The Most Important Things

    I found this post a long time ago, but recently it has been on my mind.  It comes from the Quickly, Quietly, Carefully blog, and I'm going to reprint it here:

Thursday, July 25, 2013

The two most important concepts in the D&D game

Jeff Rients posted this quotation on G+:

Q: What are the two most important concepts in the D&D game?
A: The most important concept in the game is player choice.  In order to give players the most fun in the game, they must be able to make choices that will make a definite difference in the fates of their characters.
     The second most important concept is that actions have consequences.  Player decisions will lead to further campaign developments.

--Jon Pickens et al., "Dispel Confusion" column, Polyhedron #13

     I've been thinking a lot about a game's purpose.  When we started our latest 13th Age campaign we added a few new people.  There are 3 friends of mine whom I have gamed with before, so I pretty much know what they are like at the table.  But we also added 3 new people, two of which have a little gaming experience and one is totally new to RPGs (well, table-top ones at least).
    The thing is, the new players have thrown off the usual dynamic.  Before, with the experienced players, we had a rotating-GM Pathfinder campaign.  Each of us added some weird new twist to the shared game world, and a few times we tested out some house rules.  But we had a sort of rhythm that we settled into.  Our new players don't have that same groove, and one of them is very much a story person - she likes to write shared stories on Tumblr and is the only person really focused on narrative at the table.  The rest of us are okay with the typical combat grind with some story sprinkles.  So I started thinking about my GMing style, and the style of stories I usually ran, and weather or not that might be a good fit for the new players - or good gaming habits to teach them.

    Let's start with that last campaign real quick.  We didn't really mean to start a new campaign.  Three of my friends were going to run an adventure, and the GM said the other two needed to make characters who could fight without weapons, since there was going to be a town where no weapons were allowed.  I didn't plan on joining the adventure myself, but somehow I ended up in it too.  It was not one of our better adventures.  It was very disjointed, and took so long to get to the city we had been warned about that we didn't even play out that part of the story.  Nobody was really thrilled about how it went (I made my first Ninja from Ultimate Combat for that adventure, and was not thrilled with the class either - or the fact that Pathfinder sucked at the sort of character I wanted to make, but that's another rant).
    Well, typically after a bad adventure like that we'd just shelve the characters and move on, but somehow we didn't.  Instead one of the players decided to GM his own adventure, using our same characters, and he destroyed the town - giant worms ate it.
    Now we had the beginnings of a campaign, quite by accident, and another friend joined the party.  I ended up GMing the next adventure, and since we seemed to have a world going I started making up some loose history and modified an existing map to give our world some sketchy setting.  Over about a year we ended up getting from 1st to 12th level, and the party grew to each of us having 3 to 4 characters that we rotated on top of the rotating GM.
    That was the most gaming I had done since High School, many years earlier.  I developed a quick framework for when I had to throw together an adventure on the spot - I would put together 5 groups of monsters that seemed interesting and then invent some story for why the PCs would face all of them.  It was not high art, and not very deep, but it did work.
    With the new 13th Age group I wanted something different.  I wanted to have a better mix of non-combat stuff and some real story and detail to the setting.  Our first adventure was a published one, the Shadows of Eldolan.  It was a great adventure (and well written in my opinion).  I added the Expertise and Approaches and Aspects from Fate to make the skill system a bit more robust (which is on the blog in previous posts).  And from all the characters' One Unique Things I came up with an over-arching plot.  The second adventure was a mostly combat wilderness run, just to get out of the city and start introducing some of the plot elements I wanted to set up.  The third, and most recent, adventure was the interesting one though.

