Map On Hold

I'm not good at finishing. I was recently attempting the NovNov challenge and between work commitments and family stresses I didn't get to finish the challenge. I was already falling behind anyway so it wasn't really a surprise that it didn't work out.

This is a pattern in my life. 

I have so many potential campaigns in short notes and in my head that I could be doing nothing but writing and running RPGs for the rest of my life and never run out. Getting them all down on paper would be difficult. The tones don't match for many of them and I have problems switching tone quickly. This would leave me dropping scenes that are too heavy in the middle of light hearted adventures.

What else is stopping me? Well, I'm afraid to succeed. I know, it sounds weird, but I've always had this fear that I would become good enough at something that others would come to depend on me for and I would inevitably disappoint them because...

Yeah, it's imposter syndrome. Hard to avoid.

What on earth does any of this have to do with maps? Well, I'm trying to push myself out of my comfort zone and part of that is forcing myself to finish some things I started long ago. A map for one of my campaign worlds is part of that. The world itself is pretty generic, with a fallen empire in a pseudo-european land with ruins, cities, and wide expanses full of battlefields. The party's jobs is simply to survive and, if possible, make things a little easier. But I found myself with a map for this world that I build from the history. It's not great and needs a little professional input to complete, and so, in order to push myself out of my comfort zone, I'm going to try to find a professional to take it from what I've got to what others will enjoy.

Am I going to write a campaign sourcebook to go along with it? No! There are much better ways to get the most out of campaign world and the templates provided by Daggerheart are a good way to get the most out of it.

I've also backed the Twilight Sword campaign on Backerkit. This has an interesting mechanic for breaking up a region into areas of interest, each with it's own focal points and encounter possibilities. I think combining the two ways of looking at the world will provide a simple way to build a world out from a starting point to a fully fledged campaign setting. Watch this space, I guess.

Unfun

There's an attitude in gaming at the moment of Unfun. It's quite prevelant and I'm not sure I like it. Some of it is justified: racially sensitive content has no place at my table and I would encourage others to think of what it is they are putting out and ask themselves who might be harmed by the story they're telling.

But one thing that gets me is hyper positivity. Having bad things happen to characters is becoming more and more taboo. I've heard people online talking about people retconning entire combats because a character died and they weren't having it.

That doesn't make a lot of sense to me. If you're coming into a game where, canonically, there are creatures that can wipe out an entire town with a breath weapon, then you must accept that there are likely to be creatures that can potentially hurt your party, and maybe even kill them.

Another thing is increasingly frowned upon is "taking away player agency". There are these spells, called enchantment/charm spells, that make people behave in ways they normally wouldn't. They are, by design, supposed to usurp the will, but apparently there are players who complain about this. Why? You get to use those spells too. If you refuse to suffer the consequences, you don't get to use the spell either. There! Enchantment/Charm school is now banned.

And there starts the problem.

I have no problem with removing notions like bio-essentialism. No person is inherently better or worse than another person, and I have no issue with that, and I would also defend never forcing a player to experience something or force their character to act in a way that is likely to be a trigger or a trauma, it remains part of the game that you can be forced into a state of fear by magic.

Expecting everything to go your way all the time feels childish. Avoiding "Unfun" seems like something that should only happen at a kids' table.

Am I the problem?

It could be that I'm missing some Zeitgeist here, but I want my challenge to be challenging in game! That's the important part for me. This is all in game stuff for me. I am going into the dragon breathing, spell casting, monster infested world of dangers. I can't expect to walk out completely unscathed.

Or my character can't. I shouldn't be harmed by something I'm doing in an imaginary space for fun through a proxy character. 

Therefore, neither you

Now, am I saying you shouldn't play that way? Not at all. I think you should run your table how you see fit. But I don't think I'd be comfortable at your table.

Grim Up North

Yesterday I received the Vaesen starter set and a few books from the Kickstarter. In many ways it's a pretty standard Starter Set with basic rules, character sheets, initiative cards, "what you can do on your turn" cards, a mini bestiary and some handouts for the included adventure. 

The print quality is very good too, with full colour art, glossy covers and a nice feel to the paper. If anything is off-putting it's the shortness of everything. If the basic rules are anything to go by, the main book isn't going to have a lot in it that isn't filler. The adventure comes to 12 pages plus cover.

I'm still looking forward to running it, though. The system is based on d6 rolls and count 6s for levels of success. I'll post again when I can fully describe the experience.

On Not Gaming

 Oh, we've all been there. Life gets complicated. The older you get, the harder it is to organise everything to ensure "fun" happens, and this includes those people who KNOW that fun is important.

My Sunday game was cancelled this week because people's schedules are rarely fixed and life changes all too frequently. Some of it is driven by sensible prioritization: do I prepare for an interview for a promotion or do I go gaming with my mates? Of course you prepare for the interview. Duh!

I'm reminded of the Terry Pratchett quote: "Inside every old person is a young person wondering what happened!"

Sometimes, you just want a break. My Wednesday game was also cancelled because we all chose to spend St. Patrick's Day having fun with our families instead.

Sometimes, not doing something fun is self-care. Never let anyone tell you otherwise.

It's a Kind of Magic - Templar Powers

When designing the Templar, I wanted an alternative to the standard system of magic used in D&D. I got the feeling that, in order to provide something worthy of attention, it has to be unique. Also, to maintain the flavor of its Dark Sun origins, it had to have something unique to the condition of the power source.
 Effectively a Templar is servant of her patron King. The Templar gains power by obtaining influence with her patron. As I mentioned in the first post on this series, the power of a Templar should be roughly equivalent to a Warlock. To this end, I chose to have the Templar's influence recharge on a short rest. The amount of influence a Templar can bring to bear is equal to their level but there may be addenda in the final outing.

