I've been inspired by my recent reading of a particularly good article in Dragon #147 (July, 1989), callede "Getting Familiar". In it, they discuss the various pros and cons, ins and outs of not only summoning, but keeping a familiar in 2nd Edition AD&D(PHB 143 - This also applies to 1st edition AD&D, as p.66 in the PHB mentions). It got me thinking, that the familiar has all but dissolved into an easily obtained pet.
From what I can tell, this phenomena all started with the Pokemon fad, or perhaps earlier in some form of virtual pet. This evolved into our genre when computer RPGs started giving the player character a pet of some kind that would attack with the PC - it was already creeping into the domain of the animal familiar. Fastforward a bit later, and you look at D&D 3.x, and there it is - the "Animal Companion". Not only this, but you have these summoned animals that simply go "poof" when they take too much damage, and don't even have corporeal barriers to boot. Furthermore, the PC has control over not only when the creature attacks, but who. I suppose this is the game continuing to change into something more mechanical, as we saw the epitome of in 4th edition, but I digress. This is far beyond a summoned monster, but an animal companion that takes commands outside of combat. Now, I am not insinuating that these things necessarily replace the animal familiar, but they certainly steal its thunder. About the only thing it has left going for it at this point is the scry-like abilities it gives the wizard through the magical link created by the Find Familiar spell - and even that can be obtained by a druid or ranger in many cases.
A second disappointing trend with regards to the animal familiar is that a common animal such as a cat or weasel are not enough to satisfy the game deisgner these days. If you look at any one of the familiars listed in the early edition PHBs, (Cat, Weasel/Ferret, Toad, Hawk, Crow, Owl) it only takes a small spark of imagination to really design a unique animal familiar with its own likes, dislikes, and personality. Instead of that route, however, players are now offered the high-magic option: The pseudodragon. I have seen more players running around with these things than I care to count. In such a campaign, it should be the DM's duty to make life as difficult as possible for the low-level character who has chosen to carry such a creature with them on their adventures. For example, the party goes in to a wildland outpost, whose inhabitants are so extremely suspicious of magic, that they have had the town cleric construct a 'detect magic' archway by the gate. The wizard would then be raked over the coals so to speak and questioned, then likely jettisoned from the town, with none of the desparate assistance they needed so badly.
This may seem harsh, but it emphasises the clear difference between traveling with a common animal, and a magical creature. Characters are often times required to hide their familiars. With such a link as is defined in the Find Familiar spell, there might be a small amount of detectable magic lingering after the casting, but certainly not to the extent the Pseudodragon would show.
The dragon hath slain our men, and destroyed our village, yet this one carries a youngling with him?
Get a rope!
Saturday, July 23, 2011
Saturday, June 4, 2011
Dark Sun, Skill Challenges, and Roleplaying
Since the time TSR published a sample dungeon in a D&D product, players have been using that as guidance as to how the game should be played. Sometimes they're straightforward, sometimes not so much. In any case, I think that Wizards of the Coast really missed the mark when it comes to modules and skill challenges as encouraging samples. Though I'm not sure if they're just throwing us roleplayers a bone so that we have something other than combat in there, there's still quite a bit that is implicitly gleaned by the players when these come up in a module, aside from the fact that skill challenges in 4e have been a subject of hot debate since this edition of the game came out.
How does this relate to Dark Sun? In 2nd edition AD&D, there were no "skill challenges". as such, traipsing across the desert could be wonderfully unpredictable, battling a giant one moment and a sand storm the next, both of which required both wit and physical endurance.
Opposingly, in 4th edition D&D, the game is broken up into combat and skill challenges, and for better or worse, they have presented a format for skill challenges that is laid out in a very smilar manner as that of combat. This is where I believe the error stems from. In the module I am running, "Bloodsand Arena", the skill challenges mention what happens during the whole day and night in the boxed text you read to the players. Let me repeat that. The players are given the entire day's worth of events in one chunk. How is anyone supposed to make sense of this? Even worse, following it, the DM is given a list of abilities that can be applied to the skill challenge, many times with effects unrelated to the boxed text.
Now, many of my old school friends on Dragonsfoot will tell you, that they want nothing to do with boxed text. While I'm mostly in agreement, I understand it's sometimes necessary for the unseasoned player who just picked up an interesting looking module. Not all of us can translate a paragraph of details into an interesting event or environment while in gameplay, which brings me around to another common story - gamers didn't always want to read the whole module ahead of time. I didn't do it, a lot of friends didn't do it. We're all guilty at one point or another of this, and I suppose some of it was adolescent impatience, and just wanting to play this cool new thing we got. Well, it seems as if Wizards tried to allow some of that at the sacrifice of game cohesion, which when you arrive at the skill challenge, becomes a crash and burn affair. What follows is a guideline to correcting this problem. It's probably not the best solution, but as an old school 2e player, it's what works for me, and makes me feel more like I'm painting a dangerous, detailed and dynamic environment for the players, which is always my goal.
