A-Z: E is for Enmity

I play a lot of Dungeons and Dragons. It's all online via message board these days, though, and that's a medium with a tremendous turnover and failure rate. Awesome game ideas crop up, recruit players, and then...well, not every game comes back after a three month hiatus.

This means that I roll lots of characters, and that works out for me. Melding concept to prose and mechanics is my favorite part of the game anyway, and crafting characters and monsters are two very different sources for that joy. What makes creating characters for PbP different from most tabletop groups, though, is that it's generally a competition. I do most of my gaming with some fraction of the same eight or so person pool, but most of the games we run end up being open to the entirety of Myth-Weavers. This means that characters are almost never created in a vacuum, which is to say "Oh, this would be cool to play so I'm going to play it."

The decision matrix is usually more of "Hmm, lot of Defenders in the thread, little light on Leaders, I'll roll something in that direction." Since I've been doing the DnD thing for a long time, am a capable writer, and know the system, I'm usually not avoiding a well-populated roll to increase my chances of making the cut. However, I try to be understanding of the limits on some folks' time and inspiration, so unless I'm rolling into a game with the express desire I actually embrace these limitations, because having a few walls to bounce my thoughts off of helps increase my creativity. However, as a consequence of my looking at the constellation of submitted apps before I create a character, I almost never play strikers.

It's understandable that strikers comprise a significant chunk of almost any applicant pool. There are more of them, for one thing. They often feel more unique than other classes, I imagine, since the "thing" with a striker is that they have some special way of ladling on a little extra damage. I also imagine there's an element of the same issue that WoW is currently trying to solve in its Dungeon Finder, as well: people seem to prefer playing strikers. I think they're probably less stressful, especially in a full group with competent players occupying every role.

I'm not saying that playing DPS is easy, or doesn't require talent, or is for babies, or anything of the sort. Many strikers are actually very fragile, compensating for this with decent defenses. I think it's commendable that 4e has introduces some strikers who break this mold, and manage to be pretty beefy front-liners without stepping on defendery toes---though you think they'd appreciate that sort of thing (*rimshot*). But survivability is usually a concern with a striker, particularly if you have a DM who focuses fire on the greatest threats on the board (which are usually you, Jack Johnson, and Tom O'Leary).

Still, more people are willing to sign on for some roguery or a little sorcery than the burden of healing the party, taking those hits, or...and frankly, this one surprises me...controlling.

When I do have the chance to roll up some strikage, I find myself drawn back to Avengers again and again. This is interesting to me, because if I divided strikers into categories (I will not say tiers. I won't do it), Avengers would actually be just off the ladder. I'm not an optimizer, but bear with me:

• Category Radagory These strikers basically just get their extra damage. It's essentially free, or requires next to no effort to arrange. I think of these characters as being "above" the core Striker curve, and it's worth noting that they arrived on the scene after the PHB. It never really seems like the quality of these classes' damage is penalized for their versatility. For instance, stack up the three boosts a Sorc gets (Damage increase, Resistance bypass, High damage dice on attacks) and compare that to a Warlock.
  
  Note that I'm not saying these classes are overpowered; they're awesome, and fun to play. I like knowing that if I'm getting someone into the game for the first time, and know they'll enjoy having big damage rolls and a high body count, I can hand them a Barbarian or Sorc and watch them go wild. And watching Hexblades go from ridiculous in 3e to utterly dope now is very entertaining.
  Classes in this category: Barbarian, Hexblade, Monk, Sorcerer
• Category Gladegory These strikers still get extra damage, but it tends to require more work on their end. This work usually involves some combination of using an action and/or handling their positioning. That's cool, it provides a sense of strategy, but it's much more likely that a striker in this category finds himself incapable of rocking some critical damage on a key dude. That's why the "closest target" stuff seems odd to me: if I'm the party's archer (I would never be the party's archer) and the evil wizard, on the other end of the room, gets buck-wild on some nefariousness, it's my job to shoot him. Shoot him all Legolas style where he swats at the arrow in his throat, chokes, and falls down. But both Prime Shot and Quarry demand that I whittle away on the dudes closest to me.
  
  Was the idea that the guys closest to me were the biggest threat to my squishyness, and I need a boost for dropping them? I really don't understand it. Ultimately, I just feel badly for Warlocks, and am excited to see them get the Essentials bump to their efficacy. Rangers suffer too, I suppose; but if I'm playing a Ranger I am probably playing a beastmaster, and therefore enjoy much more flexibility in who I get wicked on.
  
  Interestingly, Rogues are vacillating between this category and the first one, thanks to the bump they got in Essentials (especially dealing their boosty damage once a turn) and some of the at-wills they now have access to. A player in the Red Hand game I'm in pretty well deals Sneak every round, often keeping his target facedown the whole time. I've loved Duelist's Flurry for ages (that article was one of the best Dragon has produced) because it changes the Rogue from a dude with a relatively light weapon to a rogue with a hyper-accurate maul. My preference with Rogues, though, is to bear down on that Rattling action and get the Str boost to my damage.
  Classes in this category: Rogue, Ranger, Warlock
• Category Avadagory This category is pretty much the Avenger. And, as I said, I love the Avenger. I enjoy the flavor, how they seem to just reek of awesome at a basic level. I can make an awesome Cleric, or a really captivating Druid. But I don't really need to make an Avenger awesome; she's a super-dedicated chick who just wants to get that vengeance on. I think rolling twice is awesome. I think it's awesome, in no small part, because of my horrible dice luck.
  
