Resuming Pathfinder

My Wednesday group decided that it was time to return to Pathfinder, so 13th Age is out for now and Pathfinder is back in 100%. However we're going for low-powered gritty Pathfinder, which is being done by starting at level 1, with a 15 point attribute spread instead of rolling or doing 20 point buy. Everyone used the Background path generator from the Ultimate Campaign book; that's a nice extra feature that I have at last seen in action and I liked it, as the random generation of a background history created some interesting story potential.

The game feels different....really different, actually, since playing 13th Age for a few months has created a strong sense of contrast between what we left off on last week and what we're doing now. 13th Age is a game about Big Damn Heroes who are Really Important. Pathfinder down-dirty-and-gritty like this is about the peons that 13th Age heroes use as stepping stones to greatness. While there's something to be said for a system that cuts to the chase and starts everyone off with cool stuff and amazing connections to the icons, there's an entirely different and meaningful feel to a campaign where you know you're going to earn every damn bit of power, every conection through blood, sweat and tears: and mortality is an ever-looming terminus to your success.

Yes, you could say we're going old school on this one, or more accurately we're going back to old school. Pathfinder may be a modern edition of the game, but you can still run it hardcore classic style if everyone is on board with the notion.

Some of the Player's Handbook will be free online

If you somehow haven't stumbled across the news, Enworld gathers it all up. New 5th edition highlights:

1. 15% of the Player's Handbook will be posted as free online. Presumably that's the chunk of the character generation that will bridge the gap for players with the Starter Set. This right here is a huge plus in my eyes, as it guarantees at least a minimum level of buy-in for the right initial price by my players who are reluctant to pony up for a new game.

2. the DMG will have sidebars with slidable customizers (or something) which let you tailor your version of the game to match your preferred older edition. Interesting to see how this will work....

3. New D&D movie ...yeah whaddevah

4. Villainous organizations in the Monster Manual. Cool, good idea.

5. The Flumph is in the MM. If it looks anything like Pathfinder's reimagining I will be happy.

D&D 5th Edition Dates and Covers Announced

Thanks to Dyvers for his post bringing it to my attention. We have dates! At last:

D&D Starter Set release date July 15
--it says it will contain content for 1st to 5th level, so positioned to occupy the same space as the Pathfinder Beginner Box.


Player's Handbook August 19th


Monster Manual September 17th


Dungeon Master's Guide November 18th


Also, two modules were announced: Hoard of the Dragon Queen (August 19) and The Rise of Tiamat (Oct. 21). There will be a 44-figure minis release in 4 figure packs as well beginning in July.

So, a staggered release (like was done prior to 4E). I am hoping the Starter Set will offer enough content to keep play going as the subsequent books release.

Anyway....very excited about this news, and love those covers. Two months and I might be playing D&D again....ah, the perilous but simple joys of a D&D gamer.....

The 2013 Year in Review Part II: Was the DDN Playtest Courting the Wrong Crowd?

I've made an assertion on prior occasions that one of the key factors which I feel will determine whether Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition can make a comeback is if it's presented as OGL (open game license)....specifically, goes back to the 2000-2003 style OGL and SRD setup that 3rd edition spawned, and not the GSL of 4E. When you look at rpgnow.com and other online ebook retailers you can still see the fruit of the OGL, rife and pervasive. Not a day doesn't go by that we don't see a new Pathfinder tome, some D20 variant, or OSR module or retroclone being released. Some might argue that this is evidence that the OGL did lasting and permanent harm to the D&D brand by allowing it to fragment (in such a model 4E would just be the nails in the coffin) but I would argue that moving away from the OGL was what really let it out into the wild.

In 2004-2005 we saw the D20 bubble bust, when the glut of D20 based products reached critical mass and store owners couldn't dump their product fast enough. A handful of the most creative and resourceful third party publishers managed to swim when everyone else started sinking, and we know who most of the survivors are today (Green Ronin, Monte Cook, Paizo, Crafty Games and a couple others). The market didn't evaporate wth the arrival of 4E in 2008, however...all it did was spawn new paths or directions by which new 3PP could arrive on the scene, and the GSL was an effective deterrent against keeping with the brand-name D&D; in pharmaceutical terms we suddenly had a spawning of generics in the market: Pathfinder and the OSR movement being the top dogs in this creative venture.

Most people in RPG publishing are in agreement that had 4E stuck with the OGL then it is likely there would have been more buy-in and support from the 3PP. Odds are we'd have at least seen a better effort at adopting (and fixing/appending/expanding the options for) 4E D&D if that had been the case, which would have fed into a possible synergy for the game between it and its potentially expansive 3PP options, allowing the fan base to look to more choices than it actually got in reality.

Of course what did happen instead is someone else (Paizo and the OSR crowd) grabbed the OGL by the horns and kept it alive, with new brands. Pathfinder and its process is obvious, but if you look at the OSR as it's own umbrella brand, under which rests a bunch of little connected and mostly compatible efforts, all also OGL, it's fairly obvious to see where all the creative effort in publishing went...and remained.

So it's with some curiosity that I realize that in 2013, D&D and Wizards of the Coast spent a great deal of time courting the player base that was interested in play testing, but as far as I can tell it did nothing to try and court the interest of the other side of this equation: the 3PP support. Sure, it's easy enough to say that Hasbro's lawyers have WotC on a short leash about this, and I imagine someone at Hasbro must imagine that the OGL had long term damage on their brand and sales (after all, someone buying a 3PP product is not buying a WotC product), but surely they must realize that the problem lies not in ignoring the OGL, but accepting the realities of the Pandora's Box they opened nearly fourteen years ago, right? That the way to grab the audience for D&D and bring them back into the fold is to embrace both the consumers and the creators of content....that the 3PP sales are not something people buy in lieu of official content, but something they get in addition to it. The health of the game will be determined by the ability of its fans to partake in the process, and a structured OGL environment is far and away the most effective legal process I've seen in this hobby by which one can creatively partake of it (and occasionally make money doing so).

I have a mostly complete revision of my Realms of Chirak book sitting around waiting for me to decide what to do with it. I have a Pathfinder-statted version which I use for my own game tables since I formally embraced Pathfinder, and I have a more generic version which might like to nestle in with D&D 5th Edition, if only I knew whether or not it was worth the effort. A year or more before 3rd edition D&D ever arrived on scene WotC was courting interested 3PP with the prospect of having ready-to-go content right out the gate for the new edition, and it was a gamble which paid off in spades. I doubt they will even dare to attempt such this time around, but I can safely say that a failure to embrace the creative content-producers of the hobby is going to backfire on them. In a world where you have Pathfinder and it's full OGL toe to toe against the fresh and somewhat uncertain D&D 5E, supported by an immense volume of old product online but otherwise locked in.....if WotC doesn't see that they're about to find out if the gaming world can handle the equivalent of a PC vs. Mac split......(and yest the Indies are the Linux OS in this analogy)...well, then I just don't know what to say except: Please make it possible to support your game through the release of my own products. I want to be on board with the next D&D, but you guys need to own up to your greatest triumph: the OGL. Without it, I don't see how you can do more than flounder at the edge of the hobby.

Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition Officially Announced for Summer 2014

Here's the official news release, confirming what most people who've been to this rodeo before already figured:

December 19, 2013 – Renton, WA – Wizards of the Coast today announced that the highly-anticipated new rules system for Dungeons & Dragons will release in summer 2014.  After nearly two years of an open public playtest and more than 175,000 playtest participants, the rules are complete. Players will be immersed in rich storytelling experiences across multiple gaming platforms as they face off against the most fearsome monster of all time.

Now we wait, and see how it all goes down...

I will make the following predictions:

1. It will sell well, but...

2. It will not reunite the severely fragmented base.

3. It will not kill Pathfinder, and at best may push Pathfinder back to #2 on ICv2's sales lists.

4. It will be a great deal of fun to play for those who give it a chance and figure out what they actually did with the system, especially old fans of AD&D 2nd edition like myself, who...no matter how much we love 2E, can never go back, because as great as it was 2E is still a hot mess.

5. The real strength of 5E will be that fans of Pathfinder and other D&D-likes can actually buy the support modules and settings, using them "as-is" in their own preferred ruleset.

6. 4E fans will stew in anger and a true Swords & Wizardry for the 4E set will arise sometime further down the road.

Third Sundering Module in PDF only???

Dungeon's Master talks about it, that the Scourge of the Sword Coast module will be the February kick-off for D&D Encounters and apparently will be in PDF only (no link provided to the source, though he may be referring to this release notice). If this is PDF only....and it's the official third module in line for the Sundering series that started with Murder in Baldur's Gate....then I am concerned that WotC is about to make yet another silly mistake in it's attempt to bring D&D back into relevancy.

The idea of a PDF-only release for the only current lineup of D&D modules prior to 5E's arrival seems weird to me, especially when you already released the first two modules in print. The likelihood it will be priced reasonably is also in question; $35 for a print book was acceptable if pushing it slightly given that these weren't even hardcover books. If this module goes for more than $12 in PDF I will be interested to see if that many people are really desperate for new official D&D content to cough up.

The idea of publishing PDF only also flies in the face of the current dominant competition: Pathfinder offers all its books in both print and PDF format, which is honestly the best way to do it (imo). You can pick and choose your medium, or mix and match as needed.

Another thing: someone tell me what game store is going to want to keep supporting D&D Encounters if the only way to get the module to run games is to bypass the retail store entirely? Where's the product on the shelf that's going to help generate sales for the game store? I see no incentive here to get stores to participate in this event.

Grell in Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition

Despite a fairly robust playtest bestiary D&D 5^th Edition is still missing a large number of iconic creatures from D&D (presumably they’ll be making their official appearance down the road). One of my favorite iconics, first appearing in AD&D 1^st edition’s Fiend Folio, is the Grell. What follows is my adaptation of the Grell in D&D 5^th edition terminology, based primarily on the 3^rd edition version of the Grell introduced in the 3E Monster Manual II, to serve as a placeholder until the “real” grell makes its official appearance.

Grell

Medium Aberration

Armor Class 16

Hit Points  32 (5D8+10)

Speed 5 ft, fly 30 ft

Senses Blindsight 60 feet

STR 12 (+1), DEX 15 (+2), CON 14 (+2), INT 10, WIS 11, CHA 9 (-1)

Alignment neutral evil

Languages common, undercommon

Traits:

Stealthy-grell are ambush predators and gain a +5 bonus to Dexterity (stealth) checks.

Blindsight-grell do not have normal eyesight, “seeing” instead by means of scent, vibrations and air patterns around it for sixty feet. Grell do not need to make wisdom (perception) checks to detect anyone moving within this range, even if those individuals are stealthed, unless that creature is incorporeal or can otherwise move without disturbing the air or causing even the slightest vibrations.

Grell Tentacles-each grell tentacle is deadly, equipped with poisonous barbs that can paralyze prey.  A grell has ten such tentacles; striking at one tentacle and dealing 10 points of damage will severe the tentacle, but the attacker must be grappled to do this. Damage dealt toward a tentacle like this does not get applied to the grell’s total hit points. The grell can regrow a severed tentacle in 24 hours.

Immunities-grell are immune to electricity and paralysis effects.

Grell Flight-grell fly as if they have the Fly spell permanently in effect. They also act as if they have feather fall in effect, and cannot take falling damage even if unconscious.

Actions:

Multiattack-the grell can make as many attacks as it has tentacles.

Melee Attack-Tentacle: +4 to hit (reach 10 ft; one creature). Hit 3 (1D4+1) piercing damage plus paralyzation (see below).

Paralyzation: any creature struck by a grell’s tentacle attacks must make a Constitution save vs. Paralyzation DC 12 or become paralyzed for 4 rounds.

Grapple Attack: a grell which attacks and hits a creature one size smaller (or more) than it is immediately subject to a free grapple attack from the grell. Each round the grell retains the grapple the creature automatically takes tentacle damage and must save vs. paralysis.

Melee Attack-Beak Bite: +3 to hit (reach 5 feet; one creature). Hit 5 (2D4) piercing damage. Grell don’t usually bite unless desperate or if they are eating paralyzed prey.

Encounter Building:

Level 5, XP 340

The Many Days of Horror! - Revenants in D&D Next

Revenants in Dungeons & Dragons 5^th Edition

The revenant was first introduced as a playable race in an issue of Dragon Magazine, and quickly adopted as a full option later on. The Revenant appeared in “Heroes of Shadow” which remains one of my favorite 4^th edition era books, full of good stuff for use with a macabre campaign centered in the Shadowfell.  It was part of the post-Essentials line of 4E books, one of the first in fact, and so was a bit divisive among some 4E fans that preferred the style/feel of the pre-Essentials content vs. the post-Essentials approach.

I can say this much: the revenant is a cool concept, a sort of undead who has been given a new lease on life, usually by a divine power (The Raven Queen in 4E) with an interest in using a determined agent in the mortal plane to get some task done or some wrong righted. Revenants could be a product of any god of the dead or undead….Orcus, Pluto/Hades, Nergal, Morrigan, Ereshkigal….you name it. Any god could grab a petitioner of their court and turn them into a revenant, destined to accomplish some long term goal that requires a free-willed undead.

