Looking To A Future

Although I'm closing the door on my gaming career for now, I'm not locking it tightly - there may come a time at which I resume. I foresee a few possibilities:

Perhaps most likely is a one-shot game. It's not entirely impossible that this will take the form of me running a game (although I'd have to be asked, which again is unlikely). More likely, I think, is if I find myself invited to a game. That would be good.

In terms of campaign play, I'm done for any foreseeable length of time. There are two real possibilities there, I think, both of which are fairly distant: it's possible that one or both of Funsize or Surprise! may one day become interested in playing a game; it's also likely that in a few years time I'll naturally find myself with a bit more free time (or at least usable free time), such that I can maybe consider finding a new group. But both of those are sufficiently distant that I'm disinclined to give them any further consideration.

And that, essentially, is that.

THE END?

Spelljammer: Twelve Wyrm Crawl

I've been thinking about a theoretical "next campaign" for some time. I'm very much drawn to Spelljammer, but there's an issue with the Eberron/Spelljammer campaign I've been considering: the last two campaigns I have run have had the part lost and having to get home, and this would be a third. And since I ran "Storm King's Thunder", that isn't really an option either.

However, I think I've hit on a suitably silly premise for a short campaign in the silliest of all campaign settings: Twelve Wyrm Crawl.

The premise is that the characters are all friends who have been summoned to the "Deep Dragon Inn" by a mutual friend, who reveals to them that he is dying and that no magic can sae him. So he calls on them to accompany him on one last stupendous adventure: a pub crawl across the spheres through the twelve "Great Wyrm" pubs. And so, off they go!

The campaign from there is mostly a travelogue around the crystal spheres, with all the usual side-quests and other distractions that are likely to arise.

It's nonsense, of course. But given that most campaign premises are, truth be told, little more than a pretext anyway, it should work. And it certainly fits the setting!

Group Backgrounds

Although the PHB has detailed rules on how to create a character, it pays very little attention to the need to build a party. This would take the form of advice on selecting different and complementary character classes, making sure all required skill sets are covered, and so on. Additionally, though, there could possibly be the concept of a "group background", which talks about how the party came together, the ties that bind them, and so on.

And, of course, the Inspiration system (or my side-dishes) make that fairly straightforward: just define the group background as an additional trait, and when the party works together especially well to reflect that grant all relevant members Inspiration. (It might also be worth introducing a Group Inspiration pool, allowing the group to bank a few Inspirations that any PC can then draw upon as needed.)

Way back in the  mists of time Dragon magazine published an article entitled "Keeping the Party Going" (issue 177). This gave several examples that might be useful as a starting point, although I do tend to think brewing up the relevant trait on a per-campaign basis may be better. Anyway, the examples were as follows:

• The deocentric party - all the characters follow a common deity.
• The town party - all the characters come from the same town, which is now threatened.
• The familial party - the characters are all related.
• The mercenary party - the characters are mercenaries who have been hired to do a job.
• The guild party - the characters are all members of the same guild (whether thieves or otherwise).
• The quest party - for whatever reason, the characters have all sworn to complete a common quest.
• The clan party - like the familial party, but a wider group.
• The chance-meeting party - because why not risk your life with random strangers?

An example of the trait associated with the party might be "You are all sworn to quest to recover the Holy Grail. When you work together and successfully uncover a clue to its location, you each gain Inspiration."

Elves and Ælves

For various reasons, drow won't be appearing in any of my homebrew settings going forward. (Partly because the classical depiction of drow is genuinely one of the most problematic elements in D&D lore; and largely because they've been done to death.) Obviously, for those published campaign settings that feature them, they will still be available.

And before I proceed, by way of a quick summary, here's how things stand in the published settings I'm likely to use:

Forgotten Realms and Eberron: These settings feature drow in one form or another, so will continue to use them. (The same would apply to Greyhawk, though I'm highly unlikely ever to use it.)

Dragonlance: This setting has dark elves, but they're not drow. Instead, they're just elves that have been declared outcast.

Dark Sun: This setting's elves are radically different from the norm, and there are no drow or dark elves in the established lore.

Ravenloft: PCs who enter the realm from another setting may be drow. There won't be any native drow encountered, but may be some dark elves as below.

Spelljammer: As with Ravenloft, drow PCs will be permitted, but drow NPCs won't generally be encountered (except if visiting the Realms or Eberron). Some dark elves may be encountered, as below. (The same would apply to Planescape, though I'm highly unlikely ever to use it.)

Anyway...

Although I'm very much disenchented with drow, I very much like the concept of the dark elf - the dark mirror to the elven people. In particular, although the story of Terafa's elves indicates that those few that remain are all drawn from the ranks of the outcasts from the ancient wars, it does occur that there's a place for a dark mirror there too - those who started down the path towards darkness but then stepped away, and so were outcast from the Sirroth.

For that reason, I will be introducing the ælves (or älves). They will be the dark elves that I use in my homebrew settings, and also for Ravenloft and/or Spelljammer.

The story associated with the ælves is fairly standard: they're the dark cousins of the elves, who waged war on their kin in ages past. Or, alternately, if the elves were once creatures of faerie who stepped into the mortal world, the ælves are the unseelie cousins of their seelie kin.

In terms of depiction, there's nothing between elves and ælves - they're all humanoids slightly shorter than humans, lithe and graceful, with sharply pointed ears. Likewise, there's a full range of skin tones, but definitely without the association of alignment with tone! Finally, as discussed previously, almost all elven and ælven societies are matriarchal in nature.

