Untested Thought: 3e Wizards...

This is the core of the spellcasting rule I've been toying with for "Nutshell Fantasy", re-written for 3e. It assumes that the Wizard is the default caster...

At the start of the day, the Wizard chooses any 6 different spells to prepare. These can be of any level up to the maximum that the character can cast normally. (So, a 9th level Wizard could, if he wished, prepare 6 different 5th level spells if he wanted. Bear with me.)

A spell can be prepared for at-will, per-encounter, or daily use. The Wizard can prepare any spell for daily use, a spell of up to two less than his maximum for per-encounter use, and a spell of up to four less than his maximum for at-will use.

(So, our 9th level Wizard could prepare a 5th level spell for daily use, a 3rd level spell for per-encounter use, or a 1st level spell for at-will use.)

So far, so good. And as should be obvious, when the Wizard casts an at-will spell he of course retains the use of the spell. Indeed, he can cast it again next round (or even the same round) if he wants. When the Wizard casts a per-encounter or daily spell, it is expended for the time being.

When the Wizard takes a short rest, he regains the use of any expended per-encounter spells. At this point, he also has the option of switching out any of his prepared spells for any other spells of his choice, with two caveats:

1. Once a daily spell has been cast, it cannot be replaced until the next day. That slot remains expended.
2. Once a spell has been cast as a daily spell, it cannot be used again.

(What this means is that if our 9th level Wizard prepared teleport as one of his spells and then cast it, then when he took a short rest he can now only prepare 5 spells for the rest of the day... and teleport cannot be one of them.)

The effects of metamagic would apply normally. Note that a "metamagic version" of a spell is considered to be the same spell for the purposes of the "six different spells" clause. That is, a caster could not prepare both a maximised magic missile and also a normal magic missile.

Note that under this model the Wizard's Intelligence does not grant him additional spells per day. This is intentional - in 3e as it stands, that stat at once grants extra spells per day and increases the saving throw DC for most spells and controls the highest level of spell that the character can cast at all. This is really too much overloading, and makes that stat of overwhelming and unreasonable importance to the Wizard.

It's also worth noting that this approach at once makes low-level Wizards more powerful and makes high-level Wizards less powerful. Given the relative balance of the classes, this is actually a good thing.

So, any thoughts?

The Wall of the Fallen: a Dilemma

Over on our RPG website, we have a wiki page called The Wall of the Fallen. This records the heroic deeds of those PCs who have died in the course of their adventures. It is a lasting memorial to their sacrifice. Or something similarly overblown.

As you can see, the wall currently contains two entries for "The Eberron Code": Jag and Mondo (the latter is actually about to return to life).

However, one of our players has recently decided to drop out of the game for work related reasons, and has asked that his character, Vixen, be killed off, preferably in an heroic manner. And the player won't be present at the game session in which this takes place.

So, the question is this: does Vixen get recorded on the Wall of the Fallen, by virtue of her once having been a PC, or does she not get recorded on account of being an NPC when the axe fell? Does it matter that this will be a "story" death rather than a "game mechanical" death?

Eep!

Following my post on the other blog about the end of the Mayan calendar, I decided to look up some Shadowrun lore, specifically concerned with the return of magic to the world. I mistakenly thought that that was also due to occur next month. It turns out I was mistaken - apparently magic returned last year.

However, I was rather shocked to discover that there was apparently a nuclear meltdown last year. We're now all living in the Scotland Irradiated Zone. Which, now I think about it, does explain a few things...

Four Great Campaigns, and what I learned from them

I've been playing RPGs for just over 24 years now. I've run a lot of campaigns in that time, most of which were largely unremarkable. However, there were four that stood head and shoulders above the rest, that serve as the highlights of my gaming career, and which are my go-to examples for how I would like my campaigns to unfold. These were:

Unnamed 2nd Edition Campaign

I ran this game back when I was sixteen, and before I adopted the practice of naming my campaigns. It was the last successful campaign I ran using the AD&D 2nd Edition rules, the last successful campaign I ran with my original gaming group (from when I was at school), and the last session was actually the last time I saw several of the members of that group.

In hindsight, this campaign was little more than a bad "Lord of the Rings" rip-off. There were magical swords, evil overlords, dark knights... all that stuff. The campaign was also very much a railroad, was light on both dungeons and dragons, and played very fast and loose with the rules. Objectively, it really wasn't a terribly good campaign.

But it was fun! Oh, this campaign was so much fun. The group got together every Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday evening for two hours (oh, to have that much free time again), and fairly quickly blazed through the levels. Such plot as there was therefore unfolded quickly, and the story was at least marginally compelling.

However, the key lesson from the campaign is this: who you have playing the game is much more important than what game you're playing. If you have a good group of players all determined to have fun, you'll have fun. If you have even one problem player, or a conflict of personalities, you're pretty much screwed.

Rivers of Time

This was a Vampire: the Masquerade campaign that started while I was at university and ran for five years of real-time. Initially, it ran in the summer months, but gradually expanded to run all year round. The game also started with two players, added two more, lost one, and then added two more for the finale. And the storyline stretched for 2,300 years of game time, starting in ancient Rome after the sack of Carthage and ending in a future city with no name as the world ended. The campaign also spawned off a lot of characters and plot threads that actually got resolved in a whole set of interlinking campaigns and one-shots spanning pretty much the whole World of Darkness.

Along the way, this campaign had some stellar moments. There was an adventure set in Arthur's Britain which turned a great many things on their heads, and which worked out really well. That laid the seeds for a plot thread involving Excalibur (one of the sourcebooks noted a legend suggesting the sword had been given to the Lionheart during the Crusades). The other real highlight was when a plot seed that was sown in the second session finally came to a fruition five years later, and did so in a remarkably satisfactory manner.

Of all the campaigns I've run, this was probably the greatest achievement. The length of it, the scope of it, and the way it ran so smoothly for so long...

But this campaign also suffered from a pretty devastating flaw: it simply went on too long. Like "Battlestar Galactica", it started exceptionally well, and then lost a lot of steam. There was a lot of good material in the later years, but after about halfway through the second year those highlights became fewer and further between. Additionally, since then it has become significantly harder to get a consistent group together and to keep them together over the long haul, with the consequence that I wouldn't try anything like this again.

The major lesson from this campaign is that planning is key, especially planning up-front. The campaign was able to unfold so well because right at the start I put in a lot of time thinking about story arcs, laying the seeds for later plotlines, and generally getting my house in order. It started to lose steam as soon as my initial ideas ran out, and I had to start padding things out.

The secondary lesson from this is that I now plan campaigns with a scope already defined. If a campaign is intended to run for 15 levels and 24 months, I'll have laid that out up-front. If it's intended to run for 6 levels and 20 sessions, I say that instead. That way, I know roughly how much material to plan for, and am less likely to have to stretch too little material over too much time.

Shackled City

I don't use pre-generated adventures very often, and have had distinctly mixed results from doing so. However, the use of the first Adventure Path from Dungeon magazine ranks as one of the highlights of my career. This was the last successful campaign I ran with my second group, and ran for 11 months in the year before I left for Yeovil. The campaign ran from 1st level to 18th, with the characters hitting 19th once the experience points were granted for the final session. This campaign therefore also represents the highest level I have seen gained 'fairly' in any edition of D&D.

