Actual market research?!? Egads!

Ogre Cave is reporting that GAMA and The Wargamer have joined forces with Dr. Prabu David of Ohio State to produce a rigorous survey called "Experiences of hobby game players: The what, when, where and why of their motivations and choices to play". If you've got 20 minutes or so, please consider taking the time to complete this survey. The industry desperately needs this sort of hard data.

It's nice to see GAMA making some sort of effort in this field. I've harped on them from time to time and will probably continue to do so, but I really appreciate what they're doing here.

3.5 without a net

Next week I'll be attempting something new. I will be running an adventure for my D&D campaign without using a published module. Over the years I've run homebrew adventures a gajillion times, but this will be my first go making something completely from scratch for these 3.5-powered 12th-level Gestalt engines of destruction. I've spent the last week or so tinkering with NPCs, adding class levels to monsters, and tweaking critters using the methods outlined by Mike Mearls in the opening chapter of FFG's Monster's Handbook. Another product that has proven helpful in this endeavor is the PCGen character creation software. Due to my ham-handed approach the resulting builds will probably be a bit crude and the adventure will be simplistic, but I'm pleased at the prospect of whipping together a whole session of material starting with nothing but a couple goofy ideas.

Here's a teaser for my players: there will be robots.

random thoughts on new editions

The advent of 2nd edition AD&D was the first time I really cared about various editions of a role-playing game.  I avidly followed the discussions of what 2nd Ed might contain in the pages of Dragon and Polyhedron.  I think I'm going to have to go back and read those issues, because I think the game as eventually published looked precious little like the concepts they were trying to sell to the Dragon readership.  Before all the talk about revising the Big Game, me and my game gang barely understood that games went through multiple editions.  Sure, we had both the Moldvay/Cook and Mentzer iterations of Basic/Expert D&D, but we treated them as the exact same game.  And when I got my 4th edition Call of Cthulhu book, it looked like little more than a repackaging of my 3rd edition boxed set.  But then I feel that way about my 5th edition CoC rulebook, too.

 

It probably wasn't until I got to college that I fully realized the fact that some games seem to be constantly under revision.  The HERO System players I hung out with were always whinging about the new 4th edition, when they weren't too busy complaining about the changes in the Captain's edition of Star Fleet Battles.  I heard rumors that the folks behind Shadowrun had actually managed to create a workable game in some edition after the trainwreck that was the original.  Gothic clove-smokers could be attracted or repelled with the single word 'Revised'.  I didn't take most of these Edition Wars seriously.  Heck, my one sustained 2nd edition AD&D campaign made almost as much use of first material as it did the new stuff.  In recent years I've gotten finicky enough that I can discuss the merits of the various editions of many older games at length.  But, to paraphrase Billy Joel, it's still D&D to me.  I'm not going to turn my nose up at the prospect of playing in a D&D campaign simply because the DM uses what I consider to be an inferior incarnation of the game.

 

But there are a few games where I do care about the edition.  I'd give a fair shot to playing any edition of Gamma World, but as a GM and collector I've never seen much that interests me past the 2nd edition of the game.  For all practical purposes Zebulon's Guide to Frontier Space was the second edition rules for Star Frontiers: Alpha Dawn.  I like some of the setting fluff in Zeb's Guide, but the new skills rules and resolution chart leave me cold.  And then there's Traveller.  There's no Edition War quite like a Traveller Edition War.  Each version of the game radically altered both the setting and the system.  Over a decade later there are still grognards stinging over Traveller: The New Era, which destroyed the Imperium of Classic Traveller and replaced the core game mechanics with the system from Twilight: 2000.  Outright flamewars over Trav editions have died down over the years, largely due to the fanbase growing up and settling down, I think.  But I don't really have a horse in that race, since I started playing Traveller around 1999.  I favor the original game, but I'm more than happy to cherry pick stuff from later editions.

 

Some folks are bitterly disappointed or alienated by a new edition of their favorite game.  My group glommed onto 2nd Ed AD&D eagerly, but plenty of other people stuck to the original version of Advanced.  D&D 3E left some longtime fans feeling the game was no longer the same.  Sometimes I agree with them.  At times over the past seven or eight years I've felt like Dungeons & Dragons has become a brandname attached to a set of mechanics only incidentally related to the game I started playing in the 80's.  The introduction of the 3.5 edition only heightened this sensitivity.  Still, this latest version is the game all the kids are playing, so I feel I have to give it the old college try.  And while I'm not happy with every design decision made in the 3E/3.5 upgrades, you can still sword orcs for dollars.  And isn't that what's most important?

 

For a while I tried to follow all the 4th edition rumour mongering that started like the day after 3.5 was announced.  But I quickly got Idle Speculation Fatigue.  With Mike Mearls on the staff of Wizards these days, I have hope that he will be given a key role in 4E, whenever they decide to do it.  If Mr. Mearls can make prepping for a session feel less like doing homework, I will gleefully buy yet another 3 corebooks.  Even if the interior art is full of rejects from Goth Night at the local gay bar.  Marc Miller, Traveller's Lord and Saviour, is working on a new edition of Trav.  That's the only other rpg with a new edition on the horizon that I can be bothered to give a crap about right now.  T5, as they are calling it, is one of the few games I intend to buy and run even though right now no one really knows what it's going to end up looking like.  Heck, all the pissing around I do with a Trav setting is basically driven by my desire to have a T5 game up and running within days of getting my hands on the books.

 

Any new edition of a game save your soul or break your heart?  Looking forward to a new edition coming down the pipe?  Tell me all about it.

