Thoughts on My First Fifth Edition DnD Campaign

Last night I wrapped the twelfth session of my summer-long Fifth Edition Dungeons & Dragons campaign. Since one of the players goes back to working nights during the school year, and the rest of us have fairly busy weekend schedules, this game is going to go from almost-weekly to probably one weekend day every six to eight weeks, if it doesn't peter out entirely. Sad, but I'm glad we got in twelve sessions in about fourteen weeks, and I was able to take a four-player party from first to fifth level.

With the regular sessions of the campaign behind me, I wanted to compile some thoughts, in no particular order.

• 5E is my favorite edition/flavor of D&D thus far. It has now beaten out Castles & Crusades as my favorite "flavor" of D&D, mostly due to the flexibility and depth of the character options, and the very loose, yet well-structured way in which pretty much everything is handled (more on the system below). This edition was easy to pick up for old hands and new players alike (one player had essentially never played a pen-and-paper role-playing game before, while another last played 8+ years ago in college). All seemed to enjoy the system, and had no major complaints as to how the mechanics operated.
• We had four players who took their characters up through fourth level (the end of the twelfth session saw enough XP to get the party to 5th). The party consisted of a Half-Elven Rogue who took the Assassin path, a Half-Elven Wild Magic Sorcerer, a Human Paladin who took the Oath of Vengeance, and a Human Monk who took Way of the Empty Hand. Upon reaching fourth level and ending one adventure arc, the Monk's player switched characters and began playing a Human Warlock with a pact to a Great Old One. The mix of magic and muscle served us very well, especially in the last four sessions where we had two spell-casters and two melee experts (the Paladin mostly used her limited spell-casting ability to power various "Smites" in melee).
• I'm glad 5th edition seems to largely set aside the need for multi-classing by allowing variant class paths that enable the use of magic, and has enough race/class combos that you can create a wide blend of magic and non-magical abilities. IIRC, the Barbarian class is the only one that does not have some option or path for casting spells, which makes sense based on the class concept. Everyone else has some way of getting spells if they want.
• I like the power level of Cantrips in this edition. While the Old-Schoolers might balk at a Magic-User that has unlimited access to a few minor magical abilities, I think it does a good job of letting a spell-caster continue to cast minor spells which still have an effect in the game once their big bombs have all been used. And really, a spell like Light or Fire Bolt isn't breaking the magical bank here. There are probably players who'll find ways of "breaking" cantrips, but so far, I am happy with how they work.
• I think the decisions made to eliminate a lot of circumstantial modifiers in favor of Advantage and Disadvantage was the right one. I was leery of the idea at first, but after playing for several months, I found it to be pretty straightforward, and it helped eliminate a lot of that "modifier math" that bogs things down right when you want them moving fast and loose. And, I appreciate that such thinking was really applied system wide, keeping the number of "plusses / minuses" to a minimum. From the way skills work to the mechanics of two-weapon fighting, the mechanics become more of a very fast yes/no logic tree, rather than multiple modifiers all stacking on top of one another to arrive at a modifier that might change by +/-1 every round of a combat.
• I liked how the first two character levels are priced very cheaply, XP-wise. Some DMs might not like it, but I think it lets you put the brakes on throwing first-level characters into the meat grinder too quickly, allowing you to pit them against some very low-powered creatures, of which there are plenty of options. And, if you *do* toss them in the deep end fast, the survivors earn the reward of fast leveling. The biggest complaint I've always heard of D&D is that PCs spend way too much time in the minor leagues, and campaigns end too often before "the good stuff". I think the leveling curve right now works to address this better. I'll note that while it took 12 sessions to get to 5th level for my party, our after-work games were pretty short, maybe only 2 1/2 hours a session, and didn't always have a "big battle", so if those sessions had been longer and more involved, I could easily see the PCs at 6th or 7th at this point.
• I really appreciated the current system's focus on character - the discussion of and variety of races and sub-races, the many and varied classes, as well as the background options available, and even the "trinket roll" made upon character creation. Every player rolled up a unique trinket, and a couple of them took those trinkets and incorporated them into their backgrounds pretty deeply. For example, the Paladin got a small cage with a dead sprite inside it, and built her Oath of Vengeance around a story which came out of this item. Yes, veteran or more creative players don't necessarily need such things written into the rules, but for more novice players (like we had), it was a great springboard for character development.
• Also, in general, I was impressed with the quality of the three core rule books, both in terms of production values as well as content. I think they were really well done, especially in comparison to the 4th edition books, which I'm not all that impressed with, at least content-wise. I also like that WotC is taking their time and not spamming us with "splat books" every month. There's already forty years of material out there, and it's better to put out small numbers of great quality resources than flood the market with garbage "option" books. If we want all those things, there's always...THE INTERNET!

In conclusion, this was a fun campaign, and I hope to keep gaming with this group, at least on an irregular basis. One of my players is already prepping to run her debut campaign as a DM with another group of our friends, so I'm eager to try out the rules from the other side of the DM's screen. Also, there's a lot of good compare-and-contrast with the 4th edition campaign I'm currently playing in, which I hope to write about in the not-too-distant future.