With regard to game statistics, I'm inclined to allow players to choose any subrace they want, whether for their elves or ælves. I'm inclined to work up a couple of sets of stats for variant 'drow' - one keeping the spellcasting as-is but replacing the weapon proficiencies, representing a subset of ælves; and one that is very similar but grants different spells for the corresponding elven kin.

Of course, if ælves are just a dark mirror of elves, and statistically identical, there's an obvious question to ask: why bother? Why not just have elves, and go from there? The answer is... there's no good answer. Indeed, it may well just be that ælves are elves, and vice versa. Both of these kin would deny that, but...

The Sweet Spot Paradox

Most editions of the game have a very distinct "sweet-spot". This is the point where the PCs aren't too fragile, but they're also not loaded down with huge amounts of complexity. This is also the level range at which most of the best monsters are to be found, enabling the greatest range of adventures. For 1st and 2nd level, that tends to run from about 3rd level up to the low teens, while for 3e it tends to run from a little lower to the same sort of upper limit. For 5e it seems to start around 3rd level, but doesn't really get going until 5th. I'm yet to find the upper limit, as I've not yet run a campaign that has made it to double figures. (4e, as is so often the case, is something of an exception - it seems to run equally badly at all levels I've seen.)

However, it is also the case that characters are always at their most satisfying when run from 1st level. While starting at higher level does work, it never works as well as going through the apprenticeship.

This creates an unfortunate consequence: in order to enjoy the game at its best, you have to put in some early work first. Which is a shame.

(To its credit, 5e does make those first two levels really quick, which is good. It's just a shame that it slows down at 3rd and 4th level, when it is at 5th level that it really starts to shine. But there's an easy enough fix for that, I guess...)

5e Wands: Nice in Theory

One of the aspects of 5e that I really liked on my read-through was the handling of wands (and staves, and similar items), which I thought was a marked step up from their handling in 3e. In particular, I liked that wands had far fewer charges, I liked that they slowly recharged overnight, and I liked that they had a chance on crumbling away when the last charge was expended (but, crucially, that it wasn't guaranteed, thus encouraging PCs to take that risk with the last charge).

However, having played through a fairly long campaign now, I've found that I'm not so enamoured with the way wands are handled. My reasons for this are two-fold: firstly, the PCs have a bit too much certainty when it comes to tracking the number of charges; and the chance of the wand crumbling with the last charge just isn't high enough.

They're just that bit too generous and too controlled.

My inclination is the make the following four changes to all wands (and staves and similar items):

1. The user does not know how many charges they have.
   
2. Each time a wand is used, there is a 50% chance that one additional charge is expended. (Also, see below.)
   
3. If the last charge is expended, there is a 25% chance of the wand being destroyed.
   
4. The wand recharges 1d3 charges overnight.

In the event that there are not enough charges remaining to power the desired effect, whether due to the use of an extra charge or simply because there were fewer charges remaining than the user expected, nothing happens - the wand does not lose any charges, but no effect occurs. The effect of these changes should be still leave wands as a valuable treasure, and one that PCs are reasonably confident of using fairly regularly. However, they're less controlled than before, which should mean either that they will rely on other powers more often or they'll incur that chance of destruction more often. And, indeed, wands will probably become a treasure that is useful for a few levels but that then eventually drops out of the game - which is also no bad thing.

Of course, I haven't had a chance to test any of these changes in play as yet, and won't until my next campaign. So for now, consider them as random thoughts and little more than that.

Adherent of a Repeated Meme

One of the things that has become evident during my scan-and-shred exercise is that I repeat the same ideas and motifs a lot. Quite a bit of this seems to come from aping what I thought I saw in published campaigns, but it's fair to say that even back in the day those published settings weren't quite so repetitive. (Seriously, every one of the settings I've tackled has had a number of cities, each with exactly three taverns detailed - one that is a good haunt for adventurers, one that is of moderate quality, and one that is a dive. And that's only the most easily explained repeat...)

Of course, I was aware of that to a certain extent. I've always had particular ideas, characters, and symbols that I like to come back to again and again. And in some cases, that's no bad thing. As I've said before, my favourite one-time author (David Gemmell) basically retold the same story again and again - but it was a good story.

Still, what this highlights is that I would certainly benefit from more variety in my thinking. Though that might be tricky - even being aware of the internal biases, it's tricky to recognise them when applying them in practice, and it's also hard to train the brain to produce new ideas.

(On the other hand, the exercise has thrown up some ideas that I hadn't revisited in quite some time, and some of the other stuff has fired some interesting notions, some of which had never occurred to me before. It has certainly been an interesting and worthwhile process!)

Xanathar's Guide to Everything

Before I begin: Due to a cock up by Amazon, it looks like my copy of this book may have been free. I'm going to try not to let that influence my review, except for one comment in my conclusion below. Still, I felt I should provide the disclaimed right up front.

Anyway, onward...

If this book had come out 3-6 months after the 5e core rulebooks had been released, and had it been priced at $35, I would have given this book a solid 5 star review. As it is, however, this book is too little, too late, and way too expensive.

It's not that I consider the $50 price point excessive... provided they give good value for money for that. And the 256-page storyline books have mostly done that. Even "Volo's Guide", at 224 pages, was just about okay provided you got a decent discount from Amazon or similar (which sucks for the independent retailer, of course, but that's another rant).

