World’s Largest Dungeon

Posted on November 13, 2013 by Iron Tavern Guest Blogger

In 2004 AEG came out with the World’s Largest Dungeon. It is an interesting idea and with a $100 price tag really got the attention of gamers as being expensive. But a lot of people were curious about what it was. It is not a book one could just flip through the pages as it came shrink wrapped because it came with free standing maps that needed to be attached to the book somehow.

It was met with a wide range of opinions and eventually a small selection of players started posting they made it through the behemoth dungeon. I was not originally interested in the book until I found it for about $30 at Origins. I read through it and while it had some interesting encounters it was also a huge single level dungeon with not a lot of promise. There is a backstory and different sections of the dungeon can be expanded on to make it a more cohesive story. That’s what I did and I ran it all the way through. It was fun, there was work involved to make it better, and I’m pleased to say I have no need to do that ever again. There will be some spoilers to follow so be aware of that though I don’t see as many people wanting to use this these days.

It was never my intention to run this. It wasn’t the first huge RPG book I bought with no intention of using and it most certainly was not the last. A friend saw it and expressed interest and I came up with some ground rules for running it knowing player and DM burn out for something like this would be high.

The dungeon was originally a prison. Characters that go in will find it very difficult to get out. I wanted my players to know that before we started. Teleportation and other magics do not work there and again I made sure the players knew this so there were no characters that were going to get overly screwed over by the new found rules.

Some players and DMs will not like restrictions and feel it is cheating. In my view the game breaks down so easily with high level magic that restricting them is one of the best ways to keep the game fun and manageable. The dungeon is ridiculously huge and while mapping it out and getting lost is very much part of the experience I eliminated it. I did not want to spend sessions with the PCs lost walking around trying to find something of interest. I gave them the maps. There was no in game explanation for it. I also told them the dungeon is basically sixteen different sections and we will only handle one section at a time. If they left a section that would be the end of that night’s adventure as I wanted to prep each section when they came to it. It allowed me to connect the different sections better than the module does and to include better NPCs and not make everything a combat encounter. The best rule we did though was not start at first level.

Not a lot of the backstory is explained to the PCs so as usual I came up with a way to make them more aware of what was going. As they enter there are hints of guardians and deities, so I expanded on that and made sure the backstory fit in with most of the goings on in the different sections. Section A is mostly empty and has some other beings like kobolds and goblins that have found their way into the Dungeon and cannot get out. They are warring with each other. The most awesome thing about the campaign happened when the players decided to broker a peace between the groups and unite them as allies. All of a sudden this was not just an exploration module, but a rescue mission in which the PCs stuck to and made friends and kept alive as many different people and monsters as they could that were willing to work together. The PCs had created for themselves a basecamp and support team. It allowed me to develop some more NPCs and since they were introduced so early we had NPCs that lasted the entire campaign.

The different sections of the dungeon do have different themes. One goal of the writers was to use each monster in the monster manual that was part of the Open Game License and they succeeded in that. There is one area that is a large garden so many of the plant and fey creatures are found there. One is the headquarters for the celestial guardians that stayed to operate the prison. One that is neat as they used the creatures drawn from Greek Mythology and placed them in a section together. They mostly stayed with good challenge ratings to make sure that different sections had a level recommendation for them. It worked and made the different areas easier for me as DM to polish them up and use their themes to make the adventure shine.

In the end it is a mammoth of a book that took some work and some ground rules for us to enjoy it. I don’t think we would have gotten beyond the first section if we tried to run it as they have it presented. AEG also made a book called the World’s Largest City which I found also deeply discounted and it lies in a box or on a shelf somewhere still in the shrink wrap.

Chris Gath. I’ve been gaming since 1980 playing all kinds of games since then. In the past year I’ve run Pathfinder, Dungeon Crawl Classic, Paranoia, and Mini d6. My current campaign is mini d6 and we are using that for a modern supernatural conspiracy investigative game. On some forums I’m known as Crothian and I’ve written a few hundred reviews though I took a sabbatical from reviewing for a few years as it burnt me out. I was also an judge for the Gen Con awards (ENnies) six times. Jeff, the owner of this blog, is one of my players and a good friend.

Handling Social Awkwardness

Posted on November 11, 2013 by Iron Tavern Guest Blogger

If your games are designed anything like mine your players will face the reality of having to do social interactions to find out key pieces of information. Even if the Barbarian beats the NPC to an inch of his life and then intimidates him it is still a social interaction right? Now I do not want to tar everyone with the same brush but it is true that there are a lot of socially awkward people that exist in our hobby.

