The Homeless Nerd Reviews - The Lego Batman Movie

What is it?  Everybody's favorite (or at least well known) dark and broody superhero from The Lego Movie gets his own spin-off film.  Funny, but with some really dramatic moments and great emotional undercurrent.

    Holy Moley I loved this movie, and Batman is not even one of my favorite characters.  I cannot believe how deftly the writing team pulled off hitting so many character notes that are at the heart of the dark knight, but in such a funny and entertaining way.
    I've mentioned before how I love stories that do not see-saw between comedy and drama, but are one with a great foundation of the other.  This is that in spades.  It is not only a funny movie with a lot of heart (I cried a little at one point, if you don't then you've never lost someone dear to you), but it even took that same approach and applied to the character of Batman himself.  Using the dark and broody source material they built this wonderful comedic frame on top of it - that actually makes this one of the best Batman stories in my opinion.  It also has a great take on why he's run around with one 'Boy Wonder' after another in his career.  It is really a treat to watch, and very much in the same style as The Lego Movie, so if you liked that odds are you'll like this.

My recommendation: I got this one from Redbox, and it was some of the best $2 I've ever spent; see it, wherever you get it from, see it.

Why I like point-buy systems

    I can't remember how it happened.  A few days ago (well, maybe a few weeks now) I was looking over my AD&D 2nd Skills & Powers book.  I haven't played AD&D since High School, which is now measured in decades ago.  I always liked the point-buy books (Skills & Powers, Magic & something and Combat & Tactics [I'm at the library, don't have the books in front of me]) but never actually played them.  So why they popped into my head I don't recall - but I decided to make a character for them.
    I like half-elves and fighter/mages, so I decided to start with that.  I wanted a kind of jack of all trades, someone who could be useful in a variety of roles, but not outstanding at anything - which got me thinking, what if he was a traveling knight or soldier who helped other travelers and pilgrims and such?  Kind of a road guard and rescue squad.  That seemed like a good concept to start with, and I was wondering if S&P could even handle it.  Of course, for the very few who might not know, AD&D was class based, so you got specific abilities and specific levels.  S&P let you change the abilities you had, dropping and adding new ones, to make a custom character/class by spending points.
    Being AD&D, my half-elf was limited to certain classes and multi-class options.  So I started looking at the abilities and seeing which classes had the ones that fit the concept.  I looked at Fighter, Thief, Wizard (of course) and Cleric - and after a few scrap papers settled on Wizard/Cleric.  I didn't want to have a million abilities, but I did want a lot that were not in the base classes, and so would cost extra.  That meant taking disadvantages (I think the book called them limitations) to get the extra points I needed.  So I began the serious stage by choosing those first.
    Light armor seemed a good fit, this was going to be a quick, come the rescue kind of character, not a front line fighter.  "Awkward Casting" was a limit that his magic could not be hidden when cast, which sounded fine, I justified that as him being someone who wanted to be seen, to let people know that he was there for them.  "Talisman/symbol" meant he needed to hold or have an item to cast spells, and the idea of a staff that he channeled magic through (making it glow and stuff to be obvious) came to me.  I was going to make him the stereotypical elf sword/bow fighter.  "Behavior/taboo" meant there was something he had to, or could not, do - and darn it if I didn't write that down and now I don't remember what I was going for.  I think it might have been something like always tell the truth.  Again, he had become a symbol, not a thief type.  Those limits were in both classes, but the wizard also had the option to limit magic items usable; I decided he couldn't use any necromancy or illusion magic items, since they went against his helping people and being visible/honest/upfront.
    That settled, and with some extra points, I could start buying abilities.  The Wizard side was the easiest, each class got a different number of points to spend (not a fan of that) and the Wizard had to lowest (while the Cleric had the highest, which made me settle on that as the second).  For his Wiz abilities I gave him: can cast in any armor, gains a bonus spell/day, automatically acquires spells on level up, and could only cast from the Alteration, Abjuration, Divination and Invocation/Evocation schools.  So his magic was supposed to protect, find people and things, let him transform to fit the circumstances, and blast anything that needed it.  No idea if that's what I got, the AD&D spell lists could be weird and by the time I finished I didn't want to pick his spells and roll to learn them (also not a fan of).  So this cemented the traveling rescue idea, and I thought he could also do things like organize and train militias, and use his magic to help hunt dangerous creatures terrorizing a community.
    The Cleric side was a lot harder in some ways, because I had a ton of points to spend (140 I think, to the Wiz 80 or so).  I wanted him to have some Warrior Non-Weapon Proficiencies (the early AD&D skill system that is either loved or hated, I don't think it was a great implementation) because they included stuff like Survival and Tracking and Riding, all of which seemed to fit the character (and I'd have to pay extra for, so this was the cheapest way to buy them).  I also gave him the Fighter THAC0 progression, since I wanted him to be a decent fighter.  The really had part was the spells.  I did want him to have some Cleric spells, since they included the healing and remove curse/ poison/ disease/ et all that seemed to fit the character.  But, in S&P the Cleric spells are divided into a ton of Spheres (like Wiz schools) and there are Minor (up to 3rd) and Major (all) versions of each, all of which had different point costs.  I ended up with Creation, Guardian, Protection, Healing, Animal, Plants, Weather, Traveler, War and Wards.  All of those sounded like the character, but again I'm not sure of the exact spell list since this took me most of an afternoon to hash out.  Funny thing was, I still had some points left over after that.
    So I bounced ahead and got his NWPs: Riding, Healing, Herbalism, Read/Write, Survival (mountains and forest), and Tracking.  I also could select a kit, a general skin that would flesh out the class.  I immediately thought Rider when I saw it (he has to get around to help people after all) - but then on the animal list I saw Griffin.  Now, I love griffins, and it seemed a perfect match since it would let him fly around.
    I only had weapons left, which I knew was going to be tricky, so I went back to try to finish spending those Cleric points.  And I saw something that hit me.  In S&P as a Cleric sub-type there is that Shaman, a Cleric that communes with spirits of deceased ancestors, or a specific place, or nature in general.  Suddenly I thought, what if the griffins, being half-animals (land and air) were some kind of bridge to the mystical/spiritual world and so they granted some mortals access to spells and powers to help their fellow man?  I sounded like a crazy idea, but when I thought of him summoning spirits it just sort of felt like a neat fit.  So I gave him the ability to commune with animal spirits, which would increase with his levels like spells (in a more limited way).
    Now I really just needed his weapons.  I wanted him to use a sword and bow, then thought a spear would make a useful weapon too, but the point costs for learning all these weapons not on either classes' list was too much.  When I thought of something else, what if he only used the spear (a land weapon and air when thrown, like the griffins) and that spear was like his badge of office and the thing he cast magic through for his talisman, and in an obvious way because now I started thinking that there had been some kind of magical catastrophe and the griffins were created from that and decided to help man - wizards would be kind of frowned on or outright outlaws.  With only the spear to learn, I could give him "weapon of choice" and expertise which gave him a +1 to hit and 3/2 attks per round, so he would be pretty good with it, at the cost of being useless with anything else.
    Mostly done, I finished up the last few details and had a ready-to-play character for a version of D&D I never play.

    Okay, so what's the point?  I'm sure you've been fascinated by my tale, but maybe you missed something, like I did at first - it came to me a day or two later.  I love point-buy systems because you have to keep coming up with ways to build your concept, and then ways to change your concept when you can't buy exactly what you want.  Almost each step through this process led me to refine my "fighter/mage" generic idea into an almost setting concept and more unique character class (though in hindsight, I was also channeling Mercedes Lackey's Heralds of Valdemar pretty heavy).  I've written the Joe Haldeman quote before here, that "art thrives on restrictions."  With just a class or multi-class character I never would have come up with something so detailed (which I know because I made a lot of them and never did).  The choices and trade-off and limits of each step drove me to ask myself questions and things grew from there.  Maybe this is just me, it might be a by-product of the strange way my mind works.  I noticed the same thing when doing my series of 1 Character 13 Systems; when I made the Hero System (heavily, totally, quintessentially point-buy) I thought up some nice details of my character concept when, again, I had left-over points.  Random tables can be nice, but the back and forth of point buy really speaks to me, in a way that's hard to do with just a class.  Pathfinder hit that same strange block for me, they added archetypes to alter how a class worked, but there are so damn many of them that it's like having a million classes to try to choose from.  My character would kind of be a Magus, but again not quite what I wanted or what he grew into.
    Anyways, this was just a strange thing that kind of pointed out to me something that I really already knew, but seemed noteworthy enough to bother all of you with it :)  Also, sadly, it made me think of a character and setting I'd really like to play and develop - but likely never will :(

Has it almost been 5 years ?!

