 Dexterity
3rd level: The character gain the ability to camouflage themselves perfectly. They can hide in a natural environment as effectively as they can hide in shadows.
5th level: +10ft to movement speed. The range of the character’s hearing is doubled.

Dwarf (Medium creature, 20ft base land speed, Darkvision)

Fighter

1st level: +2 Constitution
3rd level: The character is much more difficult to knock over. Any attempt to intentionally knock the character over are made at a -6 penalty.
5th level: +2 to any attack roll made with hammers, axes, or other heavy weapons.

Wizard

1st level: +2 Constitution
3rd level: The character is able to resist spells as though they were a wizard 2 levels higher.
5th level: The character is able to craft magical items as though they are 1 level higher than they are.

Cleric

1st level: +2 Wisdom
3rd level: Healing spells have their effects doubled while underground, or in a mountainous environment.
5th level: Dwarven clerics may smite characters of the opposite alignment, adding their wisdom modifier to attack rolls, and their cleric level to damage rolls made against such creatures.

Rogue

1st level: +2 Strength
3rd level: The range of the character’s darkvision is doubled. Additionally, they can sense vibrations through the ground. This allows them to detect footfalls up to 20ft away, and they can detect more substantial disturbances to an even greater distance.
5th level: The dwarven rogue eventually develops a kind of sixth sense for precious minerals and stones. The character can detect the presence, and the direction, of gold, silver, or gems, up to 10ft away.

Human

Fighter

1st level: +2 Strength
3rd level: Any time a combat bonus requires the fighter to select a type of weapon for the bonus to apply to, the human fighter may select two types of weapons.
5th level: Human fighters recruit followers as though they were 2 levels higher.

Wizard

1st level: +2 Intelligence
3rd level: If the human wizard chose to specialize, they can still cast spells from their blocked school as though they were 1 level lower.
5th level: Human wizards gain one additional spells slot for each spell level known.

Cleric

1st level: +2 Wisdom
3rd level: +2 Charisma
5th level: Human clerics recruit followers as though they were 2 levels higher.

Rogue

1st level: +2 Dexterity
3rd level: +2 Charisma
5th level: The character is able to charm their way past many social obstacles. NPCs start react more favorably to the character than they otherwise would.

And that’s what I came up with on my first attempt. Conclusions? Well, as with all things, making it work in practice is more difficult than simply coming up with the theory was. Some race/class combinations just seem preposterous. I have no real archetype to draw on for elven clerics or dwarven wizards. I actually reconsidered whether such unusual combinations should be ruled out entirely. But I stand by my belief that players should be able to choose any race/class combination they want.

The biggest problem, surprisingly, turned out to be the humans. In retrospect it makes sense. Elves and dwarves are each an archetype unto themselves, while humans can fall into a wide array of archetypes. That’s why race as class existed in the first place: because humans could fill many roles, but non-human races each fill a specific role. I’m not quite sure how to work around this issue yet, but I think it can be done.

I would very much like any criticisms my readers have to offer. As it stands, I know this is not ‘good,’ and it would be helpful to be told precisely why it’s not good.

Why was This Dungeon Built?

Often on this site, perhaps too often, I construct posts by comparing or contrasting my gaming philosophies to those of the OSR community. Most likely, this is because all of the gaming blogs I read have an OSR slant to them. Is it just me, or does the OSR have a huge blogging presence? Anyway, this post isn’t any different. It’s about dungeons, and how my views on them compare to the OSR community’s.

Most OSR blogs I’ve read are strongly of the opinion that dungeons do not need to have a logical layout. I agree.
Most OSR blogs I’ve read are of the opinion that dungeons do not need to have an origin story. I disagree.
Most OSR blogs I’ve read are of the opinion that the creatures which exist within the dungeon don’t need any particular reason to be there. I disagree again.

There. I figured we might as well expedite the process for this post, since it’s late and I’m somewhat tired. I’m going to focus on the second point here: that I believe dungeons should have an origin story. Even if the dungeon’s layout is completely randomly generated, it’s valuable to have a few solid facts about the dungeon in mind. Where the dungeon came from can provide insights into what the dungeon looks like, and what can be found there. A 40ft long corridor in an ancient prison might be simple stone, while the same corridor in a crypt might have burial shelves at regular intervals. Below are the various dungeon origins I’ve come up with.