Converting the revenant to 5^th edition (the September Final Playtest version) is pretty easy, actually. I have retained a few of the 4E-isms in the conversion because they don’t break the system in any way (i.e. having a choice of two stats to apply a bonus to) and done the rest as a “design appropriate” conversion to reflect the 5^th edition principles and mechanics.

Revenant Adventurer Statistics:

Modifiers: Dex +1 and choose one: charisma or constitution +1

Size: medium

Speed: 30 feet

Revenant Properties:

Lowlight vision: Revenants have lowlight vision, and are able to see in low light with the same ability as elves and other species with the same trait.

Language: common and one other that may be appropriate to whatever the revenant knew in his or her former life.

Undead Traits: like other undead revenants are immune to disease, poison and necrotic damage. Revenants cannot be put to sleep, and do not in turn need sleep (though they need four hours of meditation as an elf to recover magic). Revenants do not  eat or drink except as they choose to.

Past Life: revenants may take on an aspect of their former life; choose one race with which to identify from the revenant’s former living existence and gain its qualities for purposes of nature. Thus an elven revenant would be typed  as an elf for purposes of effects that relate to elves.

Unnatural Vitality: when you would be unconscious or dying you retain consciousness, not dropping until actual death (but you continue to act as you would with negative hit points otherwise for purposes of mortality checks). During this period you may take actions as normal but are at disadvantage on all actions.

Dark Reaping: revenants can syphon a portion of death energy away from an individual who has died or is near death. When a creature within 25 feet of you hits 0 hit points you may add 1D6 necrotic damage to your next attack. This ability can be regained after use following a short rest.

Sample Revenant:

Varaman dann Praedor

Octzellan knight, human revenant, fighter                

Level     1                             

Alignment:         neutral good

Background:       Noble                   

Homeland:         Octzel (Capitol)

STR         16 (+3)

DEX        13 (+1)

CON       16 (+3)

INT         10 (0)

WIS        9 (-1)

CHA       10 (0)

HPs        13

Proficiency +1

AC          16 (chain mail)

Move    30’ (25’ in armor)

Languages: Common (middle tongue), orcish, Old Tongue

Skills: Athletics (STR),  History (INT), Insight (WIS), Persuasion (CHA)

Fighter Traits: Great Weapon Fighting (deal STR dmg on miss), Second Wind (1D6+fighter level temp hit points for 5 minutes)

Noble Traits: 3 retainers: Jorvune Grayson, butler; Tamarin Dane, squire, and Lady Arianna Tovalish, publicity agent

Equipment: fine clothes, signet ring, sealing wax, scroll of pedigree, riding horse, saddle, bridle, grooming kit, feed (1 wk), 29 GP, 5 SP

Chainmail armor (AC 16, -5 feet move, Disadv. Stealth)

Greatsword (2D6+3 slashing, heavy two-handed)

3 hand axes (1D6+3 slashing, light thrown 20/60)

Varaman dann Praedor was a foppish noble who had trained in the martial arts at his father’s behest but was in fact a natural rake, always chasing women and getting into trouble. His death was ignominious; while riding drunk along the street adjacent to the Dreaming Wall in Octzel with two lasses he fell from his horse and broke his neck.

Hermes, assigned the task of dragging his unworthy soul to the underworld for judgement took pity upon the man, and decided to let him return with one missive: he must commit to four great deeds to make himself worthy before the gods. With that Varaman dann Praedor awoke, a revenant, and now only his most dedicated servants continue to work with him, aware of his true nature, to help the wayward knight ascertain what his second chance calling will amount to.

Reading 5th Edition's Final Playtest: it's got me now

If D&D holds its course with the September Final Playtest.....if the game ends up fairly close to what is effectively the final version of the game we will see before an actual print edition hits sometime next year....then I think they have me hooked.

I've been reading the latest playtest carefully, and designing a metric ton of characters for it. I've been tinkering with scenarios (kind of easy to be honest) and poking and prodding it to see how it behaves. It's honestly working very well for my needs, and is surprising me in a few distinct ways.

Some examples?

First: there have been two camps on the 4E influence in DDN: you either see it or you don't. This version of the playtest puts stake to that divide, though; I do not see any more 4E DNA in the game anymore; in fact they seem to have gone through great efforts to painstakingly excise as much as they could from the 4E comparison list. I think the only "4Eishness" I can find is an occasional reference to a short rest to recover certain abilities....meaning certain traits and powers are actually "encounter" abilities, in 4E parliance...but you'd have to be looking carefully to notice them, and also be more than a bit familiar with the 4E methodology to find the comparison noteworthy.

Magic Missile? Back to a level 1 effect. Lance of Faith? apparently excised from the game entirely...or at least the playtest. Yeah...not even a priest of light gets to play laser cleric anymore (although the holy hand grenade is now present in the form of an impressive light channeling effect option).

Hit points? Something we can all recognize. Healing? A smidgen of 4E DNA lies here with the hit die recovery mechanic. It's considerably less offensive to one's sense of verisimilitude than the old healing surges were but still may take some effort for old schoolers to get used to.

Skills were briefly extracted from the playtest but they are back in force and a simple mechanic that ties skill effectiveness to class proficiency, a catch-all number for improving score in attacks, skills and saves. This allows for skills to be more meaningful and in depth, while still making skill checks on attributes a thing. It's really very elegant.

I'm not so sure about the whole "tools" concept but need to explore it more before I cast judgement.

I have managed to roll up about 5 D&D characters in forty minutes. That's a new character...fully statted and equipped....in an average of 8 minutes apiece. Wow.

The spells are great so far. I like how most all of them work in execution. The elegance on the system is starting to show...it's a very intuitive set of rules, actually. It's a big mass of different PDFs and yet it feels very elegant, it makes me want to play it. That's a very good sign.

The monster stat blocks continue to look good, continue to be simple and effective, and the math is starting to look coherent. They've got (most of) their numbers under control now...it's much, much better than the early stages of the playtest when the numbers were all over the place and made no sense.

I'll be resuming another playtest campaign this Saturday. I plan to make this my only game system for Saturdays from now on. I'll let the Pathfinder players enjoy their Wednesday....for now....but eventually, D&D 5E is going to replace Pathfinder for me; it's too close to what I really want in D&D, and I'm really impressed that they managed to do it. This game system feels so much better, so much more intuitive than the last two editions....and it's more modest, pulls back to the style (if not exact mechanics) of 1st and 2nd edition.