My RPG Publishing Malaise

Thinking back, I have been pondering the notion of "homebrew" role-playing game systems since I started gaming around 1993. I don't remember the specifics, but I do remember getting the "Amazing Engine" universal RPG system from TSR around that time, and it was my first real exposure to what you might consider a "generic" role-playing game system, one that kept a stable core but could be adapted to meet the needs of most any genre.

Later on in college during the mid- to late '90s, I would often pick up interesting one-off RPGs at the local gaming store and read through them, pondering their mechanics and feeling the beginnings of an interest in designing my own game. In fact, around 1999-2000 I did begin serious work on my own simple gaming engine, one I called SCORE (Suitable for Creating the Optimum Role-playing Experience). There were a couple of early versions that used a 2d10 bell-curve, one of which I used to run a 1920s-era horror game that went for a few sessions until I decided to switch setting gears, and baited the party into a TPK (Total Player Kill - I wiped out the entire party).

Eventually this crime against humanity was forgiven, and I ran a couple of fantasy campaigns with a new incarnation of SCORE, one that used a Rolemaster-esque d100 + rating system. Those games actually went quite well, and we had a lot of fun playing right up to around the end of 2002. I still have most of my notes for those games, along with character sheets, and I still think the system works, at least for a game written at the turn of the century. It's not the sort of system I'd use more than a decade later, but I think it worked well enough.

Soon after that game came and went by the wayside, I decided to work on a game with a very strong "Sword & Sorcery" bent, originally named "Legends of Blood and Iron". This game had a lot of good heart, and a lot of flavor to it, but I think mechanically it was a bit of a mess. The world-building portion of the game, and the discussion of what made up a proper S&S campaign, it still I think relevant, and perhaps one day I will dig a few gems out of the work. This was also around the time I found and devoured Ron Edwards' Sorcerer and Sword, a supplement for his Sorcerer RPG. I have no love for the core product, but his supplement is, in my mind, the single best treatise on "Sword & Sorcery" role-playing games I've ever seen.

Over the many intervening years, I have tinkered with a myriad of RPG designs and concepts. I've run a few one-shots here and there to test one mechanic or another, but nothing done with enough time and substance to form any true window into whether or not a specific whole rules set "works" or doesn't work - in short, nor real formal playtesting beyond one or two sessions. I've probably achieved "80%" finished on whatever it is the Tankards & Broadswords RPG might one day be, but that last twenty percent is a real bitch.

The more I think about it, the more I wonder about this RPG publishing malaise. For several years now, the urge to design a game and run a campaign was supplanted by my writing career, which - lets be honest - pays far better than I would ever imagine an RPG might pay. On the other hand, after spending so much cumulative time working towards the nebulous goal of releasing my own RPG - a goal that is easier to achieve than ever, thanks to all the print-on-demand and self-publishing options out there right now - I find it somewhat vexing that I can't approach the goal of writing and publishing an RPG with the same assertiveness that I can approach writing a novel or short story. If I can write a book that gets read by multiple thousands of complete strangers, why can't I write a RPG that might wind up in the hands of - let's be realistic - a few dozen?

Maybe it is because while the majority of readers are just that - readers - who zip through a book once and basically give it a thumbs up or a thumbs down, I find that many - if not most - RPG players are constant rules tinkerers, and obsess over almost any aspect of a game. Only a small handful of readers are ever going to pick over any one of my novels to the degree that MOST gamers would pick over a game. So, I feel, the inevitable level of scrutiny - as well as their natural inclination to say "well, if *I* designed this game, I think XYZ should have been ABC..." - keeps me from pulling the trigger.

I don't know. As I type this, I ponder the writing of a small, specific RPG premise. I think that would be the best way to start. From there, if the idea was interesting and well-received, maybe it'd give me more confidence to tackle a larger, more interesting project. It would be a shame to never have a formal sharing of all this idea fodder, but at the same time, there's a right way and a wrong way to do all that, so I need to pick and choose my battlefield carefully, so to speak.

Tankards and Broadswords RPG: Playtest Session 2

Last night's game was supposed to have a third player, but he wasn't able to attend, instead, I quickly whipped up an NPC Captain of the Blue Tower Guards, a warrior named Alcarn.  One goal of the game is to make sure creating an NPC is quick and painless; I use the "monster" format for these sorts of NPCs.  Attack, Defense, Reflexes, Athletics, Detection, and Stealth for skills, plus Peril checks, Health, Damage, and Armor rating.  It's 12 quick values, no skill focuses, no Statuses.  Mail armor, battle axe, two daggers, and a shield.  Maybe not QUITE as fast as throwing together a B/X D&D henchman, but pretty darn close.

In case you didn't see the first session post, here it is.