Take me for example. I am a good writer (great when I can be bothered editing what I write), intelligent, a good teacher and trainer and great public speaker. BUT put me in a party where I have to talk about my self or about socially acceptable things and I clam up. I can’t stand large social gatherings. I get angry and upset at myself which turns into a brusqueness that people mistake for me being a complete and utter ass. I also am recovering from depression so mixing alcohol with that mix is a recipe for social awkwardness at best.

In game though I expect, and am expected to, run characters with social confidence. I can do this because it is a hat that I can put on that is not me but others may struggle to do this because of their issues. So, as a GM how do we handle a player’s ability to handle social interactions. Nearly every game has a social mechanic added to it and suggestions on how to handle that social nature of the game.

Inside each of these games there are suggestions on how to handle this material. Some games suggest if the players are comfortable then role-play it out. Others suggest players may not be as charismatic as their own characters and that is why the mechanic exists as it acts as an equalizer for the party. Of course there are a number of options that exist in between in many games and I think I have tried most of them over my gaming career. But which works the best.

It may or may not surprise you that it depends on two things. The first is the makeup of the party and the other is you, as the GM and your capabilities. The first thing you really need to look at is yourself. This is the one thing you have the most control over and hopefully the most understanding of. You need to do some self reflection and work out why you want to run a game that is at its heart a social game. It is all about the to and fro interaction between yourself and the group and how that dynamic works.

I do not want to scare you, especially if you are a new GM. But you must know your limitations. If you know you are going to struggle with social interaction, or more importantly, the roleplaying of social interaction look to the system you are using and get familiar with the system. Because it is the great equalizer. You can say to the players “The guard asks you for your identification again even though you have told him you don’t have any. This is going to need a bluff roll to get past.” That is all great. It equalizes things, especially if you have really experienced players who are trying to hog the limelight and railroad you into letting their honeyed words convince you.

The second piece of advice I have for you is this. Being a GM is wearing another hat. It is a role you can inhabit. NPC’s are other people you can play to. As a GM it is expected that you will act in these roles and it is your time to be able to inhabit the mind of someone else. Ham it up. Use this time to build your confidence and know that the longer you do this role the easier it gets. Sure it is demanding and people will look to you as an authority but you are also human and it is OK to muck up as well.

The second thing you need to look at is your group and the mix of players. There are a bunch of different player types that I don’t want to confuse you with here (but if you want, read my post about it at the Pathfinder Chronicles) but I need to say you will have players that enjoy a different style of play. Some of these players may be more socially capable than others so look to their characters as well. If a player is roleplaying their half-orc barbarian with a charisma of 3 as a fluent, socially capable character trying to convince a princess to give up some information, something is wrong.

This is also where the system can act as a great equalizer. With a mechanic then all players are equal. That said, though your group may roleplay to the character and you may be comfortable enough to run the roleplaying freeform. It is likely to cause you quite a bit of trouble over your career as a GM before you work out where that line exists in your game. The longer you run games, the quicker you will adapt to situations and be able to run game with different groups successfully, but you really need to know all the different styles out there for this type of material.

So, in short, my best advice is take a look at yourself, at your players and experiment. It can be daunting and it can also be fun but get in and give it a try. Put the hat on and GM like a demon and listen to your players. You will soon work out what they like and don’t. Keep rolling!

Mark Knights is 39 year old guy living in a small rural town called Elliott in Tasmania, Australia. I have been role playing since I was 11 years old playing the original versions of Dungeons and Dragons, MERP, Elric, Dragon Warriors and the like amongst other genre games. I played D&D 2nd Edition through the 90′s but I ran Earthdawn for my fantasy setting and loved it as a GM. When 3rd Edition came out for D&D I tried it but found it too heavy on rules. I ignored the 3.5 edition of DnD in favour of Earthdawn (big mistake) as I thought it was just a money spinner. When 4th Edition DnD came on my players and I gave it a red hot go but hated what it had dumbed the game down to be. On a trip to Melbourne to buy some 4E stuff from a hobby store an old mate of mine pointed me at Pathfinder and in a Fantasy setting I have never looked back.

Treasure Hunting at Half Price Books

Posted on November 6, 2013 by Iron Tavern Guest Blogger

In Columbus Ohio, where I live, we have a few local gaming stores and for various reasons I have given up on all of them. The reasons range from bad service, to disgusting and smelly stores, to false advertising, and fraud. It’s odd but price was never a reason, even though now that I don’t use them I get all my books much cheaper. I use Amazon for some things, but not as much as one might imagine.