The great strength of this campaign was that pretty much everything was already done for me. All that preparation that I said was key, above, was already in place. All I needed to do was administer the character sheets, and print out tokens for use on the battle-mat. (Yes, we used on in those days!)

And the campaign had some wonderful set-pieces. There was one session that was entirely dominated by a single lengthy combat against Kuo-toa, set in a temple constructed of three levels, with several waves of reinforcements. The battle started almost as soon as the session began. Six hours later, all but one PC was down and bleeding, the last PC (a Cleric) was down to single-digit hit points, but the last monster was likewise weak. The Cleric had just missed his attack.

So it came down to this: if the monster hit her attack roll (scoring a fairly low die result, as well), then that would be it - TPK. If not... I have never seen a single die roll carry so much emotion and expectation. It was awesome. (The attack missed, of course.)

The big lesson from Shackled City was that I never again want to run 3e at those sorts of levels. As expected, the game started to break down around 12th level, and got progressively worse as levels went up. By the end, it simply wasn't worth the effort - but we'd come so far we weren't about to give up.

I also learned quite a lot about encounter design from Shackled City. Unfortunately, I'm far from convinced I've done much to actually apply that knowledge. It's one thing to know that the environment needs to play a part; it's quite another to make sure it does. (Incidentally, this was something that 4e tended to do very well.)

The Eberron Code

My current campaign very quickly became one of the 'greats'. The group of players here really gelled, they became quite involved in the goings-on in the campaign, and they unravelled most of the mysteries. Truly, a satisfying campaign. I have also been very happy with the way the players have tried to be more creative with their actions than some in the past - there's a fair amount of shouting warcries, tipping enemies off of ledges, pushing people here and there, and other shenanigans. All in all, it's been good fun.

I've also had a great deal of fun at two of the last three sessions, when key facts were revealed. Odd just how much impact the word "Tarrasque" can have...

I have learned quite a few lessons from this campaign, but I'm going to hold off on spelling them out for the time being. Once the campaign is done, I'll post a fuller retrospective, but for now... spoilers.

Onward!

Of course, the real trick is to make sure that my next campaign also becomes one of the 'greats'. But that's easier said than done.

The Fellowship of the Ring

Amongst the many things that I did over the weekend was to watch the "Fellowship of the Ring" one more time. Like the "Star Wars" trilogy, those are films I return to again and again without ever being disappointed.

Since my brane is always whirring along in the background, I found myself musing about the D&D level structure as it relates to "The Lord of the Rings". Of course, D&D is actually quite a poor fit for an LotR campaign - characters get too powerful too quickly, magic is far too ubiquitous, and the game is based on a broadly-mythologic rather than broadly-Christian basis (except for the Paladin). Still, there's little denying that LotR has had a very significant influence on D&D, and moreso once the first generation of designers were replaced by others less well-read in Gygax's preferred pulp fantasy.

Still, it's quite interesting to see how the characters fit with the level system, and various break-points that occur.

As I've contended before, it is my view that 3e breaks the level range down into three parts:

1. Low-level (1-5) characters are fundamentally mortal. They tend to be "a cut above" the norm, but they're not truly exceptional.
2. Mid-level (6-12) characters are distinctly superhuman, but they're not unrecognisable. They're the great heroes of the day; the characters who will be remembered in song in generations to come.
3. High-level (13+) characters are virtual demigods, for good or ill. They're simply not mortal, but have become almost transcendent in their power.

(I ignore epic level play in 3e, for several reasons. That's another post. Oh, and incidentally, 4e has a very similar split, being Heroic, Paragon, and Epic in nature. "Epic" means something different in 4e than it does in 3e.)

It is also my view that a character becomes first level when they choose adventure. Until that point, they're just an NPC. Sure, there are higher level NPCs out there, but there's an undefinable something about a PC... and they don't get that until they step on the road to adventure.

So, then, back to the Fellowship...

Frodo doesn't really fit any of the existing D&D classes. He doesn't have magical abilities, he's no great warrior, he's no healer, or mystic, or... Probably the best fit for Frodo is a Bard - he serves as a leader for the Fellowship, it is his presence that inspires the others, and, frankly, Bards are rather crappy on all other fronts.

Sam is pretty much a Fighter. (He's a low-level Fighter, which is why he doesn't stack up against Boromir.) There's an argument for him having at least one level in Barbarian, what with two instances of rage (in Moria and Minas Morgul), but that's probably a stretch.

Merry I would probably assign as a Ranger and Pippin as a Rogue (even better would be the Scout and Scoundrel classes from SWSE...). Though any combination of Ranger, Rogue, and Scout classes might do well.

The four Hobbits are all low-level characters, except perhaps right at the end - during the Scouring of the Shire they might well have attained mid-levels. Perhaps most interesting, though, is the question of when they attain first level. In the films, Frodo hits this when he asks "what must I do?", Sam at the point where he declares "if I take one more step...", and Pippin and Merry when the latter says, "Buckleberry ferry - follow me." (The book is somewhat different in this regard, of course.)

The next four characters are introduced at the Council of Elrond (okay, Strider was introduced before then, but bear with me...).

Aragorn is quite clearly a human Ranger. This is at once essentially unarguable (he was the inspiration for the entire class), and also quite a poor fit (the class has become much more Drizzt over two editions). At the Council of Elrond he's 6th level, having just attained mid-levels. He's able to face off against the Nazgul... but only briefly and with surprise - had they bothered to regroup they would have destroyed him. By the end of the trilogy, he has attained 12th level, become king, and basically reached the level of his advancement.

Boromir, equally clearly, is a human Fighter. He's also 6th level at the time of the Council, being almost certainly able to fight Aragorn to a standstill. He's also the highest level character in the whole of Gondor - Faramir is 5th level at best.

Legolas is an Elven Ranger (Scout is probably a better choice). Once again, he's 6th level when we first see him in Rivendell. And Gimli is a Dwarven Fighter, again being 6th level. By the end of the trilogy, these two have also gained several levels, but remain mid-level characters.

Finally, there is Gandalf. He's always going to be a bit of a tricky character to assign, what with Tolkien making the Wizards something else. Therefore, I'm going to do what SWSE does with Yoda, and give him an unknown race - a bit of a cheat, perhaps, but so be it. Gandalf the Grey is 12th level at the time of the Council of Elrond - he's right on the cusp of high-level, but he hasn't been truly tested. And, of course, he's distinctly less powerful than Saruman. (Gandalf is also quite a poor fit as a D&D Wizard, what with his spell list, his using a sword, and so on. But never mind...)

When we see him again, Gandalf the White has attained 13th level, and become high level.

Of course, these divisions and assignments are almost entirely arbitrary. Post them on a message board and you'll quickly see people arguing this, that, and the next thing. (Probably the most controversial are the assignments of levels - in particular, lots of people will argue that Boromir and the rest must be higher level. But here's the thing - if Boromir is about 7th level at the time, that last fight in FotR makes a lot of sense in D&D terms. Move to a higher level, and you have to inflate everything else to go with it.)

