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By nedjer, on February 3rd, 2012 The arrival of Lego’s Heroica series and, more recently, their Lord of the Rings figures has improved the start-up options for basic roleplaying games. An RPG playing parent or teacher now has instant access to a straightforward RPG that maps out how to bridge the skills gap between kids and adults.
If Lego wasn’t Lego we’d probably have seen more along the same lines, with a fuller Lego RPG rules set on the way and a raft of RPG products to follow. However, despite impressive kits packed with ninjas and dragons, Lego have a bit of a problem. At some stage from 7-10 many kids ‘move on’ and Lego seems to become either too expensive to buy or, worse, uncool.
At that stage an imaginative 7-10 year-old might be able to move straight into a full-blown RPG with someone a bit older running the game. However, without cash, the mobility of a teenager, parental approval, and/ or a mentor to run the game most youngsters could be forgiven for reaching for the XBox.
That’s not to say that kids of such ages are looking for a childish simplicity. They’re eager for more choices and to take some of their own decisions. It’s just very hard to learn to play or run a tabletop RPG without models or exemplars. A parent who GMs is an ideal mentor who can model how to play and design games, but there aren’t enough of those to go round. That seems especially true if you’re in a family which doesn’t play RPGs, i.e. the vast majority of families.
So, despite some new opportunities for some younger players there’s still a gap between a kid learning basic RPG play with a game like Heroica and becoming a confident player of a variety of RPGs at 11 or 12. The size of the gap is all the greater if a youngster is going to become an assured teenage GM.
This suggests that RPGs could do with a bridge or bridges. Not an exercise in talking down to kids, not a nod to or an accommodation for kids within a broader scheme – but a mainstream-compatible, fantasy RPG which starts fast, plays fast and serves as a self-contained ‘mentor’ or ‘apprenticeship’.
We’d be delighted to see others look at this with their glossy budgets . . . but we’re not waiting around. A game aimed first and foremost at young people might include a few things that don’t suit simulationists. Equally, it could have age preferences that don’t sit well with some Old School Gamers. Here’s how we see it:
Dudes! – you already play; you obviously don’t need any kind of apprenticeship – it’s just that there aren’t enough of you, with enough time, to spread the word and the skills.
Corruption, (our added-content clone of the original game by Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson); well, it’s had it’s comic book ‘twist of evil’ taken out, lost a few 100lbs. and gained a number of gameplay-building features. It’s now being fused with our Renegade ARG to try to set more kids on the road to . . . wherever their imaginations take them.
There are simpler, shorter clones out there. The difference with Renegade is that the presentation, features and gameplay seek to take account of the latest educational and psychological best practice.
The game doesn’t, and shouldn’t, look all that different from it’s RPG brethren. It also shouldn’t have all it’s teeth drawn, because spoon-feeding or patronising kids defeats the purpose of encouraging them to make their own choices. Instead Renegade is about trying to recognise young players’ preferences and hoping to equip them to take control of their own entertainment.
Dates and details soon 
By nedjer, on January 30th, 2012 After a week of talking-up others’ content it seems fair to take a turn for ourselves.
There’s no time for bean-counting the web analytics or checking accounts every five minutes, so we can be a bit behind on our own news at times. As it happens, the copy of clone Corruption uploaded to DriveThruRPG has gained both reviews and . . . sales!
We won’t be ordering the super yacht quite yet, but it’s very ahead of schedule. From a design point-of-view it made sense to have the full version of the game set-up before making the cut-down version. However, from a sales perspective it’s usually thought best to work the other way round.
Regardless of the how or why, it’s money straight into developing more content and improving the site
Looks around for a blogger’s carrot and stick. If you read our six reasons for buying Corruption right now there’ll be a new monster in it for you:
- Corruption reflects our views on making RPGs accessible, encouraging player choice and supporting campaign-building.
- Even if you don’t fancy the clone part – Corruption’s still going to have enough new OSR and RPG good-to-go content to justify the cost.
- Buy one copy as a GM and you’re free to print personal copies of the Players’ Guide for your players.
- The new Old School content and separate Players’ Guides can allow play to go back to the time when your players didn’t know every monster and treasure in the book.
Enough! let’s fast-forward to the monsters. Converting these unpleasant bugs to most clones is about as hard as swapping ‘spell’ for ‘song’ as you read through.
