Dungeons and Dragons 5E/Next

Reblogged from Paul's Life:

Early last week, Wizards of the Coast officially announced they were working on the next edition of Dungeons and Dragons.  Like many, the news got me very excited, though I don’t play as much as I did in 2E and 3E days, I still love the game. Seems like the Internet had been filled with rumors of a new edition ever since the Essentials line was announced.  I tried to ignore most of that.   Though when Monte Cook returned to WOTC a few months ago, I began to think they truly were beginning to work on …

A to Z Blogging Challenge: A is for Ability Scores

A is for Ability Scores

Roll 3d6. Roll 4d6, drop the lowest. Point buy. Arrays.

No matter how you do it, or what edition of Dungeons and Dragons you play, you’ve got to generate your character’s ability score. While I appreciate the idea of balance between the players that methods like the points buy or arrays brings to scores, I miss rolling dice for ability scores.

Rarely will a character created with a point buy or array have a score below 6. And while even rolling dice has an average of 10 or 11 (slightly higher if your DM tweaks the 3D6 method a little), there’s almost a 10% chance of rolling a 6 or lower. Given that each a D&D character has 6 ability scores, this means that a little more than half your characters created using the basic 3d6 method will have at least 1 score below 6.

If you accept the shortcomings that a low ability score brings, rolling dice allows for very unique characters. In the past I’ve played several characters that stand out in my memory because I chose to role-play their low ability scores.

In the Spelljammer setting, where Spelljamming ships sailed on a flammable plane of phlogiston, I played a fire mage who due to his low wisdom would occasionally toss a fire based spell at an inopportune time or location. I tried not to over do it, but on an occasion where the best way to damage the enemy would likely cause problems by setting off some of the phlogiston, I’d make a roll versus wisdom to decide whether he realized the potential danger.

In another game, where we rolled our ability scores in order, with no rearranging allowed, I really wanted to play a thief, but my dexterity score wasn’t very high. Perhaps not a ridiculously low score, but low enough that I should have chosen a different class, but I didn’t. Instead I played a thief who was less than successful in his chosen profession. In addition, he fancied himself something of a cat burglar, so he was regularly putting himself into situations where he needed to rely on his balance to accomplish his task.

While you have to be careful not to go overboard with this type of play. If your actions interfere too much with your party’s accomplishments, the other players won’t enjoy the game.

A to Z Blogging Challenge: Looking Back

A to Z Blogging Challenge: Looking Back

Though it was a little exhausting, I enjoyed participating in the A to Z Challenge. As I’ve said before, I’m going to try to use the challenge as a springboard to getting the blog back on track. I’ve got a few follow up posts coming, but for today, here are links to all the posts in case you missed any:

A is for A to Z Blogging Challenge

B is for Beholder!

C is for Children

D is for Devils and Demons

E is for Editions!

F is for Frogs

G is for Goblins!

H is for Huge

I is for Initiative

J is for Jokes

K is for Kingdom

L is for Luck

M is for Maps

N is for Nature

O is for Options

P is for Pig Faced Orcs

Q is for Quest

R is for Rules

S is for Story

T is for Traps

U is for Undead

V is for Variety

W is for Water

X is for X1 Isle of Dread

Y is for Yes!

A to Z Blogging Challenge: Z is for Zealot

Over the next couple of weeks I’m going to add some alternate posts, and replace that cheat of ‘A is for A to Z Blogging Challenge’ with a real post, that will probably take us through May, and give me time to plan for June and beyond!

A to Z Blogging Challenge: Z is for Zealot

Z is for Zealot

Zealots make the best villains. Their fanaticism means they’ll go to almost any extreme to accomplish their goals. These extreme actions make them more likely to come to the attention of the player characters, and more likely to call the players to action. While most Dungeons and Dragons campaign settings include a wide selection of gods and religions, religion is just one form zealotry can take.