Mostly I use the five Half Price books stores in the area. Half Price Books is a chain of used book stores where most of their items are half price. It is not a place to get the newest hot release in gaming, but a great source for older material, and not all of it is used. Each store has a good sized gaming section and one never knows what they will find there. I have gotten some amazing deals there for which Jeff, the owner of Iron Tavern, constantly gets mad at me for because he never seems to find the same deals I do. Sadly, none of the items I picked up were awesome deals. Each was under $10, but there is still the chance I over paid for them.

The first item I picked up was Role Aids Demons box set by Mayfair Games. It was published in 1992 or 1993 – the box has one copyright on it and the book has another. Either way it puts it in the days of second edition D&D when the names of monsters like Demons and Devils were replaced. It makes me wonder if this was written as a direct response to that.

It has some cool ideas, the best dealing with the classic making deals with the devil kind of things. In here the demons have an agreement with the gods on how they may interact with mortals. The best thing about the book is a 64 page player handout of an ancient book on Demon lore to help the players handle and deal with Demons.

The book has some hit and miss classes, spells, and magic items that seem creative but difficult to tell rules wise how they fair. I would just translate everything from here into a different gaming system. Another cool idea they have is a small table that gives examples of Demonic presence. It has suggestions on how people behave if they have made a deal, how the environment reacts to these other worldly figures, and in general it is a cool starting point to add some awesome flavor into the campaign. If I ever run a fantasy campaign again this is defiantly a resource I would like to make use of.

Another item I bought is the 1981 box set Bushido by Fantasy Games Unlimited. It is the third company to make the game in three years and I have no idea what, if any changes were made. It is credited with being the first RPG to focus on the Orient. It is a complex mess especially by today’s standards. I’m sure I would have loved it if I had the game thirty years ago, but not sure after seeing it now. While there are some really cool details and setting information, it seems like there is not much that can easily be pulled from to use elsewhere. It certainly is not a game I would want to try to learn to play. It will make a nice conversation piece next to Space Opera which is what the game reminded me of most because of the dense text and complex game mechanics. I was able to get the box set cheaper then what the PDF sells for, so there is that.

The last book I purchased is Chill RPG by Mayfair games from 1990. As horror RPGs go it is not too bad. I also don’t think it does a lot to separate itself. Even after reading it I’m not sure what makes a Chill game a Chill game. One thing the book does well is it comes with a small introductory pamphlet. This sums up the game very well and is easy to copy to hand out to players. It has a decent GM section for running horror games and offers some interesting and different takes on monsters and presents some that I have not seen elsewhere. I think it can offer some good inspiration but just does not stand up with other horror games these days.

Even though these are older out of print books that have seen their best days go by it doesn’t mean they are totally worthless. I pick up old books and games for inspiration for my new games. Sometimes it is fun to read them and see how things were done twenty and thirty years ago. I was gaming at the time but for whatever reason these books and box sets where completely unknown to me at the time. That is one of the reasons I like hunting for things at the local used book stores because I never know what I am going to find.

Flavor of Magic

Posted on November 4, 2013 by Iron Tavern Guest Blogger

In your campaign, do you flavor your magic? When a spell is cast is there some attempt to color the casting of it by description. Are they an interconnected style of casting like wisps shadows for necromancers, sparks of energy from an evocation specialists, rainbows of color falling from the illusionists hands. Do you allow the players to build up their own evocative descriptions of their casting of spells or does your table just use the spells as written?

Creating an immersive environment in a game relies on a lot more than just running an interesting plot or using interesting NPC’s, creatures and other threats. To provide an environment that helps the player lose themselves to the visualization it is often best to incorporate as many senses in your descriptions at once. Especially around the idea of magic in a Fantasy campaign as magic is often the backbone to a Fantasy campaign.

I always try to add something to my descriptions of a spell being cast. There is little of interest in simply saying “the mage reaches out and casts web”. Instead flavoring it produces a much more immersive environment like “the mage thrusts out his hand and a wad of sticky strands hurtle forward spinning outward causing a web to emerge as it grasps at your body”. Sure it takes more effort and a few more words but those words are worth so much more to the part of your players mind that is currently trying to visualize the action. It makes it real to them in a sense and they will easily become immersed in it.

But now my challenge is to take this technique and take it a little further. There is much more magic in the world apart from our mages. Take the cleric’s spells and energy channelling powers. How would their gods want this power to appear and manifest? Is it pure light of divinity or the whiff of sulfur from the pit. Rite Publishing’s Secrets of Adventuring offers up a really good level of information for the channelling powers of the cleric giving the appearance, sounds and senses involved as the cleric channels (in fact they make a new class called the Divine Channeler which is pretty damn cool).