    Wow, while sitting at the computer trying to think of something to write (been a very depressing day and I can't remember anything I had wanted to write about); I realized next month will be 5 years since I started the blog.  Damn, time sure does fly fast when you get old.  My 130-something posts are a pretty pathetic showing for so much time, but as I mentioned before: I do like having the blog even if I don't get to it much (what did you use a colon and semi-colon for again?).
    Oddly this year has seen a jump in my visitors - which either means somehow some people have actually heard of me (see pathetic posting schedule above) or I've attracted the attention of some sort of bot.  If you are human and reading this, thank you so much for visiting my corner of the internet.  If you're a bot: 01100111 01101111 00100000 01100001 01110111 01100001 01111001.
    I do have things I want to write (despite not being able to think of them at the moment).  I am going to try to get something out at least once a week (though every time I say that I don't - so maybe I should keep that to myself).  I'd like to do some more design-related posts, I have a few ideas, but I'm away from my group (the few friends I have) to try to playtest anything - and I do hate how many untested ideas I've thrown out there.  Anyways, will try to write more since somebody is actually listening.  And again, thank you so much for visiting my site.

Thoughts on Mass Effect: Andromeda

   I haven't really felt like writing out any formal reviews of the games I've been playing, and this is going to continue the trend.  So all this will be stream-of consciousness ranting.
    Amazingly, I have been playing a game that came out this year. Shock and awe!  Actually, thank you Redbox for letting me try out a game that I didn't know if I'd actually want to play.  I played all three of the original Mass Effect games, and liked them overall (of course, the original ending to 3 sucked, which no doubt any computer gamer has heard of).  I've played all the Dragon Age games, including Inquisition (sadly), also by Bioware (which I mention because I'll reference it later), and mostly liked those as well (first was the best IMO).  So I was kind of looking forward to Andromeda, but not exactly jumping for joy to see it.  Let me run through a few things from the (admittedly limited) time I've played.  I have only made it about half-way through the game, so there won't be any spoilers.

    The biggest complaint I heard about before playing Andromeda was the animation.  You can find tons of YouTube videos on the bad facial animations and general animation bugs.  I first played after a patch, which helped fix those, but being partially deaf I always play with the subtitles on - so I could easily ignore the faces, which are mediocre for the most part.
    Okay, so that out of the way, overall I'd say it was an okay game, but not amazing.  It felt like a Mass Effect game overall, not as big as 1 but broader than 2, not as scripted as 3.  It was alright in terms of being ME.  You start the game as one of the Ryder twins, who are low-level explorers under their dad, just arriving in the Andromeda galaxy on a one-way trip.  It's different from ME 1 where Shepard was already known, you choosing what he was known for.  So it feels a little different, but I found that a good thing as it helped subtly detach me from missing Shepard so much.
    Classes are gone, you can choose between Tech, Biotic or Combat as you will.  That is cool in a gameplay sense - you have freedom to try different playstyles and tactics.  It makes the story weird though.  One of your first companions, Cora, is a Biotic, and will talk about how she was basically ostracized for her powers - and never mention that you too could be a Biotic, thus sympathizing.  Also, at a later point she uses her powers in a pretty dramatic way - and again you get ignored even if you fully spent that way.  It's a small thing, but it really stood out to me the few times it popped up.
    The trees seem pretty well-rounded.  Most of the Combat skills didn't appeal to me, and it felt like a lot of the Biotic skills were meant for melee - so I went mostly Tech.  I did try them all, Tech just fit better for me (as it did in ME 3, prior to that one I had always been a soldier).  The abilities are okay, but introduced a new combo system - some skills primed a combo, and some detonated a combo, and combos do a pretty significant amount of damage and so are quite useful.  But, there are a lot more primers than detonators, which made it feel like you had to stick to a few skills, and it was impossible to co-ordinate with your companions to have one of you prime and the other detonate, which would have been awesome (yes, companions can prime, but you have to notice what they're doing to whom, which can be quite difficult in the chaos of combat).
    Also, you could only keep 3 skills (no more power wheel) active, on the Xbox they were left/right bumper and both together.  That really feels limiting after opening the game up so you can choose from so many powers.  I hated that part of the game, the old power wheel would have been much better.
    Your one wheel is now your guns and consumables - maybe it's just me, but I always forgot I had consumables.  They can recharge your shields, launch a rocket, or give you disrupter or incendiary ammo - so they are useful; I just forgot about them.  I don't remember that system ever being in the previous games, and I did play on the easy difficulty (I was paying by the day to rent it, so I wanted to get as far as possible - though it could still be nicely difficult at some spots) so I didn't need them as much as someone or Hardcore (or the equivalent).  You also start with only 2 gun slots, have to buy in the combat tree to unlock 3 and 4, and gun weight can slow your power recharge speed.  All of that was fine, I would recommend getting the 3rd slot so you can keep a short, medium and long ranged weapon, which you can get fairly light versions of or abilities to increase your carry weight (assault rifle, shotgun and sniper rifle left me at -3% with my tech heavy build).
    Weapons are okay, there are a lot of different types, but you have to craft them. You almost never see a weapon drop from an enemy unless you researched it (more on that in a sec), or even for sale.  That totally sucked.  The weapons do shoot fairly differently, so it would be great to be able to try them out on a gun range type setting (like Deus Ex: Mankind Divided).  I really like assault rifles (can passably snipe distance, short bursts work at medium, and if someone gets close you can hold down the trigger - so they're jack-of-all-trade weapons) and just kept the one I started with for the game, mostly (crafted one upgraded and modded version).  The Reegar Shotgun (not sure of spelling, too lazy to look it up) is Totally Awesome - it Shoots Lighting!!! I loved it, it's wicked at close range against just about anything.  One of the Kett (your enemy race) sniper rifles has explosive shots, which was also fun.  I'd recommend watching some YouTube videos on the different gun types before playing, to save yourself some grief.
    You can also mod weapons and armor - which sucks overall.  Fallout 4 did a much better system, Andromeda is a mostly useless sub-system.  You have to scan objects in the world to earn research points, and there are 3 different types of research points which making different weapons, armors and mods.  Research is kind of hard to come by in the early game, so it really hurts to waste points on a weapon you don't like the feel of (hence my suggestion to look them up before playing). Later in the game you get a good pool of points, but it uses the stupid treadmill system every damn stupid game has to use - so you pay to research Avenger 1, then pay more for Avenger 2 and so on and so on until Avenger 10 (or whatever).  Each level is only a little better than the one before though, so it doesn't feel like you got much for your investment.  From 1 to 2 is a step, since at 2 you can add mods to a gun and enhance it, but even from 1 to 10 is only like a 10-20% increase (or so, I don't have the game in front of me to verify the numbers) - so it doesn't feel like an accomplishment.  I kept my first crafted and modified assault rifle thorough the half-way point of the game I ended at.  Again, being on Easy might have made it less noticeable, Hardcore people might need to stay upgrading, but I just thought is was crap, and it's crap in all the other games that do it.  Far better was the mod system, where you could make a weapon not use ammo but overheat (like ME 1, which is still my favorite system and totally fit the lore), or shoot lightning (though you have a cool shotgun noted above for that) or plasma balls - you can really see and feel the difference with mods.  Those mods, and turning the different weapon types into mods, I would have loved (so, there are like 4 types of assault rifles, one that is a general full auto, another is higher damage but single shot, another shoots bursts only, and another full auto but has a spin-up time like a minigun - all of those would have been better as mods to the base "assault rifle" template in my opinion).
    You can also craft and upgrade armor - but again crafting sucks.  You have to harvest a stupid number of different materials (making it really hard to remember which one you need for your current project, or figure out where to find that stuff), and your options are really crappy for some items.  I really wanted to make the N7 armor my dad designed - but it only buffed Biotic powers, kind of stupid given dad could do all abilities like you.  Useful armor mods were hard to find for me (like +health or +shields), I only saw them in a few stores, and the ones you can craft are very limited in scope.  In order to craft you also have to mine, which you do by driving around in circles (literally) on a planet when the computer tells you you're near some materials.  I Totally Hated That Time-Wasting Crap.  Buying them is kind of expensive, and you can't really find them from orbit like ME2 (though ME 2 had a similar system, which also sucked).  In all, look online for the guns you think you'll like, research them a level or two, craft them - and then forget about the whole system.  It's honestly more of a waste of time than it is helpful.
    Combat is good though, it's more fast-paced, your jetpack and dodge let you zip around the battlefield (and a Biotic ability creates a shield that reflects bullets, which is fun for when you want to walk right up to somebody's face).  The enemy AI seemed decent, and there are different enemy types.  Overall I thought the combat was the best part of the game (and you do plenty of it).
    Dialogue, however, sucks.  Forgetting any animation glitches, you almost never know what exactly you're going to say, and it really felt like it didn't matter what you said (something Fallout 4 did as well, though I don't know if I remembered to mention it in my post).  I really hated talking to people, which I was hoping would be a great part of the system - and I liked lots more in ME 1-3.
    Companions are okay, most all of them are interesting characters in a variety of personalities.  Their random banter can be really cool, which I remember loving in Dragon Age: Origins and am happy to see in Andromeda.  There are romance options like always, actual nudity in the obligatory sex scene (why? though it is better than the underwear scene from DA:O), but nothing really different from the previous games.  Which is good, if it ain't broke don't fix it.
    The story, however, blows chunks.  It is not really that engaging, has several easy to see plot points, and just didn't seem like it was that much fun to do the main quests.  It is full of side quests, most of which felt like a waste of time, which reminded of the worst of Dragon Age: Inquisition (though not as horrific as DA:I).  I was really hoping for multiple alien races, I only saw one, which felt odd given all the many different races, with different personalities, in the previous games.  I got about half-way through the main storyline (according to internet research) and honestly I don't care if I ever finish it.  Doesn't seem like you make many meaningful decisions, and the lack of Paragon/Renegade didn't help (even though those were mediocre morality systems, they did have some great interrupt moments)(loved pushing the guy out the window in ME2).
    Also, being strangers in a strange galaxy, there is a kind of base-building system.  You can earn points by terraforming planets to wake up more colonists and gain different abilities from the ones you thaw.  Except, the bonuses you get are really forgettable and don't contribute much.  Your first base you can choose weather to be scientific or military - and you never get that choice for subsequent bases, and it doesn't matter except for one or two lines of dialogue.  This is where it painfully reminded me of Dragon Age: Inquisition, and I'm sad that after making such a suck-all base system in that game they did the same thing in Andromeda.  There's also a multiplayer thing I didn't use because I don't like multiplayer, and some rewards in real-time that were also so small as to be inconsequential.