The PCs have been asked by the Blue Tower to go into the edge of the Cthonian Wood and investigate an abandoned wizard's tower that has been located.  The Tower of Arion was well outside the wood before the Cataclysm struck and sent a ravaging storm of magical destruction across the land.  Now, the Cthonian Wood is much, much larger and its border has swallowed up many now-forgotten towers and villages.  The PCs are going to set out on a "fact finding mission" to the rumored location of the tower and see if it is worth sending a larger expedition.  Alcarn will accompany them as a representative of the Blue Tower.  The PCs are offered any form of basic gear they wish.  Marikh takes some mail armor and a shield, while Jayne grabs up a crossbow, a warhammer, grapple and rope, and a deluxe healer's kit.  The party are given horses as well as food, torches, and so forth.

The party rides for one of the many roadside forts located between population centers.  Think something along the lines of a frontier stockade; a tall wooden palisade with an elevated walk, a bunkhouse, stable, well, and a fire pit.  There's a heavy timber gate that can be barred as well.  When the PCs get there, no one is occupying the fort, so they settle down for the night.  Watches are set, and near the end of the second watch, Marikh makes a solid Detection roll and notices that a lot of the night sounds have died away, and that the horses are beginning to act nervous.  Jayne's cat (while enjoying the hospitality of the Blue Tower, Jayne used her Beastmaster spells to acquire an Animal Ally in the form of a stray cat) tells her it smells like "bad meat" out beyond the stockade.  With everyone awake, Marikh and Alcarn take to the battlements, while Jayne remains in the center of the stockade with her crossbow ready.

Hunkered down behind the palisade, Marikh suddenly finds himself face-to-face with a ghoulish creature that'd silently scaled the outside of the wooden wall.  It swipes for his face with its taloned hand, but Marikh fends it off with the hilt of his sword, then proceeds to bisect its head with his first stroke.

What followed was a fairly brief battle against half a dozen more of these ghoulish Flesh Hunters.  Some quick observations about the combat:

1. Wearing armor made a huge difference.  Marikh and Alcarn were both wearing mail, and while they took some damage apiece, it would have been far worse without the damage absorbing abilities of the armor.  Rolling 1d + Balance for damage, several of the Flesh Hunter's successful attacks were completely ineffective damage-wise thanks to the mail armor worn by these two characters.
2. Combat maneuvers made things a lot more interesting.  Faced with two opponents several times, Marikh used "Web of Death" to attack both at the same time.  He also suffered a Charge Attack from one of the Hunters, and whiffed his Athletics check badly; the resulting huge bonus for the Hunter allowed it to deliver Marikh's only real wound of the fight.
3. You have to really pay attention to Initiative.  Because every attack is an attack roll vs. a defense roll, it is easy to forget who actually attacked in a round and who only defended.  I found writing down everyone's order of operations, then checking off their number when they acted was a helpful visual aid.
4. The Healing Skill works almost too well.  A good healer with a deluxe healer's kit tests against a BP of 7, and a starting character with Medicine of 3, +1 for First aid, +1 for the deluxe kit, essentially can't fail a healing check.  When I make my post-playtest changes, I may remove the extra 1d from healing and just make points recovered equal to the Balance of the roll.

After the stockade battle, the players make their way to the Verdant Keep, where they spend the night enjoying the hospitality of the forest-wardens stationed there.  The PCs are told the Hunters have been emerging from the Bone Wastes in larger numbers lately, possibly the work of the Red Wizard's Tower.  They are also cautioned to leave their horses at the Keep before going into the Cthonian Wood; the forest is just too dense and the mounts would spook too easily.

The next day the PCs set out and make it to the edge of the Wood by late afternoon.  Wisely deciding to stay the night outside the border of the forest, the night is uneventful except for a few "movement sounds" from the forest.  Entering the Wood the next morning, the PCs find it pretty rough going (poor Athletics checks) and take more time than they should getting through the thick undergrowth.  What's more, they get lost (poor navigational Survival checks) and turned around, and don't find Arion's tower until mid afternoon.  The tower is about sixty feet in diameter and about that high, made of dark stone and windowless as far as can be discerned.  The whole tower is covered in thick ivy, vines, moss, and other vegetation.  The doors are opened a bit, and no movement can be seen or heard.

The PCs decide to move inside.  Within, they make out a semi-circular room about thirty feet deep and close to twenty feet tall.  Flanking the doorway there are a pair of statues depicting a well-dressed man and woman, but the statues are overgrown, cracked, and broken.  The room itself is filled with vegetation and plant growth, almost to an unnatural degree; both corners of the room are completely overrun with vines and what seems to be small stunted trees growing right out of the stone floor.  Marikh goes to investigate the overgrowth to the left of the door, when the plants seem to rustle and some noises are discerned.  He backs off, only to hear the same from the right, and soon, five Winged Apes burst out of the two locations.  The battle is short but fierce, leaving the PCs triumphant with only a couple of minor wounds.  Marikh did try a Feint maneuver and his opponent failed miserably to detect it; the resulting attack bonus let Marikh kill the creature with ease.

The evening was getting late so we called the game at this point.  Plenty more of exploring to be done, so next time we'll begin to get into the heart of the tower.  Playtest-wise, so far so good...