I still think D&D 5E has a tough wall to climb with Pathfinder and the entrenched OSR fandom....but I feel it has a far better chance of finding its own niche than I did a few months ago.

Yes, this means you'll be seeing a lot of 5E stuff in the blog from here on out. I am that predictable!

Y'know, there are a lot of modules out for 5E now...(oh and skills are back in)

I've been pouring over all that has manifested for, around or in relation to 5th edition D&D and suddenly realized that for a game which isn't technically out yet, and for which the playtest is in constant flux, there really is a ton of actual content for use with it right now in one form or another:

There's the playtest packet itself which contains The Caves of Chaos, The Mines of Madness, The Isle of Dread, Reclaiming Blingdenstone and the Mud Sorcerer's Tomb.

There's the S-Series Dungeons of Dread which has a full stat-block 5E booklet available in the playtest packet.

There's the A-Series Secret of the Slavers modules which includes a new lead-in and also has a fully statted enhancement for use with 5E in the playtest packet.

There's The Ghosts of Dragonspear Castle which was a GenCon exclusive but due to my contacts I got a copy without paying an arm and a leg. It has four more modules and the rules inside are as current as the June playtest packet. I haven't had as much time to read it as I'd like (see earlier posts bitching about why) but what I have read has piqued my interest and tempted me to move the book from the "collectible" pile to the "use it" pile.

Lastly there's Murder in Baldur's Gate, which I picked up this weekend and which has a downloadable enhancement for 5E (as well as 4E and 3E). Speaking of which it's a pretty cool module....more than half of it is just campaign content on Baldur's Gate, and a generally cool resource at that. My only complaint with it is the books could have used heavier cardstock covers instead of the flimsy magazine covers they actually have.

So all in all that's 19 modules ready for use with D&D 5th edition. Not bad for a game which hasn't even settled down in its development cycle yet!

In Mike Mearls' latest post he outlines the return of a more specific set-rank skill system that from the description sounds like it will work well for everyone except those who wanted no skill system at all. Good....now, if I can just see some multi-classing rules...

...and one more reason....

Tonight's session of Pathfinder consisted of about two hours of great role playing (in which the players befriended a slightly mad volcanic dragon while scouting the base of an active volcanic range in search of a mysterious temple) and two and a half hours of a single combat session involving a platoon of fire salamanders (30 fighters and 10 clerics) who intended to ambush them and enslave or otherwise do great harm to the party. The party consists of 9 13th-14th level adventurers with a heavy weight toward combat. It was a long but nearly sure massacre, though the gnome cleric perished during the fight only to be brought back later through the miracle of raising the dead (or something along those lines).

Still....when campaigns hit high level in D20 era 3.5/PF games, combats can often drag on excruciatingly. This was an issue with 4th edition, too....combats at any level could suck up time unexpectedly.

Now, in all fairness high level games I ran back in 1st and 2nd edition could be lengthy affairs, too...but not like this. And more over, I remember running games in which a half dozen level 12+ characters could face down 80 slaad and the combat still took maybe an hour.

I may need to run a test game o high level D&D 5E and see how it handles play at level 14+. Should be an interesting experiment on whether the system's bounded accuracy can smooth out the math madness of high level play from the last two editions.

Shifting from Pathfinder to D&D 5th Edition in 2014? Maybe...

As the D&D 5th edition public play test winds down (I'm going to start shying away from the whole "Next" reference since even WotC plans on removing it soon) I think I'll be spending more time messing with whatever the final September rules update looks like. I've been thinking about my choice of game going into the future, and while Pathfinder looms large, I concede that it's still a game which doesn't meet all of my own personal needs in a system.

What Pathfinder offers that I like is the following:

Established Player Base - I have more than twenty regular players and every Pathfinder group I run for averages 8-10 players in attendance. It's crazy popular (among players). Can D&D 5E win them over? This is really the main issue, as I see it.....if no one buys into the next D&D, then Pathfinder will stay whether I like it or not.

Metric Ton of Support Material - I can run any game I want within the limits of the D&D/D20 framework and Pathfinder provides the support. Pathfinder is well supported both by Paizo and OGL publishers. I sincerely hope the WotC guys realize that they need to have a decent product lineup next year.

Versatile and full of Verisimilitude - I have accepted long ago that I'm one of those guys who likes a little verisimilitude in my games. I also like a game system which can flex to my needs, and can handle all the kitchen sink nonsense I like to stick in my home grown campaigns. I shy away from game systems which are tethered too closely to one vision of fantasy, or one setting....I don't do published setting, I write them myself. Pathfinder is built for people like me, despite it's Golarion focus in the supplemental material...and Golarion itself is built to be pillaged for content in other settings, to be honest. For D&D 5E, it looks like Forgotten Realms will once again be the primary focus of campaign content, but I am confident the core rules will support my settings. I hope.

Tries to make the GM's life Easier in a 3.X edition - Pathfinder provides quick monster templates, quick NPC generators, loads of pre-crafted NPC stat blocks, and for people who are into it all the adventure paths and such. I personally find the effort to read and prep a published module to be worse than writing my own, but that's only because I try to scrape up premade stat blocks or use services like dinglesgames.com to help make the process easier. More below on the weaknesses of Pathfinder....so far, though, this is looking like an easier process across the board with 5E over Pathfinder and 3E combined. 5th is at least taking this hint from 4E in terms of "ease of access for DMs."

Pathfinder Mitigated Nit-Picky Rules - D&D 3E was notorious for (imo) things which were excessive in terms of a "rule for everything." I do not need to know what the alignment of a town is....though I might like to know what the town's actual rulership is like. I do not need seven hundred prestige classes; I have only seen maybe 20 prestige classes in action EVER, since 2000. A lot of 3.5 had nit-picky rules which could freeze up play quickly as people scrambled to remember how to do something right, or debate who's interpretation was correct. Pathfinder got rid of a lot of the really annoying little bits, or tried to consolidate them when possible....from synergies to skill rank calculation to grappling to stacking rules, PF tried to clear some of the clutter up and if not streamline it, at least make some of the outliers less problematic.

For 5E, I see far, far fewer nit-picky bits and this edition if anything seems to be trying hard to avoid that problem.

