New Classics: The Bonegarden

Posted on August 28, 2013 by Iron Tavern Guest Blogger

Necromancer games hit the ground running back in the early days of third edition D&D. Not many companies had a clear direction with their products. Very simply they had the slogan “Third Edition Rules, First Edition Feel” and they lived up to that. Their adventures were usually longer and more in-depth than others being produced at the time. Their adventures also were a bit more out there and had unusual and creative backdrops. For my fifth New Classic line of blog posts I look at the Bonegarden, a sandbox style module written for third edition D&D but easily converted into other systems.

The great thing about Bonegarden is the multiple ways it can be used. There is not a plot or assumed path for the module. There is no one hook that bring the PCs into the place. The module is designed for characters of about twelfth to fourteenth level, but with different encounter areas it could be used as a difficult place for lower level characters that just need to get in and out with no need for dealing with the whole place. The Bonegarden is a very large cemetery. It is surrounded by a magical field that keeps the undead contained but also makes it difficult for characters to get out. Undead in the Bonegarden are more powerful than those elsewhere and the module covers the reasons for this. The part that makes the Bonegarden especially deadly is that every night all the undead that were destroyed in the previous twenty four hours come back to unlife, so to speak.

The one hundred and twenty eight page module is filled with undead. There is a wide variety of them here including many new ones that were in the Tome of Horrors. There are fifteen new creatures and templates in the book. My favorite is the undead mimic. Mimics are always fun and having an undead version is clever, as when players are thinking undead they usually are not thinking about mimics. There are some new feat options and spells in here, but the new magical items are more interesting. The Pieces of Her Heart is a sad artifact with a unique history and it offers interesting abilities as one collects the different pieces of this broken heart.

Inside the Bonegarden there are many different encounter areas. The module has wandering monster tables and is one of the few modules that I think makes really good use of them. There are all types of generic undead one can encounter in here and the undead always come back. Many of the different encounter areas have their own hooks. This can make them easy to use sections without the need to use the whole module. There are also plenty of empty areas a DM can insert in their own encounters and buildings with their own undead creations.

Not everything in the Bonegarden is dead though. There is a group of survivors that use one of the buildings as a place of protection. They are dying off slowly but the group is using smart tactics to stay alive. They are not the oddest thing in there either. There is a large spaceship of fantastic design that has crashed there. One could easily make it an ancient spelljammer or something more like the tech of Numeria from the Pathfinder setting.

Like most of the books I look at, this one never seemed to get its due when published. Now one can easily find a copy for less than ten dollars. It was a fun module when I ran it for my group many years ago. There is a lot of things going on but nothing so complex or so huge that is overshadows everything else. It is a great undead sandbox adventure.

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.

What is Coming up Next?

Posted on August 26, 2013 by Iron Tavern Guest Blogger

I have publicly declared my dislike for Fourth Edition Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) much to the chagrin of many fans of the system. I did not take this lightly, as my group and I played the system for over a year solid but we found we were just not getting any enjoyment out of it. That is when a friend of mine pointed me at Pathfinder and I have step by step been indoctrinated into the system. I even publicly stated that I would not even look at 5th edition D&D as they had lost me with the franchise.

A few days ago though a blog from Mike Mearls who is the senior manager for D&D R&D at Wizards of the Coast (WotC) entitled “The Final Countdown” caught my eye. He talks in it about how the public playtest has gone, what they learnt from it and what is to come. It appears the final playtest is almost over and that the recent release to the DnD Next community was to be the last before they did the hard work working out the maths of a balanced system and creating what will become the 5th Edition of D&D. I had previously downloaded the Next documents as I had mentioned to Jeffrey Tadlock (the fine proprietor of the Iron Tavern) that I may do a review or two. When I looked at it though I just could not bring myself to get into it. I saw good and bad in the first few pages and so I left it.

But this blog has gotten me to download the system again and I have been doing some reading of the contents over the past few days. What in this article got me to reconsider? It was this quote from Mike that offered me hope “So, what did we learn from the public playtest? In some cases you confirmed things, in others you dispelled some notions that had become lodged in R&D’s view of you.” Then he lists his five points that they learnt the most which were:

We like simplicity. We like games where we are up and running quickly and are able to create games quickly with simple tools
We want classes that can contribute in every situation though we are OK with specialised classes if they balance things out on a broader scale
We want tools that build adventures quickly and easily allowing us to focus on the plot rather than the mechanics
We like flexible rules. Give us a general rule that can be applied across many instances rather than a rule for every situation
We want a game that will fit several styles of play and above all, a game that works

So I have now retracted my statements about fifth edition and I am looking at the Next material through new eyes. If the D&D R&D take the above five points on in the system D&D should be looking like a very good game. I have read a bit of the material now and am ready to make a few overall observations on the new material. I have double checked the FAQ page and the people over at WotC are happy for me to blog about my experience with the system and so here we go.

I am really quite excited about what I have read and seen so far in the system. I was trying to explain it to my Pathfinder players last Tuesday night by saying that the system felt like a nod to the retro systems without it actually being retro. I really do feel like I am reading D&D, not a complete rehash of the system! The system feels restrained, checked, simple. I really felt it was a bit like Dungeon World with some of the ways that it has reigned its previous editions excesses in. The system has been scaled back and a lot of effort has been placed into making the character classes have a lot of flavor and role-playing potential. Previous editions really seemed to lose a lot of the character class flavor and they have drawn it right back in this edition.

The core classes remain, and I mean core. The Cleric, Fighter, Mage (no longer Wizard) and Rogue make up the core contingent of classes with Barbarian, Druid, Monk, Paladin and Ranger also present as options that are not pure classes. But each of these have a really distinct feel to them that makes me feel retro but offers some great color to the classes. It is not only the classes that have had an injection of flavor, the whole text has with many Forgotten Realms references made in examples (this crushed one of my players who loves Greyhawk!).

All the traditional races are present with some variants (e.g. High Elf) so you will find the Dwarf, Elf, Gnome, Half-Elf, Half-Orc, Halfling and Human in these pages. Variants are treated as off-shoots of the main race so you would find the High Elf detailed in the Elf section. Again, these are delightfully portrayed and have a nice flavor to most of the races with only the half-breeds being terse on information apart from their statistical effects.

Skills have gone by the wayside, kind of. They have now been wrapped up as attribute rolls. You do not get skill points to spend each level so it really depends on your statistics how well you are at most of the skills that were included in third and fourth edition. For example, if you wanted to patch up a bleeding companion it would ordinarily require a Heal check but now it requires a Wisdom roll.