    Overall, I'd say if you liked the Mass Effect games wait to get this one cheap at GameStop.  If you didn't care for ME, then skip this one, I doubt it will sell you on the franchise.  Or just rent it a time or two from Redbox like I did.

Thoughts on Fallout 4

    As usual for me, I'm behind several years on the games I play.  So I've just finished playing Fallout 4.  Well, "finished" in the sense that I've hit the limit of what I can stand doing, not that I've run out of things/quests to do.  I did finish the main quest though.  So here are a few thoughts about it.
    I loved the crafting system for weapons.  It was a nice touch, making all that junk that's lying around in every Fallout game (at least 3 & NV that I've played) actually useful, and scrounging has the post-apocalyptic feel.  It also was useful, letting you make much better weapons out of the ones you find.  I love crafting too, which helped :)  Some of the options were really good too, changing how the guns felt shooting or letting you tailor your weapons to your playstyle, like close and automatic or long-ranged sniping.  The plasma option to turn your gun into a mini-flamethrower was a totally great addition (so much fun).  On the downside, you do have the omnipresent level grind where you go from 'standard receiver' to 'advanced receiver' to 'amazingly godlike receiver' for your base damage upgrading.  I've never been fond of that style of mechanic, though I guess it is unavoidable with a level-based game.
    Likewise I loved the settlement building.  Had that perfect feel for trying to create a new, better future.  Again, loving crafting helped.  It was awesome to build my own mansion, using large glass windows to look out on the ruined city (from my island, after ridding it of Milelurks).  But that charm really wore off when I realized there was no good reason at all to actually build a settlement.  All it gave you was some crafting stations, which are everywhere, a place to store your junk (that is you didn't like crafting wasn't an issue), and a few useful crops (glue is used in everything, literally, so being able to grow your own was a huge plus).  Overall though, they can get attacked, side-tracking you from you were doing to help.  Settlers do not level up, and have no gear really, so equipping them to survive the higher level enemies was a micromanaging pain the behind.  They take a lot of resources to build, and just again, you get little from the sense of accomplishment from them - which isn't something to scoff at, but wears out fairly quickly.
    Like the last 2 Fallout games, the main quest is something you can really ignore.  I didn't care at all about finding my son, and waited several days of playing before working on it.  The faction quests were okay, though I mostly focused on The Brotherhood of Steel myself.  The ending was not really very satisfying - but that's been true of the last 2 Fallout games in spades; I HATED New Vegas for making me walk off into the sunset when I'd worked so hard to make my own robot army to take over the place.
    Otherwise there's plenty to do, and some fun quests (the robots on the ship was awesome, the witchcraft museum was great - even knowing the plot really, and the haunted mine was totally cool).  I did not like any of the companions, until I got the Automatron DLC and loved Ada your robot friend.  The difficulty was good for me, not too hard, though near the end it did start to get pretty easy.  Getting your first suit of power armor early on was fantastic, though the fight for it was pretty intense.
    I liked the game.  For the discounted price I got it from GameStop it was well worth it, and I thought the DLC was decently priced for what you got.

First Impressions - Gwent: The Witcher Card Game

    Found a preview build of this on a friend's Xbox One. I've heard of The Witcher (mostly good things) but never played any of the games.  I was hitting the end of my Fallout 4 kick (which I'll talk about soon) and figured I'd try something new.  I've played a fair number of card games in the past, my brother got me hooked on Magic when it first came out.  The Battletech CCG was cool, and a tabletop game I liked, Mythos, the Call of Cuthulu CCG was innovative of the times, and the Aliens CCG looked neat but I never got to play it.  So I've seen a few in my day, though granted that was many years ago.
    Gwent struck me as a really cool game, and an interesting twist on some of the common mechanics.  Briefly, you construct for one of 5 or 6 factions each with their own strategies.  You draw a good sized hand, but the game is played in 3 rounds and on round 2 you draw 2 more cards and round 3 only 1 card.  So it makes a nice tension for how many cards do you want to burn though now or save for later.  It also makes for circumstances when choosing to lose a round is a good tactical option.  That's a nice complexity.  The winner of each round is determined but a simple total of power, highest wins.  Each character card has a power number, "spells" and such do not.  So your cards do not directly fight like in Magic, though they do have abilities that can target each other.  You also have a leader card with a powerful special ability, but they can only be played once in the entire match.  Cards are placed on one of 3 rows: melee, ranged and siege; and some effects target a whole row or adjacent units.  It has a nice tactical depth without being too hard to learn and track (in my so far limited experience).
    If you like card games or board games I'd give it a try.
    There are a few things I am not too fond of.  The tutorial didn't quite explain that when you pass, you stop acting/playing cards for the round.  I thought like most CCG's you only sat out one round.  This does make some of the "damage over time"-type effects a little less useful, since you have to keep playing cards to sustain the effect and you may need to stop to avoid burning yourself out for later.  The card effects are not always explained well, though in play you start to get a feel for the quirks, but since it's basically a beta game I'm sure the tooltips and such will get clearer soon enough.  Also, the number one problem with any CCG is explaining the fundamental tactics that each faction uses.  It can be a little hard to suss out by reading the cards, I'd imagine moreso if you are new to card games in general.  This can be kind of simple, like the monster deck that summons and sacrifices cards, or a little trickier - the leader in the deck I've mostly used has an ability I did not catch at first.  Normally you hold your leader, since it can only be played once in the whole match; but this leader added 1 power to every character in my hand and deck - so it was best to play him as the first card of the match.  Not a big deal, but I wish more games would give some hints or a walk-through of strategies in general, just to soften the learning curve.
    I'm sure I'll play it some more, but just against the computer opponents.  I don't really like playing adversarial games in general, and I don't really care for playing games with or against random people across the world.  Still, I thought it was a pretty good game, it's free, and worth taking a look at.

Life sucks

... Which has been a part of my not blogging.