It's also important to note that 3e doesn't draw any explicity division between 5th and 6th level, or between 12th and 13th. They're just a matter of gaining a couple of XP.

However, I do think that discussions of this sort help frame the game. They also help set expectations in play - the notion that a high-level Fighter can throw himself off a 100ft ledge safe in the knowledge that he'll survive the fall seems bizarre at first glance... but it's much less bizarre if that Fighter is explicitly superhuman.

I think doing so also helps frame the nature of the campaign, and this is something I've deliberately applied in "The Eberron Code". At low-level, the PCs spend their time dealing with local troubles of one sort or another, but they're always at the mercy of the much greater dangers that are out there. By mid-level, they're 'names' - people in the world have heard of them and know about them - and the nature of their adventures becomes much more quest-based. They are set some important task to achieve, and they proceed to go and do it. Once they've reached high-levels, they're amongst the mightiest beings in the world, and they face equally mighty threats... and that's still to come. Thus far, the structure is fitting together very well, with the party rapidly approaching the end of their mid-level adventures. Now, all I need to do is build an appropriately large-scale ending to the campaign as a whole.

How to Run a Maze (Warning: This May Kill Your Game)

So, you've got this maze in your game. You've mapped it out as a node-diagram (which must have been painful - a good maze will have lots of nodes, lots of connections, and very few encounters), and then turned that into a real map.

But there's a problem with mazes - if you use minis and a battlemat, they quickly become trivial. If you use descriptions, your players are rapidly going to get lost. So, how do you do it?

Well, much as I prefer the "mind's eye theatre" form of D&D, I think this is an area where you do need some sort of props. Specifically, you need to have a set of dungeon tiles, each showing a single segment of the dungeon. You don't actually need minis.

As the PCs proceed through the dungeon, start laying down the tiles as they go. That's rather obvious and barely worth mentioning. However, what you should also do is remove segments as soon as they drop out of line of sight. Further, every so often (and certainly every time there's a change in elevation), you should rotate the entire map through 90 degrees in a random direction - specifically to mess with your players' orientation on the board.

Oh yes, and one more thing - don't build your maze all on one level. A two-dimensional maze can generally be beaten with a simple brute-force approach - always go left before right, exhaust those paths, and then start working through the stack. But if you build your maze with plenty of loops this becomes harder. When you include two-dimensional constructions, preferably including two-dimensional loops, it becomes that much more difficult. (And if you include a teleporter as well, or a one-way transition, or...)

Of course, there's a real good chance that your players won't realise they're in a maze right at the outset. There's a good chance they'll go wandering for a while, possibly picking directions at random (or using the brute force approach), and then realise that they're lost. At which point they're likely to start mapping... when if you start mapping once you're already lost, you're already up against the wall. And that's when it really starts to mess with them...

There is a terrible danger to all of this, though, which is that as time ticks on the players are likely to get more and more frustrated. And the better the maze, the worse their frustration. Eventually, they may even start trying to dig their way through the walls...

Building a Better Adventure: Pretty Pictures

Okay, first things first: if you haven't yet watched this, you should. In addition to being rather interesting in its own right, it's rather fundamental to what I'm about to talk about.

In addition to being rather fascinating in its own right, the video highlights something rather damning: it points out rather clearly just why it is that almost every WotC (and, indeed, Paizo) published adventure is rubbish.

See, each of the nodes on the graph represents a point where something happens. In most cases, this is simply a choice (the hero comes to a crossroads, and can go N, S, E, or W). In some others, it's an encounter with monsters (and the hero either dies, or progresses to another 'success' node). And there are a few dead ends (some literally). The entire adventure can be mapped out as an interconnected sequence of nodes. And, of course, the Fighting Fantasy gamebooks invariably had 400 nodes.

Most published adventures have far, far fewer.

But it's worse even than that, because where the Warlock graph has several sections that are very thick in connections between nodes, most WotC adventures have far fewer connections. In fact, most nodes have exactly two connections - you come from the encounter before this one, and then you proceed on to the encounter following this one. There are very few paths through, and very few choices to make. I just hope the individual encounters are fun, because otherwise there's just nothing.

(And, yes, even the 'good' adventures turn out not to be very heavy in separate paths. Indeed, quite often they look like they have plenty of choices... until you dig in and find that your choice isn't A, or B, or C, but rather which to do first. Basically, you're given three segments of straight track, that when put together are just the right length, and are allowed to build your own railroad.)

It's probably worth noting that some of this sparsity is mitigated by the presence of a human DM and by the open-ended nature of the game. It's entirely possible that the PCs will forge their own links, visit other locales, or otherwise expand the adventure graph. Still, that only goes so far - and when your adventure is just a chain, it's really not a good sign.

Of course, I've talked about this at some length before. However, today I'm hoping to actually dig into ways to make things a bit better.

So, you're designing an adventure...

In that case, the first thing to do is to get yourself a big, blank piece of paper. (A software equivalent is of course an option, provided you find it easy to draw and erase in that medium. Myself, I was rather glad last night when I discovered a sketchpad that I'd forgotten I had.)

And now, you're going to draw out your adventure in node form.

So, start with a node representing the PCs in a 'rest' state. Basically, this is them down the pub, when suddenly the mysterious stranger approaches them with an Heroic Quest (TM) for them to complete!!!

You may well also want to put down a node representing the successful end of the adventure. Basically, this is the PCs back down the pub, but this time with a bundle of poor loot that they've managed to accrue. Huzzah!

And then, between the start and the finish, you want to lay down lots of intermediate nodes, and the junctions between them.

Now, at this stage I would be inclined to break the adventure down into subsections before proceeding, just to make it manageable. This works best if the adventure explicitly has discrete parts to it - the party have to cross the desert before they get to the dungeon, or whatever.

In this case, before drawing up any other nodes, I would insert these breakpoints, represented as pairs of nodes. One of these represents the 'end' of the first section, while the other represents the 'start' of the second section. And, crucially, these nodes serve as a bridge (or chokepoint) even in the adventure - the only way to get from the desert to the dungeon is via that connection.

Once the subsections are defined (or not, if you're not using them), just throw down an appropriate number of nodes between the various fixed points. The number of nodes to use will depend on just how intricate you want your adventure to be. Beyond that, it's difficult to say. Not all nodes are created equal, so there's no good rule for how many you need to prepare. (My guess would be anywhere between 20 and 40 nodes per experience level that you want to cover would make for a good rule of thumb. Oh, and incidentally, those level-up points make ideal places to put your 'bridge' nodes.)

Be aware that each node is a marker that there's something noteworthy there, while the connections between nodes are "nothing to see here". So if your dungeon has a corridor between two rooms, and there's a trap in the corridor, then the trap itself constitutes a node. But I'll get back to that.

Anyway, having thrown down a bunch of nodes, start drawing connections between them, represented as simple, straight lines between the two points. (Gosh, bet you hadn't thought of that!)