A ranger or druid could decide to begin killing humans in a farming community because they’ve been cutting down trees in an ancient forest to build their homes. Leaders of the merchants’ guild kidnap the child of a politician who supports increasing their taxes. A necromancer is stealing every body from the local cemetary as part his plot to take over a kingdom, or even the world.

In addition to their willingness to do anything for their cause, their fanaticism leads them to overestimate their own abilities. This overconfidence can frequently lead to the villain’s downfall.

A to Z Blogging Challenge: Y is for Yes!

Y is for Yes!

In some ways, a Dungeons and Dragons game is very much like improvisational comedy. Though rules describe how certain aspects of the game go, and the Dungeon Master generally has some idea where the plot is heading, so much more of what happens is dependent on the players’ actions and how the DM responds to them.

The main rule of improvisation is to say Yes, no matter how bizarre the action, take what the other actor does and run with it. When the DM does the same for his players they’ll have more fun because they’l know they can try anything.

Of course, this doesn’t mean that everything they want to try will succeed. The trick is for the DM to come up with a quick ruling on just how likely it is that their attempt will succeed. While some things they try should be extremely difficult, if the action is even remotely realistic there should be at least a tiny chance at success.

I failed at this concept in an early game. I don’t remember all the details, but my players had managed to acquire several components for making gun powder. I was very opposed to the idea of gun powder in the game. At the time I thought it would imbalance the game, and so I basically said ‘No’ and though they tried to get me to change my mind, I basically said “I’m the DM and what I say goes.” I now know how horrible that was, and in some ways this post is along overdue apology for that game session.

Instead of saying “No”, I should have let them give it a try, allowing them either Intelligence of Wisdom checks to make the attempt. If I were to do it again today I’d give them a small chance of success (5-10%) along with an even greater success at an explosive failure (15-20%). Then at least they’d have felt they had a chance. There’s no telling what ideas they might have kept silent about because they felt I’d never let it happen.

Even if they’d succeeded in making the gun powder, I could have included a chance of failure, to maintain the explosives as risky to use. I’m sure some failures could have been as much fun as the successes, but we’ll never get the chance to know.

Perhaps it doesn’t apply everywhere, but when you’re the DM, “Just say Yes!”

A to Z Blogging Challenge: X is for X1 Isle of Dread

X is for X1 Isle of Dread

Stretching a bit for my alphabet today, but I didn’t want to do X is for Xorn*, Xill**, or Xeph***. Instead I get to talk about a classic Dungeons and Dragons Module.

Written by David “Zeb” Cook, and Moldvay, “Isle of Dread” describes both a continent, and the island itself, a wild land filled with dinosaurs and other dangerous creatures.

The module is written very much in a sandbox style, the goals are vague, but there are plenty of places for characters to explore. The players are drawn to the island by an adventurer’s diary entry promising riches on the island, and a map of an island. Beyond the goal of discovering riches, it is basically up to the characters and the Dungeon Master to decide in what order or manner the characters explore the island.

I’ve never run this module, but if I did, I might add some additional item, or person on the island for the characters to seek out. This would allow them to explore the island, but would give them a goal beyond the gaining of wealth to strive for in their explorations.

Perhaps because of the dinosaurs, and the large wall around the island’s main village, I get the feeling of the island as something like ‘Monster Island’ from the Godzilla films, so I might remove some of the larger dinosaurs and add creatures similar to Godzilla, and Mothra to the island to add to that feeling.

* A creature
** Another creature.
*** Yet another creature.

A to Z Blogging Challenge: W is for Water

W is for Water

As I wrote yesterday’s post, I realized I hadn’t talked much about Skill Challenges. Introduced in 4th Edition Dungeons and Dragons, at their simplest a skill challenge is a series of skill checks where the players need to pass a certain number of checks before failing a different number of checks. ie: Pass 5 checks before failing 2. The number of successes vs. failures changes based on the difficulty of the skill check. What does this have to do with water you ask? Well, water can be at the center of a lot of skill challenges.

1) Pilot a boat down river from one village to another. Along the way you’ll have to steer your way through rapids or risk losing the boat and its cargo.

