Talking about D&D 5E with the FLGS

When the game wrapped Wednesday night I had a conversation with the store owners (my weekly Wednesday game always meets at the game center of the local game store). It was interesting, as they weren't clued in to many of the forthcoming D&D 5th Edition announcements or details which I talked to them about at length. Some of the interesting bits I gleaned out of the conversation were as follows:

1. 4E sales had been dead pretty much since 5th edition was announced. They stopped stocking 4E a while ago, as they couldn't move any of their product on the shelves.

2. Apparently they did not like the multi-volume Player's Handbooks and had a lot of trouble selling the game because the PHB 1, 2 and 3 served as an obstacle to buy-in for new players who felt like they had to make a huge investment to start playing in order to feel like they had the complete rules (not untrue by any stretch). The subsequent Essentials books just made things worse. They are fearful that the same will happen to 5E, although I told them Mike Mearls is on record as stating WotC doesn't plan to release more than one PHB and DMG.

3. No one locally is running any D&D Encounters stuff right now, but I suggested they get involved with the planned organized play for 5E, as it sounds like it's going to go over really well. Locally Pathfinder Society people say that they are apparently expecting to lose a lot of people to the new organized play for D&D 5E, and that the memory of the very well run RPGA events is a big driver for people to go back to D&D.

4. The FLGS owners are hopeful that 5E will focus on adventure modules for sales. They are also hopeful that some sort of OGL or convenient 3PP support will come out of all this, or they feel that 5E is doomed from the get-go without the ability to demonstrate the support of independent publishers. If WotC doesn't do that then they feel it will be dead by this time next year.

5. Apparently they hadn't received any promotional material or details on the forthcoming schedule for D&D 5E, planned events or frankly anything at all from Wizards of the Coast. Hmmmmm....

Food for thought!

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.

Meanwhile in Pathfinder News

Since the last few weeks have been pretty much all D&D 5E all the time when it comes to the spider-web of blogs and odd chat sites that comprise the news resources for all thing tabletop RPG, I thought I'd do something no one else is doing and talk about what Pathfinder has going. I have a vested interest, as my Saturday group is returning to Pathfinder next session, and my Wednesday group has already rebelled and is returning to Pathfinder this week.

I'm cool with it. If there's one thing I've learned from 13th Age it's that I like a slower and more methodical game system, with a bit more nuance. 13th Age handles a certain style of play extremely well (gonzo heroic) but it's pace and feel, while great for an occasional romp, is not suited to my default style of play.

So....what's up with Pathfinder?

Paizo of course needs to throw some stuff out for later this year that will look equally attractive next to the onslaught of D&D tomes about to hit. They've got the usual fine Reynolds art lined up, with a great cover for the looming Advanced Class Guide scheduled for sometime in August (probably for GenCon):

You can still get the Advanced Class Guide playtest document and take the ten new classes contained within for a spin. Each class is a hybrid of two core classes. It's an interesting concept, another subversive strike from Pathfinder against the 3rd edition method of multi-classing, right behind archetypes and the idea of classes that are more fun for 20 whole levels. Given how rarely my players multi-class, I guess their war against the habit is working.

Next up is the Pathfinder Strategy Guide slated for sometime in Octoberish:

Bound to be the ruination of campaigns everywhere as players who like to make interesting and role-play focused characters read it and learn how to min-max like a pro....

After that we have the Monster Codex, also scheduled for "October" so expect it by December:

This one has me excited. It focuses on twenty popular monsters from the Bestiaries, looking in great depth on them. It sounds like a combination ecology guide/race guide/stat block heaven lineup in which the GM can lean on this book for lots of pre-statted orcs and other monsters that make for interesting encounters without having to do all the footwork; the most excruciating part of Pathfinder and 3E for many a GM, of course, is those horrendous stat blocks. If this game offers up a mess of interesting pre-made villain NPCS, consider me sold.

Most of the slim books haven't been grabbing me, but this one is an exception- the Pathfinder Technology Guide:

The descriptions suggests that this book actually has some real meat to it (sort of what I wished Distant Worlds had been), with loads of equipment and useful material for adding sci-fi fantasy tech to your campaign setting, or blending it to make your own planetary romance/gamma world knock off. Could be interesting....the Technology Guide looms large this August. Maybe next year Paizo will pull the trigger and release a full-blown hard cover high tech planetary romance manual, a "Ultimate Space Campaigns" book or something......