But "Xanathar's Guide" costs the same $50, and further cuts the page count, down to 192 pages. To justify that, the contents have to be absolutely stellar - of a quality that hasn't been seen in RPG books since... I don't know - maybe since the very first edition of "Vampire: the Masquerade" changed the entire landscape?

The contents of "Xanathar's Guide" are... okay, I guess.

The book is broken down into three chapters and two appendices. The first chapter consists of character options, and is mostly made up of new subclasses for each of the twelve classes in the PHB. No new classes are presented here. The new subclasses are fine, with no stinkers that I could see. I was particularly impressed with the decision to make the Hexblade a Warlock subclass - I thought that was an inspired choice. Conversely, my reaction to the much-hyped Forge Cleric was "meh". I had read comments that suggested that this might patch the hole left by the Artificer, but frankly I didn't think it was anything more than 'okay'.

This chapter also has some additional feats, each tied to one of the races in the PHB. Those are okay. And there were some other bits an pieces about fleshing out a character's background, personality, or other details, which were fine.

The second chapter is filled with DM tools, which again range from the space-filling (we really need half a column on Cook's tools?) to the meh (knot tying!), to the really quite good actually (lots of random encounter tables, a new system on building encounters, and quite a lot of new ways to use downtime - including rules for both buying and crafting magic items). I also enjoyed the discussion on traps, except that I think they probably missed a trick here - the book notes that a simple trap mirrors a spell while complex trap mirrors a monster, while failing to note that that's probably exactly how these things should be presented (and we probably need a "Big Book of Traps" for exactly that reason).

The third, and shortest, chapter has some new spells. These are fine - I didn't feel any need for more spells, but there's no harm in them.

The first appendix is probably the single most useful part of the book, at least for my own, personal needs - it goes into quite a lot of detail about shared campaigns. But, more importantly, a whole of of the material here is easily adaptable for the sort of game where you can only play very rarely and want to skip away from a lot of the 'book-keeping' aspects of monitoring XP and assigning treasure. Good stuff.

And then the second appendix gives 18 pages of sample names.

Frankly, I'm baffled by this. Providing sample names is fine, I guess. But it's hardly the highest priority. And when the book has had its page count cut, and with the price point that marks it as a premium product, is this really the best material that WotC can find to fill it? After three years working on this fifth edition of the game, have they really produced so little useable material that they'll fill 10% of their new rules book with lists of names?

I find that a shocking decision.

So where does that leave "Xanathar's Guide"?

Ultimately, I cannot recommend this book. Yes, if you're desperate for new material, and especially for new subclasses, this book may fill that spot - and doubly so if only 'official' works will do. But other than that, and unless you can get a massive discount on the book, it's just not worth it - you'll get much better return on investment elsewhere.

Now... I said a while back that I was going to afford WotC and 5e "three last chances". Of these, the first was "Volo's Guide to Monsters", which was okay but no more than that. This would ordinarily have been the second, and likewise would have been a failure. However, as I noted at the outset, it appears that I've been given a free hit with this book. That being the case, I'm minded to allow WotC a do-over on this one - I'll give the rules supplement from next year a chance to redeem the failure of this one. (And the third last chance remains - if they do a suitable setting guide/adventure, I'll give that a go. I've also decided to expand the list of settings I'll try: in addition to Eberron and Dark Sun, add Spelljammer and "a new setting". That said, I'm very much doubtful that WotC will be formally supporting any more settings, so that may be a last chance they never test...)

Slaying a Sacred Cow: No Character Advancement?

One of the great innovations of D&D is the level system, and especially the way the game advances in nice, big steps. This is a huge boon to new players, in particular, because it provides an immediate and obvious motivation for playing - you adventure to level up.

Of course, it's all a bit circular, since the big advantage of levelling up is that you can then go on tougher adventures in order to level up again, in order to go on tougher adventures, in order...

(The same is true of treasure, as well - you get magic items to make your character better so you can face tougher challenges to get better magic items.)

However, in a great many of the stories the game is emulating, characters don't really advance in anything like this manner. Yes, Luke Skywalker goes through the Hero's Journey and is vastly more powerful at the end of RotJ than at the start of SW (none of this "A New Hope" nonsense for me!). But the same isn't true of Han, Leia, Chewie, Wedge, or the others. Likewise, in "The Matrix", Neo gets advanced training to go from newbie to The One, but Morpheus and Trinity don't. And there are plenty of other examples.

So I'm wondering if many campaigns shouldn't just ditch character advancement entirely. Start the characters at 5th level (or whatever), and leave them there for the duration. (Even better in non-level-based systems, of course.) You'd probably need some sort of mechanism for tweaking the character over time, to allow for changes in focus, retraining, and the like, but these could simply be a matter of rearranging skills rather than adding them (because there are only so many hours in the day, and unused skills become rusty - spending hours training with weights will increase Strength, but it means you're not spending hours practicing Spanish and so that skill will fade).

I certainly wouldn't recommend this for every campaign, and I probably wouldn't even recommend a game omit character advancement entirely. But for some campaigns and some systems, it may be just the thing - strip out one more unneeded complication.

D&D (turn-based) combat: It's a Comic Book

I've had an epiphany. I'll come back to that.

Firstly, I'd like to take the opportunity to pass on a recommendation I once saw and was glad that I heeded - some ages ago, Monte Cook recommended "The DC Comics Guide to Writing Comics" to DMs as a useful storytelling resource. I promptly picked up a copy, and was glad I did - there's a lot of useful material there that can easily adapted covering telling stories, structuring campaigns, building mini-series, and the like.