But even further from this is the idea of magic items! Does the sword glow when it’s magic is operational? Does the ring clamp onto the finger tightly so that it cannot be removed easily? What about the robe of the archmagi? Such a powerful item surely exhibits some kind of behavior different to the robes of the other mages. perhaps it is self cleaning or powers a stronger aura for the wearer.

Fantasy games almost inevitably have the themes of magic right through them. There are magic poor fantasy worlds and games but there are very few (in fact I can’t think of one) if any fantasy games that do not address magic in the game. My suggestion to you as the GM is to think about how that should manifest in the game. You may want to make it complicated and ritualistic and layer every type of magic with a different appearance and feel or keep it a little more simple and simply have a few standard ideas to run with. But make sure you do do it. It makes the story and game that much more believable and immersive for your players.

Getting your players into a game can be difficult, keeping them playing week to week is another skill. You will have rules lawyers that will want to discuss the specifics of a spells description but that does not mean you can’t flavor it all up with some nice descriptive words first. Get the description right and then look at the detail. That way the more theatrical players will have their minds engaged while the more factual players can concentrate on the nuts and bolts.

A GM has to come to the table armed with a lot of skills. You are a relationship manager, a rules expert, an actor, an improviser and above all else you are the players senses in this imaginary world. Play that up and I guarantee you will make a stronger game and your players will love the approach of game time. Of course it is hard to get right all the time, but just try and with practice you will find this all happening automatically for you. Until next time, Keep rolling!

A Halloween Look at Dread

Posted on October 30, 2013 by Iron Tavern Guest Blogger

[Editor Note: A kind person noted that the PDF of Dread is on sale at DriveThruRPG right now for $3!]

It is the week of Halloween and time to talk about horror gaming. It is hard to scare people in RPGs. I’ve creeped people out and made them squeamish, but the only real scares have been accidental. One time we were playing D&D in my apartment and during a tense scene one of our friends who was late to the game banged on the window suddenly giving us all a fright.

Horror games are popular in RPGs, but so much of it is understood and the rules can be burdensome that it takes away from the horror aspect. One game though has found ways to bring a level of nervousness and uncertainty to the gaming table like many classic horror movies do and that game is Dread.

In 2006 I was an ENnies judge and the Dread RPG was submitted. We nominated it for Best RPG and Mutants and Masterminds 2e won the Gold and Game of Thrones won the Silver. Dread did not stand a chance against those games in popular vote but looking at it and the games it was up against that year only M&M has had a better showing since then. Dread is by far the most innovative RPG I had seen at the time. It uses a Jenga tower as its resolution mechanic. Some people see it as a gimmick and I know more than a few people that refuse to play the game because of that. But it works at creating tension and consequences for actions unlike anything I have seen. If one knocks over the tower your character dies. It is that simple and it makes the game unlike any other. I have seen someone knock the tower over with the very first pull. I have seen people knock over the tower on what is basically a perception check or knowledge check. It really makes one think about his character’s actions knowing that a failed pull can cost that character’s life.

Everyone knows Dread as the Jenga game but the most innovative part and the aspect of the game that is easiest to use in other games is character generation. The game is designed for one-shots and character sheets are a list of leading questions. The player answers the questions to define his character. Questions can sometimes be a challenge to come up with so one cool thing about the Dread RPG book is at the bottom of each page are sample questions like “Despite being a pacifist what situation always leads you to violence?” The question defines the character in a specific way but allows for the player to pick a situation their character will probably get into in the session. Most characters are a list of about a dozen questions but I personally prefer closer to eight. It takes less time to do and it is easier to fit that information into the session.

The summer I and the other judges nominated it for an ENnie I was playing a game at Origins where the GM used the question character generation to help enhance the game he was running. He had the dull character sheets with the mechanics and everything on it but allowed for the players to define some of the details of the character. I thought it was a great idea. I don’t use it all the time, but I like to include some questions when it works for the game.

Dread works best for horror and I have played with all kinds of horror scenarios. It seems easy to me to see how any horror movie or book can become a Dread scenario. But for people looking for sample Dread adventures there is Dread Tales of Terror issues one and two. Wastelands, the first one, has two adventures in it as well as some good advice for the game. Each adventure is a simple set up, one being in a post-apocalyptic world and the other one waking up in the local grocery store with only the other players characters around in an otherwise seemingly empty world. Precious Illusions, the second one, seems to push boundaries a little more. The first adventure there called Little White Birds deals with a children’s insane asylum and the second one, Beneath the Service, is a High School reunion with some very messed up classmates.