Some things to bear in mind when placing nodes:

• Every node should be connected to at least one other. If not, this indicates that it can't be reached... and what's the point in that?
• Most nodes should be connected to three or four other nodes. A single connection indicates that the node is a dead-end, which isn't awful but should be used sparingly (since your options are "go back" or "wait a while and then choose again"). Two connections likewise doesn't actually give much choice - you deal with the encounter and then move on. Two connections is better than one... but too many two-connections most likely means a railroad is being formed. More than four connections likely means the map is too complex. That doesn't mean don't have them, but use them sparingly.
• More connections will make for a more complex adventure, certainly in terms of preparation. It may or may not make for a better play experience - my expectation is that the quality of the experience will increase with the number of connections... to a point, after which it makes little difference.
• At this point, we haven't even started to consider what the nodes represent. I'll come back to that...
• In general, connections between nodes should be two-way. After all, you can always go back. But for added fun, there's no reason you can't have one-way links. Indeed, Gygax himself was allegedly quite fond of the 'chute' that took hapless characters deeper into the dungeon, with no obvious way back to safety!
• Remember that a secret door is still a connection between nodes! You may or may not want to mark it as being secret on your node diagram.
• Try not to build symmetry into your network. It looks pretty, but can actually make for a rather dull adventure.

So, you draw up this great network of nodes. And it's good - now you know how the PCs are going to make their way through your adventure.

They key now is to translate your web into something you can actually use, by hanging some context onto the thing. So you need to decide what each node means, what the connections mean, and basically lick it into shape.

Now, the most obvious interpretation of your map of nodes is as a map of the adventure locations. Those 20 nodes that represent the desert trek are just locations in the desert - the scorpion-man camp, the oasis, the temple of Arach-naga, and so on. Or they're rooms in your dungeon (barring the occasional node that is actually a trap in a corridor!).

However, there's no reason it has to be like that. See, as mentioned above, a node is just a marker that there's something noteworthy going on.

So, this method applies equally to an investigation as it does to a dungeon. If I'm tracking down a murderer, I can choose to go investigate the crime-scene, or I can interview the surviving witness, or I can hit up my contacts for information... that's three nodes right there.

(But one word of warning about this: urban adventures can be very open-ended, with a multitude of connections and locations. I recommend therefore only showing those nodes that are actually relevant to the adventure at hand. With regard to the connections, it's worth considering having a master 'decision' node or two, connected to lots of sub-nodes. This is where a pencil and eraser comes in very handy! Everything else remains a valid choice for the PCs... but those are essentially 'virtual' dead-end nodes that you can improvise in play.)

Now, the key question that you might be asking at this point is: why draw up the network of nodes before considering the context of the adventure? Isn't that backwards?

Well, yes it is. But there's a key advantage to defining the network first: reuse. Drawing up a map of several hundred nodes is a lot of work, and it's likely that much of the network will never be seen by players. However, that doesn't mean the work is wasted. The node-diagram for the Dwarven Kingdom can just be repurposed as the Evil Lair. And, what's more, this can be done even if the PC's did explore the Dwarven Kingdom, provided the actual maps of the two locations weren't just round rooms connected with straight lines!

(What would be even better would be an adventure-builder tool to automate the process. Which works a charm with node diagrams, but might not be so good with 'real' maps.)

Some Other Notations

Once the shell of the node diagram is done, you may want to consider adding some annotations. I recommend marking both the start and end nodes in distinct colours, so you can find them easily, and where there are bridges between segments it's also worth marking the connection between the two distinctly.

However, I would also recommend marking the threats in the adventure. Here, I recommend three distinct markings:

1. Normal encounters. Whether it's an out-and-out fight against level-appropriate (or close to it) opponents, or a trap that does some damage, or whatever, this is just a challenge for the party, but not an ultra-lethal one. I recommend marking these in red.
2. Overwhelming encounters. These are the same as above, except that much more extreme. This represents a fight against a much higher-level opponent (such as the infamous Roper in "Forge of Fury"), or a save-or-die trap, or whatever. In general, these should represent no more than about 5% of the total number of encounters. Additionally, they should never (or almost never) appear on any required path in the adventure - the PCs should haver an option to go around, or the monster should guard a hidden treasure vault, or whatever. The key exception to this is for the BBEG of the adventure, who can of course be an overwhelming challenge and be a required encounter. Eventually, you have to face Vader again. I recommend marking these nodes in black.
3. Outright death. These are really controversial nodes, and liable to start a fight if used incorrectly, but I believe that they are fair game. This is the node that, if entered, kills a character. It's the dimensional prison with no exit, or the sphere of annihilation you walk into. Obviously, a node like this has to appear at a dead-end in the node diagram, since you can't proceed from this point (although, in theory, you could have multiple entrances...). These nodes must be avoidable. Furthermore, you need to make sure you put adequate warning about the outright death somewhere else in the adventure, so the PCs have the opportunity not to blunder in. Finally, these nodes are a subset of the 5% recommended for "overwhelming encounters" - you might even have only one or two such nodes in the entire campaign. I recommend marking these nodes in some suitably bold and obvious manner.

There's obviously a fair amount of work in drawing out a node diagram, and a lot more work in then turning that into a 'real' adventure. However, I suspect there's considerably less work in doing it that way than in trying to build the same adventure while starting with the map. And I also suspect that this will lead to a more satisfying adventure than simply throwing together a chain of encounters... especially if those encounters are equally good in both cases.

But I might be wrong, of course!

Fixing Turn Undead

After Grapple, Turn Undead is probably the worst part of the 3.5e combat rules (and slightly ahead of all those combat maneuvers). It has several problems:

- It is an iconic, but little used, ability of one of the key classes in the game. This means that it comes up enough to be annoying, but not enough to warrant actually memorising the complex rules.

- It works slightly differently from anything else in the game.

- The mechanics require a table lookup. In fact, they are just about the only core rule that requires a table. This means that even if you did memorise the rule, you almost certainly still have to look it up every time.

The Way it Works

Turn Undead works like this: the Cleric can use the power a number of times per day equal to 3 plus his Cha mod (minimum 1). It is a standard action to turn undead (and lasts 10 rounds).

When the Cleric Turns Undead, he makes a turning check (d20 + Cha mod). He then looks his result up on a table to see the maximum "hit dice" affected.

He then rolls turning damage, which is 2d6 + Clr lv + Cha mod. This is the number of "hit dice" that are affected.

Then, you start counting creatures, starting with the closest (but ignoring any with total concealment, or if line of effect is blocked). You keep counting until you run out of turning damage, or there are no more undead within 60 ft. (If at any point the 'next nearest' undead has more "hit dice" than the remaining turn damage, those remaining dice are wasted; they aren't enough to affect the creature, and they don't carry over to a new creature.) Oh, one more thing - if two undead creatures are equally close to the Cleric, turn undead affects the weaker of the two first.

Normally, creatures affected flee from the character for 10 rounds. If unable to flee, they cower instead. You can act normally, but if you move within 10 feet of them, the turn effect ends.

However, if you have more than twice as many cleric levels as the creature has "hit dice", you destroy the creature instead.

All of these various elements - the uses per day, the turn check, and the turn damage - can be improved using appropriate feats.

One more thing: the reason I have put "hit dice" in quote marks above is that many undead creatures have Turn Resistance. This increases their effective hit dice vs Turn Undead. So, if a vampire has 9 hit dice but TR +4, it is considered to have 13 hit dice when the Cleric tries to turn it.