A Quick Update

    I've been making some significant changes to my life recently, which has ended up with me being off-line more than usual - but I haven't forgotten about the blog, and I appreciate everyone who has been visiting it.  I do have some more posts I'm working on, but likely it will be at least a few weeks before I can get them done and published.  As a quick review though:
    I saw Captain America: Civil War, love it, it was everything I was hoping Batman v Superman would be (not a big fan of BvS overall, though it did have a few great moments).
    Watching The Mentalist again after getting my girlfriend hooked on it, still one of my favorite TV shows (along with Leverage, Castle, White Collar - to stick with the crime genera).
    Been running and doing Pilates (my girlfriend is a Pilates instructor) and trying to lose weight.  Bad about tracking it, but dropped at least 10 pounds, and 4" waist size, so while I really don't like working out I do like the results.
    Still reading blogs, and loving stuff by the Angry GM.
    And a lot of personal stuff, some of which I may talk about down the road.  Hope you all are doing well, and I will post something more meaningful as soon as I can :)

Escalation Die and Recharge Time

  I have crazy ideas all the time, here's another one inspired by 13th Age. In that game you use an Escalation Die, a d6 that does not start in play, but at the beginning of each subsequent turn increases by 1. The value of the die is added to the players' to-hit rolls.
  I like this mechanic a lot. It speeds up combat, something any d20 based system could use, and it tracks the length of the fight (to a point) and you can play off it in all sorts of ways.
  Something I hate in 13th Age is recharging effects. All abilities are either at-will, require a recharge roll after the battle (so maybe your ring feels like protecting you again, maybe not), can be used once every battle or used once every day. It is a wonky system that has no basis in "fictional reality" just a timing mechanic inherited from D&D 4th edition.
  But what if there were two dice? The Escalation Die goes up every turn, but the second Recharge Die goes down every turn? The catch, recharging magic items (and maybe some spells and abilities) spends recharge points after the fight?
  Now we have a nicely conflicted resource. High escalation die helps you take on the bigger monsters - but you have no recharge points to re-power your magic items and abilities. Quicker fights usually mean taking more risks though. And if you could always use recharge points- say, no recoveries, instead reach recharge point can heal 1d4 HP (you catch your breath and treat your wounds)- now everybody can benefit from having them. A short rest could be something like 10 recharge points. A low powered magic effect might need 2-3 recharge, bigger ones 4-5.
  This could even be associated - say that magic items store magic energy and discharge it to produce the item's effect. So you have to rest and meditate to channel energy back into the item (being inanimate it can't recharge itself)?
  I could kind of see this in non-combat too. The faster you persuade the guard or travel the more time you have to look around or the fewer enemies to face. Resource points could also be a counter for the pacing of the story - reinforcing how important time is (and it should be).
  Not sure about the nuts and bolts to implement this, but it sounds like a neat idea to me.

The Homeless Nerd reviews - Zootopia

What is it? Animated movie about anthropomorphic animals, aimed at kids but can work for adults

    If there is one type of story I love most it is the funny story with a serious core. This is why I love Terry Pratchett novels so much, he would write a series of comedic events, but they would have a very serious and deep meaning. Like his book Small Gods that examines the difference between religion and spirituality by the adventures of a god that becomes a turtle. This is different from funny stories that have serious moments, or serious stories that have funny moments. It's subtle, and not something that can be defined so much as experienced.
  Zootopia is one of these kinds of stories. The alternate Earth with no humans, just evolved animals is a great comedic setting - but under that is a great thread about racism, fear and prejudice. It should appeal to the kids who watch it, and the adults who think about it.
  Technically, the voice acting is great, the pacing is spot in, it never feels slow or boring. The CGI is sharp and creates a great sense of place. All around it is a great movie.

My recommendation: worth paying full price for, it's that good.

Stuff You Might Have Missed: Archetypology

    I have not totally fallen off the earth :-) Life has been pretty crazy for the last few months, so blogging has fallen by the wayside. But something recently reminded me of an interesting series I thought I'd give some publicity. On RPG.net there was a series titled ARCHETYPOLOGY 101: FACT, FICTION, & FALLACIES. The author talked about the fantasy origins or archetypes of some fantasy RPG classes and races. It was a very cool series and I wish it had been longer. I'm going to post the links to it below in case you, gentle reader, find it as fascinating as I did:

#1: Who Are You?
#2: Episode 1 - Holy Rollers
#3: Episode 2 - Elves Have Left The Building
#4: Episode 3 - Thick as Thieves
#5: Episode 4 - In a Hole in the Ground...
#6: Episode 5 - Rebel Without a CAWS
#7: Episode 6 - Kings Under the Mountain
#8: Episode 7 - Roll Up for the Magical Mystery Tour
#9: Episode 8 - To Be Orc Not To Be
#10: Episode 9 - Death Before Dishonor
#11: Episode 10 - Human, All Too Human

Classes and Templates and Questions

    I wrote a while ago about classes (here and here), and I never felt like I had really said what I wanted to on the subject.  Some current thoughts have me revisiting the idea, so here goes another attempt to come up with something meaningful on the subject.
    I first started role-playing with D&D, and core to it has been the concept of classes.  I've played plenty of games since then, and overall I don't really like games that use the class system.  Which was what I wanted to work out in my head with my last two posts on the subject.  But recently I'm realizing something - in a way, I actually do like classes.  For something that I overlooked before.

    In my last posts I mentioned that I didn't like classes because I thought they conflated what a character did, what a character had, and why a character acted.  My argument was not great, but I did have a point.  There's another point I didn't bring up, and I'll illustrate it easily - Dungeons and Dragons 5th edition and the Hero System.  In the D&D 5th DMG there is a section on making a new class.  It says, basically, look at the existing classes and make up something that seems to fit.  Compare that to the Hero System where you have a giant list of powers (like "ranged killing attack" and "invisibility") that each have a point cost, and then there are lists of advantages and disadvantages that effect each power in a specific way and have a specific modifier to the cost of the power they modify.  This is why I don't like most class-based systems - they are made up with no underlying structure.  In the Hero System, with specific rules for how to build an ability (or power or weapon or spell, anything), you know what kinds of effects are considered by the game (or game designers) to be equivalent.  So changing one ability for another is easy, swap same point cost for same point cost.  But in most class-based systems the abilities were randomly created based on what "felt right" for that class and then playtested (worst way to test something, people can fix problems - make it a computer program, those are unforgiving of mistakes) and either approved or modified.
    This is all subjective and leads to some weird results: in 5th edition the Barbarian can Rage at level 1.  He basically gets 2 tries at every strength-related activity, does extra damage with melee weapons and takes 1/2 damage from all normal weapons for a minute (10 combat turns).  He can do this 2 times per day (or long rest).  Meanwhile the Bard, at level 1 as well, gets Inspiration.  They can give one ally 1d6 that the ally can add to any roll, once, then it's lost.  The Bard can do this his Cha modifier per long rest.  How the hell are these equivalent?  The Barbarian becomes a combat fiend, taking on enemies and surviving damage that should be impossible to take - and the Bard can kind of add a sort of benefit to one roll, though, granted to any roll not just combat (though it does have to be used within 10 min).  The Barbarian's power can easily effect 2 rolls per turn (attack and defense) for 10 turns, so 20 rolls/effects, times 2 uses for 40 total rolls per rest - compared to the Bard's 1 effected roll, for about 3-5 rolls per rest total.  Really?  Am I the only one who thinks this is lop-sided?
    And what happens when there is no visible structure, no limits on how much is too much; how is a GM supposed to be able to create a new class or modify an existing one?  You end up where Pathfinder is, with a billion classes and abilities and feats and they form such a tangled mess that you can't objectively measure any of them.
    Thing is, as much as I don't like that about class-based RPGs, that problem isn't really a problem of having a class.  It's the problem of not having an explicit structure.

    The Hero System's exposed structure allows you to make abilities.  And if you create a bunch of abilities and package them together, now you have a template, and then if you spread out the acquisition of abilities over time, well, now you have a class.  Because a class isn't about what you have, not really, it's about how you grow (essentially how you grew from being "class-less" to having a class and forward).  It's a progression, a span of time, not a single moment or level.
    That can be a very helpful thing.  When you have to create all your own abilities from scratch, and keep making up new ones over time/growth, that's a lot of work.  It's actually hard to be creative when anything is possible.  A class simplifies things by making choices for you, and a well-designed class will make good choices and bundle together abilities that play well with each other and give you an effective role in the game.  Also, the end-level abilities, that super-cool thing you can do, can become a reward to strive for in itself.  A class gives you direction.
    Thing is, like in the eternal "railroad vs sandbox" debate, too much direction can be as bad as too little.  The trick is to find a happy medium.  Here I think the archetypes in 5th edition and Pathfinder sort of touch on a very powerful concept.  The thing about the traditional class is that it makes all the choices for you.  You choose your class and after that everything is out of your hands.  Or you choose an archetype to modify your class, and again after that choice you're on auto-pilot.  My best example about why this is troublesome is when it comes to multiclassing.  I really like the hybrids, like the fighter-wizard.  Now, in early Pathfinder and D&D 3.x you had to take a whole level to multiclass.  So you took, say, 3 levels of Fighter and then 1 level of Wizard, giving all the abilities of a Wizard, with the trade-off of those abilities being at a lower level than you should be at.  Here's my problem though, I'm thinking of being a Fighter first, it was literally my first level, so I don't want to switch to being a Wizard - I want the Wizard abilities that compliment my being a fighter.
    What I really want is to take only a sub-set of the Wizard.  To be able to cast evocation spells so I can dish out elemental damage, or replace my bow/ ranged attack with spells.  Or, maybe instead to take transmutation/ enchantment spells and be able to buff my attributes or polymorph into a more powerful form that still uses weapons (unless I'm an unarmed fighter in the first place).  I don't want all the random stuff a Wizard can do, I want to make my Fighter side deeper and more versatile.  Taking a whole level is stupid, it leaves you too weak for what you gain - since most of what you gain will not expand your core concept.