  Fun Aside: I'm currently playing in an Epic game, where I replaced a departed defender (well, we actually have to kill that defender now, but the pilot abandoned the helm). I'm fighting creatures that I hit on a 5 or 6, for the most part. My last three rolls have been 2, 3, and 4.

Anyway, Avengers are also a class I tell new players about, because I think that the idea of getting a double roll is viscerally and immediately appealing. If you've never played 4e, you may have a hard time understanding how valuable "+Str" to damage, or even an additional 1d6, will actually be. Perhaps you know things have more hp in this edition compared to previous ones, so that further devalues the significance of a little damage bump. But a second chance to hit, and double your base chance to crit; these are things anyone can appreciate. But do you see what I did there? What I always do? I forget that Avengers have a damage boost; in my mind, their damage boost is just being able to roll twice. This is because Avengers are the only striker (did I miss something weird in Essentials?) who can't control when they add their extra damage. It's not even a question of positioning, or "Do I have a spare minor action?" It's also not an issue where you're choosing between doing your extra damage to a sub-optimal target or wailing away on the guy you want to shoot. The only way any of the Avengers get a bump on their damage is if the DM gives it to them. There's the occasional corner-case, of course: you could have the party's Enchanter make a dude hit you, so your Isolating Avenger gets a bump against his Oath target. I don't even think Fear-style forced movement (where you're actually forcing the target to move, rather than sliding/pulling/pushing him) triggers Pursuing's power boost. That does leave Unity Avengers, who have a much easier time triggering their bonus; they'll often play like a somewhat shabby Rogue. The leaderish elements of their At-Will helps balance things out slightly, so that while I may only be dealing an extra 1 or 2 points (at heroic, which is what I'm usually thinking about), I'm also bumping a buddy by 3 or so on a hit. Unity Avengers are interesting, though, in that you end up playing them more like the original 4e Battlerager; you don't want to go first, because you want certain other things to happen before you make your attack. Am I alone in seeing Avengers as being a class apart? I do grok that they have access to a wider array of deadly weapons than most strikers. Monks can also use lots of weapons, but it doesn't generally affect their damage without certain feats/features. Barbarians, though, can---and usually should---use tremendous two-handers, to which they're adding even more damage. Plus, rogues can just wield rapiers without a feat now, and that skews the whole assumption that strikers with big damage bonuses use weaker weapons.

So, again: Avengers, while beloved by this guy, feel as though they occupy a funny position in the world of strikers. Amiright?

A-Z Action: C is for Crutch (Is Writing Good Speeches for Stupid Characters Cheating?)

I'm a bad roleplayer. I've been playing Dungeons and Dragons, without significant gaps, for around 17 years. I built my first race about 12 hours after I first touched a PhB. By the time I finished high school six or so years later, I'd written two massive, sprawling campaign worlds, something like 30 races, a like number of classes, untold monsters, and so, so many pages of adventure plots.

I've probably played 200 different characters, spread out over all the Rpgs I've enjoyed. Many of them, I've loved. Many of them, other folks have loved. Occasionally (though less often than you might think) characters fall into both groups. I've played men, women, faeries, robots, elementals, bad ideas, and mythical figures. I've been the hero, the heel, the lover, and the speechless. I've had characters who've grown to dominate games, and characters who've grown to dominate DMs; to the point where they've built games to give the characters a home. I've made characters so vile, so domineering, or so weird that they've more or less broken games, sometimes before they even started.

I know the rules...for pretty much anything. I've spent hours pouring over rulebooks and builds and suggestions for games that I have never played, or played once, or don't even want to play (but love to read). It's pretty fair to say that my life is, barring the occasional John Cusackian romantic folly, dedicated to gaming.

And yet, I am a terrible roleplayer.

A-Z Action: B is for Beastmen

I'm going to talk about Tinderbox's Beastmen, the faction probably closest to what could be termed "villains" in the setting. First, though something I was reading the other day has me thinking I really should come up with some other names with them. I don't, in general, worry that my stance on anti-Common necessitates re-naming every object and race a dozen times; dudes call themselves what they call themselves, and strangers from other cultures learn to deal with it. This is not, after all, a setting where a single language rose to dominance or quasi-dominance, and the folks of one nation are named for a wholly different nation's inhabitants because one dude with three ships had trouble with maps.