Hornet, Horror
Hit Dice: 3+1
Armor Class: 5 [14]
Attacks: Mandibles (3d4), Sting (2d6 + Poison) or by Weapon
Saving Throw: 12
Special: Pheromones, Songs
Move: 6/ 12 (Flying)
Alignment: Chaotic
XP: 350
These creatures have humanoid faces and arms enclosed within hornet-like bodies. They are often highly aggressive and thoroughly evil. Their leathery wings resist fire without losing much mobility, but become useless after a Horror Hornet has lost half its total hp.
The more intelligent among them train as Bards and sometimes ignore or overlook other Bards who play soothing music or enter into a duet with them. Every 1o Horror Hornets includes a Bard with 2d4 levels; every 20 Horror Hornets includes a Bard with 3d4 levels; and every 50 Horror Hornets includes a Bard with 4d4 levels.
Horror Hornets use chemical markers to trace any creature that injures another Horror Hornet, so a marked creature can and will be hunted down by Horror Hornets within five miles of a marked creature. The chemicals remain intact for a week unless washed from the flesh using soap and a wire-brush; which causes 3d4hp of scrubbing damage before becoming effective.
Horror Hornets are also highly adaptive to attacks and the first attack form that damages a Horror Hornet has no further effect for 24 hours. A Horror Hornet Bard of 5th Level or above is adaptive to no less than 3 types of attack/ day; while a Horror Hornet Bard of 10th Level or above is adaptive to up to 5 attack forms/ day.
Horror Hornets’ musical arrangements may sound like a dreadful, discordant cacophony to most humanoids, but they are highly effective at summoning and controlling insects. Their songs may also act on the magical effects of other songs sung at the same time.
A Bard of 5th Level or above can use a Horror Hornet arrangement 1/ day; while a Horror Hornet Bard of 10th Level can use a Horror Hornet arrangement 3/ day. These arrangements are in addition to any Bard’s songs which a Horror Hornet can use.
- Melody: this arrangement allows a Horror Hornet to summon a swarm of Wasps or Hornets with 7HD or less.
- Texture: this arrangement allows a Horror Hornet to summon a swarm of Wasps or Hornets with 14HD or less.
- Succession: this arrangement allows a Horror Hornet to direct a swarm of Wasps or Hornets with 7HD or less.
- Harmony: this arrangement allows a Horror Hornet to direct a swarm of Wasps or Hornets with 14HD or less.
- Amplify: this arrangement works in duet alongside another Bard singing a Bard’s song. If the Bard’s song causes damage the maximum damage is caused by an effect. Alternatively, any saving throw against a Bard’s song is rolled at -2.
p.s. The magpie hopscotch rhyme reads:
One for sorrow
Two for mirth
Three for a wedding
Four for a birth
Five for rich
Six for poor
Seven for a witch
I can tell you no more.
By nedjer, on January 29th, 2012 We’ve received a few questions asking for more details about how a language-based, modular 5e might make significant differences to the way the game plays. It’s a topic that could fill a long, rambling post without getting to the heart of the matter, so we’ve tried to come-up with a few analogies which, hopefully, set out some of the possibilities. The analogies are not intended to simplify so much as open-up discussion.
Editions, Compatibility and Builds
Skylar loves playing with Playmobil and watching the Mummy films, so she’s delighted when she receives a Playmobil pyramid set for Christmas. Mhairi also likes to make-up stories with Playmobil, but she’s a huge fan of Pirates of the Caribbean and her present is a Playmobil pirate ship.
Both kids get a lot of fun out of playing with the figures and their parents arrange for Skylar to take her pyramid set round to Mhairi’s for a game. As imaginative kids, (more interested in making stories than arguing over the differences between the sets), it isn’t long before mummies are stomping along the deck of the pirate ship and the pirates are seeking treasure inside the pyramid. So far, so good: the similarities between the sets, their themes and their styling outweigh the differences – delivering a platform for open-ended gameplay.
Another mummies and pirates meet-up is arranged, but the girls go to the cinema to see How to Train Your Dragon before the game. They both love the movie and when they next meet their imaginations jump to a simple conclusion – our game needs some dragons to make it more exciting. Unfortunately, neither the main pyramid nor the hull of the ship can be broken down and used to make anything resembling a dragon. If they want dragons in their Playmobil game they’re going to have to buy a Playmobil pack with a dragon in it.
However, there’s some Lego lying around. The blocks breakdown and connect to make anything you like and before long both girls have their own custom dragons.
Mhairi thinks it would be great to make-up stories about a school for dragons, at which point most of the mummy and pirate plastic is not at the centre of the girls’ story-building. Fortunately, the highly adaptable Lego quickly makes three baby dragons out of one of the adult dragons.