    Which makes me think of a possible type of class progression.  Let's say you want to be a "pure" class, like fighter or wizard.  You gain proficiency in everything related to that class, so you can cast all spells or use all weapons.  Let's take a page from 13th Age too, you also get a feat, a bonus to one of your abilities.  So you can become a ranged or melee specialist as a fighter, a diviner or evoker as a wizard.  Then, at level 2 or 3 your class asks you a question: do you want to gain another specialization, or do you want to gain a cross-class ability?  If you "multiclass" then you get only one specific proficiency, so as a wizard you can add melee or ranged weapons (but not both), as a fighter you can add evocation or transmutation spells (again, not both or everything).  Ideally these should either be from a list that is specifically helpful to your base class, or should explain how each can be useful to your base concept (always good when you ask questions to explain the reasons or consequences for that decision).  This is a really cool class structure to me, a series of guided questions with the abilities built on an explicit framework.  And as much as I like the Hero System, hopefully a framework that was as broad and flexible but maybe not so math-heavy.
    Under the idea of "class as questions" you are not on a fixed path, so that every level 10 Fighter looks exactly the same, but you also are not doing a million random and prerequisite-dependant feats like in Pathfinder.  Instead you're gaining abilities by asking yourself questions, and those questions are related to your class.  Like, first of all, what do you want to do?  Do you want to be the fighter, or the explorer, or the talker?  Then you build on that first decision.  For fighters, do you want to be melee or ranged?  Offense or defense?  And then you can grow over time.  Do you want to add some arcane magic, or maybe some divine magic, to enhance your fighting abilities (after all fighter is "what you do," the weapons or spells is just "what you do it with")?  Do you want to be the kensai, or "sword saint," and master a specific weapon?  Do you fight solo or as part of a team?
    All of these questions, layered one level at a time, builds your character under your control, based on your experiences playing the game.  Not a path set in stone, but a journey of discovery.
    That, I think, would be an awesome class system.

LOL of the Day - 10 Nov

    Going through a big change right now, so might be a slowdown from my usual snail's pace until things get settled.  Meanwhile, here's something a little funny you might not have seen...

Knowledge -> Consequences -> Growth

    If you ever toy with designing a game, or get serious about house ruling one, you eventually start asking yourself the metaphysical questions of game design.  What is fun?  How is an adventure supposed to flow?  Why are these numbers the way they are?  Any game's rules are made on top of foundational beliefs and decisions by the designers. I first started designing my own RPG back in 1992 - given that it's not finished yet you can tell I'm rather bad at the whole thing; but a part of the delay has been asking myself deeper and deeper foundational questions that keep shaking the rules I have on top of them.  So this post is going to be really theory heavy (in a way), and maybe just flat out crazy rambling in some places.
    I posted a while ago a quote about how the two most important things in a role-playing game are player choice, and that player choices have an impact on the game world.  In retrospect I think I was a little off on that.  Those actually seem to be one element, in my current way of thinking.  In fact, I think there are 3 essential elements that make the kind of game I want to play and run.  You might be able to guess that they are the three parts of this post's title.  In which case give yourself a cookie.

Knowledge
    I want to share something from the Lost Mine Of Phandelver (hopefully the WotC lawyers will give me a pass on this):

"The chest also contains a +1 longsword in a silver-chased scabbard.  The sword is inscribed with the name "Talon," and its hilt is worked in the shape of a bird of prey with outstretched wings.  It once belonged to a great knight named Aldith Tresendar, known as the Black Hawk.  A character who succeeds on a DC 15 Intelligence(History) check recognizes the sword and recalls this lore.
Sir Aldith died fighting off the orcs that attacked through the hidden caverns below this manor.  Talon was lost here until the nothic found it."

    I know that I have recently, well for a while actually, fallen into the 'boring magic item' trap.  Magic items become just another piece of gear, and you gloss over them except for their abilities - and know that odds are someday they'll be replaced for an upgraded version.  Which is not a good thing.  How can a player, or even a GM, become attached to something they do not know about?  This doesn't just go for magic items, when running Phandelver it was hard because I know very little about the Forgotten Realms setting and WotC has not yet put out a book on it.  So I couldn't give my players any real back-story for where they come from or what they might know about the area and local history.  You need knowledge, you need stories and information to get to know something or someplace or someone.  While an RPG is an exercise in imagination, it is hard to imagine a rock if you've never seen one before.  Likewise, it is hard to imagine a fantasy world and races and things that don't exist in our own (or that few really see, like ancient armor and weapons).  In that vein, if my players find this in the game I'm not going to roll, I'm going to have the bard recite all this good history - if I didn't have a bard in the party then I'd have a fighter recognize a notable weapon and hero, somebody.  Why waste such useful detail that helps bring something to life?
    This is such a big issue, a foundational thing really.  Forget magic items, how can a player connect to a character class?  In most books the "fighter" is just a list of powers - no actual story or frame of reference.  I like the 5th edition idea of Backgrounds, to help fill in some of that; but I don't think they go quite far enough.  There is a big difference in the feel between a "warrior" who fights alone as a champion of a people or place, and a "ronin" who has no master and just wanders the land, and a "soldier" who has comrades and belongs to a specific group and fights with allies, and a "mercenary" who is just in it for the money.  Each of these is a fighter, but they all feel much different, have different goals and priorities, and will appeal to different types of players.  And yet, what do we get in most games - just "fighter."  Sure, you can come up with all kinds of back-story on your own - but then does that fit into the game?  And do you agree on the same definition of a "whatever" as your GM does?
    Knowledge is the beginning, it is the foundation.  It is something you can build upon.  Without it, or when it is weak, you have shaky ground to build your character upon or connect with the game world through.
    Knowledge is such a foundational concept to a game that it is everywhere.  I've talked above about describing the world and items - but you need knowledge about everything in the game.  You need to know what your character can do, you need to know how the game works, you need to know what is or is not possible in your game and even know what kind of GM you're dealing with.  There's a whole bunch of things you need to know.  And that is good, the more you know, the more you understand the more you can do - the more options you have and the more clarity about how to create the character and story arc you want.  Mind you, here I'm talking about player knowledge - character knowledge like the dribs and drabs of information from "knowledge checks" and such are not really knowing the game and the world.  Having a fleshed-out world, even a good example of play, all are knowledge to help you connect to the game.
    I've had a dream of making the "smart character" in a new way.  Like, give the player a list of "tells," little behaviors that mean something.  So, "looking up and right" could be a tell for lying (I think it was looking up that accessed the creative side of your brain, and down the memory - not sure now that I type it, oh well, roll with me here).  So when the GM describes an NPC who is talking, and that NPC lies, the GM would say that the NPC,  "looks up and right while saying gruffly, 'No sir, never heard of that bloke.' "  There would have to be lots of tells, and multiples for each meaning (like, say, 5 tells for lying, 5 more for guilt, etc...) - plus some "neutral" tells that didn't mean anything (the "nervous ticks" I guess).  The higher the level or skill of the character, the more tells they had revealed.  With a system like this the player could have the same knowledge as the character.  Another blog also talked about "5 things everybody knows." (might have been Charles Ryan)(yeah, here)  Making 5 things that everybody knows about, well, everything.  Places and items and stuff like magic and on and on.  This way, with some things everybody knows, you can give extra facts to the player who wants to be the "smart guy."  Or diseases, there could be a list of symptoms (many of which would be common) and the character/player could test to determine what exactly someone had and what course of treatment (since treating the wrong disease is usually a bad thing).  I believe it was Hack and Slash who had a lock-picking mini-game with how to pick locks using a simple formula that the player and character could both learn (here's one link, think there was another I can't find).  There are a lot of ways to build knowledge into the game.
    Along with this idea, I really like descriptive ranks.  I think your character sheet saying you have Remarkable (30) strength or Monstrous (65) intelligence is a lot better than the D&D-styled 14 (+2) or 18 (+4).
    Knowledge isn't just between players and the GM either, the game designers need to provide lots of examples of play and the foundations of the game to GMs so every GM knows how the system was meant to work: that way they know how far they can house rule it to taste.  I do love the Hero System for this, even if the game is rather dense; there must be a happy medium somewhere.
    I think all the work it takes to create this level of detail is worth it.  A lot of games don't give the players very detailed knowledge.  And that's fine in general, better to keep things simple; but when it comes to something important, or something special, more knowledge can really help the player become more immersed in the game.  Even min-maxers want to know everything they can about the rules and how each ability interconnects.