The rules on How to play are fantastic. I was through them so quickly that I was shocked! They have some great rules supporting a very intuitive, simple system! Intuitive and simple? Words I never thought I would say in connection with D&D again! I laughed out loud after the combat section because it was so simple and so short that I figured there had to be more. But you know what? There wasn’t and it looks like it will work seamlessly which is something I craved for in these games. One of the problems I had with third and fourth edition was the fact that anytime someone moved you had to reach for a rulebook to see if it met one of four hundred different criteria for various triggers (yes, I know I am exaggerating but not much).

Feats exist still but they are not the broad range of multi-configurable minor benefit wielding mechanics that they used to be. In fact they are entirely optional and to take a Feat you have to give up one of the flavor powers that are offered to your class. There are only twenty odd Feats listed in the section although I am sure that will grow before the final product is released.

That is about as far as I have looked in the system so far, although I have flicked through the Bestiary and made one major discovery. Things have really been toned back. Do not expect to see creatures in the coming edition with horrendously huge Armour Classes any more. their stats have been toned right down as has the increase in player character to hit bonuses etc. But I will talk to that after I have actually run a game of the system which I hope to do soon. There is no telling how good a system is just from reading it so I already have a couple of people keen to give Next a run before next week where I hope to do a play review of the system here for the Iron Tavern. Until then, 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.

En Route Encounters

Posted on August 21, 2013 by Iron Tavern Guest Blogger

It has been a while since I ran a good sandbox fantasy campaign. I like the adventure paths and enjoy going through them, but they are linear and it can be tough to really have the feeling of go anywhere and try to do anything. Even though I haven’t run that kind of campaign lately I still hold on to and seek out books that aid in that kind of campaign. There are not a lot out there that are easily adaptable and portable into different fantasy games and worlds. This week I am going to look at three books of the En Route series by Atlas Games for their Penumbra line. These books offer a variety of different encounters that can easily be dropped into almost any fantasy campaign.

The En Route series of books boasts some impressive writers. We have author credits by Keith Baker, Brannon Hollingsworth, Chris Aylott, Spike Jones, Justin Achilli, and many other familiar names. The first two are written for 3e and the third is written for 3.5 ed D&D using the OGL, but these are very mechanics light products making them very easy to port into any other fantasy game. Since the books are older it should be easy to find them relatively cheap. A quick look on Amazon.com shows they can be purchased for around $5 a piece.

The En Route series are books featuring simple encounters designed to be used when the PCs are traveling from one place to another. Some are for on the road, in a city, a tavern, in a forest, on the sea, and other places. There is a variety of different locations with some unusual ones like in a goblin encampment or whenever the party teleports. Each encounter is a bit more in depth with great plot ideas that a DM can carry forward. This is one of the great things I like about the books, the encounters can be throw away encounters the PCs run into and then can forget about. But I like encounters that might originally feel like that but a DM can cleverly use something established there and showcase it later in the campaign. I think it helps tie different adventures together and helps the players remember what is happening in the campaign because they know something that is happening now can come back and help or hinder them in the future.

Between the three books there are approximately 50 different encounters. Each covers about four to eight pages. There are simple ones like the Door. It is designed for second level characters and while wandering a road they encounter signs that say something like “Are you Worthy?” and “Do you think you have what it takes?”. Ahead off to the side of the road is a small trail that leads to a door in the side of a rock facing covered in mystical runes and animal carvings. The door is locked and trapped. What lies behind the door will be remembered by the party.

There is the Haunting Place, which says it is for level 10 but I would reduce it to lower level. The magic of a level 10 party could easily make this encounter too easy or they could kill the creature they are trying to help. It is built on the idea of a summoned monster trying to get home but there is a communication problem between it and anyone it tries to get to help it. It can really set the scene for a spooky encounter as the players are trying to figure out exactly what is going on.

Many of the encounters are not combat encounters. Some use illusions or tricks to set up situations that are not quite apparent to the players at first. One of my favorites is the Glass House by Keith Baker. It is a simple situation in which a magical experiment inside in Inn turns the place and everyone inside invisible. The PCs are assumed to be outside and witness the Inn and everyone vanish. There is a mystery of what happened and how to undo it all but it sets up for some fun and different kind of encounter.

The En Route series is perfect for DMs looking for something a little extra to help out a gaming session or serve as a small distraction. None of them will take a full session or even a half of session but all of them could if the DM wants to put in a little work to add additional levels of complexity. I like these for a sandbox campaign as it would be easy to just have the books handy and grab them when needed. There are a few that could be used in Adventure Paths to just put in something different and not directly connected to the AP. Most of them are for lower level groups and any of these that say they are for higher ones like level 10 and up I would pay close attention to, as most of them I feel would work better for lower level characters. There is a lot of creativity and cleverness in these books coming from authors who were not as well-known as they are today.

Do You Tarrasque?

Posted on August 19, 2013 by Iron Tavern Guest Blogger

I have never, as a player, been caught in a game with a Tarrasque. Have you? This creature is one of the most iconic creatures in all the bestiary books I have ever read. We have seen at least five different official versions over time and there is always one thing that can be said about the Tarrasque, and that is you just can’t keep it down. Ever. Period. Don’t mess with it because it will kill you.

The Tarrasque has always been an open topic of conversation at the D&D and Pathfinder tables. It is said if a GM ever tires of his current campaign the certain way to end it is to introduce a Tarrasque. But what are the origins of such a beast. When it got placed in the Pathfinder Bestiary I realized that the adorable little critter (not) was’t the Intellectual Property (IP) of Wizards of the Coast (WotC) as I had previously believed. I became curious as to the origins of such an iconic creature in the game so I went and looked at books (yes, the paper kind) and the internet to track some information down. Was there a high level adventure hiding somewhere that I could take advantage of debasing the myth that the Tarrasque was a simple rampaging creature full of wrath and destruction?

The legend of St. Martha is actually the source of the Tarrasque story and it stems from a book of legends called the “Golden Legend” which was penned in the mid 1200’s although more was added through the years. Over a thousand manuscripts of this book has survived as it was exceptionally popular in its time. The source of the story comes from France where there was a dragon like creature known as the Taresque who lived in and around the Nerluc area in Provence, France. The creature was laying waste to a wide swathe of territory and nothing seemed to be able to stop it.

The Taresque of legend was not the colossal magical beast of the D&D books. In fact it was said to have six short bear legs, an ox-like body covered by a turtle shell, a scaly scorpion tail and the head of a lion. It was said to burn anything it touched which was the way it was ruining the land. It is unclear if this was before or after it had been attacked by knights and catapults though so it may have been peaceful before it. Regardless, anything they fought with could not defeat the creature.