There are things Pathfinder does not do well for me. These aren't necessarily bad things, they just don't jive well with the restrictions of my time and energy:

Still Too Much Prep Time to Do It Right - D&D 4E did right for DMs. You could build monsters, NPCs and scenarios with some excellent guidelines and some very easy to understand procedures that were not tied to the same processes characters were designed by. This was a throwback to the old 1st and 2nd edition days, except with more structure. Pathfinder tries to do this, but it still pales in comparison; writing an adventure for Pathfinder takes no more or less time than any other edition, but properly statting it out is still excessive in the extreme if you don't try to find shortcuts...and in fact I hardly every bother to do so anymore. I mean....I helped my wife update her old swordmage from 4E to Pathfinder (making him an 11th level magus) and it still took about 3 hours to do this. Yikes.

5E so far shows no signs of this being a problem at all, with the caveat that we haven't really seen any details on customizing monsters or how to make NPCs (outside of making a PC and adding an N to the front).

Not Enough Iconic D&D - Pathfinder is mostly "D&D with a different name," but let's be honest, I like my beholders, mind flayers, displacer beasts, hook horrors, githyanki and grell. D&D 5th will obviously fix this matter, no questions asked. Yeah, yeah...I do use the unofficial Pathfinder conversions of those IP iconics....but I really like the simpler monster stat blocks of 5th.

Only Golarion - I actually do like reading about other campaign settings, even if I don't use them. Golarion is interesting, but it's the only supported setting now for Pathfinder and looks to remain such for the forseeable future. I like that D&D 5th will inevitably bring with it at least two or three additional settings that get supported, especially Ravenloft (I hope), Eberron or even Greyhawk.

Streamlined Rules - Pathfinder did try to consolidate and streamline some mechanics to 3rd edition, and did a great job of it by my accounting. However, it's still hampered by being 3rd edition, and that's a very demanding beast of a system. I am very proficient in running 3.X these days...or at least the PF version of such....but freely admit to wanting something simpler and a little less demanding of my mental fortitude. If I can avoid ever having another debate involving precise shot, or vital strike, or any other number of fiddly feats again...or combat maneuvers, or even whether or not a 12th level monk can wrestle a kraken down....ah, yeah that would be nice.

D&D 5th edition will fail miserably for me if it fails to do the following, though:

No Support Material Out the Gate - they need some modules, and they need enough content out soon to support all the campaigns that contain more than just the core iconic races. I've moved on long, long ago past the point where dwarves, elves and halflings are anything more than three out of many interesting potential choices for players and DMs.

No Skill System - Absence of a robust skill system, something which D&D has had since the mid-eighties, will make me a sad panda. I know there's a division between people on this....a surprising number of the new-school indie-drenched hip gamers frown on skills as limiting, just as much of the OSR community sees skill mechanics as counter-intuitive to Matt Finch's definition of what old school is. Somewhere in the middle of all this is myself and my players, who like skills and feel it adds to the depth of their characters.

So...a few thoughts on this. I think it mostly means that I may take some time to do some actual builds and discussions on what 5E's current playtest offers and how it compares and contrasts to what has come before. Time will tell!

The State of D&D Next: Final Open Playtest Packet in September

Mike Mearls provides the latest update, and indicates that the last play test packet will go out next month. After that, it's all going to be R&D and closed play testing as they presumably tighten up the numbers, clean up the bits and pieces and write up the traditional metric ton of necessary exposition and fluff. I'm looking forward to it.

The open play test has had an overarching theme that has been consistent from start to finish, but the way its been presented and the different approaches have varied, sometimes quite a bit, from packet to packet. I've taken this as a good sign; a real play test shows change, testing, sometimes progress, and lots of experimentation. If the packet had varied  little from one month to the next that would have been a bad sign. Some stuff disappeared entirely (and who knows what it will look like in the final product)--sorcerer and wizard builds early on, for example (not to mention the blackguard and warden paladins); skill dice for another. Other things have gone missing that I expect will return: some sort of real skill system, for example. The playtest never did look into whether or not to expect more detailed, tactical combat options (and if they do appear, it will probably be some add-on supplement).

Of all the stuff that has shaped and molded I think the bumpiest rides have been in the area of the fighter class and the way feats are presented. As they stand with the latest packet I like what feats are becoming...also, the fact that the notion of feats as presented in 3.5 may at last have loosed its iron tight grip on R&D; I like the concept of feats, mind you....but the execution throughout the 3rd edition days is directly responsible for the vast majority of rules confusion, micromanagement issues and needless monster/NPC stat-block clutter. Anything which reduces those issues is ace in my book. I'll sacrifice a touch of nuanced content in exchange for ease of access any time.

Mearls outlines several bullet points about what the R&D team has learned about overall player preferences in the play test. By now everyone has either read the list or reprinted it ad nauseum, so I won't repeat it (just click the link above) but I do think they've caught the gist of what the larger gaming crowd are interested in, to a certain degree. One thing this list definitely isn't is representative of your average gaming forum-goer's opinions and attitudes. There's a pretty tight group of gamers online who are rife with opinions and game theory, who have their favorite editions and opinions about what constitutes the one true D&D...and those people are important to the process, as we all are, but lack a certain measure of self-awareness about just what their opinions are actually worth. In my own gaming circle, for example, I know of at least 20 other gamers locally who I GM for (and occasionally get to be a player with) and of them only two are regular purveyors of forums who also fill out the WotC play test surveys. So three gamers out of twenty-one (counting myself in there) are actually getting their voices heard (and for the record, two of us are excited about DDN and the third gave up on WotC in 2000).

Anyway....for me personally I rather like the intention and much of the design in DDN's latest play test edition. It's got some neat ideas, it has some core conceits that I have grown to accept (bounded accuracy being chief among them) despite reservations, and a few warts as well (the absence of a skill system in lieu of simply fixing the skill dice problem). The next D&D is going to be closer to its AD&D roots than the last two editions by far, which is not a bad thing by my estimation. And if people don't like it? Well, WotC has done an impressive job keeping all prior editions in print or PDF, which is kind of unbelievable, actually. No matter how you cut it, I'm looking forward to what 2014 has to offer for D&D.

Still not sure Pathfinder has anything to worry about, though...

Tyler Jacobson

There's an interview and showcase of art on Tyler Jacobson over at the WotC site. I really like Tyler's work, and hope he's a key force in iconic imagery for D&D Next. Check it out!

Here are some of his works I really like:

Save or Die Effects

A discussion over at rpg.net on this prompted me to write a comment which I then thought might be worth replicating here. Save or Die effects feel important to me in D&D, as a way of distinguishing certain encounters from the norm. What's a medusa without a save or die petrification gaze, other than another ugly monster to be hacked down? Here's my comment:

If I'm playing in a game where a medusa gazes at me and I don't turn to stone because the rules forbid it on grounds it would be a misuse of power...well, I sort of feel cheated. The whole point of SoD effects is that you should figure out how to overcome them by means other than "I have more petrification points than your gaze deals to me in damage," or whatever.