The question then becomes what language to use for naming them. The circumstances that created the beastmen occurred at a time when the orcs had been brought to heel by the Tran and their human allies. The elves were also present on the surface, having been in conflict with the orcs and humans before the dwarves and their goblin army broke the surface. When the humans saw what the Tran did with the orcs, they realized that they were next; their technology was about the same level as the orc tribes, and humans of course lack any of the same physical advantages. Since Tinderbox is a godless campaign, the human tribes turned to primal spirits for aid. They received that aid, but the only spirits who answered the call were Primordial entities. I tend to treat Spirit/Primordial as more of a continuum based on the individual's view of living things in creation. Not unlike Banes versus spirits in Werewolf, only generally shying away from the more modern psychological/industrial identities found in that game.

These spirits offered power to the desperate humans, but they were only willing to empower them in exchange for a berth in the race's "souls" (which, in keeping with the non-divine nature of the setting, would really be spirits). The initial results of this were probably "liminal" monsters---thanks for teaching me yet another way to force that word into conversation, Wizards!---gnolls, minotaur-style ungulates, bearmen, etc. However, the offspring of those creatures, as well as any humans who either entered these compacts later or produced offspring alongside the original beastmen, more closely resemble shifters. When I say shifter I include longtooth, razorclaw, or anything else I decide to work up along those lines; Eberron had a great wealth of different, evocative shifter breeds which I do miss them in the current game. The variations amongst these breeds reflect environmental and cultural alterations, but all shifters are considerably weaker and less intelligent than the majority of full-fledged beastmen.

Adolescent beastmen are consecrated to the tribe's totem Primordial...which has considerable similarities to the genasi of the Silken Kingdoms. Of course, there's not been anyone with the opportunity to make this connection since the beastmen are insular and violent, and don't talk to other races. Most beastmen are going to embrace their tribe's spirit, but some will instead be traded away to a tribe their personality fits better. Beastmen who find no acceptance amongst their totems or who descend from tribes which never earned a significant totem's allegiance are the most likely to have something resembling a nonviolent relationship with other races---frankly, they don't have the power to do much else. I'm keeping the beastmen at a technological level that's far behind even the secondary races of the Tran. This means that members of the race who don't turn into awesome gnoll-dudes are in largely the same place that the original humans were, relative to the other civilizations on the continent.

But I'm attached to the rather bland "beastmen" name because it's so accurate to what, exactly, this race is. It also serves as a unifying term for both the undifferentiated (shifter) beastmen and the more uniquely identified tribes.

On the subject of tribes, later I'm going to fling up a few statblocks from the beastmen the parties in Tinderbox have faced so far. I built most of these beastmen using an online monster builder in late 2010, back when I was without Insider access. However, I ran every one of them through the official Monster Builder when I started the game back up. I'm still refining my touch when it comes to balancing monsters, as well as just building their slate of powers, so I imagine I may alter these core creatures as time goes on.

That A-Z Action: A is for Ambition

You know what's cool? A-Z blogging is cool.

Least, it seems to be; damn near every rpg blog I read regularly or recently is on that tip. And while I've rarely met a bandwagon I liked, this one dovetails nicely with my efforts to get more regular content updates running through Ego Poisoning.

To that end, fully aware of the shameful consequences of failure (I'd be shamed, mostly), I embark on this journey as well. It won't really change most of what I'm going to write about, realistically; just drive me to write more often, and to occasionally shoehorn a post that I wanted to make, or discussion I wanted to comment on, into a particular alphabetical niche.

For A, then, I want to talk about Ambition. Now, what got me thinking about this topic was actually the nature of this blog itself; what it started out as (Me being in a strange new town for a strange new experiment known as grad school...me occasionally being drunk and watching strange YouTube videos at 3 in the morning) and what it's gradually evolved into (Dungeons and Dragons, occasionally a movie review). It's left me wondering, somewhat, why I didn't just start a DnD blog in the first place, though ultimately I don't think that would have worked given how overwhelming the first semester of grad school was. But for the immediate future I can definitely see running this as all gaming and the occasional movie review; hell, if someone gave me money and/or digital space to yammer about films elsewhere, I'd leave Ego Poisoning as sacrosanct to just gaming.

The other, and probably larger, reason I decided to kick my 26 entries off with Ambition is my recent ruminations about campaigns, including---of course---Tinderbox. I haven't been satisfied with how either of the groups I'm running through the city are progressing, and I haven't been sure how much of the blame for that I should apportion myself (but I know it's a significant share, with what the multi-month hiatus and such). However, I recognize that a major element in my dissatisfaction is the contrast between what I envisioned for this sandbox campaign, and what I'm seeing so far from the parties.

When I set out to run Tinderbox, I knew I'd be running a continuation of Lockout; in essence, the same game but a few weeks later, giving the factions a chance to solidify and carve up the city. The core conceits, even many of the core NPCs, remained the same. It was still a game about a disparate group of individuals stuck in, effectively, a very large and very dangerous box. I still find that concept extremely attractive, all the more so because I have these grand visions for plotlines and great battles and surprises and unexpected dungeons and valuable NPCs and shifting political conflicts...and yet, the simple fact is I haven't even sat down and written Slaughterhouse statblocks for ANY of my zones. Not even the one both parties are in right now. The one that, ostensibly, they're depleting opponents from.