Enter our heroine, St. Martha. Understanding the damage the creature was causing, she sought out the creature in the hope that her faith in God would protect her and change the Tarasque to a creature of God. On finding the creature St Martha placated the creature with hymns and readings from the Christian book. The creature joined with St Martha who took it to the city to show the people there that the creature was not a threat. As she approached with the creature the people of the city rose up and attacked the beast in fear. The Taresque did not fight back in any way and the city folk killed the creature with their hatred.

After the destruction of the creature St Martha preached to the masses and converted them to christianity. Ashamed at what they had done to the Taresque the newly converted followers of christianity renamed their town to Tarascon in honour of the creature.

There are obviously quite a few differences between the Tarrasque of D&D or Pathfinder and the Taresque of St. Martha’s Legend. But the tale does offer an interesting insight into perhaps the way it could be used in a game. The Taresque of legend appears to have had little overt intelligence but it was aware enough to make choices and this is reflected in the statistics of the Tarrasque as found on the Pathfinder Reference Document (PRD) here. Obviously the creature would listen to reason and therefore had a good Wisdom again reflected in statistics. It does appear in the legend that the creature itself was not an angry rampager in its infancy and it was likely the intervention of man attacking it that caused it to rampage, so it was likely a Neutral creature reacting to being attacked, again reflected in the statistics.

Where the Tarrasque of the game differs though is basically on every other aspect. It is a colossal creature which is not reflected by the statistics. It looks different to the legend representation, it regenerates (even if it has been disintegrated!) and no known method has been found to kill it! In the statistics it truly does seem that this creature is something a GM uses when they have had enough! The only time I have ever used one was in a what if scenario with a mate of mine. It was “What if a Tarrasque met a Hekatonkheires Titan (Bestiary 3). By the way, the Titan won just by stunning the Tarrasque, beating it down to below 0 HP and then banishing it to another dimension.

Using the St. Martha legend you could handle the Tarrasque a different way though. Perhaps even using the same story line where the monstrous beast is simply found and attacked out of fear as your high level party approach the area. The Tarrasque retaliates out of anger for being threatened and disturbed and the players need to find a way to get through to the creature instead of finding a way to destroy the beast. This creature does not need to be the death of the party, in fact it could be a great ally in a time of need if they take the time to solve the beasts issue and the issue those that attacked it have.

I always find it interesting to look at the history of creatures. Find their folklore or legend origins and you will likely find a seed for an adventure. I have never heard of anyone (seriously) using a Tarrasque in a game yet it reappears edition after edition as this gigantic monstrosity. It generates a lot of discussion at the table and while I am sure there is a lot of visits to the Tarrasque page to check its statistics there are very few games that have ever employed one. I am keen to hear in the comments from those that have used one in a serious way or for those of you that have ideas on how else you could introduce the Tarrasque to your game. Let me know, and until next week, keep rolling!

Gen Con – A Reflection

Posted on August 14, 2013 by Iron Tavern Guest Blogger

Gen Con is a gaming convention held yearly in Indianapolis. It features role playing games, board games, card games, and LARPs. If there is only one gaming convention people go to a year it is usually this one. This is the first year that it has been held in Indianapolis that I have not gone. I’m just a few hours away by car and I have plenty of friends to share a room with. But it just was not in the cards this year. It saddens me as there are a lot of friends that I only see there. Gen Con for me is not about gaming it is about the friends I have gained through gaming. For the socially awkward introverts like myself that is something to really cherish.

Gen Con is huge. It is really hard to imagine how big it is even if you are there. There are sections of the convention that people are not aware of because they focus on events some people are not interested in. I make an effort to walk around to all the places in the convention hall and all the rooms in the many different hotels that they use just so I can get a better appreciation of it all. There are all kinds of board and RPGs being run at all hours. They have GMs sign up to run games and then people buy tickets for these events. It is one of the main attractions at the conventions. People can sign up for games they know and love or try out ones that they have not been able to play before. It is a great way to get an idea of what else is out there in the industry. It is a part of Gen Con I avoid. I don’t like their system to sign up for events and I have better luck with games at smaller conventions. In all my time at Gen Con I have only played in one event and that was True Dungeon which I really disliked. I have run three games there and those were done as a favor for a friend who asked me to help him run some events. I play and run games with my large group of friends off book. We have our own GMs and a huge player pool. We do RPGs and board games and some card games and even miniatures.

I don’t think Gen Con likes that we do this. One year we had games organized on Google Calendar and Gen Con asked us to take it down. We used to use the open gaming space in the Hyatt and Gen Con people would harass us and then that spaced vanished. Now Open Gaming is in the convention center in smaller space that is never open. We would use table in the Embassy Suites but last year they were even cracking down on those and limiting when they could be used. I’m sure they are cracking down on all kinds of events that don’t bring the convention money. It doesn’t make me want to sign up for their events. It makes me want to game elsewhere.

My Gen Con experiences are about the people. I know gamers that fill their convention with events but that is too much pressure. I take a more laid back approach. I’ll schedule a game or two each day leaving plenty of time for just meeting and talking to people. I would spend time walking around and just see who I might run into and if they have a free hour to hang out with them. I’m a morning person so I would always be up early and I knew which of my other friends would be up and we would get a nice breakfast somewhere. It is a great way to start off the day with breakfast and good gaming conversations with good friends before the masses wake up.

Nights are filled with parties. I will attend more parties at Gen Con than I will the rest of the year. I do not drink alcohol, so that activity at the parties is lost on me. But after a few hour of conversation there is usually some people just wanting to play something so we will throw together a board game or some kind of gaming event. Even if we don’t there are few things better then talking and not drinking with friends.

The dealer hall is a big focus of the convention for many gamers. It is the place that the vendors are and it has reduced hours. There is always some hot new item that hundreds of people want and that causes the ‘Running of the Fatbeards’. It is not complimentary term. The doors will open and hundreds of people will run in trying to buy what they want. I’ve seen it and it looks dangerous. I’m really surprised no one has been trampled yet. It is only luck no one gets injured. Convention Staff just stand back and try not to get hurt themselves. I used to spend a lot of money in the dealer hall. As the years have gone by though the old out of print books I want, I mostly have. There are fewer and fewer items being made that interest me. It is the great irony of a gamer. When you are young you have all kinds of time to play games but no money to do so. When you get older you have the money but no longer the time.

One hassle in Indy is that Gen Con doesn’t seem to get the city to itself. There are usually other events going on that clash with Gen Con. Sometimes it is other conventions, or a preseason football game, or some kind of motorcycle rally. This can make it difficult to get a hotel or parking. Parking is expensive, at least compared to the large cities near me. It is about three times more expensive there. Hotels are also not cheap, especially if one likes to do like I do and arrive Tuesday and leave on Monday. It is more expensive but worth it. I’ve stayed in seven different hotels there and a condo. None of them have been bad.