Get the module out ahead of time (I know, this is a pain, but it pays off.) First, read the discriptive, non-boxed text, if there is any, then the boxed text. Now you know what will go on during the day. Write out the events that are to unfold during that period of time. If you can sequence the events, great. I prefer to separate things into night and day, or at least craft events that can be dropped in non-sequentially - what we like to call the sandbox effect - and what a sandbox Dark Sun is! Wokka wokka wokka! Then, examine the implied events in the skill-effect descriptions. These will give you further insight as to what's going on. What you end up with is a set of events that can happen in any order you like, creating opportunities for the players, and you may find as I did, that new ones present themselves (in Bloodsand Arena, I found quite a few new opportunities for Diplomacy when I laid out the events day by day.)
Boodsand Arena, however, has been by far the best example of a skill challenge I have found so far, and Wizards offers it for free download on their website as the free product of Free RPG Day 2010. (Also of note are the wonderful maps, which is why I sought the module out when FRD rolled around)
How do you run skill challenges in Dark Sun? Let's learn from each other.
May the wind be at your back and your path clear, until the next time.
How does this relate to Dark Sun? In 2nd edition AD&D, there were no "skill challenges". as such, traipsing across the desert could be wonderfully unpredictable, battling a giant one moment and a sand storm the next, both of which required both wit and physical endurance.
Opposingly, in 4th edition D&D, the game is broken up into combat and skill challenges, and for better or worse, they have presented a format for skill challenges that is laid out in a very smilar manner as that of combat. This is where I believe the error stems from. In the module I am running, "Bloodsand Arena", the skill challenges mention what happens during the whole day and night in the boxed text you read to the players. Let me repeat that. The players are given the entire day's worth of events in one chunk. How is anyone supposed to make sense of this? Even worse, following it, the DM is given a list of abilities that can be applied to the skill challenge, many times with effects unrelated to the boxed text.
Now, many of my old school friends on Dragonsfoot will tell you, that they want nothing to do with boxed text. While I'm mostly in agreement, I understand it's sometimes necessary for the unseasoned player who just picked up an interesting looking module. Not all of us can translate a paragraph of details into an interesting event or environment while in gameplay, which brings me around to another common story - gamers didn't always want to read the whole module ahead of time. I didn't do it, a lot of friends didn't do it. We're all guilty at one point or another of this, and I suppose some of it was adolescent impatience, and just wanting to play this cool new thing we got. Well, it seems as if Wizards tried to allow some of that at the sacrifice of game cohesion, which when you arrive at the skill challenge, becomes a crash and burn affair. What follows is a guideline to correcting this problem. It's probably not the best solution, but as an old school 2e player, it's what works for me, and makes me feel more like I'm painting a dangerous, detailed and dynamic environment for the players, which is always my goal.
Get the module out ahead of time (I know, this is a pain, but it pays off.) First, read the discriptive, non-boxed text, if there is any, then the boxed text. Now you know what will go on during the day. Write out the events that are to unfold during that period of time. If you can sequence the events, great. I prefer to separate things into night and day, or at least craft events that can be dropped in non-sequentially - what we like to call the sandbox effect - and what a sandbox Dark Sun is! Wokka wokka wokka! Then, examine the implied events in the skill-effect descriptions. These will give you further insight as to what's going on. What you end up with is a set of events that can happen in any order you like, creating opportunities for the players, and you may find as I did, that new ones present themselves (in Bloodsand Arena, I found quite a few new opportunities for Diplomacy when I laid out the events day by day.)
Boodsand Arena, however, has been by far the best example of a skill challenge I have found so far, and Wizards offers it for free download on their website as the free product of Free RPG Day 2010. (Also of note are the wonderful maps, which is why I sought the module out when FRD rolled around)
How do you run skill challenges in Dark Sun? Let's learn from each other.
May the wind be at your back and your path clear, until the next time.
Thursday, June 2, 2011
Welcome to my world!
Sometimes, the sandy, fiery world of Athas is my home, but most of the time, it's Spring, Texas, where I live and go to school at DeVry in neighboring Houston, home of NASA, the Astros, and a lot of delicious ethnic food (don't look for barbecue here, folks, but the Jamaican Jerk is amazing!)
Right, time for a run down of a few things I've been working on, or just being a part of.
I'm gearing up for a 4th edition D&D campaign in the world of Athas, better known to the RPG world as Dark Sun. Now, I was never able to enjoy this fine setting designed by Troy Denning (more about his works in this world another time) when the setting came out around 1991, though I did have a brief perusal of the products at a friend's house, whose brother had every 2e product under the sun lining the walls of his bedroom (an impressive sight to a 12 year old, indeed!)
A few years later, I got the computer game Dark Sun: the Shattered Lands in a box set of AD&D computer games by SSI, and I was hooked. The savage world smacked a bit of Conan and Beastmaster, but with a bit of an ancient feel, where completely different creatures and warped yet familiar beings battled fiercely for the most basic necessities.