Caverns of Chaotic Kobolds for GURPS Dungeon Fantasy

Where to go with this one? Well, to start it's a rare module written....and statted....for GURPS Dungeon Fantasy. It has a map, somewhere, but I've lost the original, and the remake by Simon Tranter is owned by a local friend of mine who at one time was assisting me with producing The Sorcerer's Scrolls in its reboot a few years ago, and to whom I turned the operation over when I decided that blogging was more rewarding than attempting to do a print/PDF magazine.

I don't know if that final issue ever got off the ground, but if it had it would have included this module. Alas, the map is history....and the cool one which exists somewhere is not mine to share, so I leave you to interpret the layout these rooms as you see fit....

Source

The Caverns of Chaotic Kobolds

Dungeon Fantasy Edition

   Deep within the Chaos Mountains lies the vast and evil valley of the Chaotic Caverns. Here, dozens of ancient tunnels, some natural and others dug deep by monsters, riddle the length and breadth of this valley. One such set of caverns can be found, the notorious Cavern of Chaotic Kobolds, near the entrance of the valley. It is a popular locale for young adventurers to assault, and the wary kobolds have grown used to this barrage of devil-may-care adventurers seeking to steal their plunder…

   The following stat blocks provide some basic stats for the kobold denizens in the caverns. These kobolds are derived from (but not exactly the same as) the kobolds depicted in 3^rd edition GURPS Fantasy Races:

Typical Kobold Statistics:

ST 8 DX 11 IQ 8 HT 10 Speed 5.25 Move 5 HP 8 FP 10 Will 7 Per 8 Damage: Th 1d-3 Sw 1d-2

Dodge 9 Parry 9 Block 9 (DB 1 with buckler) leather armor DR 2

Skills: short sword -11, Buckler Shield-11, Climb-14, Shortbow-11, Stealth-11

Advantages: cast iron stomach, dark vision, Flexibility (5)

Disadvantages: short attention span, uneducated, weak will -1

Weapon:  short sword (cut 1d-2 or impale 1d-3) or short bow (impale 1d-3 Acc 1; Range X10/X15, RoF 1)

Armor: small shield and leather armor (torso, groin, head)

Wealth: typically 1D8 animal bones, a rabbit fetish, and 2D6 copper pieces

Kobold Warrior

ST 10 DX 12 IQ 8 HT 10 Speed 5.50 Move 5 HP 10 FP 10 Will 8 Per 8 Damage: Th 1d-2 Sw 1d

Dodge 10 Parry 10 Block 10 (DB 1 with buckler) leather armor DR 2

Skills: short sword -13, Buckler Shield-13, Climb-14, Shortbow-13, Stealth-11

Advantages: cast iron stomach, dark vision, Flexibility (5), combat reflexes

Disadvantages: short attention span, uneducated

Weapon:  short sword (cut 1d or impale 1d-2) or short bow (impale 1d-2 Acc 1; Range X10/X15, RoF 1)

Armor: small shield and leather armor (torso, groin, head)

Wealth: 2D8 animal bones, a rabbit fetish, 3D6 coppers and 1D6 silver pieces.

Kobold Shaman:

ST 8 DX 11 IQ 11 HT 10 Speed 5.25 Move 5 HP 8 FP 10 Will 10 Per 11 Damage: Th 1d-3 Sw 1d-2

Dodge 8 Parry 8 Block -- cloth armor DR 1

Skills: shortstaff/sword -11, Climb-14, Shortbow-11, Stealth-11, Occultism 11

Advantages: cast iron stomach, dark vision, Flexibility (5), Magery 1

Disadvantages: short attention span, uneducated, weak will -1

Weapon:  shortstaff (crush 1d-2 Parry 0F) or short bow (impale 1d-3 Acc 1; Range X10/X15, RoF 1)

Armor: Cloth armor (torso, groin, head, legs and arms)

Magic:  Itch-12 (cost 2), Spasm-12 (cost 2), Pain-12 (Cost 2), Sense Foes-12 (cost 1+), Haste-12 (2/1+), Ignite Fire-12 (1+), Create Fire-12 (2/1), Shape Fire-12 (2/1), Fireball-12 (1d/pt up to 3; ½D 25, Max 50, Acc 1)

Wealth: 3D6 animal bones, a rabbit skull cap, 4D6 coppers, 2D6 silvers and 1D3-1 gold pieces

Description of the Kobold Lair

    The Yeargat Tribe (loosely translated into “Flaming Rabbit Tribe”) has been a denizen in this particular wing of the Chaotic Caverns for centuries now, or so it seems. In truth, the kobolds are frequently cleared out, only to be replaced by a new tribe periodically. For reasons unknown, the Speaker in the Pool likes to surround itself with kobolds, and seems to call to them telepathically.