Structure

Powers for the Templar are based on three levels of power. Lesser powers are roughly equivalent to first level spells. It costs one point of influence to manifest a minor power. When you gain higher influence, it is possible to bump up the power to a more effective level (like spending higher spell slots).
 Minor powers are roughly equivalent to second and third level spells. Each costs 3 influence to manifest and can also be buffed up using additional influence.
 Finally, Greater powers are roughly equivalent to fourth and fifth level spells. Each costs seven influence to manifest and can be buffed using additional influence.
 The maximum buff allowed is half your level minutes one. Thus, a fourth level character can only add one buff point to a spell. This prevents a character of lower levels from creating the effects of a higher level spell.

Chide the Mind

Lesser

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As a reaction, if any creature hits you with an attack, you can glare at them balefully or shout a curse. The target must make a Wisdom saving throw or suffer 3d6 psychic damage, or half as much on a successful save. For each additional point of influence spent, the damage increases by 2d6.

Raw Power... and Cantrips

Signature Spell

I'm working on a revised magic system for use with my Templar class. I want it to be roughly equal in power to the Warlock, but I don't want the schtick of Eldritch Blast being an effective class requirement. In developing my own 'Cantrips', I realised one thing: some of the cantrips are actually really powerful.
I play an Eldritch Knight in my Wednesday night game. While I have a crossbow, I hardly ever use it, because Fire Bolt is 2d10 (my character is 9th level) fire damage over 120 feet and I can use it as an AOO (War Caster), and I can do a bonus weapon attack right after using it as my action, so potentially 4d10 + weapon damage in a single round of combat. Right there and then is my go to ranged weapon.

For the Warlock, Eldritch Blast is the equivalent, mostly because it ties in with so many of the Eldritch Invocations available to the class. It is the signature at-will power for the class. I want my powers to be a little more flexible, but I get the impression that there is one, or maybe two, that will be go-to powers for the class, for example:

Fist of the Templar

Enchantment cantrip

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• Casting Time: 1 action
• Range: 120 feet
• Components: V, S
• Duration: 1 round

You call out to an enemy or wrongdoer to halt and bring your fist into your other palm. A loud sound rings out in an area of 120 feet (perhaps a thunderclap, a gavel pummelling, or a judgement bell tolling once).

You make a ranged spell attack against the target. On a hit, the target takes 1d6 psychic damage and its speed is reduced to 10 feet until the beginning of your next turn.

The cantrip’s damage increases by 1d6 when you reach 5th level (2d6), 11th level (3d6) and 17th level (4d6).

Being able to slow and harm a creature at the same time makes it useful. I'm considering actually upping the damage to a d8, but I'm not sure (suggestions welcome). Many of the powers available to my Templar cause psychic damage, as the focus is imposing the will of the Sorceror/Undying King. So, this features is one I think could become signature, but only if the focus of the campaign is combat centric.
Some of the other features simply come with the note "This feature functions identically to the <name> cantrip." That's easy enough. I know these features come with built in balance.
The only way to know how this will work out in the long term is to monitor. If players testing my Templar class default to these options every time, then perhaps the feature is too powerful. Either that, or I'm not putting together adventures/encounters that provide for use of the other features.
Next time, I'll go into some detail about the magic system. As the characters are at quite low levels, this hasn't been tested robustly yet, so this will be very much a basic introduction.

Rising Dark(sun)

So, I'm coming over all Dark Sun. Part of my campaign world ruled over by some seemingly immortal rulers in a desert kingdom. There are story reasons for this, but with magical prohibition in effect (story, again), I got to thinking about the old Dark Sun world. Queue Defilers and Templars.

When I read through the Dark Sun setting information for 4e, I found the demotion of Templars to a background gave me pause. I played a Templar when Dark Sun first came out and it really got me flexing my roleplay muscles. The combined magical and political power behnd the class ensured that not every situation was a straight up fight.

I liked the combination, so I went looking around for any 5e implementations. I didn't really find anything I liked so I'm implementing my own. My Alchemist didn't work out so well, I couldn't find a balance between power and durability on that one, but with the Templar I have a clear model to build from and early playtesting is looking good.

Tweak, tweak, tweak for the next few months.

But Why Does it Have to Be So HARD?!

Designing classes is not easy!

I can almost hear the chorus of "Oh really? No shit, Sherlock!" going on as people read that opening line, but the difficulty is in the small things. Some things I was able to 'hand wave' away, like, why can an Alchemist only create so many concoctions in a single day. (Because they're extremely volatile chemicals, and you don't have the skill to manage too many at once.)

The hard part is getting the balance between fire power and staying power. First, I decided to have a d6 for the hit die, just like a mage. This makes the Alchemist a bit flimsy in terms of taking a hit, but when I put it up to a d8, they became a bit too tough at lower levels. (Huff!)

Then there was the problem with just how powerful an Alchemist's damaging extracts should be. I tried following the spell damage table in the DMG, but as there are no spell levels to 'level up' the hit effect (without simply making a bottle mage), the fire power gets a bit low. No problem, just up the level a little, or give on-going damage, right? Oh, Hell no. That makes them just too powerful.

I'm toying with the idea of on-going damage again, limited by the level of the Alchemist, and I'll let you know how that goes, but for now, WHY DOES IT HAVE TO BE SO HARD?!