    One thing I did not want to do was railroad the players, or just make up plot twists at random like we had done before.  So I came up with 4 branches of the Big Bad Guy's plot, then I got the party together in one town and had 6 Very Important People come and visit.  I dropped some visions that these people were important, and I gave one clue to the Big Bad Guy's Plot to four of them (each being a different one) and made the last two look like they could be bad guys, but really they were potential allies.  I took the advise from Justin Alexander's blog about Don't Prep Plots and I just made an outline of each one and the secret they had, and let my players figure out how to investigate them.  My players did good (and kind of surprised me actually) and they found three of the plots and both allies, only missing one clue.
    Now, I have three possible adventures, each a different style from lots of talking, mystery or combat.  Each arm could be a few adventures, if the players like that style, or we could bounce between them.  But the great thing is that I'll be able to lay out each branch, what kind of an adventure it will be, and let my players choose what they want to pursue.  Or, if they hate all of them I can improvise something else.  The downside is that now I have to prep three different adventures since I don't know which one they'll want to play.  But giving them more choice in what kind of game they want to play is worth the extra work on my shoulders.
    So far this has been pretty basic GMing - the railroad vs sandbox style conflict is an old one.  What made this stick out in my mind is something a little different.  See, when we complain about player choice we are almost always talking about in the story.  In a sandbox the players are free to go wherever they want, in the railroad the GM decides where the players go.  But that's not the only place where player choice exists, and some things I have seen and read lately got me thinking about that blog post I started with - and which I haven't forgotten.
    See, it seems to me that quote hit it on the nose, the biggest thing that makes a table-top RPG different from every other game and medium is the impact of player choice.  In fiction you passively observe the story, you have no choices whatsoever.  In most computer games, or even board games, you can make some choices - but you're limited to choosing from the options that the game gives you.  Only in a table-top RPG, where your choices are weighed and the game world adjusted by a fellow human being, that your choices can really be unlimited (well, effectively) and have deep consequences.  If all you want to do is fight monsters you can get that from any MMO or computer game.  Heck, even if you want story and characterization you can find that in a "visual novel" styled game like Persona (which a friend was playing, so it popped into my mind, I think it was 4).  So while there are lots of things you can get in a table-top RPG many of those elements exist elsewhere (and, frankly, might be easier to find elsewhere).  "Meaningful choice" is hard to find.

    But does the idea of "meaningful choice" only exist in the story?
    This has been bugging me as I've been modifying 13th Age.  I hate a lot of the design decisions because I don't think they promote player choice.  In 13th Age the Fighter class has a "flexible attack" mechanic.  A flexible attack is an ability that triggers on a certain attack roll.  For example, "Brace For It" turns the first melee critical hit into a normal attack, but it only triggers on a miss.  "Second Shot" allows you to make a second ranged attack that turn, but only if the d20 roll to attack was a 16 - 20.  Other attacks might trigger on an 'even hit' or an 'odd miss' or some-such.
    I hate this.  I hate it because it puts the cool thing the character does, literally a class-defining ability, in the hands of the dice instead of the player.  The player chooses to play that class, and chooses which abilities he knows, but when those abilities are actually used the player has no control over.
    Another thing I hate is the timing system the game inherited from D&D 4th edition.  Each ability has one of several usage options:

• At-Will: can be used once per turn
• Breath Weapon: can be used once, then roll each turn to use again that turn
• Recharge: can be used once in a battle, and then roll to see if can be used again that day
• 1/Battle: can be used once every battle
• 1/Day: can only be used once that day

    What I hate about this is: how to you know when to use your ability?  At-Will is easy, always use it.  But the Breath Weapon type, use it once and if the dice gods like you, then you can use it again, but maybe not.  Recharge and 1/Battle share the same problem - when in the battle do you use them?  At the beginning, the end, when all seems lost?  It's not always easy to gauge how long or hard a battle is going to be, and that's not even talking about crazy flat-curved d20s that can make all sorts of unexpected stuff happen (come on, everybody has that story of the lucky, or un-lucky, roll that turned the tide of the battle).  1/Day is the worst, in which battle and on which turn in that battle?  Easier to choose if your GM was like me and always had 5 encounters, but even I would move the hardest one from last, to second to last, to second to keep some variety.
    Without understanding there is no meaningful choice.  Perception precedes power.  You have no real power over something you can't see or don't understand.  And while my fixed 5 encounter scheme worked, it was not good gaming at all.

    Player choice, and all that comes with it, exists in both the rules and the mechanics.  Some games have more choices than others, but I don't think any game - at least that I know of - does a really good job building meaningful player choices in the mechanics.  Which actually bothers me.  Before I didn't give it a second thought, but now I really want to find a game with some good mechanical rules to encourage player choice.  Because honestly that's the only time the players are actually playing the game.  Rolling a die is not a choice, everything is in the hands of fate (or physics, pick your deity).  Watching the GM move the monsters is not playing the game.  Only when the player has to decide on what to do, and when those decisions matter, is the game really being played.  After all, it's a role-playing game - and what's a role?  A series of choices and consequences.  Choosing the Fighter and the consequences having those abilities.  Choosing to be a dark and broody personality, or a bright and cheerful one, and how that interacts with the other players and NPCs.  Choice is the game.  From "those mountains look quest-worthy" to "I cast magic missile at the darkness."  So not just for our campaigns, but what kinds of choices do our games themselves have?

