Tinkering tinkering

Hello all!

I have made some more changes to Legend of the Wayfarer system. And I need to stop them. I need to make a promise to only change the system every 6 books or so, to stop constant tweaking. Here are the latest tweaks:

Changes to the abilities:

My ideas with the abilities was to keep them balanced and keep them concrete. What I mean is that I didn't want one ability to be useful more than the others and I also wanted any situation that involved an ability test to be clear as to which abilities will help, so I wouldn't have to think so much about it. For this reason, I made these changes.

Insight has been replaced by perception and lore: Originally, the insight ability covered both general knowledge AND spotting things. This was because I used 6 abilities in the first edition and because of that, insight covered 2 abilities worth of things. It also didn't make sense from a flavour point of view. Someone who knows a lot isn't necessarily perceptive and vice versa. So when I decided to have starting characters choose 3 abilities from a list of 12 (instead of 1 from a list of 6), it made more sense that I could have the abilities cover smaller areas and this was the obvious choice.

Mysticism now also covers what intuition used to: In the original 12, mysticism covered communicating and repelling the fey whereas intuition was about detecting Fey creatures and magick. Since insight also covered detecting things, intuition seemed to cover too narrow a field, so it is now covered in mysticism and perception took its place.

Cunning is gone: Cunning was a pretty awesome ability to have in the Virtual Reality series. It conjured up the idea of the quick thinking trickster and I usually chose it, especially when doing the 'Most unlikely hero skill set' challenge (usually meaning no swordplay, archery, magic, charms or brawling). However, I found it a bit nebulous to fit into the books. Where to use it seemed a bit arbitrary and the skill itself seems to be a mix of roguery, charm and lore. Since it is not as 'concrete' as the other abilities, it got the axe.

Roguery no longer covers sneaking and hiding. Stealth does that: Cunning was replaced with stealth, which covers hiding, sneaking, disguise and blending in with the crowd. Originally roguery covered stealth as well as picking locks, picking pockets, disarming traps, forgery and the other things you consider a rogue to do. This seemed like too broad a skill set for one ability, so I split it up. Also, rogues do not necessarily get a monopoly on stealth. It fits just as well with a outdoors hunter type.
 
Use of 1d6 instead of 2d6

I always want to make things as simple as possible, so using anydice, I made a few calculations on the probability of success in a 1d6 and 2d6 system. It turned out that using a 1d6 system gives players a small (about 5-8% decrease) in the chances of success, but then I remembered that these values are rough. I'm taking the standard test as difficulty 4 on 1 die (so roll 4 or more), which is 50/50 normally. I will name 3 abilities. So the probability of success then is 64%, which is OK. If I used a 2d6 system, the chance of succeeding at a difficulty 7 test with 3 abilities mentioned is 70%, which is better.

However, this does not take into account the fact that sometimes, I will let items and codewords give the player rerolls as well as having the spend 1xp for a reroll rule. Also, this is only for characters with 3 abilities and some characters may have more if they have bought them with experience. Coupled with a personal rule that no ability test should lead to instant death in the case of failure, I don't think that the 6% decrease will be a big problem and coupled with the increase in simplicity, it's a no-brainer. It might even be that the 2d6 system was too easy.

Also, I had the idea of fate rolls being 1d6, 2d6, 3d6 or 4d6, but all of my fate rolls turned out to be 1d6, so I won't bother with the other dice rolls.

Experience increase for critical success in ability rolls only if experience is 6 or below

I thought of a little loophole that might happen over time. In my old rules, you got 1xp if you rolled a double 6 on an ability test. The idea of this was for you to have a special treat and also to make sure that players will never see any ability test as pointless (for example, if they come across an easy test and they have 3 abilities for it, they may not want to roll the dice as the chances for success are certain. This way, they will roll to see if they get the double 6). However, if you get more xp, you can get more abilities, which leads to more rerolls, which leads to more double 6s which leads to more experience and so on.

In the 1d6 system, I changed this to a single 6 which has a 17% chance of being rolled before any rerolls. So I changed the system so that you only got experience if your experience was 6 or less. I've come up with a couple of flavour reasons, but the main one is to prevent a vicious cycle of rerolls.