A Wizard Did It

I think it was Gary Gygax in the “Underworld and Wilderness Adventures” booklet who attributed dungeons to “Insane Wizards.” And while I’d hardly call it a sufficient explanation for every dungeon, it’s a great starting point. A wizard might construct a dungeon as a personal fortress, or as a way to contain their magical experiments. A truly insane Wizard could be responsible for some of a world’s most twisting and hazardous dungeons.

A dungeon created by wizards is also, in my mind, a great excuse to be showy with the unusual architecture and traps. Rooms where gravity shifts, or invisible bridges between towering cliff faces are exactly the kind of thing an arrogant wizard might create just to show that they could.

Heracles Will Get to it Later

We all love Greek mythology here, right? When the Olympian gods imprisoned the Titans, Gaea (mother to the Titans and grandmother to the Olympians) bore two final children: Typhon and Echidna. These monstrous gods had numerous monstrous children together, including Cerberus, the Hydra, the Chimera, and the Nemean Lion. The Olympians eventually put a stop to the parents, but decided to let the children live, ‘as a test for future heroes.’

There is ample mythological precedent for the gods intentionally creating challenges for no purpose other than to test the limits of mortal heroism. While the Greek gods did this by leaving monsters around to be defeated by a bunch of guys who were mostly demi-gods anyway, the gods in a Pathfinder campaign setting might choose to test heroes by crafting dungeons to be explored.

Natural Phenomenon

A natural dungeon, or cave, is nothing new. It is none the less important to mention. Dungeons like these are created by the flow of water through the earth, by volcanic eruptions, and burrowing animals. But in a world of magic, could not that also play a part?

For the last few years I’ve been intrigued by the concept of ‘wild magic,’ magic which either exists naturally, or which exists as a kind of “nuclear fallout” from a once mighty magical civilization. In my Negune campaign setting, the isle of Argania is absolutely filled with this kind of thing. I see no reason why wild magic couldn’t also create a dungeon.

Perhaps tens of thousands of years ago, a civilization developed an urban development spell. One which built roads and houses and sewers and aqueducts. The spell effect was permanent, and has continued long after the civilization collapsed. After thousands of years without maintenance it builds corridors and rooms seemingly at random. Often it creates areas which are exceedingly dangerous for humans. And while it mostly ignores areas once it constructs them, occasionally an older area of the dungeon needs to be demolished…

Ancient City

Ancient cities tend to be distinct among dungeons, because they often follow a more logical structure. However, there’s no reason an ancient civilization couldn’t have had some very strange architectural choices. Particularly if it was something like ancient dwarves, whose cities are carved from stone anyway.

And don’t forget all the cool ways in which an ancient city can be damaged over the centuries. It can be partially underwater, or partially hidden under a blanket of volcanic rock. A particular favorite of mine is the city which has fallen into the earth, creating a very strange amalgam of natural and man-made hallways and chambers.

Crazy Creepy Cult

Cults do all manner of wacky things, and not all of them are secret. Much like in real life (See: Jim Jones, David Koresh, etc) cults will often want to completely separate themselves from the world and form their own self sustaining communities. In a game like Pathfinder, there’s no reason why these isolationists wouldn’t decide to build a dungeon to live in. Some cults might actually view the endless expantion of their dungeon to be a medetative act of prayer.

Cosmic Fender Bender

Every one of the numerous planes of existence is no doubt filled with citadels, towers, and dungeons of their own. And if two planes intersect just slightly, a dungeon might be thrown from one world, and into ours. This is a great way to add a hint of planar travel to your campaign, without going all the way and sending your players outside of the material realm.

Extradimentional Trap

Lets say the players are raiding a wizard’s tower. Upon opening a drawer, a flash of light engulfs them. Next thing they know they’re in the middle of a labyrinth filled with monsters and traps.

Dungeon in a Drawer: Keeping thieves away from your silverware.

Old Standbys

There are some classics which I can’t really add to, but I feel like I ought to mention them none the less.