Understanding Jurassic World

    I don't really like dinosaurs.  My only fond memory of Jurassic Park was that I saw it with a girl I really liked, in our first sort-of-date together.  I saw the second and third Jurassic movies, and rooted for the dinosaurs to eat and kill every human on screen.  I also hated them (the movies that is).
    So, I was in no hurry to see Jurassic World (as evidenced by my talking about it two months after it came out), however my friend Sara did drag me off to see it a few days ago.
    The first thing that struck me was the stupidity of it.  People make so many terrible, bone-headed, don't-have-two-neurons-to-rub-together choices.  The bad science I can take, I use my suspension of disbelief to get over the idea that you can just mix and match different animal DNA to produce whatever type of creature and abilities you desire.  But only having one trained helicopter pilot, or even only one helicopter gunship, on an island full of potentially dangerous large animals that have previously killed people - that's beyond stupid.  They should have their own small army, not the 6 guys we see and Chris Pratt.
    But something hit me, the characters in the movie are supposed to be stupid.  You see, the stupid people are the ones who get eaten.  Oh sure, some random people also get eaten, but you can say that they are stupid for not getting indoors and going to see the dinosaurs in the first place.  It's actually something of a morality play, the bad people (or well-intentioned but stupid) get eaten and the good survive.  Once I saw that I could relax and enjoy the movie a lot more.
    Overall I liked it well enough, I'd give it a "catch the cheap seats" if I was actually bothering to review this properly.  I was amazed that the two kids actually had their own story arc and were okay to watch - usually I hate kids or teens in movies.  If you thought about seeing it but it didn't sound that appealing, maybe my revelation might help you enjoy it.  Or not, it's all good.

Really Tired Review: The Fantastic Four

    A friend of mine has been going through some really bad times, and I've been wiped out myself trying to help (in what little ways I can), so this is not going to be my usually polished (well, somewhat polished if I'm being honest) review.  Too little sleep for a few days and emotional stress are taking a toll right now.  Still, I did see the movie so I wanted to say something about it.
    What to say?
    Disappointing.

    Okay, there you go, thanks for visiting :)

    No, really, I did not like the movie, which was disappointing since I wanted to.  I was not a big fan of the last 2 Fantastic Four movies overall, but I did think that they had some moments of potential greatness.  I've never been a big fan of the FF, I have read only a few of their comics - but since the team has done cross-overs with just about everybody, I have been somewhat exposed to them.  So I can't comment a lot on how accurate the new movie was to the comics, only to my limited impression of the team.
    The first thing that struck me, and left a sour note when the movie finally got a trailer, was how damn young everybody is.  I really, really, really hate the "boy genius" trope.  I hate it a lot.  The times I've seen it used it has never really explored the cost of that genius.  Being smarter than everyone around you is hard, no one wants to be the only human in a cage full of poo-throwing primates.  But having that burden at a young age, when your own emotions and understanding of humanity is not solid or strong, that must be very difficult.  The only thing interesting to me about the trope is the struggle to bear that intellect.  Which the FF movie makes a nod to, but does not really explore.  So, anyways, when I saw the opening of the movie where a 9 year old Reed Richards creates an inter-dimensional teleportation device in his parent's garage with spare parts from the junkyard, I cringed.  When we fast-forward a whole seven years, 16 year old boy genius who meets someone else working on the exact same thing at a science fair (what a coincidence) did not make it any better.  Of all the characters in the Marvel universe, Reed Richards is one who can and should be older - for the majority of his comic book life it seems he's been drawn with graying temples.
    The biggest problem with the new Fantastic Four movie is that it doesn't seem to know what it wants to be.  It makes a nod to the stress of being brilliant since every character has family troubles or doesn't fit in - but one or two lines of dialogue is not enough to make a point or sub-plot or characterization.  It makes a nod to being terrified of one's powers and transformation and wanting a "normal life" but again in a flashback training montage, or a few lines, and does not devote enough time to really make or explore the point.  It sort of deals with the dangers of scientific discovery and how it can be misused, but again not in any real detail.  And the obligatory "save the world" moment feels tacked on, out of place, confusing, and really did not need to be there.  In all it's more like a collection of bullet points than a full fleshed-out plot or idea.  And after a whole movie of interesting concepts that never got explored I walked out feeling confused and let down.
    Also, it did not seem to hit any of the notes that made the FF interesting to me.  My first comic love has got to be the X-Men, a team of outcasts who fight amongst each other as much as against their villains.  But the Fantastic Four have always been portrayed as a family.  Sue and Johnny are brother and sister, Sue and Reed get married, and even Johnny and Ben argue like big and little brothers.  There is a really cool dynamic of a group of people who actually want to be together and work together.  But in this movie we have Sue talk privately to Johnny once, Ben and Reed are friends when they were kids, and the only teamwork moment comes out of the blue, all the characters seemed to hate each other and then they instantly shift gears and work together.  It was jarring, and disappointing.  Also, Ben's catchphrase, "It's Clobberin' Time" is abused and the fans are s#@t on when in this version that is the same line his older brother uses before beating him.  That shows a real lack of respect for the fans of the character to put such dark emotional baggage on what was used as a funny and encouraging catchphrase.  Overall, the movie does not feel like the writers or anybody involved really loved the original, rather like they wanted a cash-cow by making a reboot and turning everybody dark and broody (and god I wish Hollywood would get over the dark and broody superhero).