I did like how 4E handled this specific example, though (a series of consecutive saves), so I think one can find a middle ground between "missed your roll, now you're stoned" vs. "missed your roll, now your 10% on your way to maybe being possibly stoned."

                                          

On the other hand, I get the feeling that people who see SoD events as an abuse or misuse by the DM granted within the rules are either dealing with adversarial DMs (always bad) or missing the point of the game entirely. (this sounds like I'm endorsing the badwrongfun concept; what I realized after writing it was that I was asserting that "rulings, not rules" is my preferred default stance; don't think fixing the rules stops a bad DM from making trouble, I say, so leave the rules as flexible as possible and provide as much "how to be a good DM" subtext as possible).

All I want is a version of the game that reflects consequences intelligently and in a way that doesn't suspend disbelief. If my PC drinks hemlock and doesn't have a strong chance of dying as a result, I will be disappointed. If my PC locks gazes with a medusa and suffers no ill effects....I will feel cheated. Just my 2 cents. I will be happy with any system in which I feel that the point of SoD effects is retained, even if the mechanical application lets players feel like the results are "fair," I suppose so long as doing so doesn't kill the point of such effects in the first place.

If you have, say, a medusa with a SoD pertification gaze that works like it says on the tin, then the players should reasonably expect to approach a medusa differently from any other monster and deal with her carefully, at a distance. If the medusa's gaze is turned into a "save or start accumulating penalties or moderate damage with an end result of petrification" it changes the fundamental approach to a medusa from a tactical, measured consideration to a zerg rush from the players. This effectively removes a tactically interesting encounter from the game, I feel, and replaces it with an entirely different approach that sort of defeats the whole concept of the monster in the first place.

More Wisdom from Sterling: Just substitute "Focus Groups" for "Playtest Groups"

Fair warning! Jim Sterling can either be hysterically amusing or banally irritating with his videocast personality, depending on your tastes. Don't let his persona get in the way of sound wisdom. This video talks about the problems in the video game industry with focus groups changing the style and direction of a game, and subsequently wrecking the title as a result because what a focus group says it likes and what those people actually like are far too often very different things.

I think there's more than a nugget of truth here and I also think if you substitute "playtest groups" or "survey groups" for "focus groups" you get some eerily predictive results on the way development for D&D Next is going. And keep in mind I'm enjoying the D&D Next playtest at this moment, but not without the caveat that the game is nowhere near being competitive enough to usurp my continued dedication to Pathfinder.

EDIT: Hey, Escapist, turn off aut-play in your embedded script!

Here's a link to the site instead, since I HATE videos that start playing automatically.

Anyway....something to think about with regards to both the video game industry and the implications of what's happening with DDN. The similarities are a bit too close for comfort, I think. My hope is that the analogy is ultimately faulty....that a playtest group, and the people responding to WotC's surveys are actually more involved and more representative of the overall gaming crowd for D&D. I am pretty sure a very small percentage of people are actually playtesting DDN, while the rest act out and cast judgement after a quick read-through of each packet--if that--or sit around armchair designing with spherical cows all day long.

Playtesting Dungeons & Dragons Next

My Tuesday night group met and I presented them with three options: Magic World, Pathfinder, or D&D Next. We discussed it and after a bit everyone there opted to try out D&D Next. Of the players I had, only one had previously been in one of my earlier DDN playtests (one of the first, in fact) so he got to see the system in a more "evolved" state.

Long story short, we had a blast, and will continue with DDN for now. The rules in play feel pretty smooth and are so far proving very consistent. The advantage/disadvantage mechanic remains a real popular feature, and as DM I've warmed up to it now that the rules provide numerous guidelines and triggers on how/when to implement it. Spells and various actions produced adv/dis throughout play and players quite enjoyed being able to grant these effects as they grokked just how useful they could be.

The group had a human druid, dwarven fighter, wood elf cleric (lightbringer), human paladin (warden), human wizard and wood elf rogue (thief). All of the classes seemed to function well, and the fighter was rather effective.

Spell Blocks

There were a few spells and effects which raised questions. The fighter had an ability which seemed to state that you could spend an expertise die for damage and also grant advantange, but he was wondering if that meant he didn't have to expend the die while still granting advantage. I ruled that he could, but I'm reasonably sure that wasn't what was intended. Sanctuary, another classic spell, seemed to suggest that you could cast it on others but not yourself by way of wording, but we all agreed that it probably was intended that a cleric could cast it on herself. So there are some odd bits like this.

The Exceptions of 3rd edition are Baked in to 5th

A metric ton of stuff that boiled down to conditionals dependent on granted abilities (usually through feats) from 3rd and in some cases 4th edition were now "baked in" assumptions in DDN, which my players quickly warmed up to. Finesse being a property of some weapons rather than something you learn, for example...or dual wielding being something anyone can do without strict penalties, but with additional permissions making it better from feats. Armor proficiency being the only restriction to spell casting was another, as was the way that concentration now works as a convenient "rule of thumb" approach with some specific guidelines. This was good stuff.

Swift Action Spells

Swift action spells were pretty cool, and the players were all very interested in what they meant. Reactions didn't pop into play as often as I had expected...yet. We're still at level 1, time enough for that later on. Swift action spells had the same stat block repeated ad nauseum. I guess that's useful for the playtest document but hopefully they don't need to do this in the final product.

Leveling Pace

Speaking of leveling, even though the PCs defeated three traps, fought two animated suits of armor, a horde of lemure devils and avoided an undead-releasing trap (all in about 2 1/2 hours of play, since we spent the other half of the night designing the characters and exploring options) they did not level up. As it turns out, the XP gain is scaled down appropriately such that a 250 XP requirement for 2nd level will probably take 2-3 play sessions to earn. My concern about the advancement rate in DDN has subsided a bit, for now.

Healing Mechanic

The hit die mechanic for resting seemed to work well. We're doing the default rest mechanic and so far it seems to feel "right" to me which is interesting, as it's prior incarnation in earlier playtests definitely felt a bit off. One problem everyone with a spell caster noticed however was that the starting spell slots (and the rate of advancement) seemed to be fairly limiting. This is not something I as DM felt was bad, but I do expect them to figure out how to squeeze in an extended rest as soon as possible as the spell casters all expended their level 1 spells by the end of play.

Tool Proficiency?

There was a bit of confusion about proficiency in thieve's tools and the Disarm Trap feat. The rogue had proficiency granted by class, but the feat was looming nearby. It seemed like the intent was that the thief could, being proficient in his tools, attempt to disarm traps, but he lacked the feat so as best I could tell that meant he didn't get the skill die. It was kind of odd how they did it this way....you're basically spending a feat to get a skill.