A Better Solution

The real solution to Turn Undead is actually to just make it a spell. Clerics already have a bunch of these, so adding one more shouldn't be a problem. Additionally, this eliminates the issue of why a Cleric of the god of hats gets the Turn Undead power the same as anyone else. Finally, it allows the complex rules to be shunted away into a spell description, which is really the most appropriate place anyway.

Unfortunately, that's not going to happen. In the first playtest packet, the designers for 5e actually did make Turn Undead a spell... and there was a rebellion. Apparently, people didn't like this change to this most 'iconic' of Cleric abilities. Odd.

(Besides, I'm actually talking in the context of 3.5e here. And moving it to a spell is somewhat problematic in that edition for a couple of reasons. Basically, it either means the Cleric gets more spells, boosting what is already the second most powerful class in the game, or it doesn't. Either way, Turn Undead is highly unlikely to be the spell selected, and so disappears from the game.)

Here's my alternate solution...

Clerics can Turn Undead once per encounter. It's a standard action, lasts 10 rounds, and affects undead within 60ft (ignoring those with total concealment, etc etc...). The closest undead are affected first. (The Extra Turning feats increases this to twice per encounter.)

The turning check is d20 + Clr level + Cha mod (basically, it works much like a skill, or indeed like the Druid's Wild Empathy ability). This check is made against 10 + hit dice + Turn Resistance. (A single roll is made, and applied to each target in turn...) (The Improve Turning feat gives a +1 bonus here.)

Turning damage starts at 1d6 at first level, and increases by 1d6 at every odd level (as for Rogue sneak attack). The Cleric's Cha mod applies.

When turning, the Cleric can choose whether to drive undead away or to destroy them. (He should decide before making the check.) If he elects to drive them away, the turning damage is the number of hit dice affected. Affected undead must move away from the Cleric so they're outside of the 60ft area, and cannot re-enter until the effect ends. (If they cannot move away, they cower as normal. Also as before, if the Cleric approaches within 10 ft, the effect ends.)

If the Cleric instead attempts to destroy the undead, the turning damage is measured in hit points. This applies to all affected undead. (The Greater Turning power of the Sun Domain would do double damage.)

(This, of course, then opens up some scope for additional Cleric turning abilities. Perhaps there could be a 'weaken undead' option, or an option to make them vulnerable to critical hits (good for Rogues!), or something...)

Anyway, as far as I can see, this has several improvements:

- It reuses the skill rules, which are already well-known.

- It eliminates the need for a table lookup.

- It improves with level more than is currently the case. This means that a Cleric has less incentive to adopt a Prestige Class, because he's then giving up more to do so. (At present, most Clerics will automatically seek a PrC that gives "+1 spellcasting level" at every level, and give up almost nothing for the priviledge.)

- I think it's simpler and easier to remember.

- It opens up another 'design space' for the designers to proceed to fill up, thus over-complicating the game. Actually, come to think of it, I'm not sure that's a benefit!

Any thoughts?

Eberron 4e

Over the last several days, I've been reading through the 4e "Eberron Player's Guide", which has been an interesting experience. I'm a big fan of the Eberron setting, but less so of some of the rules elements that it has introduced to the 3e ruleset. Further, I had seen comments to the effect that Eberron worked a lot better under the 4e rules.

My impressions of the 4e book have been mixed. I like that they've presented a lot of material in a fairly concise manner, including material that was first introduced in the supplements to the original campaign setting. I like that they've managed to insert the new 4e races (Dragonborn, Tieflings, Eladrin) into the world without it feeling artificial or that they've shoehorned them in. And I especially like that they resisted the temptation to either reboot the world (Dark Sun), advance the timeline (as they originally planned), or hit it with a major shake-up (Forgotten Realms). Of course, commercially this seems not to have worked out for them, but in terms of putting out a good product I would argue that it was the right way forward. (In fairness, their decision to reboot Dark Sun was also the right decision - different considerations gave rise to a different correct answer.)

However, the big problem with the book is that I fundamentally don't like 4e all that much, and this book does nothing to shake that. That's probably not all that surprising, but whenever it goes into the rules for the Artificer, or talks about the power structure, or... it just does nothing for me. It's quite certain that I won't be switching further campaigns to 4e in light of this book!

However, the assertion that Eberron works better under 4e than 3e... is wrong. Simple as that.

See, the biggest problem I've been facing with my Eberron campaign, which was a small issue at the start but is becoming increasingly difficult, is the length of combat. A low-level 3e combat can take 30 minutes or more, with a higher-level combat hitting an hour or more quite easily. And that despite the mastery that we have over the system.

In an environment like that, it can be quite difficult to engage in proper storytelling. With a single 3-hour session every 2 weeks, it really gets to be a bit of a slog very quickly. Every encounter has to count, and anything that's not combat needs to be very lean... and even then it's a struggle. Given that the campaign story is also quite complex, and the group spend significant amounts of time batting around ideas and putting things together, it becomesquite tricky. (And make no mistake - I want the group to spend time going through the issues. But that means that combat can be a problem.)

With 4e, combat takes longer. Even low-level combats seem to take about an hour to play through, while the only higher-level combat I ran (and the one that finally convinced me the game just wasn't for me) lasted 2.5 hours. Again, with a single 3-hour session every two weeks, I simply can't tell the stories I want under those parameters.

(The length of combat in 4e is a deliberate design choice, and I'm not actually saying it's a bad choice. Just that it doesn't work for me, for the reason above.)

If Eberron is supposed to be about fast-moving pulp action, then a system where every combat is an hour-long grind is really not the best fit. 4e really is no better a fit for this setting than 3e was.

Of course, that said, there is a system that really should be a much better fit. One that was designed specifically for pulp action/adventure. A game that is fast! furious! fun!

Yes, the better system for playing in Eberron is actually something like "Savage Worlds". I'm not sure that's too much of a surprise, really.

The iPad

For a long time, I have resisted the use of electronic devices at the game table. Both because I live my professional life surrounded by electronics and so don't really want them encroaching on my hobbies as well, and also because I like books - that is, real honest-to-goodness books with real pages. Therefore, beyond a bit of background music (and the occasional 'crawl' for Star Wars), I've avoided using such things.

In particular, I've consider the laptop to be a big no-no at the table. Indeed, one of very few things I've found objectionable in our current group occurred in one of Brindy's early 4e games, where not only the DM made use of a laptop, but so did at least two of the five players.

Now, I should hasten to note that I had absolutely no issue with the DM using a laptop. That's really not much different from him using a DM's screen, and while I prefer not to do so, that's very much a personal choice and not one I would seek to impose on others - it's not even something I necessarily recommend to others.

But the players using laptops was problematic, because it significantly changed the dynamic around the table. Suddenly, instead of a congenial free-for-all, most of the players were hunched behind their individual walls, suspiciously peering at one another. It was surprising how much difference it made, and not for the better.

As it happened, the "three laptops" thing happened exactly once. That being the case, I'm rather glad I didn't make an issue of it. However...

Over the last couple of years of "The Eberron Code", I've noted that at least one player (possibly two, or even three) have been making extensive use of either an iPhone or, less often, an iPad at the game. This has typically been to look up spell descriptions, and sometimes rules material, from the SRD (an online reference of the core of the game).