Gen Con is a great experience and something I look forward to every year. I am sad I am not there now and not going to enjoy the great experiences. It is not a perfect convention by any means and I know the way I experience it is going to be very different from how other people do.

The Importance of Fiction

Posted on July 25, 2013 by Iron Tavern Guest Blogger

Recently I have been getting really into my new campaign using the excellent 13th Age, created by D&D alumni Rob Hiensoo and Jonathan Tweet.

I have seen a number of comparisons between 13th Age and Dungeon World and quite rightfully so, they are both modern, innovative, narrative-driven games, that primarily focus on dungeon crawling and fantasy adventures.

As many of you will know, Dungeon World comes with a number of “principles” for the GM baked into the system. These principles are more like GM advice than actual rules, they don’t have any mechanical impact, rather they help you run a fun and exciting RPG. Most of them can be applied to any tabletop role-playing game, and I think many of them are particularly poignant to a 13th Age game.

One principle in particular that I want to talk about is: “Start and end with the fiction.” If you are a GM go ahead and write these words on an index card and place it face up on the table so everyone can see it, or pin it to your GM screen facing the players. You want everyone at the table to remember this point as you play.

What this means is that first and foremost you should describe what a character does in the fictional world and take your interpretation of the rules from that description, roll the dice to interact with the rules, and end with a fictional description of what happens.

Noi, the dwarven mercenary has managed to bust the door down of the chancellor’s office, and he’s looking for clues that implicate the slimy toads involvement with the Prince of Shadows. Aaron, the player playing Noi narrates how his character searches in the drawers, opens up the cupboards, looks behind paintings and generally ransacks the place. The GM declares that this definitely sounds like a Wisdom check and Aaron rolls the dice. He rolls a success! The GM describes how Noi finds a letter in a hidden drawer of the table, addressed to the chancellor by someone referring to themselves as “The Little Prince.” Noi is going to have to find a lot more than this if he is to bring this matter before the Dwarven King.

In this example we began with a fictional description and we ended with one, the rules simply provided a bridge between the two in the middle.

In many role playing games the player may have simply entered the office and declared he was using wisdom to look for clues and rolled the dice, but this rule exists exactly to prevent such a scenario. The player is instead encouraged to think about what his player is doing in the fictional world, and how he’s interacting with his environment. The benefit of this is it enhances the story told at the table, and also helps the GM decide on how best to use and interpret the rules.

Now this is particularly important to a 13th Age, a game that uses character backgrounds as a means of task resolution. When a character attempts to do something in the game that has dramatic consequences or a chance of failure, the GM does not have a hard and fast skill list to draw upon. He must think which ability score is most relevant to the task at hand, how difficult the task is going to be, and what kind of backgrounds may apply.

This process is made easier if the player fully narrates what his character is doing, as well as his intent. A canny player may even describe his action so he can take advantage of a background, and this kind of play should be encouraged. The player is taking the written words on his character sheet and bringing them to life by playing his character within the shared fictional world, and that sort of thing is really the whole point in a character-driven narrative-game.

Noi has been asking around the underbelly of the royal capital and he’s heard whispers that the head of one the thieves guilds calls himself the “Little Prince.” He’s managed to corner a lower member of the guild in a dark back alleyway, a sneaky little weasel that goes by the name of Regnar. Aaron describes how Noi grabs Regnars by his shirt, pulls him close enough so they are nearly touching and demands to know where the Little Prince’s hideout is. The GM declares that it sounds like a Charisma check but the Little Princes wrath is well known to those who rat on his gang, so the GM assigns this a hard difficult in an adventurer-tier environment. As it stands, none of Noi’s backgrounds apply to this check, so to get an advantage Aaron tells the GM that as he issues his threat, he mentions how he was expelled from the Royal Guard for the unlawful torture of the crown’s enemies. The GM likes it, and allows Noi to apply his +4 bonus from his “Former kings guard” background.

This principle also applies to combat and powers. Take a look at the 13^th Age classes and you will notice a glaring difference between 13th Age and 4th edition D&D powers: you don’t get a little bit of italic flavor text in the power write-up. Does this mean that Rob and Jonathan play dry combats that don’t focus on narration? I don’t think so. If you have any doubt, listen to Rob running a 13th age game for the Geek Nation guys that is posted on the Pelgrane Press website.

Rather I think they saved themselves some space in the book by making the assumption 13th Age is going to appeal to a group of creative people that are going to create their own descriptions anyway.

Again this relates to beginning and ending with the fiction, as a player, start your action in combat by describing how your power or spell looks and feels within the game world. This description need not even be consistent and may change based on the circumstances. Roll the dice and the GM will end the fiction by telling you the effectiveness of your action. Through his process, combat becomes a shared narrative experience between the players and the GM as they vividly describe what is going on back and forth.

How could Noi be so stupid? He had failed to notice three of Regnras cronies skulking in the shadows of the alley, and now they had him surrounded, wicked looking curved blades drawn. He loosed his shield and took a hard grip of his warhammer, today like just like so many others he would have to fight, or die. Aaron rolls the dice to attack the nearest thug and scores a hit, and he uses the natural result of 17 to activate his “Defensive Training” flexible power. He describes how he swings his hammer in a wide arc slamming it into the thug’s skull, then quickly retreats behind his shield, just like he used to all those years ago, when he and his men formed the shield walls in the Frost Giant Wars. His men were long dead, but still, these thugs were welcome to try and beak the wall.

Starting and ending with the fiction transcends numbers and stat blocks, and brings your games to life in a way that makes them become more akin to what you would see in an exciting and dramatic novel, or a movie.

James Ramage is a 25 year old gamer from Scotland, sailor of the high-seas and advocate of the “new school of gaming.” He started gaming in high school on bread-and-butter Dungeons and Dragons 3rd edition, back in the pre-revision days when choosing to play a ranger meant being a fighter that could talk to the odd sparrow, and very little else. He has just started a new campaign using the 13th Age, and is a strong supporter of Dungeon World, The One Ring RPG, Mouseguard and many other narrative-driven games.

ENnies Exposé

Posted on July 24, 2013 by Iron Tavern Guest Blogger

The ENnies are an RPG awards that have become the Official Gen Con Awards. It started out as something small on EN World message boards. It has grown tremendously and become in my opinion the most important RPG awards there are. I do admit to being biased as I was a Judge for the ENnies for six years. What follows are some stories and gossip on what has happened with the ENnies behind the scenes. Some of it is good and some of it is bad. No names are going to be mentioned because while I am writing this to inform people it is not my intention to embarrass or call out any persons. All opinions right and wrong are mine and mine alone.