But, of course, the book itself isn't an RPG resource, and so it's largely left to the DM to drag out any lessons from it that he can find. Which is fair enough.

I've recently been thinking more about the topic of episodic campaigns, and especially structuring a game session like a TV show, and in particular I was thinking about the structure of combat within the session - and notably how in a TV show initiative would really represent the camera moving from character to character showing their time in the spotlight. Which all seems fairly sensible.

(It also has two consequences - firstly, it's better if initiative determines the order the PCs act in only, with the NPCs being associated with a given PC and acting at the same time - though the Big Bad/named NPCs may very well have their own individual turns also. Which also suggests that 4e's model that animal companions, et al, act instead of the PC is actually also the correct one. Secondly, it suggests that the 6-second combat round D&D uses is a mockery - it should be much more fluid than that.)

But that's where I came to my epiphany, which was that I was looking in the wrong place - D&D combat, and turn-based combat systems in general, are best viewed not as seen in a TV show or movie but rather as seen in a comic book (or a TV show or movie adapted from a comic book, which are near-relations). Each character's turn is therefore a panel in the comic, and each round is a single page... mostly.

I say mostly, because there are three broad exceptions to this rule. Many comic book fights are also depicted with three large two-page spreads showing the action: one at the start to establish the shot, one at the end to show the wrecked building at the end, and (less often) one at the end to show the team of heroes all starting together being badass.

So, following on from that, I think I'd suggest:

1. Each turn, rather than each round, is considered to be about 6 seconds long.
   
2. When it is your turn, you are the spotlight character. You get to take one action, with the definition of 'action' being "something that materially affects the state of combat. So punching a guy would be an action, singing an inspiring song is an action, but just standing around picking your nose would not.
   
3. In addition to your one action, you can move up to your speed and take a reasonable number of non-actions (that is, anything that doesn't materially affect the state of combat). So opening a door, or switching weapon, or similar are all effectively free.
   
4. You're also positively encouraged to have your character say something suitably badass on your turn. It's your turn in the spotlight, after all.
   
5. Also on your turn, any associated NPCs also take their actions. In particular, any associated bad guys get to attack you. And they get to do so even if your attack reduced them to 0 hit points. Your action and theirs are considered simultaneous, so tough luck. (The only exception to this is in a surprise or ambush situation. There's no such thing as being flat-footed here!)
   
6. When it's someone else's turn, you get to move up to your speed and take a small number of non-actions. Basically, anything that doesn't require the camera to swing back over to you is fair game. You're not allowed to "say something badass" - the camera isn't on you! Assuming you're not currently grappled or otherwise overwhelmed, you can freely assist the spotlight character, again provided the camera remains on that other character and your contribution is mostly incidental.
   
7. Two characters can act together to share the spotlight if it is appropriate to do so, provided neither has acted in the current round. No more than two characters can do this.
   
8. At the start of combat, at the end of combat, and every few rounds during combat, the DM should take the time to recap the situation, paying particular attention to whatever the various PCs were doing last. In addition, at the mid-points in combat this recap should also mark some sort of change to the parameters of the combat - maybe the terrain shifts, or one side gets reinforcements, or something of that sort.

Obviously, it's very much a work in progress. But I think I'm on to something here that could prove very promising...

Reputation Rules for 5e

This month's "RPG book" was the "Smuggler's Guide to the Rim" for the Firefly RPG. One of the new features introduced by this book was a set of reputation rules for the Firefly game. I have no intention of using these rules, because they add more complexity to a game that doesn't need it, but ironically I think they can be usefully adapted to D&D, and in particular to my upcoming campaign.

So, here's how I hope to do that:

Factions: First up, the DM will need to assemble a list of factions for the game, ideally about 4-6 of them. These can either be quite broad (criminals), or if the campaign has some specific factions in play then these can be used directly (House Sivis). (These two approaches can probably be combined, though they shouldn't overlap - don't have a criminals faction and a "Sharn Thieves' Guild" faction! The caveat is that where a faction is named specifically, that faction must be a key player in the campaign, where a broad faction can be assumed to be broadly applicable.) Normally, the list of factions should be made available to the players, though a secret faction or two could become apparent later.

Reputation Levels: A PC has a reputation level with each faction. This can be neutral (or unknown), positive, enhanced, or negative. A neutral reputation obviously has no effect, but each of the other levels has an effect when dealing with a member of that faction: when a PC with positive reputation deals with a member of that faction, he applies his Proficiency Bonus to all interaction skills (that is, most Charisma checks). This may also apply to some other checks - Knowledge and History being likely candidates. A PC with an enhanced reputation may apply his Proficiency Bonus and gains Advantage on the roll. Conversely, a PC with a negative reputation suffers Disadvantage on the roll.

A PC may only have enhanced reputation with one faction at a time. If he has the opportunity to gain enhanced reputation with a second faction, the first must be downgraded to merely positive reputation.

Dispositions: The above effects only apply when dealing with members of the faction directly. NPCs who are non-members may have a positive or negative disposition to one or more factions. For example, a Last War veteran may have a positive disposition towards House Jorasco but a negative disposition towards Aundair.

If a PC has a positive or enhanced reputation in a given faction and is dealing with an NPC with a positive disposition to that faction (but is not himself a member), that PC gains Advantage on interaction skills. Conversely, if a PC has a positive or enhanced reputation in a faction and is dealing with an NPC with a negative disposition to that faction, the PC suffers Disadvantage on interaction skills.