    Anyways, my brain is melting as I type, so let me summarize.  The movie has one or two decent moments or lines of dialogue, but does not hold together overall.  It makes some nods to the source comics, but does not seem to really value them.  It is not terrible, not Amazing Spider-Man 2 oh dear god please kill me in my seat the movie is half-way over and feels like 2,000 years have passed terrible.  But it is not good either.
    My recommendation: wait for it to come out on cable or Netflix or something, you don't really need to see it.

Evil (in my opinion) Game Design

    After having posted the great Extra Credits episode on Humane Game Design, I had to post a link to this.  I like to read Cracked.com, they have a great mix of different articles and write about even serious subjects in a funny manner.  But when I came across this article on 5 Reasons I Lost $9,000 On An iPhone Game, I had to post something about it here.
    I have never been a casual game fan, I like to accomplish something in my games.  I'm currently playing Skyrim (yeah, I'm well behind the curve) and I like it (despite some flaws).  I like having quests and completing quests and building my own house (I had to get the game of the year edition for Hearthfire).  I like getting stuff done.  Which has been a problem with me and MMOs, the repetitive nature of their content feels like I haven't gotten anywhere.  But while I may not like that kind of design, the game described in the cracked article sounds downright evil.  Like it was meant to use social pressure to force people to spend money on what is marked as a free-to-play game.  That's a whole 'nother level of horrible game design.  I cannot fathom why people would play this sort of game at all, but I do feel sorry for them being manipulated (weather deliberately or not) into spending way too much time and especially money on a game.
    No deep thoughts, not right now at least, just something so amazing I wanted to post a link to it.

Post #101

    I kind of clebrated my almost 3rd year and almost 100th post (think it was #93) a little while ago.  So I didn't want to distract my actual 100th post and just past 3rd year in my really long breakdown of 13th Age.  But here, let me say it, happy birthday to me for hitting 100 posts and 3 years since starting the blog.  Crazy but fun.
    Also, I wanted to write because I added a "Pathfinder" tag and so had to go back and re-tag a whole bunch of old posts - apologies if that means your feed reader pulled up a duplicate of any old material.  I should have made that particular tag a long time ago but somehow over-looked it.
    Not much to say, hope you are all doing well :)

Looking Under The Hood Of 13th Age

    A little while ago I posted some old work I did looking at the character creation options in Pathfinder.  That got me thinking, what if I took the same look at my current game, 13th Age?  So, here goes...

    13th Age has a much simpler mechanical structure than Pathfinder, one of the things I really like about the game.  I expected that there would be fewer choices and disjointed options than in Pathfinder (which had 3 BAB progressions, 2 save progressions, 4 skill point per level progressions and 8 different numbers of class skills).  In a way I was right, but I was also surprised at how strange some things got.  So let's look at what is nice and simple:

• All characters get 8 Background (ie, skill) points, max of 5 in any one, and they never get any more (instead the character level and an attribute are added to all checks)
• All characters get 3 points for Icon Relationships and an extra point at Champion and Epic tiers
• All characters have 8 Recoveries per day (the fighter gets 9, but through a special Class Feature)
• All characters get 1 Feat per level, which is primarily used to increase the power/options of an existing Class Talent
• All Classes give a +2 bonus to one Attribute, but not the same that is increased by the character's Race
• All characters get 3 Class Talent points to buy extra abilities (though the number of starting ones, and cost, varies)

   
    This is a good foundation, in my opinion.  I like when all the characters are built on a similar scale, with each having meaningful options, instead of some classes having a lot more to do than others.  I don't think that there needs to be a ton of different progressions, I think it's totally possible that every character chooses 5 things for example, as long as they choose from different useful pools of options and each available choice is meaningful, then there's no reason in my mind that shouldn't work.