I’m really not sure why I ran for ENnies judge. The first year I did it I did not get voted in, but I did the second year I tried. I had no idea what kind of hell I was getting myself into. It was fun and I’m very happy I did, but that first year was difficult because of the circumstances. The other judges that year were great. It was a collection of some very intelligent and experienced gamers. We had some great conversations about what should and should not get nominated. The purpose of the judges is to read all the books that publishers submit and come to a consensus list of five books for each of the categories. Once the judges pick the nominations it is put up to a fan vote. In those days it was also the Judges responsibility to create categories that fit the products submitted. For instance we had the best Monster Supplement that year because we saw many monster books submitted. The reason it was hell was almost everything came at the last minute. The last week of May and all of June I had about one hundred and fifty RPGs to read and it is a lot more work than it sounds.

Everything that was submitted was read cover to cover at least once. I had a notebook I would take notes in about each book. It wasn’t just the content we were judging but the production values, interior art, cover art, rules, cartography, and everything about a book. I learned a lot about layout that year. The concept of excessive white space for instance was not something I ever noticed before. I was paying attention to fonts, font size, how pictures were used to help the text flow, or in the case of bad lay out, just interrupted the text. After reading through everything I had a pile of books that I felt were not good enough for any category so I put those to the side. All the others got read for a second and sometimes third time as I reduced my lists of what was best. During this time the judges are communicating online with what they liked and did not like. There were more than a few times that I had to go get a book out of my “no like” pile and reread it because another judge or two sang its praises. Doing this was in addition to everything else one normal does, like go to work. I had a weekly game and I usually was social with friends during the week. To get it all read and to do my job properly I canceled gaming for June. I didn’t see anyone socially and even took vacation time to get everything finished that I had to finish. My girlfriend at the time broke up with me as for that month reading gaming books became her adversary.

Later years became better as companies would not all wait to the last minute to submit books to us. We still felt that too many of them did but that was really to their disadvantage. The books we got after Gen Con and early in the year we had months of discussion on them and more time to read and reread. Books that came in at the very end of the submission period could not get that kind of scrutiny because of the time crunch.

I bring up all the time devoted to reading because we were occasionally accused of not reading everything. One year we were even called out by at the time possibly the biggest name in gaming. Those years I really feel we did read it all. I wasn’t the only one that took vacation time and missed social and family events to get the job done. After we put in all that hard work and had people claim otherwise, that upset us. Some of us blew our tops and angrily replied. I had friends that asked me in private if I really did read everything or if I faked it. I would tell them the truth that I read everything and was insulted that they would imply otherwise. When I signed up to be judge it was a commitment and a responsibility that I had to follow through to the best of my ability. I took it very seriously even though awards are not always that well respected by the fans and by publishers.

In later years when I was and was not a judge I got the feeling that some judges were not reading everything. I’d talk about specific books with them and they were not able to have a discussion about it. Some of the most difficult books to judge are supplements submitted to games the judges don’t own and don’t play. I talked to judges that would read the supplement but not the game it was based on. It’s impossible to judge a supplement if you don’t know the rules and what the supplement is building off of. There is no oversight for the judges. Each judge does their reading in their own place in different part of the US and even the world. They really need to require more transparency for the judges. They should be required to go to Gen Con. At the very least the people running the ENnies should meet with the Judges. Otherwise it is too easy to lie and cheat one’s way into being a judge.

As RPGs grew on the net, other sites devoted to gaming emerged. People had blogs and then podcasts about gaming. I don’t know whose ideas it was to include them in the ENnies as categories but I thought it was a mistake then and still do. As judges we were told we had control of the categories but when some of us talked about not including Best Blog and Best Podcast the Powers that Be told us that was not a possibility. We had freedom when I was first a judge and it worked. When I stopped being a judge much of that freedom had been taken away. My guess it was done so to appease people who disliked the ENnies. We had some publishers that would never enter and then there were game sites that would just talk bad about the ENnies because it is the internet and that’s what people do on the internet.

Podcasts were the worst. It was amateur radio about gaming done in a way that made me want to quit gaming. We had some that were in excess of three hours. People were coughing into microphones. There was dead air. None of the ones I listened to sounded like they were edited or that there was much of a plan going into them. Some were of people actually playing the games. They gave no lead in like what had happened before, what the plot was, and in many cases what the game was. It would literally be thirty minutes before I could figure out what they were playing. I nominated many podcasts based on length of episodes, the shorter the better. Some podcasts tried to be news shows. I would be listening to a podcast in May that were recorded and aired in November. The breaking news was mostly unimportant by then and the guesswork they did on what companies would be doing would be proved wrong. Having to include and listen to podcasts was one of the main reasons I stopped running for ENnies Judge.

Some publishers would enter others would not. Steve Jackson Games I think entered once or twice by accident. At one time I had a contact within the company who I talked with about the awards. He loved the idea and he was ready to submit stuff. Then one day I just stopped hearing from him. When I finally did hear back it was short message that basically said someone higher in the company had told him SJGs would never submit anything to the ENnies and he was told to cease all communication with me. Goodman Games is another odd one. They used to submit modules and some sourcebooks and we would nominate them because they were good books. I heard Goodman Games stopped submitting product because they would rarely win the awards. It’s a fan vote so we have no control over that and we know it is hard to win going up against companies like Wizards of the Coast, Paizo, White Wolf, Green Ronin, and other companies that were just hugely popular. Upsets did happen from time to time. The way the awards are structured being nominated is an award in itself. That is being picked by the experts, the judges that have read everything. If we see seventy adventures in a year and pick one of yours to be top five that’s pretty impressive. Some companies just did not believe it or did not want to see it. Others usually small companies would thank us profusely. They would see a sales bump the week after we made our nominations.

In 2006 we were blindsided by a controversy I was not expecting. I’m still not sure if it was a legitimate complaint or just people airing sour grapes because they lost. Shackled City hardcover was entered by Paizo Publishing. It is a great product that reprints the adventures of the Shackled City AP that appeared in Dungeon Magazine. They expanded on those adventures to include more information especially about the city of Cauldron the setting for most of the Adventure Path. We, the judges, nominated for Best Adventure and for Best Campaign Setting/ Setting Supplement. It won gold for both categories and then some people complained that the book cannot be both an adventure and a setting book. I disagree as there have been books that are both setting and adventures. RPG books can’t always be so easily classified as just one thing.

This past year has also not been without possible problems. When the judges wanted to discuss what should be nominated they wanted to use Skype. It would have been a great way to communicate and I wish we had that ability when I was a judge. But one of the judges refused, and for some reason, instead of majority rules, which is the way it is set up, Skype was not used. Instead the judges had to have the discussions in a less efficient and much slower method of e-mail. That’s a situation that management should be watching over and step in.