And the key thing to note about this is that it has not had the same effect on the dynamic around the table. Because these devices take up less space than a full-blown laptop and, crucially, because they lie flat while not in use, they have served solely as a convenient way to access lots of data quite quickly. They don't raise physical walls between the players, and so they don't raise metaphorical walls either.

And they have proven to be very convenient. At the moment, it is still marginally quicker for me to look up spells in the PHB than others using the iPhone, but it's a very close-run thing. And it's dependent both on my knowing the layout of the books very well, and also on us using relatively few books. If we were playing an "anything goes" campaign (and if the SRD were complete), then it would be a completely different matter, with technology winning handsomely. There are upwards of 50 3.5e books and they tend to be poorly organised and indexed (if they're indexed at all). I simply couldn't hope to find things faster by hand.

But I've mentioned one of the key elements there: the SRD has to be complete, and it just isn't. This is mostly because it was never actually intended as a reference for gamers while running the game; the purpose of the SRD was actually for third-party publishers doing their own supplements for the game. That being the case, most of the 3.5e material (including all of the setting-specific material) hasn't been opened. Most of it has never been legally available online, and those parts that were were made available as PDFs of the books themselves. (And, of course, the illegal versions exist as PDFs of the books.) There is no complete database containing everything in an indexed and easily searchable manner - and if there were, WotC would promptly stomp on it.

When it comes to viewing PDFs, especially PDFs of gamebooks, the iPad is pretty much an ideal size. The iPhone screen is really too small, and even an ebook reader like the Kindle has a smaller screen than suits the larger format of RPG books. Even so, PDFs don't really help you much over the physical versions - you still have to track down the right book, quite often they can't be searched, and they tend to be graphics-heavy. Basically, what the iPad gets you is a reduction in back strain (which isn't to be sniffed at, but we can do better).

Nonetheless, I'm convinced that the iPhone and, especially, the iPad are game-changers for the RPG industry. And, ironically, although it appears that their DDI initiative failed rather badly, I think WotC actually hit on the right structure. (Sadly, they hit on it five years too early, before the technology to make it really work was widespread.)

Basically, what I think is wanted is a game with relatively few, and relatively simple, core rules. Around these, you then build huge amounts of 'bits' - powers, spells, magic items, monsters, etc... And you want to structure each individual bit so that it can be displayed comfortably on an iPhone screen.

What you then do is publish a single, deluxe "Starter Set", containing the core rulebook of the game plus the usual starter components - pregen characters, dice, adventures, etc. You probably want to sell the core rulebook separately (though I would recommend this be the same core rulebook).

However, your main vector for releasing the game would be online, via a subscription-based service. Here, users who are logged in gain access to an ever-expanding database of all the accumulated 'bits' - all the monsters, spells, etc.

(For the holdouts, you would also want to publish the material in physical form, at least at first. However, I would advise turning the historical release schedule on it's head - do the electronic release first, perform whatever playtesting is required, patch using errata, and then reprint the material in hardcopy form. And, because you expect print runs to be quite small, sell it at a premium as well.)

Oh, and of course, everything that can be released in ebook format should be released in ebook format. Which, quite possibly, means changing the size of RPG books down to something more suitable for use on the Kindle.

(Of course, once you've got people using iPhones and iPads as a matter of course, there's much more you can do than simply offering a Compendium of the 'bits'. That's where you get things like online character sheets and/or character management apps. But then, that's not terribly new - I think the site that did this already was/is called iplay4e or somesuch. Amusingly, the use of such apps would make 3e a vastly better game.)

It will be interesting to see if, and how, the Disney/Lucasfilm thing affects the FFG license for the Star Wars RPG. However, as things stood previously, FFG did not have the ability to publish PDFs of their games, nor to do any sort of supporting software. The way things are now, I suspect that kills their game dead.

The Best Scene in the Prequels?

Although it is by far my least favourite of the three prequels, and largely without redeeming features, "Attack of the Clones" does include what is probably my favourite single scene in the trilogy. I refer specifically to the scene between the captured Obi-Wan and Count Dracula, wherein the latter attempts to persuade the former to join him.

In addition to being one of the few pieces of actual good acting and dialogue in the trilogy (with other examples being Qui-Gon and Shmi Skywalker in TPM, and Anakin and Palpatine at the opera in RotS), during the course of this scene Dooku actually lays out pretty much the entirety of the villains' evil master-plan for Obi-Wan. He even goes so far as to tell Obi-Wan that there is a Sith Lord in control of the Republic, and gives him the name (Sidious). That's about as close as you can get as to put up a big sign saying "Palpatine is a Sith Lord!!!".

Of course, he does this safe in the knowledge that he won't be believed. Almost everything he says is true, and yet it serves to throw the Jedi even further off the path than they otherwise would be. (Of course, I have major issues with the Jedi being incredibly stupid in the prequels, but that's another rant. One mostly unrelated to the scene in question.) In effect, he lies to him using the truth.

Now, there's a reason that this is here, rather than on my other blog, and it is this: betrayal has been quite high in my thoughts of late. Partly, this is because of an article over on the Wizards of the Coast website a couple of weeks ago. (Incidentally, that's part of a very good series, and one I highly recommend. I don't agree with everything the author says, but there's a lot of good stuff there.) And partly it's because of a long-expected betrayal in my ongoing campaign.

In my opinion, for a betrayal to be effective, and especially for it to be effective without totally outraging the players, it has to achieve two things: firstly, it has to be in some sense unexpected; secondly, when looked at in retrospect, it's important that it was obvious that it was coming. After all, if the guy you didn't trust anyway betrays you, well, that's just obvious. Of course he was going to betray you; it was just a matter of when (and how)! Conversely, if the guy who has been your staunch friend and ally throughout suddenly turns his coat, players might rightly call foul.

That is, of course, a very fine line to walk.

The thing is, the DM holds all the cards. And, in fact, the DM can create new cards at will - if you need to pull 5 aces out of a pack, you can do so. So 'beating' the players really isn't a challenge. All I need to do is have a great wyrm dragon appear and use its dragon breath for 300 damage (DC 50 Ref for half). And with a mystery, it's the same - it would be very easy to think through the scenario like a master villain, look at the PC capabilities, and progressively close off all the clues.

But there's no challenge in that. It's far more satisfying watching the PCs (and the players) work through the struggles and then 'win'. Ultimately, you want the PCs to succeed most of the time. And one of the most enjoyable parts of the Eberron Code campaign has been watching the players gradually unravelling the mysteries, so that they now know most of what's going on.

(Indeed, an old DM of mine used to assert that for a mystery game the DM should only write half the plot. For the rest, he should wait until the players start batting around ideas, and whatever they come up with should be the ultimate answer. I don't agree with that approach - it certainly gives the players the joy of being 'right', but one of the great joys of the current campaign has been seeing them get it 'right' (mostly) without help. They've seen the clues, they've gradually put them together. Basically, they're involved in the game. Good times.)

The last session went so quickly that the players didn't really have time to think about what's been happening recently. And that was intentional - significant chunks of the session were specifically intended as a distraction to keep the players focused on what's happening over here while other things happen over there. But it will be interesting to see how the next session goes...