During all this the kids’ imaginative play has moved from a system that shapes play to a system where they can do much more to shape the gameplay themselves. Essentially, the kids’ imaginations are given free-rein to go in any direction they like. They may still wish to buy a Lego castle later on to get to more gameplay faster, but they’ll still be able to take the dragons and the castle apart, then turn them into pretty much what the like.
Toolkits, Languages and Learning
Some time later Skylar and Mhairi are told they’re going to be learning to build apps at school. Skylar’s dad works in computing and she’s seen pages of complicated code spread all over his computer screen. She’s not too keen on Maths, so the class doesn’t look like it’s going to be much fun. However, the teacher doesn’t ask the kids to learn using raw code full of complex rules, specialised terms and new concepts. Nor does the teacher expect the kids to build every part of their app from the ground up. Instead the teacher loads a modular programming toolkit software like Scratch.
The combining, breaking apart and re-mixing of blocks, (and their arrangement into layers or stacks), is quick, reliable and doesn’t involve building-up an independent or isolated skill set. These kids have already learned the underlying the processes, or mechanics, when swapping Playmobil parts between sets and customising their Lego dragons. Consequently, what was once a daunting prospect for a novice becomes a straightforward progression, with the software toolkit supporting the rapid construction of new understandings. The resulting apps are shaped by the kids acting on the the software, instead of the language and software limiting or railroading the kids’ contribution.
The Bare Bones
Defining a lexicon of common terms, (and the relationships between those terms), to set out a core language within a RPG is not unlike translating a complex computer language like C# into the equivalent of Scratch or Sense. This kind of approach is fairly familiar from Traveler and Treasure, where the basic building blocks of the gameplay are straightforward, consistent and, generally, highly connective.
It doesn’t take more than a few minutes to understand either the basic mechanics or how to make a character with such systems; but it does prove very easy to add combat options, stunt systems, ‘sub-classes’ . . . without any impact on the underlying core or any loss of connectivity.
As a result, when Mhairi starts playing RPGs and decides she wants a new critical hits system she doesn’t have to wonder how its effects will impact across the system. Her formulation can rely on the core to define what amounts to a critical hit regardless of whether play then involves a simple doubling of damage, a more bloodthirsty multiplication or a quick roll on a table offering a range of different effects.
Whatever the choice of a particular group, the shared baseline for identifying when critical damage to characters, monsters, doors or ships occurs remains consistent. Meanwhile groups of players can adjust the critical hits complexity dial at will. Under these circumstances, 5e could be expected to allow one player to sit down and say, ‘if I roll a 20 I’d like double damage’; while another player can say, ‘I’d prefer a quick roll on your critical hits table’.
Designer Dragons
Does this mean that 5e is going to turn out much like a Traveler or a Treasure. Only in so far as the underlying principles act on the design. D&D’s collective lexicon, grammar and syntax are quite distinct and the connectivity might, for example, work through connections more similar to Meccano than Lego.
In addition, D&D as a whole has a great many modules to connect-up and combine, which could prove problematic when the designers are under pressure to cater to the specific demands of players with strong attachments to specific mechanics.
Nevertheless, deep-down a modular, scalable system based on a streamlined core might reasonably be expected to allow Mhairi and Skylar to take the game’s design toolkit and easily build designer dragons, custom castles and configurable worlds. All of which can be transferred and translated between different groups and various styles of play without reaching for Book 5 or exchanging blows with any passing rules lawyers.
By nedjer, on January 27th, 2012 Further news about AD&D 5e that’s been put out over the last couple of days has triggered another rash of posts and comments. Unsurprisingly, most commentators are discussing the news in terms of how the designers’ decisions will effect their weekly game around the kitchen table. Topics like character builds, (including the excellent news that you’ll be able to go back to simply rolling a few dice and starting play), high level play and balance are to the fore.
The specifics are worth checking-out, but a couple of comments attributed to WotC caught our eye more than any of the details. Firstly, talk of breaking the game down into its simplest components and trying to understand the connectivity between those components in terms of a language, (and potentially cognition), concerns one of our long-term hobby horses.
Secondly, some of the remarks that seem to have been made about supporting GMs and the particular mention of a ‘toolkit’ for GMs – at some stage – appears to concern our number one hobby horse – design games.
Language and design gaming may not sound likely to set the heather on fire, but they are very much the design keys to high connectivity and scalable modularity. In practical terms these features allow designers to make games which are quick to learn, quick to play, open-ended and, therefore, able to scaffold flexible, imaginative gameplay.
Other potential benefits, depending on the fine-tuning of components and the connectivity between them, are likely to include the capacity to slot components arranged into modules in-and-out without degrading the overall system.