Knowledge leads to Consequences
    What I missed in my old post about player choice was that really player choice is about knowledge.  Knowing what your options are, and most importantly what consequences those options will have.  If the game world ends in the same state it began with, then why did you bother playing? (the reason I hate MMOs)  Likewise, if your character takes an action that has no effect on the game world (ah, the whiffle-ball combat phase - love you flat-curved d20), then you feel like you wasted your time.  Because you did.  The whole point of playing the game is to change things.  Acting, expressing your character, is really just fluff.  Making the world different, taking out the marauding orcs, or just lining your pockets with more gold, doing something - that is the game part of playing the game.
    But there is a difference between consequences and calculations, as a great Extra Credits episode pointed out.  If one choice is always better than another, that is not a choice it's a calculation.  A choice is when either decision has both potentially good and potentially bad consequences.  Which is why I didn't put "choice" in this section's header.  The focus is on consequences, for both the game world and your character.  When you talk about GMing you often talk about reducing rolls.  "Don't roll, think" was a great title to a post (cannot remember from where now)(found it).  If there is no choice, if it's just a calculation, then don't roll, don't waste time on it - just choose the best option and move on.  This comes in large part from the game, from how the rules are structured.  If your only option is to attack - then there is really no choice and only one possible consequence, pretty flat.  If you have a million choices, but you have no knowledge about how successful they might be, or how big an impact they could have - again, very little choice and you'll end up with few consequences when the players find the simplest option and just repeat it.
    Fighting Defensively is a good example.  I can choose to not attack and instead increase my defenses.  Okay, but by how much?  If I'm only getting a +2 to my AC, is that really big enough to matter to the monster attacking me?  If I'm using 5th ed Disadvantage, well, that's pretty significant, but still can be kind of hard to tell sometimes.  And what am I doing in return?  Nothing.  I'm not attacking, so I'm not moving the combat towards a resolution and I'm running the risk of getting hit anyways.  Not a great option overall.  When I tried to think of a tactic for this I chose something different.  When being Deliberate, choose a number (from a d6, could be whatever).  Attack and defend normally, but the maximum damage you can deal is the number you chose, and the maximum damage you can receive is the number you chose.  This way, I know exactly how much the situation can change, I am in control of the damage "crazy train."  I can put on the breaks and slow things down.  I can control the consequences and clearly see/know the effect of this choice.  I can still have an effect, but the safer I'm playing it the less effect I can have.  Not always a great choice, if time matters I'm dragging out the fight a lot longer.  Likewise, more time means the situation could change, reinforcements could arrive - for either me or the monsters.
    Chance really comes out here.  What are the odds of success?  And can you figure them out yourself?  Do you really know the odds of this action succeeding?  After all, if you don't have good odds of success then why bother?  A lot of combat maneuvers fall into this hole.  Sure, in Pathfinder I could disarm the bad guy, which might be very helpful, but if my odds of success are 10% then why bother?  Or, if I have no idea what the odds of success are, then why not do something safer and more reliable?
    I think that consequences, and the choices that precede them, are where RPGs shine.  A pen-and-paper RPG, people thinking up crazy stuff that other people are responding to, has something no computer game can quite capture.  Or card game, or board game - both can be complex and unpredictable, but an RPG can go to places that literally its designers never thought of.  It's the most amazing thing to me about playing RPGs, those stories of the totally unexpected that you'll tell over and over again, or will become in-jokes between the people who were there.
    I really like the idea of giving the players plenty of clear and distinct choices, and making the mechanics as simple as possible so that the players are spending all their brainpower on choosing wisely- and not spending so much time adding a fist-full of dice and modifiers that are really out of their control.  Randomness seems to belong more with the GM - is this an honest guard or a corrupt one?  Is this an easy lock to pick or a masterwork dwarven mechanical/magical hybrid?  It feels like the GM should be rolling from a limited pool of possibilities more than the players should be rolling and hoping they can do that thing they chose to do in the first place.  Honestly, is there so much a chance for failure, or is it that you might have to work harder or differently than you expected before you started?  Forget that "fail forward" stuff, in life I think it tends to be more "try a different approach."  Failure does not have to mean that everything is lost, the world has come crashing down.  It could just mean that you have to stop, you've hit a wall with that choice, choose something different and try again.  This style tells the players that success is always possible, at some sort of cost - which sounds like a good premise to me since it implicitly asks, are you willing to pay that cost?

Consequences lead to Growth
    "Change" is one of those words I don't like in connection with gaming.  Change is random.  A goblin turning into a candle is a change.  Growth however implies a movement from one thing to another thing, which can imply possible future movement.  A goblin becoming a goblin champion (and maybe one day leader) - that's growth.  We have plenty of change in games, stuff that just happens without rhyme or reason; I think we could all use more growth, more guided progression.
    When I reviewed The Last Witch Hunter a few days ago I commented that RPG-based novels did not tend to have super well-written storylines, much like the RPG adventures they were based on.  That wasn't meant to be a dig at either RPG writers or players, it's a simple fact that with so many people all contributing to the development of the "story" it is almost impossible to have something tight, focused and with the typical structure of a novel.  An RPG is very improvisational, things just develop during the course of play that sometimes no one could have predicted.  Which is good, everybody needs to contribute, but can also feel un-focused and scattered.  Ironically a core mechanic, classes, are all about growth.  You start with a few abilities and you gain more over time, but they are all built around a specific theme and usage (if it's a well-designed class at least).  You grow into you class - but in your character, in the story?  Not the same kind of help there.
    Now I'm not advocating for a straight-jacket outline of the hero's journey that every character must follow - that would suck.  Really, growth isn't about following a pre-destined path, it's about a series of questions I think.  It's about moments of choice, moments that have far reaching and long lasting consequences, moments that change the paradigm to follow - and the "story" is all about the lines connecting those moments.  I don't like background stuff that says "you did xyz" as much as I like background stuff that asks "what did you feel about xyz, or why did you do xyz?"  Growth is a measure of how we face the choices of life, not tactically like the choice of what to do in combat but strategically like the choice of who to be and what to believe in.  Choices that are not fixed in stone.  People change, life events change them, stuff happens.  Like I said above, if the game world ended exactly the way it began, that would be pretty boring - but if your character ends the same way they began, isn't that also boring?  And does gaining new powers from leveling up really count as growth?  Or at least as meaningful growth?
    Stories grow, at least the good ones do, they don't just change.  Characters grow, and the character growth is reflected in the story growth.  Vin the street urchin becomes Vin the Hero Of Ages.  Anakin Skywalker becomes Darth Vader.  And the world around them changes in response to and reflection of their choices.  Something I don't think many RPG characters go through - and again, not to blame the players or say that every character should have a super-huge arc.  Rather, I think some structure would be a good thing, and I think that most players could have a more engaging time with their characters if they had a guided series of questions to help them grow over time.  How exactly to do that, and what it should look like I have no idea, there is a reason it hasn't really been done, it's incredibly subjective and hard to do; and co-ordinating it with 4 or more players all at the same time is a whole extra level of tricky.
    A part of this for GMs I think is Justin Alexander's advise of "Don't Prep Plots."  He talks about making nodes, places and people that the players can interact with and understand the goals and purpose of the bad guys.  If you "begin with the end in mind" as the writing advise goes, then you have a goal to always be working towards.  Like my complaint about Rise of the Runelords, it did not seem to be written to really drive towards the final showdown, instead it ambles and rambles its way along with no clear goal in sight - so the final battle was very anti-climatic and didn't really feel worth all the time and effort to get there (didn't help that one player pretty much finished the final battle by himself, though that was hilarious).  I think if a GM knows where he is going, and why things are headed in that direction, then he/she can freely let the players interact with the world and still maintain a sense of growth instead of randomness.
    Also my idea for "social levels" in a previous post is a nod towards that.  Having a class and level, and straight progression is a good thing.  But I wonder if having more that just one thing to spend XP on would be better.  If there were some options about how your character grows, not just in personal power but in other ways that seems like a better progression system that can more richly model different types of characters and tell different stories easier (not that you can't now, but again having a list of options makes being creative easier than a blank page).  More growth than change maybe (since I don't have a system for that fleshed out, that's pure speculation).