Everyone Else (and also, Why Prestige Classes Don't Make Sense)

When designing a roleplaying game, it's quite important to consider the calibration of the game. Otherwise, you get results like characters routinely solving problems well beyond the bounds of known science, or great heroes being slain by a lucky strike from some random punk, or (worse) both at the same time.

Of course, neither of these is actually inherently bad. If your heroes are the Avengers, and your character is Tony Stark, it is entirely sensible that he's constantly pushing back the frontiers of science. Conversely, if you're playing a gritty war drama (or Warhammer), it's entirely consistent that life should be cheap - being that "great hero" is simply a matter of having the luck not to have died so far. But the key thing is to calibrate the game so that when these things happen, it is because they are meant to happen.

In D&D 3e, the original designers did a decent job of calibrating the game... but not actually in the way that they envisaged. See, they seem to have taken the view that the early levels were some sort of apprenticeship, that the mid levels represent the point where the character is a known hero (the equivalent of a skilled tradesman, perhaps), and that even at the high levels characters were fundamentally human in scope - they didn't become truly superhuman until epic levels.

The reality is quite different. In 3e, even 1st level characters are strictly superhuman in some regards, and they pretty quickly accelerate out of sight. By the time they're mid-level, they're quite clearly superhuman, to the point where pretending otherwise really gets quite silly. High levels are yet another step above, and epic... well, by the time you get to epic levels the maths of the game has broken down to a point where it's barely worth considering.

Basically, low-level (1-5) play has the heroes as "The Three Musketeers" - the characters are clearly a cut above the man on the street, but not spectacularly so. They can still be challenged by mundane threats, they can't (quite) laugh at a crossbow pointed at them.

Mid-level (6-12ish) play casts the characters as the Knights of the Round Table, Han Solo, Batman, Aragorn, or many similar characters. These characters are legends, and are clearly superhuman... but still recognisable. These are the guys who see a band of orcs rushing towards them and proceed to draw their swords and get stuck in. But to really challenge them, they really need larger-than-life foes. Batman can take on any number of thugs, but he is challenged by the Joker. Aragorn, as mentioned, takes on a legion or Uruk-hai singlehandedly, but struggles with an armoured troll. Han Solo, of course, meets his match in Boba Fett ("Return of the Jedi" notwithstanding!). And so on.

High level play, then, is "Clash of the Titans", "300", or the Iliad. The characters are the most epic of the epic - they're Leonidas, Achillies, and the like. Chances are, they're directly descended from the gods themselves, and indeed they may well fight against the gods and at least hold their own.

Which brings us to NPC classes.

See, in addition to the regular PC classes, 3e also introduced 5 classes for NPCs: the Commoner, the Adept, the Aristocrat, the Expert, and the Warrior (later joined by the Magewright in Eberron). The notion here was that if the DM ever needed stats for one of the great unwashed, he could quickly roll those up. And, I think, the notion was that the King would be a high-level aristocrat, perhaps even as high as 20th level. After all, in 3e, NPC wealth was tied to their level, and kings are of course fabulously wealthy.

The problem with that is that 20th level characters, of any class, are clearly superhuman. If the king is 20th level, even a 20th level NPC, then suddenly there's little reason for the PCs to be called on to adventure - if a threat to the kingdom is truly that bad then the 20th level monarch would need to just go and deal with it.

(And, incidentally, 3e did indeed assume that such high-level NPCs did exist, and were even quite common. There are demographic tables in the DMG for designing cities, and very large settlements could indeed throw up multiple 20th level NPCs.)

Fortunately, there's a fairly simple (two-part) fix for this oddity:

Firstly, of course, the DM shouldn't feel the need to stat up every single NPC. The effort involved in absurd anyway, so not really worth bothering with. This should only be done if it's necessary or beneficial to the game. (Which is just good sense anyway. Those NPC classes can, at times, be very useful, but they're like flavourings used in cooking - best used sparingly.)

Secondly, the DM should simple recalibrate. With a very small number of exceptions, no NPC should be assigned anything above 5th level in even an NPC class (and PC classes should be even rarer). The overwhelming majority of people should be 1st level. (Those low, but above 1st, levels aren't terribly hard to justify. It's not hard to envisage Cleig Lars as being a 3rd or 5th level farmer, what with his living in proximity to Sand People. It's not hard to see a master smith, having spent decades at the forge, as having several levels in Expert.)

And there can be exceptions, of course. It's not unreasonable to have a high-level Expert hidden away somewhere in your campaign - just make him appropriately rare, well-known, and potentially legendary in his own right. Basically, he's Hatori Hanzo.

(Incidentally, if the king and all his retinue are 5th level or lower and the PCs are 10th level or higher, one might well ask "what stops the PCs from just killing the king and taking over the kingdom?" And the answer is: nothing. There is absolutely no reason that the PCs shouldn't do that, if that is truly what they want. Of course, they might then find the demands of running a kingdom get in the way of their ongoing adventures, or they might find that doing so throws up a whole load of new challenges/adventures for them. But that's not really a terribly bad thing, is it?)

--

There is an unfortunate corollary to this fix, and it highlights the second part of my title: Prestige Classes don't make sense.

See, as written, Prestige Classes were intended as a world-building tool - they're organisations for elite characters to join after they have completed their apprenticeships.

However, if mid-level characters are already clearly superhuman, they must necessarily be very rare or your setting is quickly cease to be recognisable. But if such characters are rare, then organisations that you can't join until you've reached that point become even rarer.

Now, that doesn't mean they shouldn't exist - as I indicated above, the Knights of the Round Table make for a decent model for mid-level characters, while Leonidas' 300 represent a possible high-level group. But it does mean that the setting can't really accomodate more than maybe half a dozen such organisations (in total), and that such organisations would have to be necessarily broad - with so few mid-level characters who could join, the few organisations would need to be willing to accept almost any character of the requisite level.

3.5e has several hundred Prestige Classes, and it is generally expected that a PC should be able to adopt pretty much any PrC that he wants, provided he meets the entry requirements. Indeed, a single PC could adopt multiple prestige classes over the course of the campaign, if that is what he desires.

As I said, that doesn't make sense. Either the DM needs to build his world with hundreds of mid-level organisations all in place (and vying for a ridiculously small talent pool), or he needs to leave large swathes of his campaign undefined so that he can drop in whatever organisations he requires. Which defeats the purpose of these classes as world-building tools.

Oops.

My preferred way of dealing with this is dead simple: I just don't use Prestige Classes. Problem solved. However, if you do want to use them, my suggestion is simply to divorce them from the "in-setting organisation" part of the equation, and make a Prestige Class just another class that a PC who qualifies can take. Meanwhile, simply add whatever organisations you want to your game, but don't tie membership of these to being even mid-level (in most cases). So even a 1st (ish) level character gets to join "The King's Musketeers", without the need of a Prestige Class to model that affiliation.

About Dice

Ah dice. Bane of my existence, but the game wouldn't work without them. Indeed, they're one of few truly irreplaceable bits of gaming kit - using cards as an alternative just doesn't have the same style, even electronic rollers fall short, and diceless roleplaying is obviously wrong and unacceptable to all right-thinking people (joke).