Dread is one of those games that most gamers should try at least once. It can be challenging to run, as there is an art on when to ask players for a pull (and how many) and when not to require a pull. It is also one of the few games that does not require the book to be run, though the book is helpful to read to aid with some problems that might come up – like what does one do if the tower is knocked over on the very first pull.

Diceless Roleplaying

Posted on October 28, 2013 by Iron Tavern Guest Blogger

If you are a follower of me on my blog at www.thepathfinderchronicles.com you may wonder what has overcome me this week. I have blogged about very little apart from creating some non player characters for a new game that is to be released (you can actually get the PDF now) to non-Kickstarter backers early in December called the Lords of Gossamer and Shadow written by Jason Durall and published by Rite Publishing. What is it about this game that I am so wound up about? The first thing that caught my eye about this game is it is a random free zone, or a diceless system if you want!

Back in the good old 1990’s a system was released that was revolutionary to the RPG industry in that it was a diceless system. The system was Erick Wujcik’s Amber and it caused quite a stir. Many gamers around me at the time turned their back on the game because they did not think it was roleplaying. It was collaborative storytelling at best and that was a bad, bad thing – apparently. I have always been someone that is fascinated with new things in RPG’s but with all the gamers around me having no interest I had to pass it by so never quite got my teeth into it.

I am not really sure what happened with Amber in the long run but I do know that the people who gave it a go, loved it. I am always on the lookout for a copy and they never show up. Then one day I am skipping through my Google Plus feed and an interesting image popped up that caught my eye. It is located at the bottom of the Rite Publishing’s page for the game, right down the bottom. It depicts a group of horned monsters in shadow who have just broken down a door and are attacking a group of people (who are all in the light). It is a fantastic little image and I went and investigated it a little bit more.

Turns out that the game was the Lords of Gossamer and Shadow which had been shared around a bit on the feed with the cover of the book as the image. It had interested me, just not enough to click on it by that stage. What I found is this game was considered by some the “spiritual successor” to Amber. In fact it used Amber’s diceless system but applied a new setting to the game. I downloaded the preview of the game and set to reading it.

Diceless got me in to the system and in reality it is not a scary mechanic by any stretch of the imagination. Sure, it takes a lot of the random nature away from the game but you still have stats, powers and the like. There is a set of cohesive rules that work to create the game and guide the GM to provide a fair and equitable game. There are rules for player death, damage, fighting and the like. So what is different? Well largely the decisions of the players are dictated by two things, attributes and tactics. Put two characters in a room where no tactics can come into play and have a contest of attributes, the highest attribute wins every time. However, if the lower attribute character can create an advantage for themselves through their actions it may be a different thing altogether.

The focus is really on roleplaying in the game. The building of the story and having the GM as an arbiter of the final outcomes from the players actions. A lot of the people I have spoken to believe that it is all by GM caveat but I would argue this after having read the full rules (as a Kickstarter backer I have early access to the rules PDF) that this is not the case. There are rules that are clear on what needs to be done. This game is going to be as much a revolution to me as it was the first time I played FATE or Dungeon World.

While the system has me really interested, it is the setting that has me completely enamored. I have played systems before that promise you can build any type of game or world you want but this game offers a setting where anything, anything can be encountered. The premise is you play a powerful character (in essence they would be considered a God on Earth) that has access to a Grand Stair which has doors attached to it. Through each of these doors is a connected reality that you walk into. That connected reality could in essence be any type of world or space possible, as long as it has a door to travel through. So in essence, I suppose the only reality it can’t represent is one without a door.

This means you can play any style of character from a D&D Dragonborn to a creature from the Hellraiser books because the travellers of the Grand Stair all come from one of these realities where they develop the ability to, or find a key to open the door onto the Grand Stair and then everything changes for them.

So the reason I am truly excited about this? (Sorry but this needs to be capitalized) BIGGEST SANDBOX EVER! A lot of the feel for the game has the characters utilizing weapons of a fantasy type, and there is a reason for this, but they will travel through sci-fi, horror, fantasy and all kinds of genres if you want them to. They will have no idea until they step through the door (not strictly true, there is a power that helps) until they turn the handle.

If you are a fan of Amber, or you want to investigate a new game that has an unbelievable number of narrative possibilities I suggest you keep an eye out for this. I am lead to believe that you can get the PDF from the web page at Rite Publishing so if you can’t wait, check it out! Keep rolling.