   The current leader of the tribe is the warrior known as Warangit, and his chief shaman is the female kobold Katala-Thika.

   Unless otherwise indicated, all doors in the dungeon are locked, but all guards will have a key ring that opens most doors; only the chieftain has a door that opens area 10, however.

1. Entrance

   The main entry is partially barricaded by a rubble barrier of stones that the kobolds have heaped up over time. The barrier was partially knocked over when an ogre named Crothux came visiting a few weeks back, and the barrier remains partially toppled. Guarding from a small stone walk-way along the “ramparts” of the stone blockade are four kobold sentries.

2a., 2b. and 2c. Sleeping Chambers

   These wide den chambers contain eight primary nests each, and huddled within at any given time will be 2D6 female kobolds, 4D6 children and 1D3 off-duty kobold warriors.

3. Storage

   This is the storage room and pantry for the kobold raids, and includes the wealth of several stolen caravans as well as good pilfered from their immediate neighbors. The storage containers within include the following items of note:

2 barrels of 20 short spears each

3 sacks of cinnamon

1 heavy “powder keg” containing orcish firegrain

4 small dwarven kegs of stout

2 satchels (open) of salt

1 heavy open barrel full of ground flower

1 large mortar and pestle

1 loom (broken, needs repairs)

1 stack of approximately 20 deer skins (tanned)

1 skeleton stacked in a corner adorned in nobleman’s garb of Octzel City

1 crate full of leather sandals

4 large amphoras full of water (tepid, with mosquitos breeding from it)

1 ogre-sized chamber pot (full)

12 wineskins stacked in a corner, half are still full of wine, the rest have been drunk and discarded

   There are usually 2 kobold warriors on duty here, but there is a 50% chance they will be asleep.

20 yards of giant-spider silk cord rolled up in a corner next to 50 feet of rotted hemp rope

4. Pool of the Speaker

   Here is the mysterious sacred water in which dwells the mysterious Speaker in the Pool.  The Speaker is an ancient entity which has dwelt here for thousands of years, or so the stories go. For some reasons it is seen as a godlike being by kobolds, who claim they can hear it “speak” though no one else can; when the entity forms it exudes only hideous bubbling noises.

   The Speaker in the Pool is actually a sentient Erupting Slime, a unique creation forged either naturally or by magic eons past. It has IQ 20 and Telepathy 20 (with access to animal empathy, invisibility, mind control, mind probe mind reading, special rapport-kobolds, telesend and terror). It has one huge limitation: the Speaker’s power source is actually within the natural confines of the pool in which it rests, and should it leave (traveling more than 200 feet from the pool) it will lose its power of telepathy as well as its sentience.

   Hidden in the bottom of this thirty foot deep pool, trapped in ancient encrusted calcite is a long-lost Kadantanian Artifact from ages ago. The device looks like a small container, and bears the engraved image of a squat goat-demon with six arms lifting up a gem, which doubles as a sort of “lid.” The Gem is a pure ruby worth 500 gold pieces, and if unstoppered reveals that inside the odd vessel lies a solid crystal skull that pulses with a faint blue light. Any who touch the skull are assaulted by the ghost of the Kadantanian sorcerer Eurenesas, who will seek to possess the target (possible only by touch, however).

   Eurenasas is the source of the Erupting Slime’s sentience, although it does not know that the artifact is the source of its might. Should Eurenasas’s crystal skull be removed from the vessel, or be awakened through the possession of another target, then the slime will lose its sentience in the process.

5. Hidden Cache

   Chieftain Warangit likes to hide his really good stuff down this secret passage that leads to a collapsed region. The discovery of the passage is not too difficult (Perception -3 if actively being searched for), but it requires small hands to reach down a long hole to grasp an iron ring that opens the door. Worse, nestled within the hole is a fat black widow familiar which will bite any arm that does not reek of either the war chief or the shaman…

   The cache contains the “good stuff” of the tribe, including:

A coffer with 345 gold pieces, 53 electrum pieces, 12 iron coins from the far north, 421 silver pieces, 2003 coppers, and 3 mithril bars.