Starting Reputation: Most PCs start with neutral reputation to all factions. If the player wishes, his character may instead start with positive reputation with one faction at the cost of having negative reputation with one other.

Joining a Faction: More commonly, the first time a PC interacts positively with a significant member of a faction, that NPC may invite the PC to join the faction. In this case, the PC gains positive reputation with the faction.

Advancing Reputation: Reputation cannot be advanced at level-up or during downtime. Instead, it must be advance in-play by Staking Your Reputation.

When presented with an opportunity to perform some task on behalf of the faction, a PC may choose to Stake His Reputation. (In some cases, the faction will only agree to give a PC the mission, and the reward that goes with it, if he is willing to Stake His Reputation. So while it's a choice, it's not without consequences.) At this point, he should declare some specific outcome he will complete in this adventure (which needs to be agreed with the DM). For example, "I will recover the Book of Vile Darkness and turn it over to you."

If, during the course of the adventure, the PC completes this task, his reputation with the faction is increased by one step. Conversely, if the PC fails to complete the task, he must make a Charisma (usually Persuasion, usually DC 20) roll to explain why he has failed. If this roll fails, his reputation decreases by one step.

And that's basically it.

Ultimate Campaign

I got the Pathfinder book "Ultimate Campaign" as a Christmas present, and finally finished reading it yesterday. To be honest, it was a book I had always thought would be interesting enough, but didn't really have any burning desire to own, read, or use. (The problem is that I needed to pick out some Christmas presents for people to give me, and nothing leapt to mind.)

It turns out that this is one of the better RPG books I own, and one that's pretty widely applicable, beyond even Pathfinder - most of what it covers would work just as well with any system, and much of the rest would fit 3e, 4e, or probably 5e without too much hassle. It's certainly not a must-have, even for Pathfinder DMs, but like 3e's "Unearthed Arcana" it's certainly a nice-to-have.

The book opens with a chapter on character traits. This is something Pathfinder introduced early on - at the start of the campaign each PC can choose one or two background traits to customise his character, representing aspects of that character's background. (5e, of course, has exactly the same notion in "backgrounds", and it's also quite similar to 2nd Ed's notion of character kits.) It's a decent system, if a little power-creep-y, though I think it will probably work best if the traits are mostly campaign-specific - that is, when running "Kingmaker" everyone should select a Kingmaker-trait as at least one of their choices.

The second chapter is about Downtime, and gives several options for things PCs can do between adventures. Which is all well and good, but I doubt I would ever even consider using the material here. It's just too much effort for me to bother with.

The fourth, and final, chapter contains systems for kingdom building and mass-combat. These were pioneered in the Kingmaker adventure path, and are expanded and cleaned-up here. The systems are pretty good, provided the campaign is going down that route. (Frankly, the relative lack of mass combat rules in D&D is a bit of an oversight - the old Companion boxed set had some, but otherwise they've been largely omitted. A shame.)

But the real value of the book is in the third chapter, which contains lots of "Campaign Systems" - things like Honour, and Lineage, and Fame, and more detailed Alignment tracking, and Magic Item Creation, and built-up rules for Companions (be they animal companions, familiars, cohorts, or other).

This is all good stuff, representing a selection of side dishes for the DM to consider introducing to his campaign. (And, as I discussed ages ago, those side-dishes are really quite good. You don't need them, but it seems that a long-term campaign would significantly benefit from having something more than just "orc and pie".)

It's that third chapter that represents the real value of the book. Like the 3e "Unearthed Arcana", it's not something that will be used as a cohesive whole, but it's a toolkit of stuff that the DM can use to turn his campaign into something special. It's obviously not exhaustive, but it's good nonetheless.

So, this is a book I think I would recommend for DMs, be they DMs of Pathfinder, D&D, or indeed some other game entirely. It's not the top of that list ("The Campaign Sourcebook and Catacomb Guide" from 2nd Edition is still the best book about DMing I've read), but it's definitely in there.

Ah yes, I'd forgotten...

For my new "Star Wars: Saga Edition" campaign, I made a quick note in my document of house rules that "encumbrance will be used normally". Indeed, I'd made this almost trivially easy to handle, via the use of a very clever PDF form that automatically calculates most of the required values. Huzzah!

Unfortunately, what I had neglected to consider is that, in SWSE, the encumbrance rules are generous to the point of being pointless. Of my three characters, the one with the lowest carrying capacity still has a capacity of 63kg, while the character with the heaviest load is carrying 16.5kg. And neither of these is particularly untypical values - characters just don't tend to carry a lot of gear in Star Wars.

In fact, it might be worth noting that the character with the lowest carrying capacity that you can reasonably create in the system is a Small character with a Strength score of 6. Such a character would be able to carry 13.5kg without penalty. The equivalent Medium character could carry 18kg, while a Small character with Strength 8 could carry 24kg - both would thus be able to handle the biggest load amongst my three PCs.

So... um, yeah. I think it's still worth keeping track of things like the number of grenades they're carrying, and of course any special gear they make or acquire during the campaign. But when it comes to mundane gear, I think I'll just not bother!

Heresy of Angels in Review

Before the game, we were discussing impressions of "Black Crusade" as a whole, and the general feeling could be summed up as "I really want to like it a lot more than I actually do". The book is exceptionally well-presented, it contains probably the most polished variant on the ruleset, and it's built upon a very good setting with a lot of flavour. But...