I have a grand vision for converting treasure parcels into Progress Points, which players can then cash in for wealth and favors. The party also accrues these points, and can use them for purchasing safehouses throughout the city. I have this vision, and I have sketches of how it plays out, but I haven't sat down and written functions to determine all of this---though I have tried to pawn that task off on my cousin, because despite being a little more than half my age she manages to make me look like a simpleton.

The most recent entry in the Architect DM series ends with the exhortation "Don't Be Afraid of World Building." I'm not, as evidenced by the cultures, races, feats, class alterations, and history I've crafted for Tinderbox. I thought out, and wrote out, three entire continents' worth of empires and peoples for a game that I knew, at its outset, was going to be about a single---albeit large---dangerous box. I love worldbuilding. I have campaigns for days.

I have not, on the other hand, named the city. At all. Anywhere. Even when it was Lockout, before. I have a city, I have a general knowledge of how the zones are laid out, I have a much better knowledge of how the factions within it interact, and I have all sorts of great vignettes involving specific encounters that I want the PCs to have at various points. I have multiple out of place NPCs I plan to seed the city with, just to give the PCs unexpected challenges or opportunities largely divorced from the whole faction concept.

But I don't have a name for the city. Because the way my ambition functions, I tend to see and hunger for this vast, intricate, detailed contraption...but quickly lose interest in the sorts of critical information one would find in the owner's manual of said contraption.

So I really should name the city...maybe something that starts with A.

Dungeons and Dragons: Nonsensical Title Before Series Subtitle- Defender Marks Part 2

Next on my laundry list of series I started in 2010 and need to complete, I'm going to wrap up talking about the non-Essentials DnD defenders and their marks. I may come back and hit up Essentials defenders at a later date, though that's probably worth no more than a supplemental mini-post.* I already covered the Fighter, Swordmage, and Battlemind in my previous post, and made a case for viewing the Fighter as the core defender chassis. Even with Essentials material available, I still stand by that claim; Essentials defender auras mostly trade targeting for choice. This makes them a deviation from the core defender concept, where selecting your marked targets is a major tactical consideration.

Without further ado, let's delve into the remaining two defenders.

Language in DnD: Part 4- Revenant Converse!

And now, at last, we come to the concluding post in the Languages in DnD series. In previous posts I covered: my issues with languages in DnD, particularly common; the cultural considerations driving the Tinderbox campaign, and how these affect the available languages; and the available languages for my campaign, alongside their mechanical benefits.

Well, I covered most of the available languages. I saved one for this post (Which will also have a passing mention of telepathy, though none of the players in either party decided to roll psionic) because its implementation relies on some additional rules I added for the campaign. These rules allow characters to learn more languages as a natural consequence of leveling, albeit at varied strata of proficiency. I feel that it's a natural and necessary balance to the strict linguistic barriers I erected for the campaign.

Back Online

Well, obviously I was never offline, so much as not providing posts here. Over the next week or so, though, I'm aiming to finish out my Fighter Mark analysis and Language series, and start looking at some new subjects to tackle.

With my Tinderbox game back up, I can finally start posting statblocks for some of the monsters the party faced; many of these blocks were done in late 2010, but since the parties hadn't come up against them yet (or had, but hadn't identified them)I didn't want to put that information out there. At this point, however, Team Ashen Mask has slaughtered many Seawolves; Sullen Embers is a bit behind, mostly because we lost far more players from that group during the hiatus.

I'll also talk a little about the sandbox conventions I've been putting into play--and the challenges thereof.

Hi internet.

Dungeons and Dragons: Skills in DnD- On the Job Training

Before I dive into the supplemental rules I’m using for languages, I’ll briefly mention the original tweak that led to these rules. It’s something I refer to as On The Job Training, and it allows an extra layer of customization for characters. Somewhere between first and third (or 11th and 13th, or 21st and 23rd) level, players determine that there is a particular skill they’re using a lot, but not trained in. At 3rd/13th/23rd level, players select this skill and receive a +1 bonus to checks with it. This bonus increases by a cumulative +1 for each odd level reached in the tier; when players attain the next tier, they simply become trained in the skill.

I like this option because it addresses something I’ve experienced in most 4e games, which is that certain skills are simply missing from the party (or in the hands of folks not especially well-suited to their use) and other characters are constantly rolling those skills despite lack of training, banking on the rp bonus to pull them through. For myself, this happens a lot because very few of my characters have diplomacy or bluff relative to how many of my characters give long speeches. I like to monologue, whether to deliver horrifying threats to humbled villains before I send their souls to the Abyss or to inspire the party to do something awesome like drop a bridge on a dragon. I don’t always create my characters with the expectation that they’ll do these things (though I’m starting to bow to it), but even if I did, many characters lack the necessary skills on their skill list to make this possible. See also my comments regarding Intimidation in my last language post.