Vitality and will start at 6 and have a maximum value of 12

They have smaller values as I wanted to get the size of the consequence of each gain and loss of vitality and will right. What I mean is that I don't want a loss or gain of 1 to be inconsequential and I don't want a change that is inconsequential for one character and devastating for another. If your starting value is 6 and your maximum is 12, a change of 1 is never inconsequential, whereas if you could start with a value of 12 and there's no maximum, 1 could be inconsequential. Also the range between 6 and 12 for starting values might be too much where a change of 5 could be a huge problem for one person, but no big deal to another. So I'm reducing the variance to 0 at the beginning and putting a maximum on so that no one gets too powerful.

So now, with 3xp to gain 1 will or vitality and 12xp to get a new ability, you need the following xp to get the maximum scores.

9 x 12 = 108 for all the abilities.

6 x 3 = 18 to maximise your will

6 x 3 = 18 to maximise your vitality

-3 because you start with 3 xp

So you only need 141xp to get all the abilities and maximum scores, as long as you don't spend any on rerolls. However, since I only give out 3xp max per book, it's going to take a while.

The Non-adventurer class for DnD 5th edition

Hello all! Recently, I made an E2 version of DnD where I introduced the master class, a class that basically gets lots of skills and is used mainly for powerful NPCs. I did this because I wanted some NPCs in the world to not just be '0 level' people who get trodden all over by the heroes. There are powerful and skilled characters out there who aren't necessarily adventurers. So I decided to expand this class for normal DnD by raising it to 10 levels. There were some rules for it, though. I didn't want it to be objectively weaker than PC classes, so it's not a commoner, but I also didn't want to make it too complicated so that DMs could make NPCs on the fly.

Basically, this non-adventurer has a lot of skills and a higher proficiency bonus in a lot of skills, but little combat knowledge and no knowledge of magic. They are not necessarily worse than PCs, but less suited to adventuring. PCs could take a few levels in this class to increase their skills, or PCs could all start with a level of non adventuring class to signify them being normal people thrust into adventure.

If the non adventurer goes above level 10, they will have to choose a PC class at level 11.

Some people in certain jobs could have 2-3 levels of non adventurer and 1-2 levels of PC class. The green militia might start off as a level 1 non adventurer and then have to work their way up to level 3 non adventurer before having actual training as a fighter. A trained soldier might be a non adventuer 3/fighter 1 and an officer might be a non-adventurer 3/fighter 4. A lay priest might be a non adventurer until level 3 before gaining a level of cleric. A sage may get 3 levels of non-adventurer before learning a level of wizard and an entertainer might ply their trade as a non-adventurer before enrolling into bard college. However, the majority of non adventurers will just have the non-adventurer class.

This is a good class if you want an obscene number of skills and a minor bonus during down time, but it won't do much else. It is quite straightforward so DMs can create NPCs with a minimum of fuss.

Anyone who wants to multiclass into non-adventurer does not need to have any minimum ability requirements.

The non-adventurer

Hit points 

Hit dice: 1d8 per level.

Proficiencies

Armour: Light armour
Weapons: Simple weapons
Tools: Any two from the list of artisan's tools and musical instruments.
Saving Throws: Intelligence and wisdom
Skills: Any three.

Equipment

Any simple weapon
Leather armour
One set of artisan's tools or one musical instrument

Level	Proficiency Bonus	Features
1st	+2	Expertise
2nd	+2	Bonus training
3rd	+2	Downtime bonus
4th	+2	Ability score improvement
5th	+3	Bonus training
6th	+3	Ability score improvement
7th	+3	Downtime bonus
8th	+3	Ability score improvement
9th	+4	Expertise
10th	+4	Bonus training

Expertise

At 1st level, choose two from your skill proficiencies, tool proficiencies or musical instrument proficiencies. Your proficiency bonus is doubled for any ability checks that use those proficencies, tools or musical instruments. You do this again at 9th level.

Bonus training

At 2nd level, you may gain proficiency with one skill, one language, one set of tools or one musical instrument. You do this again at 5th level and 10th level.

Downtime bonus

At 3rd level, you can choose one of the following features:

Better living: If you practise a profession or a craft or perform in your downtime, your standard of living can be 1 step higher that what you normally have.

Paid research: You do not have to pay for your standard of living whilst you research in your downtime. In addition, you do not need to spend any money to conduct your research.

Fast learner: It only takes you 125 days (instead of 250) to learn a set of tools, a language or a musical instrument in your down time. It also means that you only have to pay 125gp.

At 7th level, you may choose another downtime bonus.