Combat

On the DM's side of things I found that combat resolution was much simpler and more intuitive that it was in the early playtest rounds. The clarity came from better details on the action/movement/reaction/swift action economy and how it played out. The net result was we played the game  with narrative combat, not even a board, and it flowed very well. Combat was quick. At least as quick as in the 2E days. It still retained a lot of interesting variables. It works extremely well in the theater of the mind narrative approach. I will have to try it with a grid and minis sometime, but admit that its clearly not necessary. This is a Huge Plus.

Skill Resolution Mechanics and DCs

The "flat" math of DDN made a lot of calculations such as DCs a simple matter, I noticed.

The skill mechanic resolutions were detailed and helpful. I've read in some spots that the skill system lacks clarity; while it might be nice to have some expository text on each skill's intent, the DC mechanics for resolution was clear as day.

I noticed that cleverly optimized PCs could guarantee decent DC spell checks, and as a result the monsters were failing saves pretty frequently. The absence (in all spells we used) of any sort of touch attack mechanic threw the players off initially, but when they realized all they had to do was cast and wait for me to check the saves on the monsters they rather liked it. Personally I prefer systems that load the die rolling on the players' side as it helps them feel more engaged....so the idea of a hit-roll save mechanic initiated by the player is more my cup of tea, but the system as presented did work very well and no one had an issue with it.

Monster Stat Blocks

Monsters do not have an initiative score, which means you go by Dex mod. This seems odd to me, as one could in theory have a higher initiative modifier than just Dex if you feel some trait of the monster justifies it, right? This could just be "3.5 think" going on, though, as the system as presented is very closely aligned to the 1E/2E methodology.

The monster stat blocks were otherwise (imo) perfect. This is one area I think they've got down to a science now, and all they need to do now is add lots of great descriptive stuff and some awesome illustrations.

Looking at the latest D&D Next Playtest Packet

I decided for various reasons to print out the latest playtest packet* and delve deep into it once more, perhaps even with an eye toward a new playtest run (maybe even as early as next week). Part of this is indirectly motivated by my recent dabbling in Basic/Expert D&D, ironically (an interest in contrasting the two); part of it is also motivated by stat-block fatigue from Pathfinder. 3rd edition stat blocks, even though I've gotten quite good at condensing them down to the relevant bits, still do that to me; I really liked 4E's methodology here.

Anyway, in reading through the latest playtest materials I was surprised to see that despite what everyone on rpg.net says there does appear to be a pretty solid game coagulating within DDN's many pages. Even more surprising was realizing that a massive chunk of DDN feels to me like someone is trying to wed 4th edition design principles (minus the always-on-minis and map experience) to the 1st edition design aesthetic. They haven't exactly got it right, but they are actually much closer than they have been in years. In mechanical terms the playtest in its current condition is about as far from the ideation of simplicity and economy of design to be found in, say, Basic D&D as you can get....but in terms of modern systems that feel like D&D? It's scoring a lot of points with me, at least.

There are still several things bugging the hell out of me, though. I feel like I need to get a new playtest running with this latest ruleset to see just how problematic these concerns really are, though. Anyway, some observations on the new packet that I would like to see more in-game playtesting on:

Experience gain looks way too fast

I've been crunching the numbers on level advancement vs. the level rating and XP values of the monsters in the packet, comparing them to the DM advice section on encounter building, and something doesn't add up. Furthermore, it seems like the experience advancement as presented could lead to insanely fast level advancement. Granted, I'm used to medium and slow track Pathfinder advancement these days....but that was one of the problems 3rd edition had, too. Characters could outstrip a DM's scenarios by leveling too fast (and Pathfinder's altered XP gain mechanics only make that worse when you try to play fast experience advancement). On the surface it seems to me this will be a problem for DDN as presented, but I need to play around with it and see it in action for a few sessions. Also, I wonder if the XP gain is intentionally quick to insure more playtesters reach and experiment with higher level play. Then again, if that were intentional I would also hope they'd mention it in the packet.

Is the laser cleric still a problem?

My first playtests with DDN suggested that the laser cleric phenomenon was a real issue, but a lot of development on the cleric class, along with a larger variety of deity choices (with associated abilities) means that the cleric may not exhibit this problem (as often) anymore.

Paladins have eaten cavaliers, wardens and blackguards

Paladins now have three subtypes from which to choose, with the cavalier being the default paladin, the warden being a sort of wilderness paladin who killed the 4E warden and took his stuff, and the blackguard being a timid non-chaotic version of the anti-paladin (borrowing from the 4E blackguard, but this is a good thing). I'm disappointed that this suggests the warden from 4E won't get to be its own "thing," but maybe this one will feel similar. I liked that class.

Fighters are looking fun to play again

Proof is in the pudding, but on the surface they appear to be full of interesting things to do. There's a smidgeon of 4E's slayer in the design (still) but hopefully the overall changes won't make it feel like a static "guy who hits things." Need to see a few in action to be sure. The fighter exhibits what I mentioned earlier, about how DDN is a 4E revision in OSR sheep's clothing. It's clearly got a lineage stemming from 3rd and 4th, and bears little to no resemblance to anything a player from prior editions would recognize.

I See 4E Everywhere

Maybe its just me, maybe its just because DDN is a post-4E edition that can't escape the core descriptive approach to mechanics (even though it does a fantastic job of integrating the fluff, far better than 4E ever could have), but every mechanical description I read is written in that elegant and extremely precise "application language," for lack of a better term. It's stepped away from 4E in that you're not looking at endlessly repetitive stat blocks...but that core conceit, that the "thing you are doing" should have an explicit mechanical application which is clearly understood, seems to be a big operating point behind class abilities and spells. The opposite seems to be happening with skills and ability checks, however....and I'm not sure how I feel about that until I can get some more playtesting in.

Advantage/Disadvantage is more integrated

It appears on the surface to be better implemented and pops up in logical places now. Will have to see. I disliked it a lot in my first playtests, especially due to the lack of good guidelines on use.

The Monster Stat Blocks are Great

Despite the level and XP listings seeming to be off to me, the core stat blocks look to have taken the best lessons from 4E and carried them on, but with a firm integration into the pre-4E world of mapless design principles at play.

Attribute Limits

It's a "bounded accuracy" system, and they are trying to make it work, so I understand the principle behind limiting attributes to a max of 20...but at the same time I can't help but feel like this is a step back. The real problem is that attributes in the 1E/2E era were explicitly capped and their relationship in terms of modeling creature values was explicit in the design. The DDN methodology to take the open-ended approach of 3rd and 4th edition and arbitrarily cap it. This seems like a cheap workaround to me.