2) Survive without water, or find a source of water in the arid desert.

3) Dive into a pool of water, racing against an opponent to retrieve an important artifact from the bottom of the pool.

4) As you explore a room its doors slam shut and the room begins filling with water. Can you manage to unlock, or break down one of the doors before you drown?

5) You’re tracking an opponent through a dry creek bed when a storm moves in. The rapid rainfall leads to flash flooding. Can you avoid being washed away by the torrent? And if so, has the rain allowed your quarry to escape, or can you pick up the trail again?

Many other natural occurrences and phenomena make great skill challenges as well, but today is W day, so perhaps another day we can visit things like snow and rock-slides.

A to Z Blogging Challenge: V is for Variety

V is for Variety

For the same reason I didn’t make every entry in this challenge a monster, I don’t make every encounter in my Dungeons and Dragons adventures a combat. A combination of combats, traps, puzzles, and character interaction/role-playing encounters makes for a more interesting game.

What can be tricky to do is determining what balance of these encounter types works best for your players. In my early games, I’ll admit things were very combat heavy, with probably 80-90% combat with some traps and puzzles, and perhaps 1% character interaction at best. While I couldn’t imagine doing that now, we had a great time playing.

When I’m planning adventures now, I’m closer to 40-50% combat, 20% interactions, 20% traps/puzzles, and 20% skill challenges. At the high side that adds up to more than 100%, but since this isn’t an exact science there’s some wiggle room in there. This kind of ratio works for me as a both player and Dungeon Master, it allows for plenty of combat, but also opportunities to develop my character through role-play.

If you’re DMing for a group that prefers to focus on character development through character interaction you can turn the numbers on their head, using 50-60% interactive encounters, while mixing up the other encounter types in a way that suits the players other strengths.

Like almost any article on gaming, this one ends with the advice that you have to customize the balance to suit both your DMing style, and your players’ gaming style. By communicating with your players you’ll get a feel for their preferences. So don’t be afraid to ask them directly for their input on which types of encounters they’re enjoying most.

A to Z Blogging Challenge: U is for Undead

U is for Undead

For some reason I hear maniacal laughter each time I type “U is for Undead”.

While zombies and vampires dominate popular culture these days, I am still a fan of the simple skeleton. Perhaps I’ve seen too many Ray Harryhausen films, and perhaps it is cliché, but I love having the bones littering a room suddenly spring to life and attack when some sort of trigger is activated. Usually the trigger is a coffin, or other resting place of the dead, or the shiniest bauble in the room.

In more recent editions and the ability to customize monsters has allowed me to use skeletons of creatures other than humans, anything from gnomes, to orcs, to giants, to dragons can now be a skeleton.  Even better, those skeletons can have some of the special abilities they possessed in life. I’m especially fond of blink dog skeletons popping around the battlefield.

A to Z Blogging Challenge: T is for Traps

T is for Traps

I’ve talked about story, I’ve talked about monsters, today we talk about traps. Like many older gamers, in my early Dungeons and Dragons games I played a fighter because it was about the easiest class to play. Even though I was playing a fighter, I really enjoyed dealing with traps.

While only the thief could truly find and disarm a trap, our Dungeon Master created his traps in a fairly realistic manner. This meant that usually other characters could lend some assistance by lifting, pushing, or holding mechanisms while the thief worked to disarm the trap. I generally volunteered for assistant duties whenever possible. The assistance made the thief’s job easier, but could leave my character in harm’s way if the thief failed his disarm check.

I’ve tried to emulate those early traps in my own trap designs. I try to make sure every trap I design has a method for those who occupy the area near the trap to bypass or disarm the trap. While this means there’s a possibility the party will disarm the trap more easily than expected, I generally put the mechanism on the opposite side of the trap from where I expect the party to enter. This way they have to safely make their way past the trap in order to find the disarming mechanism.

While I’m sure I’ve made some errors in mechanics or physics when setting up my own trap designs, I hope my players appreciated and enjoyed my efforts as much as I enjoyed my early trap experiences.