    *    *    *    *   

    Wow, so this turned into a super-long rambling discourse about I don't really know what :)
    Like I said, game design is sometimes about the big concepts, the foundations of what a game is and how you want it to play.  I guess this is a part of my ideas on that, on my "ideal" game that exists only in my head.  I have no idea if this is useful for anyone else - but I am glad I got some of this down, because it has been influencing how I've been running games and house ruling them lately, and it is always good to take a look at one's assumptions.  Most importantly I need to make sure my players are okay with the same outlook I have, so that they can also enjoy the kind of game I seem to be morphing things into.  Surprise is not good, better to discuss all those assumptions openly between players and GMs so everyone is in agreement.  This was all off-the-cuff though, so I need to think about it and polish it up some more.
    Still, if I had to sum up my philosophy on RPG design in one line it would be: Knowledge leads to Consequences which lead to Growth - and the game mechanics should facilitate all three stages.

    As for you, dear reader, hopefully this can inspire you to look at your own game assumptions, or at least was not a total chore to read.  As always feel free to leave any comments below.

Gold For XP That I Like

    Way back in the days of early D&D you spent gold to earn XP.  Most everybody should know that, if you know anything about D&D.  I was never a fan of that system.  I thought the actions themselves, like defeating the monsters, should earn XP - weather or not they had any lunch money to steal.  So I have appreciated the changes in modern times to awarding XP directly, and expanding what to award XP for like exploring, or bypassing the monsters instead of defeating them.  And now, after playing 13th Age, I really like the idea of not counting XP at all and just leveling the party when it seems dramatically appropriate (and given how high you want to get in the time you have).
    But something hit me when I was playing 5th edition a while back.  I decided to go ahead and play the game more "as written" and track XP and gold and stuff.  I also decided to give this privilege to a player, so I didn't have to break out the calculator (well, I still did have to tweak the encounters for having an extra player than the adventure was built for).  While looking over the amount of gold that the pre-written adventure gave out, something jumped at me.  D&D has always written a description of a gem or piece of jewelery and then its value.  So you get a line like, "A small gold statuette of a smiling woman with tiny rubies for eyes (150 GP)."  I have always wondered at that.  Personally I've never cared about what something looked like, or what kind of gem it was, because the only thing I was going to do was sell it and split the proceeds among the party.  Who cares about the flowery description, I just want to know what I can pawn it for.
    What hit me though, was that I could actually see a system of using gold for XP.  If every character had a "social level," with names like the old D&D levels, starting with a level 1 Commoner and going to something like a level 10 Baron and level 20 King/Emperor.  Your social level would come into play when dealing with NPCs.  If your social level was below them you'd have a penalty to social interactions since you are "beneath them" and if higher a bonus instead.  Also, it could be a gateway, so the King's birthday party requires social level 4 or higher to attend.  The difference could be a modifier to get in if you aren't high enough level (like -2/level lower than required) for Bluff checks.
    And with a system like this, you could definitely use gold for XP.  After all, if you want to look noble you have to dress noble.  You have to own a house (and not be a murder hobo) and have nice things in your house.  Servants, throwing parties, all that stuff takes money.  Sure, you could trade some general XP for social XP - killing the goblins threatening the town is worth some social capital; but it really takes cold hard cash to climb the social ladder.  And this way, the flowery description tells you that item is worth full value for social XP (instead of the half when you sell something) - plus you can describe how you have that gem put in a necklace or display the statuette in your foyer.  This also covers the "living expenses" background stuff for characters.  You stay at the same social level unless you spend gold/wealth to level up.  For extra fun you could even take a page out of Torchbearer- every character gets a certain number of actions to take "in town" in-between adventures, the higher your social level the more actions and the more types of actions you can take.
    I kind of like this idea.  I've never liked just asking my players, "Well, you're in town, what do you want to do?"  As Joe Haldeman once wrote: art thrives on restriction.  Having a list of choices, having any kind of starting point, makes it easier to be creative than a big blank page staring balefully back at you.  So having places in town where certain actions can be taken, like in Torchbearer, helps the players decide what to do in-between killing things (mind you, I've only read Torchbearer, haven't played it yet, so this is my impression of the system).  If a Wizard can get his social level up to 5 and acquire an apprentice then now the player has something he can choose to strive for - which is easier than saying "what do you do in town" and not having any rules.  There can be a lot of desert in the sandbox, a railroad track at least gets you to where you want to go.  So while having a separate social level is a bit more complicated, I think the potential benefits could be worth it.  And it really does make treasure feel different if that ancient painting is worth full value in social XP on your wall, or half value sold in your wallet.
    Still, I don't know of any game that has a system like this.  It would be a challenge to tack on to an existing game, and have to be customized to each system - not sure if you can really do a "universal" down-time system since it interacts with the rest of the rules.  Worst of all, this is a tempting project to work on when I already have a dozen other projects in my life that I can't keep up with.  The idea does intrigue me though, so I figured I'd post it and see if anyone else thought it was interesting.

Metagaming Is A Wonderful Thing

    Something strange happened in my Dungeons and Dragons 5th adventure last weekend.  Something that has been so incredibly rare I can only think of one other time when it has almost happened and that was over 20 years ago.  It was incredible, strange, got my on the verge of spitting mad - and all really was a huge misunderstanding from not metagaming.  Which has given me a revelation: Metagaming Is A Wonderful Thing.

    Okay, this one you really had to be there to appreciate, so I need to set the scene a little.  Bear with me, this will help my point make more sense.  I have a small group of friends that I play with.  As with all long term gamers we all have our stereotypes (or maybe typecasts?).  Aaron is the theif, and usually ends up the de facto party leader weather he wants to or not.  Sara is the pinch-hitter, she tends to make whatever character role no one else has filled.  Thus, she's been a cleric more times than any of us.  Brandon is our archer.  And Matt is the wizard/sorcerer/magus, usually with a cart full of crafting supplies.  I tend to GM the most, even when we were doing the rotating GM thing (which I honestly like more than being a player).  To our merry band we have added three newer players, each with less role-playing experience.  Angela, Rose and Matt's wife Karlli are all somewhat new to gaming, but have played some Pathfinder, were in our 13th Age, and tried D&D 5th ed (except Karlli who was swamped with schoolwork that day, hopefully she'll be ble to join us later).  We've all played together, from a few times to dozens of times, and we all know each other to varying degrees in real life - and we're all friends.
    Which made this so strange.  When we started our 5th edition game, I gave the party time to introduce themselves.  Half the group had been making characters before we started playing, and we had not been able to meet together to go over stuff beforehand.  So during the uneventful initial carrage ride I let everybody get to know each other.  Which everybody did - except for Matt.  He just said that his abilities were not important, and he actually seemed to walk off during that section (Matt was talking to us over ooVoo from another state).  It was very unexpected, and nobody seemed to understand what was going on.  We all knew he was actually a Sorcerer though, we had talked to him a little before the adventure began.  Still, we didn't press, we just got the adventure started.  During the adventure, Matt sent me some text messages, telling me about how he was casting spells without letting the party know, and some other stuff.  I thought it was a little weird.
    Now, I have to step back a little again.  I had never ran a 5th ed game before, so I was a little nervous.  I had been in the middle of house ruling 13th Age to the point of making a new game, so I was glad to have a pre-packaged adventure for 5th that I didn't have to prep; but I also did not know it super-well since I had been distracted.  And that day, I had not slept well at all, actually for about a week before I'd been having trouble sleeping.  So I was not on top of my game that day.  And, like a bad GM, I let things spiral out of control instead of dealing with them.  Because at one point I got a text from Matt saying that he was going to go off and search for any loot away from the rest of the party - and I saw red.