    Then it starts getting a little weird.
    Let's look at Armor Class.  In 13th Age your class determines what your AC will be for each type of armor (being either None, Light or Heavy).  So instead of the armor itself having a modifier, the class determines the armor modifier - which seems totally backwards to me, but okay.  Out of the 9 starting classes in the core rulebook, there are 7 different armor values:
    None / Light / Heavy-
        10 / 10 / 11    Sorcerer & Wizard
        10 / 12 / 13    Barbarian & Bard
        11 / 12 / 13    Rogue
        10 / 12 / 14    Cleric
        10 / 12 / 16    Paladin
        10 / 13 / 15    Fighter
        10 / 14 / 15    Ranger
    This baffles me.  None of these progressions seem so distinct that they add anything in their complexity.  I mean, there isn't such a huge jump in the numbers that one class will seem totally different from another class, and thus worth taking (except between the very highest and lowest of course).  And the classes that are best/worst get a little weird too.  The Rogue has the highest AC with no armor, a whole 11 instead of everyone else's 10 - wow, what a big difference.  The best Light Armor classes are the Ranger (at 14) and the Fighter (at 13) - neither of which is that much higher than the norm of 12, or even the default of 10.  The highest Heavy Armor AC is the Paladin (16) with the Fighter (15). 
    Also with AC there is weather or not you take an attack penalty from wearing Heavy armor (and only heavy, nobody has a Light Armor penalty).  6 Classes have a -2 to attack in Heavy armor, including the Ranger who has the 15 AC but loses to the Fighter for second place due to the -2 hit penalty.  Now, if you are a Wizard or Sorcerer, both of whom get an 11 Heavy Armor AC, then taking a -2 to hit is totally not worth it - and even the pathetic +1 AC is not worth it without a penalty.  So why would you ever do so?  Why is it even an option?  This is not a meaningful decision.  The -2 hit for +1 AC (since for everybody the Heavy AC is only 1 higher than the Light AC)(the 12/14 Cleric and 13/15 Fighter and 12/16 Paladin do not have any attack penalties, and thus zero reason to ever wear Light armor) is a crappy trade-off that drops your damage output by a lot for a pathetic increase in survivability.
    Finally we have Shields, which are a +1 AC for every class (so no shield specialists) and every class that takes a Heavy Armor -2 penalty also has a -2 to hit with a shield (making it +2 AC for -4 to hit), except for the Bard, who only has a -1 to hit (why, exactly?).
    Now my question is, what do we gain from this complexity?  What do the players get and what does the GM get from having so many different numbers?  With 7 progressions for 9 classes only the Sorcerer/Wizard duplicate, and the Barbarian/Bard almost duplicate (except the Bard is -1 hit with shields and the Barbarian has no penalty), and everybody else has their own thing.  Do the 1 or 2 point differences really make any meaningful difference in the feel or play-style of each class?  Do we really get any better storytelling from the class having the AC instead of the armor type being the same AC for everybody (a la Pathfinder/D&D)?  Because if so I must be the one strange guy who isn't feeling it.  This is a muddle of numbers that do not seem to make any sense, and do not seem to have any worthwhile choices.  Every class should just have their one best armor type, and wearing anything higher gives a +2 (+4 would be better) AC but a -2 to hit and skill checks (so the extra combat survivability means being less useful across the board).  Or, say that No Armor and Light Armor give your Dex bonus + 1 to AC and Heavy armor gives your Con bonus +1 to AC.  That way light, quick fighters will go lightly armored and brawny fighters will go armored.  You could add a little DR, which 13th Age does not have, into the mix saying that Light Armor is DR 2 and Heavy Armor DR 4 - but again each class takes a -2 to rolls in higher armor than they are meant for.  [Normal 13th Age adds the middle of your Con / Dex / Wis, which means having one really good ability score is not much help for your AC - a fine idea to reduce the min/max'ers out there, but also makes everybody feel the same and means having one noteworthy score that should define your character instead has limited usefulness.]  With DR any tradeoff in reduced hit or skills or whatever means a guaranteed reduction in the damage you take, which is a more worthwhile choice (you may be less effective, but you will live longer).  Really, whatever the means, it seems like there has to be a better way to distinguish the classes - these progressions are all so close that they don't feel very meaningful, and they don't scale so even a +1 AC that might be something at first level will be totally inconsequential at 10th level, and they don't seem to ever offer a reason to choose to wear armor that is not the best for your class.  That looks like a bad design to me.