Swiped from RPGnet tangency

Someone please tell me this is from an actual comic book:
Also, if you have been at all following the latest Palladium Books nonsense, please click here.

replacement PC insertion techniques

You're several levels deep into a festering pit of evil when one of the party members bites the dust. No raise/resurrect magic is available. That PC is going to stay dead until you get back to civilization. What is the player going to do? Anybody who putzes around in dungeons long enough will probably encounter this problem at some point. Rather than have the player of the dead PC sit on his hands until their dude is breathing again, here are some methods for getting that player back into the game as soon as possible.

Video Game Style "New Player Added" - Just like playing Gauntlet, new PCs pop in whenever available. Not every campaign will sustain this kind of abuse, but it's the easy way out if it won't make people at the table wince. The World of Alidor campaign suggests a way to use this technique without bending the universe. In the Alidor setting the Elan (a PC race from the Expanded Psionics Handbook) simply pop into existence fully formed, as they are something like the solidified thoughts of giant tortoises. I'm not sure if they only appear close to the titanic turtles or not. If they can appear anywhere in the world, I intend to whip up an Elan psion as an emergency back-up PC.

The Prisoner - This one is almost as easy as kicking it Video Game style, but puts a lot less pressure on the suspension of disbelief. Simply chain up the PC in the next available room and stash their equipment in the next room over. (Just be kinder about it than my old DM.) Unreasonable players may try to glom onto the new PCs stuff before they re-equip. I avoid this problem by not gaming with those sorts of people.

Solo Adventurer - The party stumbles upon a lone PC that is willing to team up with the party. Works best if the new PC is a sneaky type like a rogue or can teleport, as it dodges questions like "How did your plate-clad warrior get down this deep without setting off an alarm?" Again, problem players may decide to exploit the situation to their advantage. ("I say we kill him. Our guys don't know he's a PC and have no reason to trust him.") But why are you even playing with jerks like that?

If you're going to use any of the above three options to beam in a new PC, make sure to plan ahead. DMs need to let the players know that dropping in a new PC is an available option and make clear to the players exactly how he wants replacement PCs built. Players need to take time beforehand to whip up a back-up PC. Even if you only use your new guy until your main PC is ressurrected, it would still behoove you to show up with another dude ready-to-go. That way you aren't wasting time during the session throwing together a half-assed character build.

If you don't have a back-up PC ready or if the DM isn't going to allow any PC paradrops, you still have at least one more option to explore.

Brevet-PC - Take an NPC already associated with the party and upgrade that character to PC status. This contingency was half the reason to have henchmen under older editions. A cohort makes a fine choice, but a role-playing oriented player may well have a good time playing a familiar or a follower. In my present campaign when Uther the Justiciar died in mid-adventure the player took his own cohort and re-statted him as a full-strength PC. It looks like Odolan the Ex-Cohort will now be a regular member of the team. Always look for opportunites even where no decent character is available but a raise dead is just around the corner. "Hey DM! Can I play the ogre that the wizard charmed until my fighter is back online?"

Another House Rule for my D&D campaign

Robert Wiese's potion miscibility rules are now the law of the land in my campaign. Layering multiple potions effects at one time just does not sit well with me. Blame it on the earlier miscibility chart from the 1st edition DMG.

I really ought to get all my crazy house rules put together in a handout for my players. Maybe I could throw in a definitive section on replacement PCs.

Three Little Letters

Tonight's session of my D&D campaign fills me with a heady mixture of anticipation and fear. Anticipation because tonight is the big payoff, the throwdown with the Big Bad. Our own little Ultimate Showdown of Ultimate Destiny, as it were. Will our heroes prove victorious, or will Oerth overflow with a diabolic horde summoned by the forces of the despicable Red Claw Cult? Truly, this has been one of the most epic plot arcs I've ever run, right up there with the Return of Doctor Wu in my old Bandit Kingdoms campaign. Many Shubs and Zuuls knew what it was to be roasted in the depths of the Slor that day, I can tell you!

But I'm also a tad bit scared, because the party's safety net is looking pretty threadbare. The previous two (three?) sessions were a nonstop orgy of violence, with no opportunities to rest and recover. The final dustup will be tough, even for a full-up party. All the players will need to have their A game on tonight or the whole thing could end up a Total Party Kill. As a DM, I try to remain calm and aloof. I don't go gunning for the PCs. The same can't be said about the evil bastards lurking on the other side of those massive enruned stone doors. They're not gonna let four or five rat-soup-eating, no-business motherfuckers ruin their evil master plan. Not without a helluva fight, at least. These guys will pull ever lowdown dirty trick in the book to keep the party from stopping them.

It ought to be glorious. But times like this really underline the inherent conflict in my approach to Dungeon Mastering. On the one hand I am totally rooting for the party. I want the good guys to win and the players to go home happy. On the other hand I can't reach a satisfactory payoff without doing my darnest to make life hell on the PCs. And there's no better way of making a win credible than by setting up tough opposition and letting the dice fall where they may. The problem with this approach is that sometimes the whole thing goes down the toliet. I don't allow do-overs. If the dice go sour or the PCs screw up, then they're dead. We may joke about it, but if they all die Thor isn't going to materialize and give the party some 1-ups to finish the job.

But even if every member of the party croaks, we will honor the dead as heroes. For ten levels they have fought tirelessly to stop the Red Claws. And I can think of no better way for a PC to check out than with his hands clutched around the throat of his greatest enemy.

...that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

--Lord Tennyson