Weaponising Frankenstein's Monster

The military gets to play with all the best technology before it filters down to the general public. The ironing board in your cupboard is made from heat-resistant materials originally developed for the engines of the Mirage 2000C jet fighter. Your toaster only knows when to pop up because its timer is based on the guidance system of Reagan-era Hawk anti-tank missiles. Or maybe not. I haven't done a lot of fact-checking on this. 

In the forthcoming gamebook app The Frankenstein Wars, Victor Frankenstein's resurrection technology emerges in France, in the early nineteenth century. And it is immediately seized upon for its military potential. It makes sense - what fighting force is more durable than soldiers who can be blown apart, then reassembled and resurrected, and thrown back into combat once more? The options are better yet for a general willing to mix and match the living raw materials under his command. A soldier with four arms, and two brains, will likely slaughter twice as many enemies as a regular soldier. A soldier with enlarged lungs, and three hearts, will be able to run far faster than a normal human, and shrug off injuries that might cripple or kill a lesser man. These resurrected soldiers - these lazarans - are living weapons.

There is one potential drawback: the lazarans are not mindless zombies. They are living, feeling people. Imagine yourself in the place of such a lazaran for a moment, dear reader. Perhaps you love your job, or perhaps you don't. Regardless, one morning you wake to learn that your boss has grafted an extra head to your shoulders, and given you one extra arm. He's severed your own scrawny legs, and replaced them with the brawny limbs of a champion sprinter. Not just one champion sprinter, mind - they are quite clearly mismatched in colour. All because he feels it will make you more effective in your work. How would you fight the wave of madness that such a change would surely engender? Could your husband or wife understand this transformation? How could you explain it to your parents, or your children?

The Frankenstein Wars is a tale of revolutionaries who believe that the ends justify the means - and of those who suffer for such fanaticism. In this world of murky morals, you can play as exploiter and exploited. The revolutionary Zeroistes use Frankenstein's technology to wage war against the French government and its British allies. The conflict threatens to tear apart the heart of Europe. And yet the damage to humanity's soul may be far greater still.

Sound epic? Check out The Frankenstein Wars Kickstarter project page. At the time of writing, we've just passed the 33% mark - a strong start, but still with some distance to go.

(Post by Paul Gresty)

Crypt of the Vampire is now available in English. And so is Marion Cotillard.

The Dark Knight Rises has been out for three years now. And yet I only saw it for the first time a few days ago. That's a fairly lackadaisical attitude for an ostensible superhero fan. Worse, though I'm usually good with faces, every time the character of Miranda came on screen I'd feel a niggling screwdriver poke somewhere in the back of my brain as I tried to work out where I'd seen her before. It was only in the last few minutes of the film I cried out, "Edith Piaf! That's bloody Edith Piaf!"

Maybe it was because I've only seen her speaking French before (I haven't seen Inception yet, either). She played Piaf in 'La Môme', y'see. Anyway, Marion Cotillard is not the only one looking beyond French audiences to reach the English-speaking world. There's also Jean Dujardin. And Melanie Laurent. And Eva Green. And Sophie Marceau. And Jean Reno.

And, best of all, there's also the classic Golden Dragon gamebook Crypt of the Vampire, written by Dave Morris and illustrated by Leo Hartas. Megara Entertainment are currently running a project on Kickstarter France. And though the original plan was that this would be a French-only republication, Dave has recently given the thumbs-up to an English republication as well.

Megara do good work with their releases. This republication will be a hardcover, high-quality book in full colour - that is, Leo Hartas will add colour to his original illustrations, as well as providing an all-new cover. Head over to the Crypt of the Vampire project page to take a look.

And click on the option to have the book in English, if that's the one you want. Ou, sinon, en français. C'est comme tu veux.

(Post by Paul Gresty)

When exploring gets boring

One of the reasons that we play gamebooks and RPGs in general is to immerse ourselves into new worlds and explore dark corners for shining new treasure.  We want to know what kind of people and monsters populate the world, interact with its people and know what the weather will be like tomorrow.

In writing a few site based scenarios, I have discovered that if I am not careful, I could turn what should be a voyage of discovery into a boring crawl around a load of non descript corridors.  So here is what I have discovered:

Is the 'Which door' choice really necessary?:  I've borrowed this term from Ashton Saylor.  It stems from the most common use of this choice - you are in a dungeon and you are standing in front of two doors.  Which one do you go in?  Ashton discusses the many issues with this choice.  I will look at it from an exploration point of view. 