    In addition to armor, 13th Age adds 2 other defenses, Physical Defense (PD) and Mental Defense (MD).  These are like the Fortitude save and Will save of Pathfinder/D&D, and I am glad to see the 13th Age guys choose to make them act just like armor class (roll over by attacker to hit) instead of the strange extra mechanic Pathfinder/D&D used (roll over with different progression to resist).  Here for the 9 classes we have really 4 different progressions:
    10 / 10    Fighter
    11 / 10 or 10 / 11    Barbarian, Bard, Ranger, Sorcerer
    11 / 11    Cleric
    12 / 10 or 10 / 12    Paladin, Rogue, Wizard
    Now, I'm counting the 11 and 10 or 12 and 10 as one line, because weather you have PD higher or MD higher really doesn't matter, you're resistant to one thing more than another.  Again though, is the 1 point difference between the Fighter and the Barbarian/Bard/Ranger/Sorcerer really enough to make an edge case out of them?  And don't Fighters normally get portrayed as being tougher than smart?  Or if you want to say they are tough all over why not make them 11/11's like the Cleric?  Again, with a non-scaling defense do we really get anything out of splitting it this fine?  I'd love to see someone write a computer program to simulate a thousand fights and see if the 1 point difference made a statistically significant difference in the outcome.

    Weapons are a whole 'nother kettle of fish.  On the one had, weapons almost follow a perfect even progression: there are 5 types of weapons, 1-Handed Melee, 2-Handed Melee, Thrown, Crossbows and Bows.  Within each type there are Small, Light/Simple, Heavy/Martial.  Then we get to the exceptions.  Except there are no Heavy/Martial Thrown weapons, and there are no Small Bows (personally, what makes a Small 2-Handed weapon I have a hard time wrapping my head around, but I'll roll with it).
    Now, 1-Handed Melee weapons all do:
        Small:  d4 damage
        Light/Simple:  d6 damage
        Heavy/Martial:  d8 damage
    Except for the Rogue, who gets to do d8 damage with all 1-Handed Melee weapons, and should really have that as a special class talent/feature instead of repeating the weapon table for every class.
    2-Handed Melee weapons all do:
        Small:  d6 damage
        Light/Simple:  d8 damage
        Heavy/Martial:  d10 damage
    These are the same for every class, nice and consistent.  Now, the potentially 2-point difference is not much, again, but damage dice do scale - you roll your level in dice for each hit, so that's a 2 point spread at level 1 but a 20 point spread at level 10, so it might just barely clear the hurdle of being significant.  Barely (since the HP of the monsters also scale, hard to say if it matters much).
    The differences come with that attack penalty, just like with Armor, each class may have a penalty to hit with different weapon types:
        4 classes have no penalties to hit with anything (Barbarian, Fighter, Paladin, Ranger)
        1 class has a -2 hit with Heavy/Martial 2-Handed weapons only (Bard)
        3 classes have -2 hit with Heavy/Martial 1- and 2-Handed weapons (Cleric, Rogue, Sorcerer)
        1 class has -2 hit with Light/Simple and -5 hit with Heavy/Martial 1- and 2-Handed weapons (Wizard)
    Does the Bard really need to be an edge case?  Do Sorcerer's really need to be better with weapons than the Wizard, given that they have the same AC progression (and Hit Points)?

    Thrown weapons are a bit easier:
        Small: d4 damage
        Light/Simple: d6 damage
    And nobody has a penalty to hit, oh, no, wait a minute - Wizards, and only Wizards, have a -2 to hit with only Light/Simple Thrown weapons - really?  "Wizards throw like girls," how mature guys.

    Crossbows are supposed to be easier to use than bows, the book says at one point that while they shoot slower they have lower to-hit penalties (though really Heavy Crossbows take a move action to reload, so you have to stand still, and Small and Light Crossbows take a Quick action, which is essentially free, so they are not that much slower):
        Small:  d4 damage
        Light/Simple:  d6 damage
        Heavy/Martial:  d8 damage
    Bows do the same damage, minus the Small category:
        Light/Simple:  d6 damage
        Heavy/Martial:  d8 damage

    When it comes to penalties:
        4 classes have no to hit penalties for any Bow (Barbarian, Fighter, Paladin, Ranger)
        3 classes have no to hit penalties for any Crossbow (Fighter, Paladin, Ranger)
    Wait, I hear you ask, what happened to the Barbarian?  Well, being a backwards and primitive fool the Barbarian has the highest to hit penalties for any class with a newfangled Crossbow, a -5 to hit with all sizes.  I'm sorry, that's stupid.  The great thing about the crossbow was that it was so easy to use.  Sure, a Barbarian who's never seen one might have a -5 to hit on his or her first shot, but then would realize it is a stupidly simple weapon to operate compared to the bow, and quickly lose that penalty.  Really, guys?

        2 classes have a -2 to hit with a Heavy Bow  (Bard, Rogue)
        3 classes have a -1 to hit with a Heavy Crossbow  (Bard, Cleric, Rogue)

        1 class has a -2 hit with Light and -4 hit with Heavy Bows  (Sorcerer)
        while 2 classes have a -2 hit with Light and -5 hit with Heavy Bows  (Cleric, Wizard)
    Again, do we really need the Sorcerer to be one whole point better with one type of bow?  Why not make him a -2 Light or Heavy and make him significantly better?  Or, the same as the Wizard (again, same AC and HP between them)?