Skills still concern me

I don't like how they are handling skills at all. This is a shame, because they do seem to be trying to include more skills (or at least the same essential skill set from 3E), but the weird lack of real progression, the limited control over how one could advance in skills, some skills tie to feats in weird ways, and the customization for flavor limited to backgrounds (which are admittedly cool) are all problems to me. The pluses right now are that the DM section has some great and explicit guidelines on using skills and setting DCs, the backgrounds are a great idea, and it all might just work in a way I'm comfortable with, but once again: gotta playtest it and see.

The heritage of D&D is more than 1974-1978

Despite some perceptions, D&D is much more than just what it was in the 1970's. I'm accustomed to editions of the game which offer more, not less. So we're still missing things that cater to the "more, not less" mindset: to date no rules on other than the basic races have been seen, nor have we even gotten a hint that there will be rules for designing such. Multiclassing is being discussed in their Q&As, but what details I've seen suggest it will have a closer heritage to the 4th edition methodology and will steer away from the 3rd edition and earlier approaches. The practicality of a campaign style which does not depend on a dungeon-focused encounter design seems to be met within this system (4E failed miserably here) but the recovery mechanics are still in a state of flux.

There will be some edition of this game which, WotC is saying, will be the core "basic" edition but even the thing I'm looking at right now appears far too complex for anything that should have "basic" appended to it. If they did manage a stripped down version that got closer to the original basic edition, but which still catered to the "more, not less" mindset of 2nd edition and onward, I will be pretty happy.


Anyway, I'm going to see if my on/off Tuesday group would like to dive in next week. We shall see!




*For extra fun I had it bound with the Basic D&D cover (for the char gen section) and the Expert set cover (for the DM's section and bestiary), giving the playtest packet a deceptively retro exterior appearance!

More D&D releases now up: 2nd edition reprints, Dungeons of Dread S Series cover, and more

Wizards of the Coast updated their product lineup for 2013, so we can officially see what the S-Series module cover will look like, there are now actual entries for the 2nd edition reprints of the core rules (yay) and the first "Sundering" module from Ed Greenwood is now listed for an August 20th release.

It's interesting, as the module seems to very specifically avoid mentioning system requirements...it's just for "D&D," so I wonder if they plan to release it in a manner compatible with any of the editions that are now (or will be) back in print? Wonder if 4E will be overlooked here, too.... Either way, the fact that it doesn't specifically talk about serving as a lead-in or intro to 5th edition suggests the module will be designed for cross-edition functionality, but without actually saying that, its all just the usual conjecture and speculation.

Anyway, here's what the Dungeons of Dread S series cover is going to look like:



Nice. It's now slated for a March 19th release....so not too far away. I may have decided that 1st edition and I just don't agree with one another, but the modules are a different story, and I'll be able to use this just fine with the 2nd edition rulebooks.

Speaking of which, the three 2nd edition rulebook cover images look like placeholders--please, please PLEASE let them be place-holders, because the DMG/PHB images shown are from the black-border reprints circa 1995ish and those were some notoriously butt-ugly covers. The Monstrous Manual, however, was always a pretty decent cover so I won't complain if they recycle that one.



No cover yet for "Murder in Baldur's Gate" but read the description here. Between this module and the recent release of Baldur's Gate Enhanced Edition for PC and Mac (I'm holding out for the android edition), we will be able to party like it's 1998 all over again!


UPDATE

Also, MIke Mearls is talking details about the "core" or simplest version of the game (here), on which additional rules/options will layer. It's interesting stuff, not least of which because the core rules he's describing sound about as old-school and "back to roots" as D&D can get short of the reprints...and maybe moreso, since this will be a refinement of the game that does a redux and dispenses with both the modern layered complexity to simplify its core, and also the old school complexity that arose from the stitched-together rules-bedlam that was common in the early days as the game began to grow.

And Then The Nexus 7 Appeared

I have accomplished three things this week, none of which involved blogging. First:

First, I worked on recovering from a flu-like sickness that was keen to turn into a bronchial infection (I'm prone to these) which meant I missed a bit of work. Not the exciting part here!



Second, I resolved my long-standing love/hate relationship with Dungeons & Dragons 4th Edition. In the wake of the latest round of playtest materials I decided that the new edition was shaping up to be pretty decent, something I actually want to play, and lots of. Poor 4E, meanwhile, languishes in a weird limbo where I want to play it but can't get a consistent group together, as Pathfinder has gained a near-Stockholm-Syndrome like grip on the gaming community at large. More over, when I do run 4E, I inevitably am reminded of its idocyncracies, the reasons I get annoyed with it in the first place....they are little, but devilish bits which always rear their ugly heads because they are baked into the rules, and are hard to extract without a functional rewrite or simply ditching the system entirely (ergo Pathfinder).

So I took all of my 4E collection down to the local Hastings ("Books and More") and managed to get enough credit to pick up a Nexus 7 tablet and extras)....a worthy sacrifice! Which leads us to...



I had previously bought a Nexus 7 for my wife as a XMas present. I couldn't say much about the hardware from her experience, as all she has done with the thing is feed virtual dragon colonies, but I had it on good authority this was a decent gadget. I was not disappointed!

I'll be raving more about the coolness of the Nexus 7 in the coming weeks, and also talk apps on it. The device isn't entirely replacing my Nook, which will remain my main ereader, but it is expanding my repertoire to include the wide world of Android apps on a Tegra quadcore processor. There are some really fantastic games out there for Android, and some even cooler game resources for tabletop (the entirety of the Pathfinder SRD at my fingertips in a fine app called Masterwork Tools pathfinder Open Resource, for example). I have also packed it to the gills with games, many quite good (Dead Space Android, Mass Effect Infiltration, Order & Chaos Online, Chaos Rings, NOVA 3, Dead Trigger, Shadowgun and NFS Most Wanted, to name a few).

I can safely say that I know why the dedicated handheld market is shrinking, now. Nintendo and Sony appear to be behind the times with their quaint, costly dedicated game systems, while any old Android tablet can run fantastic games now. People who think tablets are just for casual gamers....yeah, keep on telling yerself that....



Finally, I managed to pick up my copy of Champions Complete, an innovative take on the Hero System that gets back to its roots, and repackages the game in a very attractive 240 page book that does not resemble a pre-internet-era Yellow Pages phone book. Sweet! I'll be reading through it as time permits, maybe I'll even be inspired to run Champions again for the first time in many, many years.