I recognize that 4e already provides a few options for players to pick up skills they’re using (or that the party needs someone to use), but I feel that this option solves things more logically and attractively. Obviously, a player could simply take a feat to gain training in a skill, but I’m not sure I’ve ever seen one do so; it’s usually much more sensical to pick up a multiclass feat so you get the skill and something else. However, that’s usually a choice made at or around character creation. I have played characters who switched up their multiclass, but this was usually prompted by the publication of new books rather than seeking a different skill.

Characters can also retrain, but as someone who puts roleplaying pretty high on my list of priorities I struggle with the idea that Thog the barbarian suddenly forgot everything that he knew about nature in order to…hell, I don’t even know what else is on their skill list. You get the point. Plus, retraining still locks you into your skill list in the first place, which isn’t helpful if Thog is a Thaneborn who suddenly finds himself thrust into a leadership role and would like to be a bit more politic than just introducing everyone to his axe. The issues I’ve outlined in this paragraph also explain why I don’t view backgrounds as much of a solution.

I want the perception that players grow as they gain experience, and giving them an incremental bonus as they increase their familiarity with a skill dos this. I suppose I could have just opened up retraining to let a player replace a skill on their list, but then they’re spending their retrain for a level, still doing that forgetting thing, and there’s the loss of a sense of learning. I don’t want Thog the Face to be a silver-tongued devil immediately, but I want players to gradually grow in confidence as his skills improve.

Now, one problem that’s already been demonstrated to me by an applicant for Tinderbox is how the on-the-job training bonus combines with Bard of All Trades; so a simple “this bonus does not stack with other feat or class bonuses” probably does the trick, since it means the character will use the higher bonus until such time as On the Job surpasses it or the skill becomes trained. I don’t tend to look at interactions like that as crises, since they usually give the player additional options and expect them to make proper choices.

This is a rule I'm using in Tinderbox, and hopefully it'll spread some of the key roles (from a skill perspective) around the party's class roles.

Language in DnD: Part 3- Headless Turtle

(My turtle is sleeping on a pair of my pajama pants right now, but with her head tucked into her shell.)

Now, the mechanical benefits section could be taken as odd or unnecessary, especially if I've already convinced you of the need for language revolution with all of my appeals to setting richness and roleplaying.

However, many of the benefits are simply psychological; someone likes to be addressed in their own language. DMs can certainly apply circumstance bonuses to reflect this, and I'd encourage it; but in the case of goblins, for instance, the effect is even more considerable. Even if I were awarding a player a +2 bonus on a Diplomacy roll for an impassioned plea for mercy from a Despot Goblin holding a spear to his throat, I'd still also give them the bonus for speaking Goblin to a goblin. The Despot is moved by the eloquence of his captive, but further moved that his captive is managing to be eloquent in Goblin. I'd apply both bonuses even if the character was also a goblin, since in that case there's the added empathy of staring into a like face.

The Draconic and Elemental Tongue bonuses (and possibly the Spirit tongue, which I'm mulling over as I type this sentence) have a bit of that extra mystical flare to them. They aren't just psychologically appealing, they're essentially appealing, in that they speak to something at the core of the audience member. The effects will presumably come into play less often in the Tinderbox campaign than the benefit of knowing Goblin. What makes them powerful, though, is their capacity for use in situations where the audience can't talk. The krask are a good borderline example, as krask are fairly unintelligent and almost never know any language other than Draconic. A player has no hope of convincing a krask to halt its charge if he calls out in Dwarven, for example; but the same command delivered in Draconic gets a boost. Players, even non-rangers, could use similar tactics when beset by guard drakes, which are a fairly common creature in the Tran Empire.

Dungeons and Dragons: My Planned Posts Begin to Resemble a Matryoshka- Defender Marks Part 1

Note: This post was originally a response to a PM on Myth-Weavers, but as it grew in length I figured I'd move it here. You know, to up my post count and drive sweet sweet traffic. Plus, the questioner reads the blog, so it's allll net gain.

So I was talking to a longtime associate and applicant player for Tinderbox today about his character concept. I was shocked when he explained that he'd traditionally avoided the Battlemind class because it was almost universally reviled on boards, and had a worthless mark. I didn't doubt his words--I avoid boards of most any sort like a sane man avoids the plague, so I wouldn't know what they do and don't like today. The part about the mark being worthless, though, really caught me off-guard. One of the games I'm currently playing in has a battlemind defender, and I've never noticed any deficiencies. My associate went on to explain that the mark's damaging effect seemed difficult to trigger, particularly in the following two situations: 1) When the marked target chooses to move away from the battlemind, rather than shifting (battleminds have an opportunity at-will that shifts) and 2) When the battlemind has marked 2 (or more) creatures. My associate compared Battlemind's Demand, longingly, to Swordmage Aegis...and I found that even more interesting, since I'm markedly less bullish on the swordmage (though oh how I wish I could be).

I thought the swordmage comment was useful, though, because it highlights what I consider to be the two most important questions when considering relative mark quality: what are you consider the "base" defender, and what do you expect out of a mark? I'm only going to address the first question in this post, however.