That same impression really sums up my feelings about the one-shot itself. There wasn't much technically wrong with it, but I was left feeling I could and should have done a better job with the material. And yet, the group seemed to have a good time, and there were questions as to whether there would be a "part two". So it's an odd one, really.

(Before I go on: the rest of this post may seem rather negative. It's not, really. The purpose of this review is not to beat myself up, or complain about the cruelties of fate, or anything like that. Instead, the goal is to help things go better next time - the goal is to do more of the things that went well and to fix the things that went badly. Ultimately, I'm reasonably pleased with Saturday's game... but it's given me a lot to think about.)

What went well:

• Despite having several players who knew the system, and three copies of the rulebook at the table, there weren't any big rules disputes. And that despite one or two... questionable... calls on my part. Plus, the game didn't lag badly at any point, despite the book requiring extensive reference (and not having a good index).
  
• Most of the players were manifestly having a good time. There was plenty of banter, a good atmosphere around the table, and it was generally fun.
  
• The moment where the Sorcerer decided to use his Doombolt on 'push', thus causing a guaranteed psychic phenomenon, was brilliant. There was a very small chance that the character would be annihilated outright, with no chance of recovery. Indeed, in campaign play, that's the sort of thing people would love to talk about, but that most GMs would promptly fudge. Naturally, the dice fell just right, and the character died. Oops!

What didn't go so well:

• Too much combat. I mean, I was able to keep the combats fluid, and I think they were suitably varied, so that combats themselves weren't the problem. But the balance between combat encounters and non-combat challenges was off. And when some characters are combat monsters and some are comparitive weaklings, that's a problem. (And that's my biggest concern with "Black Crusade" long-term - with a mixed party, how do you ensure everyone gets a fair crack of the whip.)
  
• One of the players seemed bored. Now, I don't know him terribly well, so I might have been mis-reading the situation, but if he was indeed bored then that's an issue.
  
• The "mature themes" thing was a waste of time. The game was only marginally different from anything else I might have run. I don't think that's actually a problem, since I'm happy with the tone, but I think I'll be removing that tag from the corresponding game next year.
  
• I prepared way too much material. Fortunately, because things could be hit in any order, the party skipped to the most likely climax at just the right time, but it was still a little unfortunate that so much had to be skipped.
  
• Speaking of skipping stuff, I failed to bring out most of the storyline. There were distinct hints about the rift in the Sisters of Battle, and the players managed to pick up on quite a lot of it, but not enough to save it from feeling a bit too much like a disjointed sequence of combats. Part of that was due to the PCs managing to miss just about every "exposition" roll throughout the game, part of it was that I had too much material (so they missed interacting with either of the two big groups of SoB), and a lot of it was that there was too much combat and not enough roleplay.

Overall, I think the game was a moderate success, but it certainly wasn't on a par with the Mirror Universe "Star Wars" game that was my previous one-shot. And, probably more importantly, there is an awful lot that I think I can do better next time.

Regarding "Black Crusade" - there's a lot of interest from people in playing this again. I'm halfway inclined, though, to add it to the list of games that I'm leaving to other people to run. I just don't have the grounding in the setting that many others do. On the other hand, there's something there that I really like. So I'm torn.

Some specific things:

• The game desperately needs some sort of "Monster Manual". And it probably needs an in-depth "Setting Primer", and probably significant expansions to the lists of gear and psychic powers. Oh, and a much better index, and PDFs of everything.
  
• The character sheet is a disgrace. I was using a PDF form, which made creating the characters reasonably easy. The problem is that the sheet is designed with a lovely, ornate border, and a detailed background image, and a section of white text on a black background (which only applies to half the characters, as well). The net effect is that a filled sheet is 2.5Mb in size, for 3 pages! What this ultimately meant was that printing the sheets was a major hassle - what I ideally wanted was to open all 10 sheets, set up the printer for two-sided work, and print pages 1-2 of each sheet in turn. But that overran the memory available for my system, causing the whole thing to work for several minutes only to conclude that it couldn't print! Add to that that the sheet really didn't make it easy to include all the required information on the sheet directly...

  Basically, it's probably the worst character sheet I've used recently. If I find myself running this game again, I'll have to do a redesign (which, fortunately, shouldn't be too bad).
  

• I'm sorely tempted to pick up the pre-generated Adventure Path for the game, to see an example of how the writers envisage the game being used. The only major problem with this is that another GM may want to run that campaign at some point, and if I were playing I wouldn't want to have read it. So that's a difficult one. (Shame there's only one Adventure Path out there...)

It's a fascinating, frustrating game. Perhaps "Fantasy Flight" are evil geniuses...

All the Elements of a Great Campaign

My current favourite author is Bernard Cornwell, and in particular I'm enjoying his Saxon Stories, which chart the genesis of England as a country. It's fascinating stuff, and six books in the series shows little sign of slowing down; indeed "Death of Kings" was probably the best volume to date.

But the reason I'm posting here is that I'm inclined to think that these novels, in particular, would make for the basis of a great campaign. And, indeed, once I've filed off the serial numbers and applied a coat of fantasy paint, that's basically what I intend to do.

As I see it, the key features of the setting that make it so suitable for campaign use are as follows:

Politics and War

We generally think of England as being a single kingdom, but that's basically the end-point of this series. Instead, the land that will one day become England is made up of five (I think) distinct kingdoms. The strongest is Wessex, ruled by Alfred the Great, an extremely capable ruler, but also one who is extremely sickly (he's described as having been dying since he was born). Allied to Wessex is Cent (Kent), although it is somewhat resentful that Wessex tends to neglect the protection of its borders. Alfred also rules Cent, but there's no guarantee that that will remain true.