        1 class is -1 hit with Light and -3 hit with Heavy Crossbows  (Sorcerer)
        while 1 class is -1 hit with Light and -4 hit with Heavy Crossbows  (Wizard)
    See comment above.

    Again I ask, are these really that different that they are meaningful?  The Barbarian's whopping -5 to all crossbows is a very meaningful penalty (stupid, but meaningful), but a lot of the others seem to be pretty close to each other.  And is the extra 2 points of damage per level a meaningful trade-off for the +1 AC of a shield?  Or having nothing in the off-hand?  These just feel so close, while they kind of add color they don't really seem to make a lot of difference, or feel from the player's perspective that they are building towards a certain style of fighting.  There doesn't seem to be a lot of reason to take a sub-optimal choice, so why not just print the best choice for each class and forget the rest?  For that one edge case where the party loses all their gear and has to fight with scavenged weapons?  Why not make that situation the default numbers but a -2 hit and damage then?  Two lines instead of a dozen for basically the same thing.


    I'm going to run through the Hit Points since this post is getting long.
    There are 2 parts to Hit Points, the base multiplier that calculates your maximum HP and the size of your Recovery Dice that you roll when you heal, and there are 5 different progressions:
        x6 and d6  (Sorcerer, Wizard)
        x6 and d8  (Rogue)
        x7 and d8  (Bard, Cleric, Ranger)
        x7 and d10  (Barbarian)
        x8 and d10  (Fighter, Paladin)
    Why not drop the Rogue with the Sorc/Wiz and raise the Barb with the Ftr/Pally ?  Let's look at some level 10 characters (no Con mods, raw numbers):
        Fighter and Paladin have 8 x 24 = 192 HP, healing for 10d10 or an average 55 HP (or about 34% of max)
        Barbarian has 7 x 24 = 168 HP, healing for 10d10 or an average of 55 HP (or about 30% of max)
so they heal for about the same and the extra 24 HP might be one more hit, but might not make a difference when the base strike damage in the generic monster table is 135 (the 10th level Iron Golem does 50 damage per attack, and 5d10 damage on a miss, and makes 2 attacks).
    This is what I mean when I ask if there is any statistical difference in the numbers.  Sure, the Fighter and Paladin have bigger raw stats than the Barbarian, but does it really make a difference in play?  Are the players going to feel like they act and react differently from each other?  If not, then why not just use the same numbers for simplicity's sake?


    Lastly, the same thing that was hardest to compare in Pathfinder is the hardest thing to compare in 13th Age: the Class Features, fixed for each class, and the Class Talents, which are purchased with the 3 points every character gets.  Just a few observations:
    The default idea seemed to be that each class would have 3 Class Features and 3 Class Talents.  Personally, I like that idea.  The Bard and Rogue follow that pattern.  The Wizard has 4 Class Features listed, but one is a definition of how a type of spells work, and so shouldn't be in the Class Features section, they should be in the Spells section, and so the Wizard follows that pattern even though he doesn't seem to.  The Sorcerer is the same, he has 6 Class Features listed but really 3 are spell types in the wrong place and so only has 3 real Class Features, thus on the default.  So we end up with 4 classes that follow this pattern, the Bard, Rogue, Sorcerer and Wizard.
    The Fighter only has 2 Class Features, but gains a bonus Class Talent at 6th level, so ends up with the default 3/3 but in a delayed fashion.  Why?  How the hell should I know?  Looks like stupid design to me, but YMMV.  Likewise, and doubling down on the concept, the Barbarian and Paladin only get 1 Class Feature, but get 2 bonus Class Talents at levels 5 and 8, delaying them even more than the Fighter and other classes.
    The Cleric gets dumped on, only getting 2 Class Features and never gaining a bonus Talent, leaving him a little under-powered (in a sense, I know it is hard to compare these Features and Talents directly, which I consider to be another sign of bad design).  The Ranger however, gets hosed with no Class Features and but at least the 2 delayed bonus Talents, and so is the weakest overall character class, hands down.

    Now, complicating the above factors is the fact that some Features/Talents increase and some are fixed abilities.  For example, Cleric/ Sorcerer/ Wizard spells all increase in power at 3rd, 5th, 7th and 9th levels.  So do the Cries and Spells of the Bard, the Flexible Attacks of the Fighter and the Momentum powers of the Rogue.  This makes things worse though.  While the Fighter, Bard, Rogue, Sorcerer and Wizard all end up with their 6 Features/Talents eventually, they are also gaining power at 4 other levels.  Meanwhile the Barbarian and Paladin eventually gain the 6 Feature/Talents that are fixed, at only 2 levels (5th and 8th), but nothing else increases.  And the Ranger gets next to nothing, 2 delayed levels of advancement, and only gets any kind of increasing ability if they choose to take an Animal Companion (which has a minor, incremental advancement each level).
    Talk about imbalance.