Fantasy Game Diversity

Posted on October 21, 2013 by Iron Tavern Guest Blogger

Well, my past week researching the suggestions you offered me last week has kept me very busy! There were a good number of suggestions and I spent a good deal of time investigating them. I watched some gaming videos of a few games and I also downloaded the freebies of the games that were suggested that came with the premium price tag of free!

There is one thing that I can say for the fantasy RPG market after doing all of this research and that is RPG’s are thriving. There are the big players of Pathfinder and D&D but so many more that are very good. Dungeon World has a great following and it does have some great ideas to explore though it is not really my cup of tea. Dungeon Crawl Classics was mentioned but it really did not have what I was after either.

13th Age was something I had been dying to look at for a while but after watching a few of the videos that are online for the game I have to say it was not the game I was looking for either. Maybe one to follow up at a later stage but definitely not the one that I needed for my friend. I went over a few of the games I still had lurking around my iPad like D6 Fantasy and even Hero Kids but none of them seemed to suit.

I then went and looked at the Dungeonslayers game. I have to say that this was the game that came the closest to our needs but the talent bloat got a little too much in the same way that Feats make Pathfinder a little bloated. Dungeonslayers is a really good option though. It is simple, smart and customizable. Everything that I asked for in fact.

The talent bloat problem was a little too much though so my friend and I have started to build a system up that borrows from quite a few other games. Pathfinder, Dungeonslayer, James Bond, Earthdawn, D&D and a few others to boot! The system that we will come up with will have a basic ideal of describing all of the actions that are possibly available for a player. From that point each basic character will get a standard set of these actions that it is considered everyone can do and then the players will use a point buy system to specialize their characters with other actions to form a character of their own concept.

I was kind of surprised that a system similar to this did not already exist and the system will actually double for the backbone system of the game that I am creating too. I have changed the system three times already but there is a different feel to this system. After discussing it for a bit it is a system I can see myself playing. It has crunch and customizability. It will allow a player to grow their fantasy character with no need for level advancement and no stricture of a class to follow. Their may be restrictions applied by the GM but in reality the game can customize near any character concept that you can think of.

This is down to you, the readers of the Iron Tavern and your free advice for me when I asked about the systems out there. So thank you. The system will be offered free and we have done a lot of the heavy lifting (well thinking) and now just need to do the writing to bring it all together. Hopefully one day it will come to be as well respected as Dungeonslayers! Until next week, keep rolling!

Fantasy System Customization

Posted on October 14, 2013 by Iron Tavern Guest Blogger

Today I come to you asking for help. I am trying to find a system that matches requirements for a certain type of play style that arose out of a conversation I got involved in yesterday. I was asked recently by an American friend to investigate games based on customizability. There was a large discussion about the systems we know about and I think he shaped precisely what he wanted from that discussion. We talked Pathfinder a little and I lamented about the one thing I don’t really love about the system that was introduced with D&D 3rd Edition and that is Feats.

What my friend is wanting to do is find a game where he can take an off the rack class (say a fighter) and through options of customization, turn him into a stalwart defender so to speak. Or it might be he wants a rogue that customizes to become an excellent burglar. Just the ability to take an off the rank archetype and make it your own. I talked a bit about feats as they were topical at the time I joined the conversation and I stated how I really did not like them. Feats as a tool for customizability are good but they make the rules systems intricate and complex.

I have been watching a person on Google Plus (Keith J Davies) who is currently trying to model the feats and their dependencies in UML (maybe, but definitely some kind of flow chart) and he is coming up with some intensely complicated diagrams. These diagrams are just for the requirements too! Let us hope he doesn’t try to model the effects also! From a GM perspective, feats are a nightmare as there are hundreds of them and they all essentially change, tweak or break the rules in some way. In an ideal world the players would all know their own feats but I get asked at least once a game what a feat does. Not to mention the NPC feats and monster feats that you have to be across to utilize your opponents well.

OK, feat rant over. They are good for customization but they introduce a massive bloat in complication. Once we had reached this point in our discussion we started to look more broadly at the customizability of other games. D&D Next was looked at favorably apart from the removal of the skill system introduced also in 3rd Edition D&D which we thought limited the customization of a character. Instead the system relies on a very poor amount of proficiencies (taking it back to similar to first and second editions). Dragon Age was mentioned as a possible option though we do not like the proprietary feel of the system. Exalted came up and was looked at favorably but the “charms” it uses create new rules and thus has the same problem as Pathfinder with every “charm” offering more complexity to the game.