Wessex's other neighbour is Mercia, which has no king. Instead, various nobles covet the throne, but they dare not take it out of fear of Alfred - Mercia relies on Wessex for protection from the Danes, and that protection may be revoked if any of them take the throne.

Indeed, parts of Mercia are already in the hands of the Danish invaders, as are the remaining two kingdoms, East Anglia and Northumbria.

(The books also occasionally mention the Irish, Scots, and Welsh. In all cases, these are largely isolationist peoples who are hostile to both the English and the Danish.)

Of course, within each kingdom there are many estates, and thus many nobles, who wield power to greater or lesser degrees. And with the Danes constantly attacking and being driven back, there are always opportunities for ambitious men to establish their own holdings.

And then there's the church...

Religion and Mysticism

The books contain hints of at least three different belief systems.

The main religion practiced in England, and especially in Wessex, is Christianity (although it's not really what we might recognise). And so we have churches, and convents, and priests, and nuns, and all of the associated trappings. Alfred is devoutly Christian, but he also struggles with his moral failings. Meanwhile, the priests run the gamut from devout to corrupt, wise to foolish.

Meanwhile, the Danes have their own religion, of the gods Odin and Thor, or Valhalla and Ragnarok... you know the one. (Perhaps crucially, the main character is a follower of Thor, despite being sworn to the service of Alfred.)

Finally, there are everywhere hints of the "old gods" worshipped in England before the coming of Christianity. To be fair, these tend not to play a big part in the series, but they are present.

And all over there is mysticism. The characters all believe absolutely in the power of ritual, whether it is prayer, ritual sacrifice, fear of the spirits of the dead, angels, wise women, and all the rest of it. The books are never really clear on whether any of it has any real power, which in historical fiction is probably a good thing. To quote Futurama, "if you do it right, nobody will be certain that you've done anything at all." (Of course, in a fantasy version, you'd have Clerics and Druids and Wizards, and they'd all have real power.)

Oaths and Warlords

Uhtred, the main character, is probably the biggest badass in England. Seriously, he's the guy that Alfred turns to whenever there is a need to fight a battle, he's the guy that he turns to whenever war breaks out. And he's also a guy who gets routinely mistreated and marginalised whenever there is not a war to be fought, largely because of his religion.

But if Uhtred is a high-level character in a world of mooks, and he's being routinely mistreated, why does he persist in following Alfred? Why not strike out on his own, and become king himself? Or, failing that, why not at least pursue his own ambition, which is to reclaim his ancestral home from the uncle who usurped it?

The answer is that Uhtred has sworn oaths, first to Alfred, then to his daughter, and then to Alfred's son (and, I would presume, his grandson). And although oaths can be broken, Uhtred won't, because he is massively concerned with reputation, and a man who breaks his oaths will never be trusted by others, will never draw men to his side, and will thus never hold any power.

The Fantasy Version

Running this campaign in modern versions of D&D actually poses some significant problems, because while Uhtred is the biggest badass around, he's still distinctly human, while 3e characters are clearly superhuman by 5th level, and 4e characters start that way. Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay might be a better fit, or "Small but Vicious Dog", or even AD&D 2nd Edition. Of course, it also doesn't really help that virtually no modern RPG includes any sort of mass combat rules, which are problematic for a campaign in which the shield wall is so important.

However, leaving that aside for the moment, thing do seem to line up reasonably well:

I'm inclined to think that the best setting for a campaign would be the northernmost 'free' parts of 'Mercia' - those lands that are threatened by, but not currently held by, the enemy. This should allow the PCs the optimum freedom - they can choose to go viking, they can swear oaths to their local lord and help him in his bid to become king, they can try to set themselves up as lords (and then king?), they can work for the unification of the Five Kingdoms...

The campaign probably works best of the invading enemy are orcs* (since that's what D&D expects), but I'd be inclined to go for a more 'civilised' orc than is now the D&D standard - actually, hobgoblins would be a better fit, except that orcs provide easy access to the half-orc PC race. Likewise, the isolationist peoples to the north and west, and over the sea, should probably be recast as (wood) elves and dwarves. Gnomes can be vestiges of the "old peoples", while halflings may well live amongst the human kingdoms almost unnoticed. (And, of course, there's plenty of scope for other PC races being peoples from far-off lands.)

* This is where it is important to do a proper job of filing off the serial numbers. The invaders in the books are Danes, but in the campaign they're being recast as orcs. There's an obvious connection that can be made there, and one with racist implications. Obvious, but wrong - this isn't a copy of 8th century Britain with Scottish dwarves and Welsh elves; it's a custom-built fantasy setting intended to capture the essence of the stories.

The priests of the dominant religion would then just be Clerics (which fits very neatly, because of the origins of the Cleric class), while the followers of the "old gods" would be Druids (again, given the origin of the class, that was rather obvious). The third religion is potentially tricky... but we'll deal with it if and when it becomes an issue. (Actually, there's probably potential to make that a "warrior's cult", with no formal priesthood at all.)

And then your Wizards and Sorcerers are crazy mystics, learning their secret ways in isolation, feared and hated by the mainstream, and so not a big impact on society...

Yep, I think there's scope there for a good, solid campaign. Now, I just need a system in which to run it.