A few years ago, I finally got the chance to run the setting in its original context, Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, 2nd edition. Back to THAC0! Armed with my corebooks, the Dark Sun boxed set, and The Complete Psionics Handbook, I took a (sometimes revolving) group of friends through a year of wonderful adventure. We ran through A Little Knowledge, which was included with the boxed set, in its unique dual-book format which included a plethora of great art by the legendary Brom.
Though the setting was great, battles fierce, and roleplaying witty and clever, I found the system really had some hangups, which seemed to be resolved in the second release of the boxed set. First, Psionics was a nightmare. Even with two decks of psionics cards, running the system properly took considerable management effort - there was a large amount of upkeep involved, and the players became agitated and confused by it and my delays as a dungeon master. (As a strange side note, in the box I bought, the previous owner had a sheet with a bunch of stickies on it that read "no psionics" "psionics available" and other 'flag' type upkeep things that I never came to understand)
Not too long after that, much to my delight, a new version of the setting for 4th edition D&D was going to be released at Gen Con the following year. What a great opportunity to show the better half what a big con was like! We saved up, went, and I got my hands on that shiny new Dark Sun book, along with the creature catalog full of new and classic Athasian terrors.
I tried running it with my revolving group but unfortunately due to social and scheduling conflicts, we never really got very far with it. I was a bit disappointed and discouraged by it, and I think I was even a little tired of running, so I put it to the side for awhile, and we played some 1st edition Dragonlance which I hope to elaborate on in the near future as well.
Currently, I've been involved in a game of D&D Encounters at the game store, which I'm less than underwhelmed with, but I blame that more on the combat-focused module design than the system itself - though Essentials has seemingly cut down the number of options in the system to near zero. (Knight levels 7 and 17 have no choices at all, for example.)
Therefore, I'm encouraging my players to use base 4e characters, which may include Heroes of Shadow, the new book of dark classes and races which most importantly include the Assassin. This should keep things balanced and fun for everyone, without limiting their choices.
Phew! That'll be it for now. This being my first blog post, I'm sure its full of poorly organized thoughts and bad grammar, but hey, it'll get better. I promise!
Right, time for a run down of a few things I've been working on, or just being a part of.
I'm gearing up for a 4th edition D&D campaign in the world of Athas, better known to the RPG world as Dark Sun. Now, I was never able to enjoy this fine setting designed by Troy Denning (more about his works in this world another time) when the setting came out around 1991, though I did have a brief perusal of the products at a friend's house, whose brother had every 2e product under the sun lining the walls of his bedroom (an impressive sight to a 12 year old, indeed!)
A few years later, I got the computer game Dark Sun: the Shattered Lands in a box set of AD&D computer games by SSI, and I was hooked. The savage world smacked a bit of Conan and Beastmaster, but with a bit of an ancient feel, where completely different creatures and warped yet familiar beings battled fiercely for the most basic necessities.
A few years ago, I finally got the chance to run the setting in its original context, Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, 2nd edition. Back to THAC0! Armed with my corebooks, the Dark Sun boxed set, and The Complete Psionics Handbook, I took a (sometimes revolving) group of friends through a year of wonderful adventure. We ran through A Little Knowledge, which was included with the boxed set, in its unique dual-book format which included a plethora of great art by the legendary Brom.
Though the setting was great, battles fierce, and roleplaying witty and clever, I found the system really had some hangups, which seemed to be resolved in the second release of the boxed set. First, Psionics was a nightmare. Even with two decks of psionics cards, running the system properly took considerable management effort - there was a large amount of upkeep involved, and the players became agitated and confused by it and my delays as a dungeon master. (As a strange side note, in the box I bought, the previous owner had a sheet with a bunch of stickies on it that read "no psionics" "psionics available" and other 'flag' type upkeep things that I never came to understand)
Not too long after that, much to my delight, a new version of the setting for 4th edition D&D was going to be released at Gen Con the following year. What a great opportunity to show the better half what a big con was like! We saved up, went, and I got my hands on that shiny new Dark Sun book, along with the creature catalog full of new and classic Athasian terrors.
I tried running it with my revolving group but unfortunately due to social and scheduling conflicts, we never really got very far with it. I was a bit disappointed and discouraged by it, and I think I was even a little tired of running, so I put it to the side for awhile, and we played some 1st edition Dragonlance which I hope to elaborate on in the near future as well.
Currently, I've been involved in a game of D&D Encounters at the game store, which I'm less than underwhelmed with, but I blame that more on the combat-focused module design than the system itself - though Essentials has seemingly cut down the number of options in the system to near zero. (Knight levels 7 and 17 have no choices at all, for example.)
Therefore, I'm encouraging my players to use base 4e characters, which may include Heroes of Shadow, the new book of dark classes and races which most importantly include the Assassin. This should keep things balanced and fun for everyone, without limiting their choices.
Phew! That'll be it for now. This being my first blog post, I'm sure its full of poorly organized thoughts and bad grammar, but hey, it'll get better. I promise!
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