All of which suggests that WotC have equipped themselves with a language/ narrative shortcode and a methodology, which can provide the means to make 5e work – and work extremely well – across a much wider base than the current, fragmented RPG community.
Does that mean they’re home and dry. Not exactly, as there are commercial considerations that could result in the marketing department missing the point, (and the opportunities), involved in supporting a design game rather than selling crunch. This might disrupt modularity and or connectivity on a number of levels.
In addition, highly modular systems based on parallel arrays are very prone to generating knock-on effects. The overall design itself has to come together as an interlocking gestalt or unity to avoid the risk of bringing down the entire house of cards.
Highly interactive, modular systems which generate knock-on effects can also add a further, particularly challenging complication for designers. The more parallel, modular and connective a system, the more likely it is to suggest or, perhaps, construct the designer’s psychological approach to the design. I.e. the final toolkit for players arises as much from the designers’ language-based toolkit acting on the designers’ choices, as from the designers shaping the toolkit. Under these circumstances there’s a temptation to over-elaborate as the system invites further elaboration.
Out of time for now, but here’s a link to indicate that while cognitive design and design gaming may be unusual in tabletop RPGs, they are already taken entirely seriously in the videogame industry. Back soon to discuss our own content – but we’ll continue to keep a much closer eye on 5e than we might have. Without a language and design gaming 5e would be looking like ‘more of the same’. However, the team’s work now looks to have a great deal to offer to the hobby.
By nedjer, on January 21st, 2012 Forums, blogs and Facebook feeds continue to overflow with Ultimate AD&D 5e wishlists. Much of this discussion seems largely oblivious to the overall shape of the system already designed by WotC and put out for a playtesting consultation – rather than a core design consultation. The system is said to be modular, based around a straightforward core and more concerned with uniting D&D than exploring the latest trends in gaming. The same interview with Mike Mearls also suggests that the degree of modularity is not set in stone at this stage, but that there is some emphasis on simplicity.
In other words, it looks like the design has a lot to do with shaping AD&D into a form similar to existing modular RPGs. There are a number of Tabletop RPGs which are modular and extensible. These include the minimalist Classic Traveller, the adaptable Burning Wheel, the visual Treasure and the 3D Lego Heroica.
These designs are all characterised by fairly straightforward, inter-changeable core mechanics, which make it easy to plug-in or stack additional options, (including complexity dialing), on to the core. Key components, (such as armour, damage, experience and attributes), can then act as built-in universal connectors. These highly connective components are able to operate in much the same manner as any mesh network, i.e. at speed and with low redundancy.
So, providing you stick to simple, connective components, (and arrange them into a mesh network), gameplay should be fast, highly-engaging and short on unnecessary detail.
In addition, the components of a mesh-based game design can also easily accept any number of compatible add-ons without breaking the core, while making it much easier to translate the system across different gameplay formats, e.g. freeform, card game, boardgame, battle-mat and various online options.
Just how far a modular 5e moves towards the ‘extreme’ or mesh modularity of Traveler or Treasure is still hard to tell. These earlier systems are, in essence, design games. This allows them to act as open-ended, co-design toolkits for easily generating homebrew gameplay and campaign settings, i.e. a Traveler GM is as likely to enjoy rolling-up and adapting a planetary system as to go looking for a shrink-wrapped planetary system. Consequently, highly modular games that rapidly generate their own RPG gameplay – and encourage or enable co-design – don’t tend to sell a lot of value-added, fluffy add-ons.
That said, WotC has other monetisation and add-on options, (including the DDI route), so it won’t be a surprise if they try to offer a balanced approach through a modularity which delivers a kind of hand-holding co-design. This might involve pitching the basic complexity of 5e at roughly the same level as Classic Traveller; with an accompanying ‘core’ rules set much along the lines of Mongoose Traveler or BECMI D&D meets AD&D. An approach along those lines would immediately accommodate players from BECMI through to most of 2e. It would also allow 3e to 4e to be offered both as slim options within the core and as stack-able add-ons.
Overall, a modular AD&D 5e based on the existing versions pretty much shapes itself on the basis of modularising the existing components. It’s most unlikely to arrive in the form of a loose pile of bare components that you arrange entirely by yourself. Equally, 5e is unlikely to require you to buy the siege kit, the jousting kit and/ or the desert adventure kit as part of the core rules. Instead clusters of basic components, (much like the Chase Pack shown above), are likely to be bundled together into a core set, (comparable to the Castle Pack). Countless other compatible add-ons may then be plugged-in at will without altering the underlying simplicity of the core.
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