Dungeons and Dragons: Skill Challenge- Don't Come Knocking

A brief intermission from my thoughts about languages.

Consider the following hypothetical:

The 5-person party is in the Engineering District, fleeing a detachment of 12 Goblin Points (Lightly-armored Despot skirmishers) and two Goblin Scuta (Points with swords instead of spears, specialize in creating openings for other Scuta to slip in and swing). They slip into a warehouse through one of the broad double-doors, which is hanging off of its top hinge. They don't stop to consider whether the massive wooden door was ripped from its hinge during the riots following the bells, or by something inside the warehouse getting out. The party does not care about these things, because the goblins chasing them attacked immediately after a much larger battle with four Savage Elementalists and their flaming-rock minions.

The players are weary, wounded, and out of encounter attack powers and second winds. With mere moments before the goblins arrive, the players manage to hoist the door back up. Two characters hold the door fast in its frame, another player braces the first two so they won't slide once the goblins start slamming into it, and the last player, a swordmage with ritual caster, begins incanting the Arcane Lock ritual...after some clever rules-laywering where he points out that the ritual description does not require a functional door, and causes anyone other than the caster to experience the door in question as "locked." Amused by the creativity, and enjoying the tense scenario, the DM allows this.

The players are now locked in a skill challenge.

Dungeons and Dragons: The Problem With Language Part 2- Sunflower Bullets

So. Apparently blogger interprets unordered list bullet points as sunflowers. I'm not sure if I change that through asking the html to display a different type of bullet, or by fiddling with my stylesheet...but now that I've titled this entry as I have, I can never change them without it no longer making sense.

This is part two of my discussion of language in DnD and how I plan to change it; specifically how I plan to change it within the 4e rules. In part one I described my goals for this project...and I say project but I put it together over about an hour, most of which was typing. So perhaps we'll call it "this whim," but then it hardly sounds well-considered. So we'll call it...this ish.

My goals for this ish, nicely bordered by little sunflowers, boil down to making language both sensible and significant in the kind of realized fantasy world that has actual, different cultures who might not see the merit in bowing before the needs of Man and learning common.

Lockout: The Problem With Language Part 1- Suntory Time

There's a great scene in Lost in Translation (albeit an apparently difficult one to find on Youtube) where Bill Murray's character finishes delivering a line in a commercial, only to be subjected to a rapid-fire, very intense stream of commentary (in Japanese) from the director.

Which is translated as "He wants you to turn, look in camera. Ok?"

And Bill, wonderful, unflappable Bill (Who did such an amazing job of portraying a weary actor in that movie I was convinced it would be his last role ever, and the comedic idol was going to die...this movie came out in '03) asks "Is that all he said?"

The concept of language in Dungeons and Dragons suffers from the same translational problems. Specifically, DMs and players tend to skim over questions of communication and assume that everyone understands everyone else all of the time. While this is certainly convenient for gameplay purposes, and avoids some of the problems that not handwaving linguistic differences away creates, I find it deeply dissatisfying.

Lockout: Game Teaser

Here's the vignette I posted at the head of my Game Announcement for the new Lockout game, which I called Tinderbox- Aftermath of the Tran.

"The peals of the bells marked the first moment most of us knew that there was something wrong. It's not as though we ever saw any of the Tran, unless some second son felt like slumming at the market rather than sending his servants. A massive city in a massive empire, all dedicated to the glory of a clan of dwarves who never left their walled sanctuary. An empire of the dwarves...heh...an empire whose army was almost entirely comprised of races they'd made slaves. I sometimes think the dwarves took the surface just to see if they could; most of the cities, and most of the empire, are still down in those tunnels and we're just living in a tumor. An abscess swimming with puss and desperation, surrounded by furry, clawed parasites who sold themselves to monsters thousands of years ago.

Lockout: Cultural Overview 1- The Silken Kingdoms

Kingdom of Silks is a well-ordered society on the whole, where etiquette and poise are paramount. Many different schools of philosophical thought contend for commercial and mystic authority, but overall the society has advanced beyond inter-faction violence. Arcane and psionic pursuits are what define the Kingdom, and the advances and conveniences these studies have produced allow most citizens to live in relative leisure despite the tremendous ecological devastation surrounding them. Though it is uncommon for most citizens of the Kingdom to pursue a purely martial path, those who do are extremely well-trained and dangerous. Much of the warfare is relegated to ranks of constructs, from the numerous terracotta soldiers cast from living earth before great battles to the sentient warforged and mysterious, musical shardminds.

The Position of the Races Within the Kingdom of Silks

Eladrin: The majority of Kingdom citizens are Eladrin, and thus form the peasant caste. Most can read and write, and as farming is handled magically, most focus on jobs as scribes, carpenters, and artisans. Many Eladrin join the military, of course, though usually as martial characters. Eladrin also comprises a large percentage of the ancestor-worshipping clergy in the Kingdoms, using their powers to cast out malevolent entities unleashed by the other Bloodlines.