    So, looking over this really long post, what do I want you, gentle reader, to take away from this?
    Well, first off that even though something is simpler than something else, does not make it simple.  13th Age is a simpler system than the Pathfinder we played before, but due to similar structures they are equally hard to modify if you don't agree with the choices they were built upon.
    Second, this is a good example of just how crazy I am and why you don't want to know me in real life.  The hours I've spent looking at these numbers (for Pathfinder and 13th Age) have been enjoyable, quite fun really, and the kind of thing my mind constantly works on.  I like this stuff.  I like pulling apart systems and debating design choices and asking myself, how would I do that differently?  I am a sad and strange little man, give thanks to the deity of your choice (or random chance) that you are not like me.
    Honestly, I don't expect anyone to take anything away from this.  Like I said, this is the kind of stuff I like to think about, and I know that very few other people feel the same way.  In fact, if you've made it through this post diligently reading the whole mess then you should get up and go get yourself a cookie for being dedicated enough to parse my madness.  I'm not sure if there is a point.  Now granted I complain about some choices in the descriptions above, but those are just my opinions.  Given the lack of 13th Age house rules on the 'net (do a Google search of the term) it seems that most people who are playing the game like it just fine.  Again, this is my own madness, shared with very few others.  It does mean trying to house rule the system is difficult, since I want to change things in fundamentally different ways, and eventually house rules become a completely different game from the original if taken too far.
    Which is the hardest thing for me.  No other game out there is quite my game, the way I would do it - and while I've tried writing my own games, and have a few times, I still have not found that particular combination of rules and mechanics that really feel right to me.  That I can embrace.  I'm very apathetic in the edition wars or the old school vs new school because neither of them does what I want in quite the way I want.  I guess on top of being crazy I'm also very hard to please ;)

Things I Love About 13th Age

    So recently I've been posting and working on a lot of house rules to 13th Age, and taking a look at some of the game's structure (which I'll post soon).  This might lead my gentle reader into thinking that I don't like the game.  Which is partially correct, there are most definitely things that I don't like about the game.  However, there are some things that I absolutely love about the game - which I want to touch on here real quick.
    The impetus for this post came from another blogger that I follow, 1d30 had a post on "The Yin and Yang of Treasure Division."  This post, for those who you who choose not to follow the link, talks about many different ways to handle dividing up the party's loot at the end of the adventure.  Which is a part of gaming that can cause great contention.  And reading this article I said to myself, thank God I don't have to deal with that.  See, in 13th Age magic items cannot be bought, that's in the rulebook - so I decided to run with that concept and ignore the gear the monsters are using completely, instead I give all my players one magic item of their choice every level (and yes, that means they started with one at first level).  So there is no selling loot, no arguing over who gets what, everybody gets something and since they can choose hopefully they are all getting something useful (well, the magic item rules (or lack thereof) are a bit wonky, but still).  I still remember playing the whole Rise of the Runelords campaign and having to write down every item, ask who wanted what, total the costs and then the selling prices, and divide that evenly amongst everybody.  It was a colossal pain in the posterior that I had to go through at the end of every gaming session (calculating the value of spellbooks was a particular torture).  Not having to do it has been a wonderful boon for both myself and my players.
    You know another thing I'm glad I'm not calculating?  Experience.  At the end of every adventure all the players go up a level.  Period.  We don't meet very often, so a nice fast progression lets everybody develop more and more of their character's powers and awesomeness.  How much XP is the level 0 peasant worth?  None.  No XP.  Ha ha, ding dong the witch is dead.  It was another huge waste of time to track that stuff and I'm glad to be rid of it.
    Massive list of skills, class skills and skill points per level?  Gone, and good riddance.  Everybody started with the same number of points and I've been giving them an extra one every level (since we use the Expertise and Approach system, which is a little more complicated than the vanilla book's Backgrounds).  <pushes the Staples "easy button">
    While there are things that bother me a lot, and baggage that has haunted 13th Age from other D&D versions, I do have to admit that they did a nice job of simplifying things and dropping some really annoying mechanics that did not add anything meaningful to the game.  Some people may love crunching the numbers and fighting over the spoils - I sure don't, and I want my players to focus on their characters' development and the storyline, not the logistics of maintaining a "murder hobo."