So what I guess we are looking for is a fantasy system that does the following things;

offers a healthy level of character customization so you can build different characters from the one archetype;
contains a skill system that is variable (i.e. not a binary system of you know it or you don’t, but a system that offers levels of understanding)
customization mechanics need to build off present rules so that the effects only modify what any character can already do
customization options must not be “overly” extensive (i.e. there can’t be so many that the games complication outweighs its usability); and
it has to be a game with a certain amount of “crunch” value (where “crunch” means a robust rules set and the game is not considered rules-lite)

This is a challenge that I put out to you all dear players and GM’s of the interwebs. We all have our favorite systems (and despite my rant about Pathfinder feats it is still one of my favorites) and I am hoping that for some of you the points above may be ringing true. There are a lot of fantasy systems out there and hopefully one will fit the bill. Do you feel the game that you play meets those dot points? Does the game you play fit the points because you house ruled it? Do you feel that these points would represent a game you would like to try or do you not value customization in a game? Please help us out and share your systems with me that you think will meet our needs. Until next week, keep rolling.

Review: Edge of the Empire

Posted on October 9, 2013 by Iron Tavern Guest Blogger

Edge of the Empire is the newest iteration of a Star Wars RPG. West End Games had the license in the 1990’s with their d6 system. Wizards of the Coast had in in the 2000’s with their d20 Star Wars and then Star Wars Saga versions of the game. I am a sucker for Star Wars. I own the previous games and have a copy of each supplement for those games which is a ridiculous amount of material. I have run and played in many different Star Wars campaigns in those systems and some were very successful and others were less than great. My group is now playing Edge of the Empire so this review is a reflection of reading the book and playing the game.

The big difference people talk about first with Edge of the Empire is the dice. It does not use normal dice so one needs to either buy the overpriced special dice they sell or use normal dice (d6s, d8s, and d12s) and conversation charts. There are seven different types of dice the game uses but right now I’m not going to talk about the force die as that doesn’t interact with the other six. There is the Ability die, Proficiency die, and boost die that are all positive helping the character to succeed, Then there is the Difficulty die, the Challenge die, and the setback die that are negative and hinder the characters. Each die side has one or two pictures on them with some sides blank. Players collect the different pictures they roll to determine success and failure and if they can get an advantage or disadvantage. The dice are measuring two different things so it is possible to not succeed but still create some kind of positive advantage for your team or succeed in the action but create some kind of disadvantage. Other games have done this with less dice and less complexity. Once the symbols are collected the players look up skills or combat tables to see what they can do. In hearing groups play it seems they don’t do this they just play it by ear which would be faster. However, under each skill description in the book there are ways to spend these symbols. The other issue is that for most gamers one cannot just look at the dice about to be rolled and have an idea of their chance to succeed or fail. I’m sure by now someone has sat down and figured out the odds with different dice combinations but most gamers won’t spend the time doing that. Gamers I see just roll and hope for the best not having any idea if they should be succeeding or failing.

Character creation is simple and fast. It is a class system without levels. I would have liked different names for the classes or as they call them Careers. I feel anyone for instance can be a Bounty Hunter and have different skill sets for success. While the game allows for a good amount of customization one still has to have the career of Bounty Hunter to be a Bounty Hunter. Each career has three specializations. Extra specializations can be bought with XP and one can even buy specializations from other careers though they all more expensive. Each specialization gives access to a talent tree. Talent trees are a mix of unique and not unique powers. Too many of them I feel get rid of penalties or add a small bonus. The different talents are not equal and some are much better than others. Like many systems most of the talent trees force a character to buy lesser and in some cases useless talents to get to the better ones.

The game uses two types of hit points. Health, which is more physical damage, and strain that is more mental and comes back easier. One problem this can cause is tough characters will have a high health but a low strain so it can be much easier to just attack a characters strain. It is really easy to do as most guns have a stun setting and that targets strain. It is also easy to create a character almost impossible to damage. The game of course focuses heavily on combat but even with just the options of the first book optimizing is very easy. The focus on combat does come at a cost as there are no language rules in the game so it is impossible to know who can understand who even though the game makes a clear point that some of the species offered in the book cannot speak basic. There is also no translator in the equipment section which I thought was odd since it is referenced in other areas of the book. The equipment section in general is sparse. There are a lot of weapons and armor but little of anything else.