1 tall ceramic amphora in which a pickled undead troll head floats

An ornate high-quality greatsword (very fine; -2 to breakage and +2 to damage)

1 satchel of pure opium in a worked wooden coffer (5 lbs.)

6. Well

   Here the kobolds draw their water from a cistern well, which collects runoff from a slow but steady drip in the stalactite-laden ceiling. The water is the only purified source in this cavern that has not been corrupted by the seeping effect of the  Pool of the Speaker. There is usually 2-4 kobold females here filling urns that they carry on their heads.

7. Kobold Market

   Here can be found a wide deep cavern that has been turned into a warren of small shops and businesses. Approximately four dozen kobolds can be found here at any given time, bartering and bargaining with one another in an effort to make money at the expense or misfortune of others. The kobolds have several small shops here (and by small I mean only gnomes, Halflings, goblins and other short kin can safely enter standing) with salvaged gear and weapons; most gear is priced double the normal cost, and the kobolds will shrewdly haggle at the price to keep it as high as possible.

   If the adventurers have already made themselves a known nuisance, then there may be as many as a dozen guards in this area to protect the merchants. Should the adventurers decide to siege the market, about three dozen common kobolds will flee while the dozen soldiers fight. The kobold merchants, being venomously jealous, will likely depart their shop while setting a variety of deadly traps in place to protect their goods. A sample trap:

Trip-Wire Triggered Crossbow (hits on 10 or less on 3D6; 1D+3 damage if an adventurer fails to spot it (-3 penalty to Perception as it is cleverly disguised); spotting the crossbow as it triggers allows a dodge roll to avoid, but the person behind the adventurer is then targeted.)

8. Camp and Hub

  This chamber is used as a camping spot for foreign visitors and also as a hub for traveling into the deeper caverns. Roll 1D6 and check the following list to see who or what is in the chamber when the PCs stumble on it; re-roll for a new encounter once every 1D3 days:

1.            A trio of ogre traders with casks of deepwater grog; they use a half dozen severely malnourished shadow elves as their slaves.

2.            A lone troll named Thaumat prowls the area looking for stray kobolds to eat. At one of the entrances a half dozen kobold guards have holed up while they wait for pitch arrows to drive the troll away.

3.            A single Mindwarper named Xymurgis is here, guarded by two flaming skulls and a trio of well-armed orcs is visiting. He has a rather impressive animated kiosk that travels on four spidery legs, and he sells any and all potions (usually 150% of the base cost, but he’s wiling to haggle).

4.            Kobolds from the Yaunkak tribe (literally means “Stolen Baby Tribe”) are visiting and there’s the kobold equivalent of a small renaissance fair going on here.

5.            A necromancer named Callous and his three vampire vixens is passing through. He’s offering the kobolds a princely sum for the right to speak with the Speaker in the Pool, but the kobolds (all two dozen, with the lead witch-doctor, wearing garlic necklaces and wielding sacred ankh-crosses of Naril—even though they barely know who the god of goodness is!) are rather mistrustful of the necromancer and his evil maidens.

6.            Seven kobolds, including lead kobold chief investigator Yeenkark are investigating a recent death; in the center of this chamber is a dead kobold known as Yonton, the best merchant and haggler in the community, and he’s been impaled by what looks like a spear from the Yauntak (Baby Eater) tribe…Yeenkark suspects foul play and an attempt to incriminate the other tribe falsely….may be willing to employ friendly adventurers to seek out clues….

9. Warangit’s Throne Room

    The ceiling in this wide but low chamber is only four feet high; it doesn’t bother the kobolds in the least. A trio of stalagmites stretching from floor to ceiling have been turned into a throne for Warangit, leader of the kobolds. Within this chamber the chieftain and at least fifteen guards and usually five or six harem wives can be found. Warangit is open to discussion with foreigners who will pay proper obeisance to him, but he wil order the guards to attack if the adventurers have been assaulting his caverns already.

10. Sleeping Chamber

   Here, behind the throne room, is a much wider and more spacious private chamber for the chieftain, his harem, and his three dozen children (and nests for more eggs on the way). Needless to say, if the adventurers have gotten this far, they will be met by at least ten angry harem wives and three dozen angry kobold children!