A literal dungeon, built beneath a castle. Monarch after monarch added on to it. Even if the castle is still inhabited, nobody really knows how far down it goes, or what was done down there.
A prison. While this is basically what a dungeon beneath a castle was used for, it is distinct because there’s no castle on top of it, and second because we rarely think of dungeons in a literal sense any more. ‘Dungoen’ can mean anything with lots of monsters and treasure in it.
A crypt where the dead are buried. This could be anything from an Egyptian Pyramid, to the Catacombs beneath Rome.

What I Want

I like Pathfinder, which is why I’ve always been a vocal critic of it. It has a lot of problems; in many ways it falls short of my ideal game. I’ve often tried to improve upon the flaws with house rules, and I’ve been open in discussing the flaws which can’t be fixed. Over the past few months I’ve read through a number of other RPGs as well. Aside from my well documented perusal of the original Dungeon Master’s Guide, I’ve been looking at various retro clones created by the OSR community, some modern Pathfinder alternatives, and some games in completely different genres. More and more I think that I won’t be happy until I produce my own sourcebook.

It’s not something I think I’ll be doing anytime too soon. I don’t think I’m ready for that kind of massive and involved project yet. But thinking about how I would design a game has got me thinking about what I want in a game. So I’ve compiled a list. And, since this list undoubtedly says a lot about this blog’s perspective, it seems useful to share.

I want rules which can be memorized. This doesn’t mean they need to be short enough that I can learn them by rote, it just means that they need to be logical enough that I can quickly deduce any I forget. If I need to spend a few sessions looking things up after we play, that’s okay.

I want rules which don’t try to establish mechanics for every possible action players might take. Instead, I want rules which guide me in coming up with my own mechanics for those situations, and which help me make those rulings without unbalancing my game.

I want more rules directed towards the GM than the players. There should certainly be rules that players can learn, but none or very few which they feel forced to learn. Nothing dissolves a budding player’s enthusiasm faster than telling them they need to buy a $60 rulebook, and read 300 pages of it before they’ll know how to play.

I want more supplements geared towards GMs than players. I understand why this hasn’t been the case in recent years: for every GM, there are probably three or more players. And since GMs will buy books anyway, it’s obvious which type of book has more potential customers. But never forget that the GM is your best salesperson. I can think of eleven people off of the top of my head who would probably have never picked up a tabletop RPG if I hadn’t invited them to my games. None of them bought supplements, but a lot of them bought core books and dice.

I want characters that can be created quickly. I don’t want to feel as though I’m sentencing players to waste eons every time I kill their characters. And I don’t want to force new players to sit through a bunch of obtuse character creation nonsense before I have a chance to show them how fun the game can be.

I want characters that can be customized and specialized endlessly. Character class is a fine starting point, but if my players want to make choices then I want to be able to offer them. If a player sets a goal for something they would like their character to be capable of, I want that goal to be achievable.

I want deep, tactical combat which forces players to think beyond a mundane exchange of blows. Combat where making a plan and knowing how to work together can mean the difference between life and death. Combat which none the less encourages players to take risks. Combat where being clever about your environment can turn the tide of a losing fight. Combat which is fun every time.

I want combat that doesn’t need to take an hour.

I want mechanics that engage players beyond a die roll. Rolling dice is a great way to resolve some types of action–but not ALL types of action. If every problem is solved with a die roll, then we might as be playing around a craps table.

I want mechanics unburdened by vestigial adherence to tradition. Just because past games have always done things a certain way doesn’t mean modern games should. The past exists for us to learn from, not to mindlessly emulate.

I want a game which doesn’t ignore history. If Gary Gygax or Dave Arneson figured out how to handle a situation amazingly, there’s no reason modern games should simply handle the same situation passably.

I want a game that equally supports many modes of play. A game which is just as engaging in tasks such as exploration or political intrigue, as it is in combat.

I want a game which explains not just the rules of the system, but the spirit which those rules support. One which explains why rules exist, and how certain mechanics improve play. I want a game which helps Game Masters make the leap from learning rules, to running a campaign.

I want a game which is supported by online tools, but which recognizes that if a game relies on online tools, it is a weak game.

I want rules that don’t need to be bypassed because they pointlessly add unnecessary work.

I want a game where the rules are designed to support me, not a game where the rules waste my time and frustrate my players.

I want a game without ‘traps,’ intended to impede a character’s build. Honestly, I want a game which doesn’t support even the concept of a ‘build,’ but instead promotes mechanical customization.