The Force is treated like a talent tree that any character except droids can buy. To use the force one rolls a force die but with more sides being the dark side it means that characters are likely to be forced to use the dark side if they want to do anything. I can see a force user coming up with a cool idea, rolling a force die, and then say they are doing nothing because they don’t want to lose their character to the dark side.

Okay, that all was a bit negative as the game fails in a lot of small areas. The dice system does allow for a better variety of outcomes instead of the usual hit miss. It can help players be creative with coming up with different ways to use an advantage. It is new so that helps it and it will be interesting to see if people still like it in a couple of years. The options available to characters are pretty open. Aside from the limited number of species in the book most characters from the movies can be created here. It specifically doesn’t allow PCs to be Jedi but the book does have them to fight which was an interesting choice. Droids do seem to be the most powerful species in the game and it is the only option in the book I would have left out.

In the end the book is Star Wars. It wants to do something more akin to the Han Solo and Lando Calrission books. The Bounty Hunter trilogy and collection of short stories is another good source of inspiration from Star Wars novels. Of course since the game does not want to use Jedi and not much of the Empire perhaps Firefly becomes the best material to base a campaign on. The game does give the group some kind of transport as their ship to emphasis the ship crew dynamic. Edge of the Empire when compared to the other Star Wars RPGs does allow for better customization then the d20 based games and does not look like it will break down as fast as the d6 game. It is rather conservative on character power and that might just be the best thing the game has going for it comparatively.

What Do You Prefer? High or Low?

Posted on October 7, 2013 by Iron Tavern Guest Blogger

Magic. That all encompassing power that pervades the fantasy worlds we all love and play in. Pathfinder’s Golarion world cover the gamut of high and no magic. Most campaign worlds tend to stick to one or the other though. Forgotten Realms is definitely a land full of magic while Greyhawk is a lot more middle of the road and Conan’s world is definitely low magic punctuated by individuals of great power.

I am keen to try different things with magic. I liked the idea presented in Pathfinder’s Ultimate Magic of Words of Power being an archaic but still functional form of magic but it is a little hard to get my head around how a secondary magic system works in the system. This desire to find something that works well is also why I recently supported the Spheres of Magic Kickstarter hoping that they will come up with a good alternative to the specific spell systems used in Pathfinder. There are just so many spells in Pathfinder and in my experience a player will read the title and expect the GM to know the rest. Well with that many spells available we don’t know them by heart, so learn your spells.

Right, rant over. So why is there such a variety of different magical settings? Magic is magical isn’t it? Everyone should love a high magic setting and a lot of people do. High magic settings always seem to fall into settings of high civilization and neat approachable fantasy lines. There are some that fall in love with the low magic settings run to a gritty realistic experience in game. Every game is a struggle and finding a magical item is like the culmination of several sessions of story arc. That +1 dagger forged from cold iron is exactly what we need to take down the demonic army feel! In a lot of games the magic system is the core that a lot of the rest of the material is born off of.

Consider Conan for a moment. And I mean Howard’s Conan, not the silver screen incarnations. He is a barbarian that wields his blade with utter faith that each strike will fall true and he is capable of dealing with any situation. Imagine if a sword that guided his hand and burst into flames at times was found by him. He would throw it away scared of the magic and the demons that may possess him. But in most standard fantasy systems that are well known you cannot play the magic fearing barbarian as the systems are actually balanced on magic use. Conan would not be able to take on the demons with the sword he carries as it would be completely ineffectual based on this balance.

My point with the Conan decision is to play a fantasy game in a certain way you may actually need to make hard decisions about the system that you are going to use. There are some expectations that I have shown above as to what type of system you are likely to get with a basic presumption of high or low magic. There are some that break the mould (Earthdawn is high magic but gritty realistic feel) but in general they will be high magic, highly civilized; middle magic, standard adventuring fare; and low magic, gritty struggle for life most days!

Of course, all of the above is just conjecture and opinion based on my experiences. I have found out that there are a lot more game styles out there that I could ever imagine and I learn a lot from reading all of your comments. Tell me I am wrong, but also tell me why. Show me the proof of these things. Tell me why I am so old school because of my examples, but most of all tell me about your experiences! Tell me if it is high, low or middle magic that you prefer and why it is so. Do you see yourself in the Lord of the Rings where magical items beyond weapons were but myths that only the high wizards and elven rulers used or are you akin to Elminster of the Forgotten Realms with rooms full of magical trinkets because they are so pervasive in the world. Or are you Conan, wandering the wilds destroying the sorcerers and their items one individual at a time. Tell me in the comments which it is that you prefer and why! Keep rolling.

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