   Hidden beneath the carpets of this chamber are three cisterns filled with 10,000 copper pieces (approximately, give or take), 573 silver pieces and 1,021 gold pieces in hidden loot. An adventurer walking on the carpets who makes a Perception check will notice the curious “crunch” when passing over the cisterns.

   The three treasure cisterns do contain ancient traps: at the bottom of each cistern (about three to five feet deep) is a pressure plate held down by the coins. When half the coins are remove, the plate will release, exposing a substance which explodes in contact with air, dealing 3D6 damage in a 15 foot radius around the cistern and melting the coins in the process! The way to avoid the trap is to use the key held by the lead matron on three cleverly disguised key holes each adjacent to the cisterns (Perception -2 to notice the key holes), or to pick those locks (the GM should roll that if an attempt is made, as there is no way to tell if the lockpicking is successful in “locking” the trap or not).

 Conclusion

   There are several ways out of the dungeon, that lead to other warrens within the Chaos Mountains. GMs can use this as but one of many such avenues to further adventure, of their own design!

13th Age - Endgame!

Saturday's 13th Age campaign closed with a brutal storming of the evil temple as it were, a series of escalating battles leading to the grand finale, where everyone stopped the resurrection of an evil goddess....or possibly something much worse. Fun stuff!

After suggesting we could continue with 13th Age or go to another system, we've all decided to resume Pathfinder next session, picking up where we left off a few months ago. Interesting, yes....but not terribly unexpected. Everyone had a great time with 13th Age, but it is a very minimalist system in a number of ways, and my group is a conventional, modern sort of gang which craves elaboration and detail. This is a group which likes more skills, not less. More feats, not less. More exotic options, not less. They have enjoyed 13th Age, but they have also noticed that once you've played a class you pretty much know it. You have to work a bit to make a fighter in 13th Age look and play all that differently from any prior fighter; this lack of diversity, which they blame mostly on the lack of content for the game right now, is considered a bit of a crutch until future books (13 True Ways, for example) come out. It's probably a perception shared by gamers used to Pathfinder as their bread and butter, but may not resonate so much with gamers looking for a simpler experience.

As a player, I would love to play 13th Age....over Pathfinder. I'm still pushing for my one friend to run it; I think he'd do a good job and it would get me a chance to play. But for now....back to Pathfinder. I've had enough of a break now that I think I'll enjoy the return, for a while at least. Now I have to hope that in a couple months D&D 5E manages to hit the goldilocks band of sufficient diversity of interest for my players and ease of access for me as DM. If it can pull that off, then I'll be happy camper. If not....then Pathfinder will remain local king, I imagine.

Note that I'm not done at all with 13th Age, though. We've got an active weekly Wednesday game going on that's quite fun, although I expect when that game concludes we will probably migrate back to Pathfinder as well. Books like Deep Magic and the New Paths Compendium have my players chomping at the bit to try them out.

The Elder Scrolls Online - Sinking its claws in deep after a second chance

So I've bounded back and forth a bit on Elder Scrolls Online.

First I decided pre-release that I wasn't going to get into it at all. Then I watched my wife playing in beta and decided it looked like it might be worth investigating, so I bought a copy on some credit a few weeks after release.

What I discovered initially was a lot of fun....and it felt very "Elder Scrolls" to me, having that "thing" that I can only define as what Bethesda --or in this case Zenimax-- can do to make an RPG fun.

Then I started to run into some problems. The first problem was ridiculously long load times. When a game takes 8 minutes from clicking on the shortcut to actually playing, and you only have 30 minutes to play that's a clear sign you need to play another game.

Then I would get in and find horrendous lag was leading to death constantly. Also, I was literally doing it wrong, I figured out later. I'd get in to TESO and forget this is a twitchy combat game, not one where you stand there trading blows.

I decided not to renew my sub at the end, but a few days later I recanted on this decision and decided instead to go back and try it another month. This was actually spurred on at least partially by my adoption of Wildstar, which had an open beta I could jump into. Wildstar is an interesting game and I think I will enjoy playing it, but in the course of messing around in the beta I realized that Wildstar had a lot of "MMOisms" that were actually styles of play I had really burned out on. Static storytelling....bubble balloon dialogue, cartoony WoWish graphics (I knew that in advance, it was not a selling point for me, but the look is actually very stylish and interesting), and a combat system that is a bit different but still much closer to its WoW DNA than...say....Elder Scrolls.