Bloodlines

"Bloodlines" are specific magical philosophies, genetic qualities, and cultural similarities that bind particular citizens of the Kingdom of Silks. Most bloodlines are not actually related to the circumstances of a creature's birth, but rather represent conscious choices available to most qualified Eladrin of the Kingdom willing to undergo the necessary changes and sacrifices. However, many bloodlines also breed true, or simply raise their children in such a way that the possibility of rejecting the covenant associated with the bloodline is never presented; this is especially true of Tieflings and Genasi.

Lockout: Faction Overview 3- Loyalist Goblins

Loyalist Goblins

Midway between the merciless tyranny of the Despots and the unthinking violence of the Savages, the Loyalists are goblinoids whose only desire is to maintain the stability of the Tran Empire until such time as a dwarven authority can be re-established. This attitude is perceived as stagnant and traitorous by both Savages and Despots, and both factions attempt to kill Loyalists on sight.

The Loyalists are thus a small faction, but they are extremely well-ordered, and equipped. There is a higher proportion of hobgoblins amongst the Loyalists than in either other goblinoid faction, due to the superior position hobgoblins tend to occupy in the Tran military. The Loyalists are also completely devoid of Calmblade and Crookcatcher presences, focusing primarily on martial power. Their forces are supplemented by powerful Hobgoblin Certainties, commanders who wield psionic power to inspire their allies; and Hobgoblin Bastions, who twist the minds of their foes until they are perceived as irresistible targets or horrifying foes. The other advantage the Loyalists possess is their experience; the majority of this faction’s membership is comprised of warriors with years of military service, closely bonded with the other members of their unit, and united in awe and respect of the mighty military heroes who’ve maintained their loyalty to the Tran. While the Despots are far more numerous, and the Savages wield horrific Primordial powers, the Loyalists have staunch determination and brilliant tactical minds.

Loyalists also disdain most of the "tainted" warmachines favored by the Tran; they refuse use of the Steelscale drake constructs and the Iron Scorpion self-firing ballista. Instead, Loyalists maintain the ancient art of drake training, nurturing broods of various reptiles which fearlessly defend their goblin masters.

Lockout: Faction Overview 2- Savage Goblins

I couldn't resist the perfect straight-man comment on my Lockout post; to whit, how nice it was to see goblins who weren't "filth-encrusted cave beasties with bone clubs."

The Savage Goblins are filthy monsters who wield crude weapons, often constructed from the corpses of their foes. But...I think they're cool?

Savage Goblins

The Savage Goblins represent those goblins who chafed under dwarfish rule, but have no desire to take control of the civilization while the Tran are out of power. Instead, the Savage Goblins are attempting to tear down as much of the city as possible, and kill any Loyalist or Despot goblins they locate. They murder or enslave citizens, eating most of the slaves eventually. Savage Goblins lack most of the military organization possessed by other members of their race, but their violent rejection of millennia of training grants them two advantages. The first is the sudden resurgence of Throwbacks amongst their ranks; traditionally, Throwbacks were exterminated in Tran society. The goblin military was so assiduous about killing potential throwbacks that their manifestation itself became unusual. Throwbacks are elite warriors, commanders, and trackers (bugbear/hobgoblin/goblin) who have rediscovered their races’ ancestral links with forest predators like wolves and weasels. Another advantage the Savage Goblins have is a specialization in negation; rather than relying on the sophisticated arcane constructions and protections of the Tran, the Savages excel at unmaking them. Bugbears with a talent for the arcane, already extremely rare, are often trained to physically destroy arcane material, and set to work smashing through buildings and walls as the Savages increase their areas of control. Both of these gifts, along with many of their other unique powers, are a product of the Savages’ alliance with some of the same Primordial forces that empower the Beastmen. Like Beastmen, any Savage with an altered form has the Abomination keyword.

Lockout: Faction Overview 1- Despot Goblins

I'm going to be previewing some of the factions from Lockout and, since the following was the only faction the original party encountered, I thought it would be appropriate to start here. I'd post up some statblocks, but I've yet to find a good, Mac-friendly utility for generating them in 4e form. Might play around with html and see if I can devise something that looks acceptable.

Despot Goblins

The largest faction active in the Lockout campaign, Despot Goblins comprise the majority of the Tran Empire's domestic military force. Unlike the rabble in a typical fantasy campaign, Despots are well-organized, well-equipped, and extremely disciplined. The Despots have control of much of the city, because their role as city guards and protectors of the nobles put them in position to seize significant areas quickly. While the Despots outwardly claim to be maintaining the stability of the Empire, their methods are brutal; in particular, they've made a habit of arresting any non-citizens of the city, not just the Empire, on sight.

Lockout: Apparently My Thoughts On Sam's Race/Feat Question Were Too Long For A Comment

As such, I will make them a post!

First, I very much appreciate the consistent feedback! It's nice to have to think about my posts summat after I make them.