Say you in an abandoned dungeon with two doors.  You go through one, have an encounter and then move on deeper into the dungeon or you choose the next door.  That is frustrating in many ways.

I wish I'd taken a left.

Not allowing backtracking

From an exploration point of view, the which door choice can be frustrating if the book does not allow you to backtrack for no good reason.  Why can't I just wander around Deathtrap Dungeon until I've found all of the gems?  How about exploring all of the corridors of Firetop Mountain or all of the streets to Port Blacksand?  The real life answer is that you can, but it would turn the book into a time consuming exercise, which takes away any real choice and, barring bad dice rolls, makes victory a lot easier. 

There are some ways to keep someone from just exploring everywhere.  One is by blocking off the route back (One FF book does have a portcullis descend after going past a certain point).  This works up to a point, but it might look a bit contrived if EVERY door sealed shut behind you and EVERY passage had a portcullis or boulder block it up.

Another way is to have a time limit.  If the consequences of being late are severe, then I could just put in the text 'You can only visit one place before x happens.' and then use the narrative to guide the player then.  Giving the player a time score where something bad happens if it reaches a certain level also works but in a different way - you still have to give the player the freedom to move around and they have to discover for themselves that they can't explore every nook and cranny before their mission fails.

Choosing a direction at every junction

This route (pun intended) certainly allows the player to backtrack.  However, the player has to make a directional choice at every point and this can get tedious.  It certainly has a point if the aim of the game is to make a map and if clues involving directions are involved but even if these are used to good effect, there is a rist that the player will just get annoyed and making a load of directional choices instead of juicy action adventure choices or choices where you interact with the characters.

This method certainly has its uses if mapping is important or if there is a time limit and people give you hints on a route but it must be used sparingly.  I think Scorpion Swamp did this a little too much (I do think that Scorpion Swmp does have loads of good stuff about it though such as a magic system and three quests). 

A happy medium?



Each building is numbered.

How about this.  If a player arrives at a place where they are free to explore wherever they want and there is no real time limit, I could have a paragraph describing the place that they are exploring along with a description of rooms don't really contain anything interesting or if something is easy to find, have them automatically get it.  This saves them turning to lots of paragraphs saying 'You open the door to a room with a pouch containing 10 gold pieces.'  followed by 'You open the door to the other room to find a sword.'.  Instead, they read a description of the place that they are exploring and then add any items to their equipment list.

Then, list all of the places of interest that require further exploration for the hero to go to.  No 'East or west?' choices as the player already knows their way around.  There's no need to describe every corridor and room and the player can get straight to the bits with the action in them.

This method is served very well by a map such as the ones you find in Grailquest 2 or in Destiny Quest.  Each location has a reference that you turn ti.

This still leads to a player being able to go everywhere, so you could impose a time limit on this either with a score or just by limiting the number of places the player can go (only introduce a new attribute when necessary.  Don't introduce a numerical attribute when a couple of sentences can serve the same function).  Another method of limiting the number of places a player can visit is by giving them an option of one place to go from several, each place having its own group of places to explore.  Going to place a allows you to explore places x, y and z while going to place b allows you to go to places c, d and e (or you could have them cross over so that you could go to place e from both places.

Any other suggestsions?

Gamebook magnificence. Charitable munificence.

If you're a regular follower of this blog you may already know Choice of Games. They develop gamebook-style apps, such as the phenomenally successful Heroes Rise, and my own app The ORPHEUS Ruse. Which isn't selling so well, these days. Sigh.

Anyway, it turns out those folks at Choice of Games also have great big hearts. They're currently auctioning off cameo spots in some of their most anticipated forthcoming apps. So, if you want to design your own superhero to feature in The Hero Project: Redemption Season, or if you want to choose a certain grisly death for a character in Zombie Exodus: Safe Haven, now's the moment. Head over to the Choice of Games website, or directly over to Charity Buzz, to find out how.

All money raised will go towards the homeless shelter My Friend's Place, which principally works to take care of minority and GLBTQ youth in the Hollywood area.

So, now's the time to turn that predilection for gamebooks into a force for good. Go. Go bid. Now. Go. Now.

Go bid now.

(Post by Paul Gresty)

5th edition Dungeons and Dragons and E2 rules

I love looking through RPG systems for inspiration for gamebooks, so naturally, so soon as 5th Edition Dungeons and Dragons came out, I got the Players' Handbook, Dungeons Masters' Guide and Monster Manual.