So after a bit of Wildstar I realized that I really ought to go give TESO a second chance. I did so, jumped back in, found some patches that seemed to dramatically improve lag issues (haven't had any lag problems in the last week of playing) and have been having a great time simultaneously leveling up three different characters. Hey, I also discovered that TESO lets you skip the intro sequence once you've done it. This has the unique effect of making TESO feel just like any other Elder Scrolls game where you're just another wanton criminal given an accidental reprieve.

At this point I've decided that for the foreseeable future I'm going to focus on TESO and will also give Wildstar a earnest chance. I'll continue to let Defiance and Guild Wars 2 linger as games I play when the mood strikes (and while it doesn't strike often I enjoy both a great deal when time and interest permit). I've deleted WoW and Rift completely now: I tried to level up in WoW in preparation for the next expansion, but I just can't muster the energy to care anymore. WoW, for me, is a fond memory of a great game from the old days, and the desire to stick with it is just gone. And as for Rift....I'll never reach level cap, and I don't quite know what went wrong with their 51-60 content that it's such a slog to get through, but I will always remember it fondly from the days before it went F2P. As F2P goes Rift is top notch, yes; but there are a lot things that become less important or even counter-productive to the design of a F2P MMO over a pay-to-play version. F2P for example benefits from slower advancement, and markets potions and perks you purchase to speed up experience gain; the older subscription model actively encouraged the designers to come up with bonus experience events for a contrast. The best time to play Rift was the eight weeks leading up to Storm Legion's release, when all sorts of craziness was going on and world events were popping everywhere that were designed to dump metric tons of XP on participants. The post F2P Rift is a painful slog that, if played the way it wants you to, will cost you more than $15 a month in purchases to stay relevant, and as always that means that the only people who benefit from F2P models are those who have no money at all but tons of time, or those with no time but tons of money (and no common sense).

Anyway....its now TESO and Wildstar for me until one or both go F2P!

The OGL, D&D 5th Edition, and A history lesson

Morrus has a great discussion on Enworld.org today about the history of the OGL, Mike Mearls' nebulous announcement of something to come soon that seems to name drop the OGL while sounding like a discussion of community content, and an overview of what WotC could do down the road. Personally, my money is on some sort of negotiated agreement with One Book Shelf on their dndclassics.com site that lets 3PP sell D&D product in their store with WotC getting a cut, if only because it seems a very Twenty-Teens way of conducting business. I guess we'll just have to wait and see.....

13th Age: Icons and their influence on story

My weekly Wednesday game has been doing 13th Age for about two months now and we've been having a lot of fun, as you might expect. The group has pared down a bit with four actives and three occasional in-and-out players; we lost one player to a job move, too.

The campaign I've been running has been my adaptation of Realms of Chirak into 13th Age. This has been an easy fit because honestly it doesn't take much to run a setting prepped for D&D in 13th Age. I've done most conversions on an as-needed basis, and except for building up Chirak's unique icons I haven't had to add a lot in.

An interesting side effect of using the icons in 13th Age is that they create interesting "markers" for lack of a better word that tell the GM some specific story information....and depending on the scenario you are running it can lead to some creative ways of imagining how those 5s and 6s are going to affect the storyline in complicated or beneficial ways.

Since I'm using Chirak, and employing icons that are tailor made for my setting, it's proving to be especially interesting. For one thing the icons are an easy fit in any established game world because ultimately the icons aren't really a new rule at all: they're a codification of something that every good campaign already has. When you run a campaign setting you likely set up important figures and personas throughout your world, sometimes with the intent that the players could meet them, fight them, slay them or even replace them. Other times you set them up so that they're behind the scenes, influencing things in a way that will benefit or bedevil the adventurers, serving as a mystery in their own right to be solved.

Even traditional sandbox campaigns can do this, unless you run sandbox in an extremely static fashion (an that's certainly been done too). If you create the sandbox campaign in the closest literal sense then you are simply populating your world with static objects, events or individuals that rest in situ waiting for the adventurers to discover them and bring them to life. I think most people don't run the sandbox campaign this way anymore; it's evolved a lot since the early days (an ironic testament to the fact that what we regard as old school today has, itself, undergone its own path of evolution). But that said, if you run a sandbox in a dymanic environment then icons are a great concept to deploy. It lets the GM cluster "big names" in his setting and think about how these big names interact together...and with the PCs.