I ported some of the racial stuff over from another campaign I wrote, specifically the coloration of the dragonborn and the orcish feats. I'm not sure if you noted that the Greenblood grants half-orcs access to the orcish feats (which include an always-active weapon feat, though at present some of the others require the orc racial, which I might grant half-orcs another feat to take). I also understand that the expertise-style feats are big, but every 4e game I've played in for the last year or so has adopted the policy of just handing out expertise (now versatile expertise) for free, based on the thousands of internet-spawned words churned out about the combat gap issue. So the first part of my reason for including that sort of feat is, yes, an expectation that players will be allowed to make some more flavourful choices when less interesting things like expertise are already provided.

The second part of specific inclusions like that is setting related, for the half-elves and half-orcs. It's important to stress that there are no humans in my setting, effectively. Humans exist, but only in the swamps, mountains, and woods...they're all near-savages, and the vast majority of "humans" one meets are going to be closer to a shifter at the very least (with most of what you find in a human tribe actually being a reskinned gnoll, minotaur, goliath, squirrelman, etc). That's crucial because I'm not for one second trying to buy into the 4e revisionist half-orc bullshit where they're a "separate race." That's ridiculous. A half-orc comes about when a mommy or daddy orc and a mommy or daddy something else bump one ugly with one not-so-ugly. In the Tran empire, orcs have opportunity to breed with elves or dwarves (I could possibly see opening hobgoblins and bugbears up there too). If it's the former, though, it's going to be the result of military conquest, since the main thing orcs are doing other than fighting beastmen is trying to kill off those darn independent elves. Elves wouldn't raise a half-orc, so the creature is much more likely to take Greenblood and be a hulking savage who is perhaps a mite more graceful than his companions. Dwarven camp followers might give birth to a half-orc child, and occasionally a dwarven ranger might fall in love or lust with an orc and raise a dwarf/orc hybrid, which would actually find itself fairly well accepted in frontier Tran society. However, because the options are so very limited in terms of genetic mixing, I wanted to ensure that players were making their choice of parentage a significant part of their backstory.

It's the same with the half-elves. Again, with no humans to breed with, half-elves on the Tran continent are elf/dwarf hybrids exclusively. Some elves trade peacefully with the Tran, and elves are hot, so it's all sensible. In the Silken Kingdoms, since all the races represent the same core race (elves) further altered due to magical specialization/experimentation, mixing two already hybridized races produces offspring who favor one side of their parentage alongside the elven blood that they still retain. They can't take human feats (it wouldn't make any sense) so I wanted them to have an option whereby they can explore some races' feat trees...hence the dilettante swapping.

The third reason for my choice of feats like Greenblood is that I do expect the specific players I anticipate playing in my game to jump for this because I'm not a man with patience for min-maxery. Perfectly optimizing a sheet is fine for a delve or convention, where you may be on a timer and you're sure to be up against some utterly brutal encounters. However, in the 16+ years I've been playing DnD I've never gone in for character optimizaiton; I've always preferred character realization (was that lame? Perhaps!). That's true no matter what kind of game I'm running, but since I'm incorporating some rules into this specific campaign that make situations a mite less lethal (players have resources at their disposal to skip particularly dangerous encounters, though doing so will limit their options in other areas) there's even less call for the maximized approach. A half-orc in the Tran empire is going to be viewed a certain way and reacted to a certain way; I want her to have options regarding how much of that view and reaction is founded, and how much of each racial heritage is displayed.

Lockout: Races and Classes

Eventually I'll have flavor text for all of this, but I started writing individual, kingdom-specific flavor for each class and nearly blacked out. Most of the racial abilities were wholly off the cuff (feats too) so I don't know exactly where they fit in terms of balance. Goblins and bugbears stand to receive some special feats, and kobolds will probably either get feats of their own or have the ability to just feat into dragonborn feats.

Races Allowed

The Kingdom of Silks

Eladrin

(+2 Dex or Cha, +2 Int)

Tieflings

(+2 Int or Con, +2 Cha)

Genasi

(+2 Int or Con, +2 Str)

Githzerai

(+2 Dex or Int, +2 Wis)

Changeling (Eberron Player’s Guide)

(+2 Dex or Int, +2 Cha)

Deva

(+2 Int or Cha, +2 Wis)

Half-Elf

(+2 Con or Dex, +2 Cha)
Special Rules In lieu of their Dilettante power, half-elves from the Kingdom of Silks may select the racial power of Eladrin, Tieflings, Genasi (select one manifestation and only gain the encounter power portion), Githzerai, or Changelings (Changeling Trick only). This represents the strength of that portion of their bloodline, and the half-elf counts as a member of whichever race he selects the racial power from for the purposes of feat and paragon path selection. Note that a half-elf cannot select Deva with this option.

Warforged (Eberron Player’s Guide)

(+2 Str or Int, +2 Con)
Special Rules Warforged may not begin the game as Artificers. They can, however, multiclass into Artificer.

Shardmind

(+2 Wis or Cha, +2 Int)
Special Rules Shardminds do not possess the Immortal Origin. Shardminds may not begin the game as Artificers. They can, however, multiclass into Artificer.