(Incidentally, this week has also seen a very odd metaphysical event. Two dice fell off the table during the game and have simply disappeared. They aren't hiding in my living room, because there just isn't anywhere I haven't checked, but nobody picked them up. They seem to have simply ascended to a higher state of existence.)

But I'm in a bit of a ranty mood, so here are two oddly-specific nitpicks...

Firstly, why doesn't everyone use colour-coded dice? And, for that matter, why do dice manufacturers persist in producing matching sets of dice, when the converse is much easier to use?

It really shouldn't bother me as much as it actually does. I know that. But it does, so here goes.

In theory, picking out the right die should be easy. They're different shapes and different sizes, after all. Want a d8? Pick the one with eight sides! It couldn't be simpler, surely?

And yet, in practice it's just not that simple. Simply put, the shapes aren't as immediately distinguishable as might be hoped. And, in particular, the d8 and the d10 are really quite easy to confuse. (Oddly, many people also seem to have problems with d12s and d20s, which are more distinct.) Almost every session, someone seems to either roll the wrong die or, more commonly, spend time searching out the right die amongst a pile of similarly-shaped lumps of plastic.

There's an easy fix, of course, as I've already said: colour-coded dice. If all your d8s are blue and all your d10s are green, you're not going to mix those up easily (unless you're colour-blind, of course!).

(That said, there's another useful scheme that can be applied using colours. If your character has two attacks, you could instead have two different-colour d20s each matched with a d8 of the same colour. Then, declare the order in which the pairs are to be counted ("the reds are my first attack; the blacks are my second attack"). And then, when your turn comes, you can just roll all four dice together. Use each d20 with the appropriate modifier to see if that attack hit, and if it did you already have the damage rolled. Instead of having to make four individual rolls, you're down to one... a saving of several seconds.)

The second rant is also connected to dice colours: what's with the hard to read dice?

The classic form of this is the green speckled dice with red numbers. Due to the nature of the human eye, this particular combination is oddly difficult to pick out. However, the combination I've been seeing most often (with apologies to one of my players) is a dark blue die with black numbering.

It's rather bizarre. After every roll, the player has to bend forward and squint at the die to make out the numbers, which is both time consuming and error prone.

(I could understand it if this was all an attempt to cheat, by producing numbers that just weren't there. But I'm very confident that that's not the case here. I guess it's just a matter of the player being particularly attached to his 'lucky' die. I suppose that's fair enough.)

On a slightly different topic...

I have a bag of dice that I use for D&D. This contains the following dice:

• 9 d20s. This is a set that has evolved due to some horrific rolling in the past. The bag originally included 3 that had a split red/black colouration. However, because those dice hate me, I added my previous 'good' dice, which were two blue and one white d20. And because those dice hate me, I added the venerable d20s I got with my Basic and Expert Sets - one red, one blue, and one black.
• 2 d12s, purple.
• 4 d10s. These are in two pairs, one green and one black, with each pair consisting of a normal d10 and a 'tens' d10. This allows me to generate one or two percentile results very quickly, or roll up to 4d10 at a time.
• 5 d8s, yellow.
• 10 d6s. These are of mixed colours, but are all 'pipped' rather than numbered. Turns out that the 'pip' style of die actually predates our numbers, and I do like to be old-school. I don't have any 10 dice of the same colour here, but fortunately the d6 never gets mistaken for anything else.
• 5 d4s. These are all in the 'modern' style, with the numbers are to top of the caltrop rather than the bottom, because they're easier to read like that. Again, I wasn't able to get matching colours here, but the d4 never gets mistaken for anything else (except PAIN).

The reason for the particular numbers is as follows. There are three d20s because I roll more attacks than anything else, and it's good to have spares in case one gets dropped. (Of course, I now have three sets of three.) There are two d12s and sets of d% because these get rolled reasonably infrequently. The remaining sets are sized based on the maximum damage of particular effects - magic missile can do up to 5d4, fireball up to 10d6, and I forget what does 5d8.

Of course, these numbers are only really suited for use in 3e. Both newer and older editions, and other d20 games, use slightly different balances of dice... and yet I use the same bag for them all. I don't like to be totally consistent.

Review of a Game That Never Happened - Ghosts of Churchill

I've only ever done a tiny amount of superheroes roleplaying. Which is a little odd - on the face of it, something like the Avengers or the X-Men seems ideal for an RPG, what with the team dynamic. (It doesn't, however, make sense for these to exist concurrently in the same universe... but that's not an RPG issue.) However, the key issue with superhero seems to be one of scope. Because the range of powers that are possible is massive (indeed, limitless), the game must necessarily be very wide-ranging, which almost inherently means it's for campaign-play only... and very few people seem to like superheroes that much!

Anyway, about 18 months ago, I had this idea for a game, which became "The Ghosts of Churchill". The concept was that the game would take place in an alternate timeline in which the Nazis had won the Second not-quite-World War.

In the parallel timeline, rather than give his "fight them on the beaches" speech, Churchill had suffered a fatal heart attack. His successor had proceeded to sue for peace, with the net result that Germany had occupied the UK more or less without a fight. The US never entered the war, choosing instead to remain isolated. (I never did decide what happened on the Russian front.) What resistance to Nazi occupation was conducted by various cells of superheroes, covertly aided with funding and materiel from the US.

The adventure was to take place in an alternate 1960's, then, when that resistance had gradually been whittled down to a single superhero team, the Ghosts of Churchill. And, at the outset of the adventure they were making their way to the London docks to meet an agent from the US who was bringing some secret weapon to "change all our fates". The party were fated to arrive at the docks just in time to see their ally being arrested and driven away, and the chase was on!

Anyway, the game never happened.

The intention was that the PCs (being superheroes and all) would rescue their ally. His invention, it would turn out, was a device capable of opening a window 20 years into the past, allowing our heroes to step through and take action. Specifically, it would be revealed that Churchill had in fact been poisoned by his cabinet, out of fear that his speech would lead the UK to annihilation (better, they thought, that it be occupied and subjugated).

So, the PCs would have their opportunity to go through, prevent the assassination, and so 'fix' the timeline.

But...

Of course, that's all too simple. The key conceit of the game was that over the course of the session the various PCs would each learn their fate in the alternate reality - and that that fate wouldn't be pretty. One simply wouldn't exist, another (who prided himself on his morality) would be a monster without other monsters to fight, a third (who prided himself on his celebrity) would be a nobody, and so on...

And so comes the fundamental question: do you change the past, knowing that it will destroy you, or do you stick with things as-is and continue the good fight against impossible odds?

Of course, it might well not have worked. But I figured it would be interesting to at least try.

(Alas, the game just didn't attract sufficient interest. And it seems that the concept just didn't grab the attention - there's a little interest in superhero roleplay around these parts, but really not much... and not enough. So I'm cancelling this game rather than rescheduling (which is why I'm posting here!). This also means I'm removing "Mutants & Masterminds" from my list of games to run, as if there's no great interest in a one-shot then I can't see there being interest in a full campaign. Which is fine - I have three (maybe four) other games that I am keep to run in campaign mode, and that I'm confident of getting players for, and that really should be enough.)