However, I am not a fan of people walking around fantasy worlds with superhuman abilities or magical spells that can wipe out hordes of opponents or render any mundane utility completely useless. This is one reason I like Advanced Fighting Fantasy, Maelstrom and others such as the Conan RPG and Barbarians of Lemuria.

Of course, Dungeons and Dragons does not lend well to this, but someone has come up with the E6 system which is DnD using the Open Source material but stops the level progression at level 6. Players can then get extra feats with more experienece, so there is progression, but numbers do not increase (except in a few special circumstances made for E6 where skills can go above 9 points and the restoration spell can be used).

5th Edition does a lot of things to make sure that players do not become too superhuman with bonuses capping at +6, concentration meaning that spellcasters can't just buff themselves up with tons of spells.

However, there are still spells that allow flight, teleportation, summoning items, fireballing tons of opponents and bringing people back from the dead, so I started searching for some low level rules for 5th edition.

I found this website which goes from E2 to E10 and this website which details how each level affects the world.

I decided to go for an E2 system, but being a fan of Dungeon Crawl Classics, I also wanted to start at 0 level. As always, the internet provided and I found this post about 0 level 5th Edition.

So here are my E2 rules. My world is a human-centric one, so only humans are able to be created.

Roll your abilities

You can use whatever method you like, but I'm going for the DCC way of 3d6 in order (but I'm doing this for 2-4 characters per player, so at least one will be good).

Each character has 4 hit points + CON modifier.

Each character has a +1 proficiency bonus.

Choose your racial benefits

My world is human centric so they are the only option (of course, you can use whatever races you like). To increase variety amongst characters, I will use the variant human traits (PHB page 31) where you can increase two scores by 1 point, gain proficiency in one skill and gain 1 feat (PHB page 165).

Choose background

Also choose other details and equipment (you can use Bernie's random tables)

Level advancement 

This is where I differ from the others as I'm amalgamating two ideas.

It takes 100 xp to get to level 1, where the character now gets a proficiency bonus of +2 and they can add their hit die to their current hit points (making their hit points slightly higher than a regular level 1 character). They also get to choose their class and get all their regular class abilities.

It takes another 400xp to get to level 2 (so 500xp in total). The character can multiclass if they want with no penalty or requirements.

On level 2, the character can then improve every 500xp after that. The character gets to choose whether to get 2 ability points either for one ability or split between 2 ability scores OR they can get another feat. Bear in mind that some feats are of limited use to 2nd level characters.

New class - master

This is an idea I got from the Dragonlance sourcebooks. If you want an NPC to be level 1 or 2 but still be a civillian, this could be the class for you.

Hit points 

Hit dice: 1d8 per master level.

Proficiencies

Armour: Light armour
Weapons: Simple weapons
 Tools: Any two from the list of artisan's tools and musical instruments.
Saving Throws: Intelligence and wisdom
Skills: Any three.

Equipment

Any simple weapon
Leather armour
One set of artisan's tools or one musical instrument

Features

Level 1: Expertise (double proficiency bonus with two skills), Jack of all trades (add half proficiency bonus to any ability check that does not already have a proficency bonus), Bonus training (gain proficiency with one language, one set of tools or one musical instrument).

Level 2: Skilled (gain proficiency in any combination of three skills or tools), Expertise (double proficiency bonus with two skills), Master of craft (Has the advantage on one roll that involves a skill or set of tools that the master is proficient in. They can only use this once and then need to complete a long rest), Bonus training (gain proficiency with one language, one set of tools or one musical instrument).

The world of E2

Using the DCC table as a guide, I figured that 90% of the world is 0 level, 9% is 1st level and 1% is 2nd level.

The world of E2 would be almost historical fantasy, but casters of level 1 spells can create food (goodberry) and water (create water). Mending things and healing is also better. There are some good rituals that anyone with the ritual caster feat can learn, which are mainly divination spells, but there's also purify food and drink.

Magic items will also be quite rare and the only magic items found randomly will be on magic item table A (DMG page 144).

Some magic items could have minor properties only (DMG page 143) but anything more powerful would be at the GM's decision only.

However, powerful magic is not completely unobtainable - there are stories of planar travel, telportation, flight and resurrection - it's just that such magic will require an adventure to access it.