Another more alarming example from this year is the exclusion of Star Wars Edge of the Empire Beginner Box. It was submitted but left off all the nominations. It was not left off because most of the judges don’t like Star Wars or felt that other products were just better. It was left off because one judge didn’t like the special dice the game uses and refused to let it get nominated for anything. It is fine that a judge didn’t like the product but no one judge should be able to influence the nominations and have their opinion override the others.

Being a judge for the ENnies was great. I came across a lot of products that I never would have otherwise. I loved that I was there to help open up the awards from just d20 to all RPGs. I think the awards have lost focus on that as we see more items that are not RPGs in them. Voting for the awards is taking place now and is going to be open till July 31^st. I encourage all gamers to go and vote. It doesn’t matter if you’ve only read or played a few of the items on there. The more votes that the awards get and the more feedback they get from fans can only improve the awards.

Council of Thieves Campaign

Posted on July 17, 2013 by Iron Tavern Guest Blogger

~ This post contains spoilers for the Council of Thieves Adventure Path. Do not read if you do not wish to be spoiled. ~

After we finished Kingmaker the DM and blog owner Jeff wanted a break. I stepped in and we talked about what Adventure Path to try next and we decided on Council of Thieves. It was my number one pick as I really enjoy city based campaigns. I did not do a lot of research on it to know what was going to be in store for us. I thought it looked fun and interesting and knew I could really make it shine. There will be spoilers so readers are warned. I’m not going to talk about everything in each book but I will discuss some things good and bad about the AP and some of the changes that I did.

To start with I encouraged my players to make skill based characters, as skills were going to be a bigger focus in the campaign. They chose an Inquisitor, Rogue, Urban Ranger, and a Bard. I wanted to limit spellcasting and that really did it. Also, the campaign is designed to go to 13^th level, but I only advanced them to 10^thlevel for the end. Magic was not a powerful factor for the players and it helped the game tremendously. The AP is the first written for Pathfinder and it shows. The stat blocks for the enemies were not well done. This how an adventure that went to 13^th level could be completed by a group of weaker classes levels behind where they should have been. Also, the content in the books was lacking. We made it through most of them in two sessions verses the five to six sessions a Kingmaker book took us.

The main thing I did was help my players come up with good backgrounds for the setting and flesh out some NPCs they knew that I could use. I like to flesh out the setting and add in side plots for the PCs that don’t revolve around the main campaign plot but can cause complications and offer allies. I know many gamers don’t make backgrounds as the GMs never use them and they never serve a purpose. I always use them and if a player doesn’t supply the information I will supply it for them with their approval.

The first book is the Bastards of Erebus. It defines some of the city. Westcrown used to be the capital city until the civil war and the Devil Worshipers took over. Sadly, the repression and evil government is not shown much and if I were to do it again I would do a better job of establishing that. Part of the city has been abandoned and that is where gangs like the Bastards have set up. I did move the events of the book as it starts with the group meeting a second society and then during that meeting bad guys come in and break it up. I don’t think PCs would go back to that group after the first time they almost get killed and don’t have any real ties to them. So, I set up some small adventures using some options the book provides to do afterwards and had them happen first. This established a greater connection between the PCs and the group so when the leader of the group needs rescued the PCs would do that.

One major change I did was giving the group a powerful item in their first adventure, a Helm of Brilliance. The city has a curfew because shadow beasts rule the night. People who venture out after dark have a habit of never being seen again. The problem has existed for over 30 years. I included more history of failed attempts to fix the problem then the books do because by the books the people of the city just accepted it. The Helm gives power versus the undead and some spell ability that can really damage and kill the things. But the Helm is a charged item so the group was conservative and made it last much longer than I expected.

The Sixfold Trial is book two and might have one of the most famous scenes from all the Adventure Paths in it: the Play. The characters are hired to put on a dangerous play in which the characters of the play are tortured through trials. The trials though are real so the PCs have to live through these potentially very dangerous trials. I thought it was fun. It introduced some great NPCs and allowed the players to do some things they don’t usually do in our games. I had each PC audition and have the director yell at them and it was fun. When we got to the play I was shocked that my group wanted to read through all their lines. I was really expecting some of them to refuse. No one is going to win a Tony Award for our performance but I enjoyed it. Afterwards they are invited to the evil Mayor’s estate to steal stuff and sadly this wasn’t as good. I was shocked the PCs didn’t try to rob the house blind. Also the dinner party had other NPCs and my players at the time just didn’t engage them. It wasn’t an issue with the adventure or anything it was just an opportunity missed.

I really like that the dungeon crawls in here and short and there are not many of them. It is also a reason why the AP went as quickly as there is not a lot of filler that consume time. I inserted material from the setting books about the city and different NPCs from different sourcebooks that were part of the city. I even included a dragon that seems to be ignored now in the setting. Strangely, the PCs never realized it was a dragon. I kept track of different books I used for this AP and I think I hit over 60 Pathfinder and non-Pathfinder books that were referenced by me to enhance the campaign. It is the most work I’ve put into a campaign for using mostly printed adventures from start to finish.

What Lies in Dust is the third book. The first half consists of gathering information and some oddly pointless fights leads way to one of the cooler places to adventure and that is an abandoned Pathfinder Lodge. It also featured our first really difficulty combat and one of the reasons the Helm of Brilliance was handed out so early in the campaign. The Lodge features some very cool and creative rooms the Pathfinder had. Much of it is creepy and magical and I would really like to see more places like this. The difficult combat was some Vampires that I did not foreshadow to keep them as a complete surprise. The NPC Paladin that was journeying with them was killed in one round by the vampires as by this time the group is only supposed to be sixth level (they were fifth) and the vampires have a great ambush place and class levels. Most of the NPCs are not well built, but these guys were especially for a group that did not have a Cleric. It turned into a great battle and was challenging and fun.

In the Infernal Syndrome, the fourth book, the Mayor’s house blows up. It was a fun scene of the PCs running through the city to get to the disaster and then trying to help. Our rogue had her favorite combat as there was a devil on a rooftop shooting arrows. She quickly climbed up attacked and then retreated. She knew she could not face the creature in hand to hand so used great hit and run tactics and made great use of her characters abilities. Then the group sees thieves going into the basement and that leads to what is probably the largest dungeon crawl in the Adventure Path. It is a large magical engine with a Pit Fiend as its battery. It is a neat idea and there are some interesting encounters and fun NPCs, but the last dozen or so rooms really dragged on making it tiresome by the time the group gets to the Pit Fiend.