Icons basically create an interesting dynamic relationship in the storytelling process, as well. The icon rolls you engage in at the start of each session lead to complications, and those complications often mean the GM has to think on his/her feet. "Bert the rogue got a 5 on his relationship with Lady Poe and a 6 on his relationship with the lich king...." turns into a situation where Bert discovers a network of spies working for Lady Poe in the city who will help him....for a price. Meanwhile every undead enslaved to the lich king that Bert meets knows he's one of the fleshy living agents of the lich king for some reason....but they are happy to assist him in any way they can. These are not things that would necessarily ever have a chance of evolving in an ordinary D&D game without creating a deliberate framework; both examples above came about because of icon relationship roles in last night's game; if I had been running Pathfinder it's not clear Bert would have a chance at ever meeting or even caring who either Lady Poe or Malenkin the Lich King were in a conventional game.

Now, one could argue that the icon relationships basically create a preordained background of connections for players....and there's nothing wrong with that, and plenty of games (old school and new) have included the notion of contacts, allies and enemies as a feature of character design. But if it really does bother you, one way to make it more organic is to build the evolution of icon relationships into play. This is honestly how it's normally done....people meet important characters, and either work for, with or against them over time. A GM who used the icon structure to plot out 13 ways PCs could encounter and develop icon relations would basically have a huge amount of scenario potential preordained right there. That alone could be worth the hassle of starting everyone off as true "nobodies" and then letting them build from there.

On Amazon and Predatory Pricing

Charles Stross is a very interesting guy. Aside from his brilliant science fiction novels he has a very informative blog, and in this particular entry he discusses the conflict going on between Hachette (a publisher) and Amazon's efforts to force them to comply with what boils down to a dispute over who gets to benefit from the surplus earnings...the distributor (Amazon) or the publisher (Hachette). I won't repeat what Charles has discussed, though, as he talks about it more eloquently and with better information than I.

What is especially interesting to me is his discussion on the predatory pricing model Amazon employs. This is a big answer to me about why prices on the Kindle are always cheaper than prices on the Nook, with only certain big-name publisher titles generally being the exception. He has an earlier 2012 article that discusses the general Amazon strategy and its use of predatory pricing in more detail here.

I've talked about the pricing issue of Amazon vs. Nook in other posts, but reading Charles' entries on the subject has left me with a bit of a bad taste in my mouth towards Amazon. While I like the savings, knowing that that savings comes at a long term cost on the impact of the overall heath and financial well-being of the authors I like is not something that sits well with me. I strongly believe in the necessity of consumers learning to appreciate the value of the creative content which the consume, and as an author myself when I can get the time to devote to it I know it's no small amount of effort to go from reading a good book to actually writing one.

There are still plenty of authors on Amazon's Kindle shop that I can't get anywhere else. If that's the only place I can purchase their goods and support them, then so be it. I haven't yet heard any negative commentary on any Barnes & Noble Nook practices, so maybe I need to just accept that sometimes, for my own personal conscience, the value of saving a dollar or two in exchange for a clean conscience is worth that much. I already do this with Walmart (I do not shop at Walmart except in desperation) so applying that same standard to Amazon isn't too much of a stretch for me.

Basic D&D is a fully functional and free edition of the game

Morrus at ENWorld describes it far better than I could, and of course you'll probably have seen this everywhere else as the news is now pouring pretty freely on D&D news.

Pretty cool idea. I think this lowers the chanes of an OGL or SRD at this point, but it sounds like WotC has decided that the real benefit of the OGL (to them) was the online accessibility of the rules for players who couldn't pony up for a rulebook, and that making the core rules free will accommodate that.

It also means that WotC is trying hard, or so it seems, to court the older pro-OSR crowd by offering a full-featured but pared down version of the rules online. The price point is right....free directly competes with and in many cases beats most other OSR games out there.

The question still remains: how will one be able to publish content for 5E? At this point, if they don't offer up an OGL then maybe they can at least announce some very 3PP-friendly licensing agreement, or a tacit acknowledgement that the gaming community likes to publish content for D&D and can do so without worrying about draconian GSLs.