    My take on RPGs is that they are team sports.  I do not award individual XP, it all goes into the group pot along with all the gold.  I expect my players to act like a team.  I am not out to get my players, I am not their enemy as GM, I am trying to give them an interesting box to play in (little sandy, but with some rail cars here and there).  The only "adversarial" game I have ever run was the original West End Game's Paranoia. While players were at each other's throats, it was meant to be a tongue-in-cheek send up of the RPG genera and players were given 6 clones in the expectation that they would all likely be dead before the end of the adventure.  And we only played it in junior high for a couple of times (best adventures ever to read though, laugh out loud funny stuff).  So I am focused on the players acting as a team.  And because of that, with only one exception, we have never had a player break off to do his own thing or be the sterotypical "backstab the party" sneaky bastard (actually, that exception was even in Aaron's game, I just got caught in the middle of it).
    So when Matt sent that text my first assumption was that he was going for that sort of 'betray the party' character, and I was pissed.  Like, hopping, frothing at the mouth mad.  I stopped the adventure, and started a diatribe that quickly escalated out of control.
    I was also completely wrong.  And so were my players.  I did not handle that situation well, and I need to apologize to Matt about it, because I only did one right thing in the whole situation - I stopped the adventure.  I went "out of character" and started what many would consider "metagaming."

    Metagaming tends to get a bad rap.  If you are not "playing in character" then you are doing something wrong is the usual assumption.  And I can kind of understand that.  I like associated mechanics (to borrow The Alexandrian's phrase) that keep the player in the character's headspace.  I like to keep my players engaged with the adventure.  But metagaming is not bad, and it is not wrong.  Actually a couple of great articles by The Angry GM (which I'll link below) really got me thinking about it in a clearer light.  And metagaming is great because it is the one thing that can clear up what I did wrong:
    I made an assumption about my player.
    I assumed that Matt was being an antisocial pain.  I assumed that he wanted to find some loot for himslef and not share it with the party.  I made a lot of assumptions and I didn't do the one thing I should have in the very beginning:
    I didn't ask him.

    Now, we all share some of this.  Even the players knew Matt was acting oddly, not the guy we had gamed with plenty of times before.  We knew something was up.  But none of us just steeped out of the game and asked him directly, "hey man, what's going on?"
    Instead, it took my blowup and nearly ejecting him from my game to actually stop and talk about why he was being the way he was.  And when we did, it made perfect sense.
    If you don't know 5th edition, it adds some role-playing stuff not in previous editions of D&D.  Namely, you get a Background, what you did before adventuring (and maybe still), and that comes with an Ideal, Flaw and Bond.  Your Ideal is what you value, your Flaw what tends to get you in trouble, and your Bond something or someone in the world that matters to you.  It adds some depth to your character beyond your abilities to kill monsters effectively.
    Thing was, Matt was just playing his character.  He had taken the Background of being an Urchin, and his Ideal/Flaw/Bond were all about how he had been hurt before and had trouble trusting anyone else.  So he hid his actions and his powers - not to backstab the party, but because Matt is an Actor at heart, and he was acting his character to the hilt.
    And I'm okay with that.
    I see an RPG as being two parts.  One is acting: speaking and making decisions in character.  The other is the game: having an adventure to discover and obstacles to overcome.  Monsters to kill, things to talk to.  I'm okay with acting, as long as it doesn't get in the way of playing the game.  As long as we keep moving and overcoming the obstacles, unfolding the adventure, I don't care how much or little acting a player wants to do.  And metagaming is a part of stepping in-between the two.  Of asking for clarification, of seeing the things that can't be properly replicated at the table.  Of setting up future stories and directing the game towards things the players find interesting.  Metagaming, talking about the game from outside the characters, is a great and wonderful thing because it can eliminate confusion.  It makes sure that everyone is on the same page, and that each player and the GM are all helping to create something specific and engaging to all involved.
    Funny thing is, for as much as I was mad at Matt at the time (and chagrined now), I actually like the kind of character that he created.  One of my favorite characters in fiction is Vin, from Brandon Sanderson's Mistborn fantasy series.  Vin is just like Matt's character, she was a street urchin, betrayed by her own brother and expecting to be hurt or betrayed by everyone.  Her story of growing and becoming a part of a team, and eventually a sort of savior of the world, is very compelling.  Also, in our own group Rose made a character with a very similar background, an urchin Half-Orc who grew to become a Cleric.  So knowing what Matt's character is, we can actually make a lot of great stories out of him discovering a better way to live, learning to trust his fellow adventurers, and possibly even make a great bond between Matt's and Rose's characters.  There is some great material to work with.
    Which we would have never realized unless we did the "metagaming" thing and actually talked about who everybody was.  So while I'm not proud of my own behavior, I think something very useful came out of the whole sticky situation.  A reminder of what we all knew, just managed to overlook.

    So my advise to you, from hard experience, is: don't be afraid of metagaming.  Step out and make sure that everybody is one the same page, then go back into inhabiting your character's head.  It's not a bad thing - it's vital to having an enjoyable experience for everyone.

*    *    *    *

    And since so many others tend to say things better than I can, here are a few links to The Angry GM about this very topic that I think are highly worth reading and discussing with your group-

Angry Rants: Stupid Decisions (and Metagaming)
http://www.madadventurers.com/angry-rants-stupid-decisions-and-metagaming/

Angry Rants: Stop Playing Against Stereotypes!
http://www.madadventurers.com/angry-rants-stop-playing-against-stereotypes/

Angry Rants: Secrets (Part 1)
http://www.madadventurers.com/angry-rants-secrets-part-1/
and find parts 2 and however-many-else because Angry is always worth reading :)

Music I Like- Blue October

    These guys are a little depressing, but I really like their music.  If you are in a bad spot in your life, or have ever been, odds are you can relate to at least some of their lyrics.

"Hate Me"
    I totally get this song, though my addiction is not booze.  I sincerely hope that you don't get this song, or feel this way, as much as I do.

"Bleed Out"
    For when you feel like your relationship is killing you.  I have never known this song personally, but I have been the one doing the cutting.

"Not Broken Anymore"
    Not all of their songs are about pain and heartbreak, but they seem to be kind of deep no matter what.  I like this song a lot, though the lyrics a little confusing.  It seems like the singer talking to himself, but it's phrased a little odd I think.  Still, great song.

The Homeless Nerd Reviews- The Last Witch Hunter

What Is It?  A Dungeons and Dragons adventure brought to B-movie life on the big screen

    Okay, I'm a die-hard, life-long gamer.  I love pen and paper RPGs.  In fact, they are one of the few things I really feel strongly about.  But I will be the first to admit that, weather home-brew or professional, they do not tend to have the most compelling or well-crafted plots.  I've read lots of books based on RPGs starting with Gygax's Gord the Rogue series through some Forgotten Realms and Eberron books, detouring through Arena for Magic the Gathering and even the couple of Top Secret S.I. novels.  None are what I would consider great fiction like Brandon Sanderson or Brent Weeks.  Just like with a game at the table, RPG-based stories tend to wander a little.  Now, for RPGs this is not such a big deal- the fun is in making the decisions and exploring the world, you generally are not expecting a tight and emotionally deep plot with so many cooks in the stew.  But when it comes to novels and movies, well, you generally want something just a bit more refined.
    Which leads me to The Last Witch Hunter.  This is a lot like a D&D adventure, which means it does not hang together as well as a movie should.  A lot of the screen time feels like it is chasing something that while a key part of the plot, does not really feel that dramatic or compelling.  There are enough explanations for everything, but none feel very well fleshed-out.  I really walked away with the feeling that there was a great movie buried in there somewhere, but it just was not quite executed right.  So many events could have been very interesting, but did not feel like they were set up.  There is a betrayal, but I had honestly forgotten that character was even in the movie - betrayal scenes only have an emotional beat if you are attached to the betraying character.  Not the character being betrayed, no, the character doing the betraying - that is where the real emotional punch is for the audience.  And the final plot hinges on being merciful and that mercy coming back to bite the characters in the posterior - which just did not really get set up with the right groundwork to have an emotional payoff.  So many things that were close, were good ideas, just not built right.  It actually reminded me a lot of Tomorrowland, another movie I thought had great concepts buried under poor execution.
    I did like Vin Deisel, thought he did a fine job with his character.  Rose Leslie was a really cool sassy street witch.  Michael Caine was in the movie, in a cameo basically.  And no one else left that much of an impression.  But the best character of all was the sword.  There are not many flaming swords in film, and the effect does not always look that cool.  A good flaming sword should be as awesome as a lightsaber, and in Last Witch Hunter the sword is awesome, looks perfect, and honestly was a big part of why I went to see the movie.  The sword deserved more screen time.

My recommendation- wait for it to come out on cable, it's good enough for passing a lazy afternoon