My favorite encounter in here was a Lich (weak Lich, like the weak Pit Fiend) who used to be a former mayor of the city. He was of course Evil. He talked to the group and they talked back. He had good reasons for becoming a Lich. It wasn’t because he was evil but he knew that the only way he could live long enough to come back and rescue Westcrown from itself was to become a Lich. Every question the party asked him he came up with good and reasonable answers. They almost let him live which would have been just awesome and interesting. But one of my players realized what was going on and just attacked. It was pretty awesome and fun.

Mother of Flies is the fifth book. It has the only section that really takes the party out of the city. It’s probably less than a mile outside the city. A potential ally who happens to be an evil Hag is being attacked because she knows a secret. The group had fun planning out a counter attack and really getting in some larger scale tactics. The battle does not have to go that way but I have a player that enjoys that so we let him come up some plans and they executed them well. After that it is attacking a thieves’ guild headquarters. It went fast because I did not make the group do a room to room search because most of the rooms are empty. Also, most the opponents as written are painfully too weak. According to the AP the character should be level 10 and many of the normal thieves here had a measly +3 to attack. So, even with flanking they had a 10% to hit our Bard who had the worst AC in the group. There are some named NPCs here that can offer some trouble but mostly it was an easy book to complete.

The series ends with the Twice Damned Prince. Up to this point the group was not sure who the mastermind was as I was purposefully making it so it could be one of two NPCs. This book instead of a set path, has a lot of small encounters that deal with some of the NPCs and events around the city. It is an interesting way to finish the campaign. The part I hated was by doing this the group collects points and then depending on the amount of points determines how the populace reacts to them. There just is not enough points to be gained to get what most groups would see as a happy ending. I knew I was tossing out that system but told the PCs about it and let them see what would happen if we used it and they got a Martial Law result. We went with a happier ending.

Over all the AP was a lot of fun and a lot of work. I know it is not seen to be as good as Kingmaker but I’d rank it near there, though it is very different. In the campaign there is an artifact the PCs acquire and they still have it at the end. One of the reasons I just leveled the group to 10^th level and had them play skill based characters was the idea they would go off into the world and find out how to destroy the artifact. With the artifacts history I did not change much to lead into the Serpent’s Skull adventure path. The Serpent Skull AP though just didn’t work out well for us.

Rage Quit!

Posted on July 15, 2013 by Iron Tavern Guest Blogger

Ever sat down at the village Inn after a hard day of cleaving Goblin heads from Goblin necks only to be told by the Innkeeper that you need to bathe before they serve you? Then the half-elf waitress makes some comment about meat heads pointedly at your expense and the next thing you know you are staring at an Inn full of dead folk all dismembered and you are holding a bloody axe? I hate it when that happens, as I am sure you do too. And I am sure that you realise you have just exited the rage that marks you as one of the fiercest fighters on the battlefield. You suffered from a Barbarian rage quit and made all the fools suffer for their arrogance.

If you have not quite guessed it yet, this is my post focussed on Pathfinder’s Barbarian class. The brute warriors with more focus on force than finesse the Barbarian throws defence to the wind in an attempt to deliver as much damage as possible in a short time. We will take a look at the abilities that make a Barbarian the formidable warrior that they are and also look at what options are available for them through the core rulebooks to make them all they can be. Conan wishes he were so good…

RAGE!!!

The core of a Barbarian is their rage. It is a wellspring that exists in them that they tap into when they loose themselves into a battle. The strength and constitution scores raise by 4 with a morale bonus increasing to hit bonuses and hit points (as well as fort saves) in the process. The Barbarian also gains a +2 to their will saves but the negative to all this is they suffer a −2 to their armour class. In game terms the Barbarian becomes wilder, stronger, a little more impervious but less focused on defending themselves as they hit their rage.

While in the rage the Barbarian can’t use skills that require them to think, consider, charm, or coordinate their body. It is seen as a period where the character goes into a wild frenzy led by their primal being. Because of this there is no in depth consideration they are capable of. The best they can do is some intimidation or acrobatic manoeuvres toward dealing the pain to their foes.

The Barbarian can rage for 4 + Con modifier rounds a day at first level and gets to add a further two rounds per day for each level they go up past first. These rounds do not need to be spent consecutively, though coming out of a rage (a free action) causes the Barbarian to become fatigued for twice the amount of time they were in the rage for. They cannot enter their rage again until the fatigue has gone.

Rage Powers

As the Barbarian progresses levels they learn to channel their rage into certain powers. The Barbarian picks up a rage power at level 2 and every second level thereafter. The powers range widely from such things as gaining a bite attack, re-rolling failed saves, extra speed, and even unexpected strikes where the Barbarian can make an attack of opportunity if an opponent enters a threatened square, even if the movement would not normally draw an attack of opportunity. Picking these rage powers allows you to differentiate your Barbarian from others and also allows you to theme the character to a style you like. The available rage powers increase with the Advanced Players Guide (APG) and the Ultimate Combat (UC) sourcebooks.

Greater Rage and Mighty Rage

The Barbarian makes some increases in his rage ability at 11th level and as his capstone power at 20th level. These powers both increase the bonus they apply to their statistics and their Will saves. These bonuses enable the Barbarian to become a much more potent foe at the right time in game to continue to making them relevant. The Barbarian is always a warrior in a battle that the foe needs to pay attention to. They can be unpredictable and become instantly more formidable the moment they give in to their inner anger.

Other Abilities

The Barbarian is not a great armoured warrior and their choice of armour only goes to medium armours. They are of course proficient with all except exotic weapons giving them a wide range of choices for how to deal this damage. Although a shield is not often a popular choice with many Barbarians (who tend to go damage over defence) they are proficient with them (excepting tower shields).

At the heart of the Barbarian is their core rage power but there are surrounding abilities that make them an attractive option for a player or an NPC foe. Over the levels the Barbarian becomes increasingly harder to pin down, firstly unable to be caught flat footed and then later not even being able to be flanked. This relates to the Barbarian’s energy level as they are always moving and always in a state of awareness. They also are masters of battling as many opponents that they can so can handle being surrounded with little problem. This energy also allows them to react to traps quicker and they gain a dodge bonus against traps as they seem almost presentient to them when they trigger.

On top of their mobility the Barbarian is also resistant to physical damage and mental domination. They receive Damage Reduction (DR) at a moderate level of power and the amount of damage resisted is dependent on the level of the character. After some time the Barbarian also becomes mentally tougher receiving a bonus to their Will saves against any enchantment magic that is used against them.

Looking Beyond the Core Rulebook

The Barbarian is broadened in scope with a mass of new rage powers in the APG. These powers make it a lot easier to theme the character as you have a synergy that exists within some of the powers themselves. This synergy makes a Barbarian able to take powers that fit both thematically as well as sometimes with other power mechanics to mesh the character into a whole. There are nearly four full pages in this section all devoted to adding a variety of new Barbarian rage powers to the class making the APG the single most important expansion amongst the core sourcebooks for the class. The book also offers up 10 archetypes that allow you to modify your character from the standard Barbarian located in the Core rulebook. These archetypes are;

Breaker: Driven not only to destroy their foes but their environment as well
Brutal Pugilist: Focus on hand to hand combat and combat manoeuvres to bring their opponents down
Drunken Brute: Their intake of alcohol fuels their rage so don’t think because they are drunk they are an easy beat
Elemental Kin: Tied to elemental forces by tribal shamans the Barbarian uses the power of elemental forces to aid them
Hurler: Focusses his rage into throwing items at their foes
Invulnerable Rager: The Barbarian becomes much more resistant to damage of all sorts
Mounted Fury: A master of mounted war they ride down their foes
Savage Barbarian: Far from modern weapons this warrior has taught themselves battle in a unique and primal way
Superstitious: They develop their rage to warn of magic and mystical abilities and more easily defend against them
Totem Warrior: The Barbarian has a totem that they focus on, revering the powers that make them more like their totem 3

The UC sourcebook offers up another slew of rage powers for the Barbarian. There are quite a deal fewer than the APG but they fit nicely with some of the archetypes also included (another 7 options). The rage powers here work well together and do expand out the options for all Barbarians making this book a good read also if you are thinking of playing in the class. The added archetypes are;

Armoured Hulk: This Barbarian masters the use of heavy armours alongside their rage
Scarred Rager: These warriors are covered in scars, and each scar has a story!
Sea Reaver: Pirates and curs of the sea these warriors adapt their rage to open water
Titan Mauler: A warrior skilled in fighting oversized foes and bringing them down as quickly as possible
True Primitive: Tribes that live hidden away from the world tend to bring out the most primal Barbarian ragers
Urban Barbarian: Skilled at operating with the city or village as their territory these Barbarians are more civilised but just as dangerous
Wild Rager: These Barbarians become more like a beast as they give in to their primal nature

My View

The Barbarian is not a class that I am overly familiar with. I have a rudimentary knowledge of the class as I have had to NPC Barbarian’s only through the Serpent Skull adventure path. I have never played a Barbarian as a player and I have never had a player take on the role of a Barbarian although that may change in Reign of Winter as I have a player who intends to take a Barbarian should his current character die. Based on this I have little feeling for the class as a whole. From my experience NPCing the Barbarian’s in Serpent Skull I do know the class is not one that anyone should underestimate.

The class is brilliant at dealing damage. Their core mechanic is one that allows them to increase the amount of damage they do as well as increasing the likelihood that they will actually manage to hit on most occasions. It is the rage powers that add the subtle abilities to the class that I struggle to comprehend with the class and is a blind spot that I know I need to address. I have tagged the Barbarian as a class I would like to play to help me understand how they work in detail.

A Barbarian is a dangerous opponent and should not be written off as inconsequential. They have a multitude of handy powers that are too numerous to describe individually here but they can and will surprise you with these abilities so expect the unexpected.

I would love to hear from you all if your favoured class is the Barbarian. Hit us up in the comments and let us know what your favoured builds are. What is the best rage powers to equip your barbarian with and why? I have listed here only the core sourcebooks and the materials for Barbarians in those books, are there other books or sources that are a must if you are going to play a Barbarian? Until next week, keep rolling!

Kickstarters and Playtests

Posted on July 10, 2013 by Iron Tavern Guest Blogger

It is not ground breaking to say that Kickstarters and Open Playtests are changing the RPG Industry. They have been going on for years and have helped get books published that might not have otherwise. It is interesting to see the discussions on these topics though. I have backed only a handful of Kickstarters but I know people that have backed hundreds. I do tend to back at larger amounts though, so when I see something to invest in I go in with gusto. But they have also allowed more transparency into what goes on in RPG publishing and I am not sure the companies are better for it.

The biggest thing with Kickstarter is the misperception people and companies have for it. I know many people look at it like a preorder system but it is an investment. It is clever that companies are instead offering product instead of a gain on the capital investment. It amazes me how popular these things are because it seems that helping a Kickstarter get funded doesn’t really save much money for the investor. It would cost about the same to get the book once it comes out or even save quite a bit of money by getting it through Amazon. I know not everything on Kickstarter will end up on Amazon but it at least a company can save the investor some money by making it a better deal than buying it through a store.

The most frustrating thing with Kickstarters though is how late these companies are in getting out what was promised to their investors. I’ve not participated in many but only one has had the product shipped on time. I’m waiting on two, To Slay a Dragon and the 20^th Anniversary of Werewolf. Both of those are over six months late and are ready to be printed or something like that but we are in limbo. I don’t work in publishing but I do know if any of my projects ran this late I’d be fired unless I had a fantastic reason. The companies though are not held accountable. The fans will keep buying the books and allow them to be disorganized and late with no consequence. Both of the companies even started new Kickstarters before the other is compete which I won’t back. The Werewolf people at least mentioned it in one of their updates and I give them credit for that. In the end when seeing the money I spent and the time between a stated return and the actual return has made these bad investments. I might not lose my shirt in the end as I do believe the books will eventually be printed and delivered. But anyone that knows investing knows that there are many ways to lose besides losing everything.

Open Playtests are also something new to the industry. Some smaller companies have done them from time to time but I think when Paizo and now Wizards of the Coast doing one it really shows how beneficial they can be. I hate them. I have no interest in playing an incomplete game. It’s hard enough to get people together for once a week gaming and I’d hate to waste that on a system that’s every changing. I don’t feel the feedback really does much good. There is just too much of it and there will be feedback that contradicts other feedback. The designers are going to do what they have planned. It just seems like the Open Playtest is a marketing ploy to keep people aware of the new game that is coming out.

When the game comes out I’ll try it but until then I’ll devote my time to finished games. Even worse is the preview copies of games that get sold by the companies. Paizo did it with Pathfinder, though at least they had a PDF copy for free. Last year at Gen Con there was the new Star Wars game and this year I think the same is going to be done for Firefly. These are all games I am interested in and will probably buy. But I think it is a rip off to sell an incomplete preview version to fans. The preview version will be worthless and obsolete once the game comes out. It is just taking advantage of a company’s fans to get more money out of them.

In the end though the fans will come with money and not care about how the company treats them. Many fans are probably unaware on how bad companies treat them. This is not a problem unique to gaming by any means. But it would be nice to see companies treat their fans a little better at times.

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