Characterisation made Slightly Less Difficult

By virtue of actually paying attention in school, I managed to learn a couple of things. On of the things that I learned that has relevance to roleplaying regards characterisation. There are four ways we learn about a character in literature (or roleplaying game):

1) What they say.
2) What they do.
3) What others say about them.
4) What the author (GM) says about them.

The first two are, of course, the major sources of information. We know that Darth Vader is a bad guy because within two minutes of his appearance on screen he is seen throttling a starship pilot with his bare hands in his search for information. We know of his devotion to his "ancient religion" through the line "I find your lack of faith disturbing" (and, of course, the small matter of the Force choke that follows).

However, it's worth noting that these two are not exhaustive. At no time in episodes IV and V does Vader display any redeeming qualities whatsoever. Yet they are present (if one accepts the rather wonky Star Wars version of morality, anyway). Characters can lie about themselves, "That name no longer has any meaning for me...", or perform acts that are contrary to their natures to create a false impression (I can't think of a good Darth Vader example of this - but how about every TV show ever where the 'good guy' has pretended to be evil to get in with the "evil crew").

The third method of learning about characters is the least reliable, but it is important also. "I was once a Jedi Knight, the same as your father," tells us a great deal about Darth Vader, assuming of course that we know something about the Jedi, and also the BIG SECRET. We don't need to see Jabba in Episode IV to know all we need to know about him at that point: Greedo and Han tell us everything that we need to know.

The fourth method is the most reliable, but it should be used sparingly. The key here is that the author can never lie to his audience. The GM should never lie to his players. If we hear Morden telling Clark that he's going to be president (switching examples, I know), then at some later point we better not find out that it wasn't Morden at all, and that the writer just wanted to screw with us. (Or, rather, if we do find out that it wasn't Morden, there better be a damn good explanation why we heard his voice.) What this means is that if the GM tells the players, "he's a good guy", that character cannot at a later stage betray the characters, without laying out a huge road leading to that betrayal. (The GM can have an NPC tell the characters, "he's a good guy," and have that prove to be inaccurate, which is a tricky thing. It is important that players have a reasonable chance to tell which 'voice' the GM is using. NPCs can lie, GMs cannot, and nor should they deliberately try to mislead players, so no Aes Sedai obfuscation of the truth.)

(Oh, by the way, I want extra points for the use of the word 'obfuscation'.)

Now, the application of all this to roleplaying should be obvious. However, since I'm bored, here are a few thoughts:

When describing an NPC, the GM needs to be aware of which voice he's using. If he's telling the players what their PCs see, he should be using his 'GM voice'. Everything he says has to be accurate, as far as the PCs perceive it. If the NPC paladin wears spiked black armour, and comes charging out of the forest towards the PCs, a warcry on his lips, the GM can say that. However, if the NPC paladin wearing spiked black armour instead steps out of the forest limned in a halo of sunlight, the GM needs to say that. The impression it gives is totally different, but provided it is accurate, that's fine.

On the other hand, if one NPC is describing another, the GM has two characters to consider: the one doing the talking, and the one being described. The GM is providing characterisation for both, so needs to be aware of this. So, if the dirt farmer's brother was hanged on the say-so of the paladin, it is entirely appropriate for the GM to have him describe the paladin by spitting on the droppings of a passing horse and saying, "that's what I think o'that bastard." On the other hand, it is almost certainly not appropriate for the dirt farmer to explain at great length, and in the language of the court, how the paladin "resembles the fetid excretions from the deepest bowels of mine cattle."

As should be obvious from my last example, the words the GM uses are important. However, the words are important regardless of which voice the GM is using. If the PCs encounter a dirt farmer, the GM can probably characterise him more effectively by saying "you see a man dressed in homespun fabrics and dirt" than by talking at great length about the style of the man's hair, the particular pungency of the manure surrounding him, or anything else. By contrast, if the PCs are talking to a foppish nobleman, it's might well be appropriate to use words like tailored, coiffured, elegant and frightful. Basically, use the same sorts of words that that character might use in conversation: a simple man will use simple words, while a nobleman will pride himself on his erudition. (The thesaurus is your friend, but the use of lists is an even better friend.)

Finally, complex characters can be developed by showing a discrepancy between word and deed, between first impressions and later actions, and between what others say and what the GM says. Mal Reynolds in Firefly comments that "men of God make people feel guilty and judged." This is a true statement. So, in the villages where a paladin has passed, the reactions of the people may not be as universally positive as one might expect. If the paladin had a farmer's brother put to death, that farmer is likely to speak badly of the paladin, no matter of the brother's crimes. G'Kar can send a Narn ship to recover Catherine Sakai from certain death for no better reason than "why not?", and suddenly become something more than the simple villain of the piece.

Victory! (I mean "Review: d20 Future")

An age ago, I thought to myslef "I'll just quickly read d20 Future, then tackle the new Vampire". How silly - I should have known d20 Future would take ages to get through.

This is a 224-page hardback book from Wizards of the Coast, done in glorious full-colour. It's a companion piece to d20 Modern, discussing the future, in all its many guises. This includes realistic, near-realistic, and fantastic visions of the future. It tries to do a great deal, and this loose focus is both a great strength and a great weakness.

There are thirteen chapters and an Introduction. The Intor presents the key feature of the book, that allows it to cover all possible futures - the Progress Level, which is a simple measure of the advancement of a society. According to the book, we are currently either late in the Industrial Age (PL4) or early in the Information Age (PL5). The highest PL is 9, at which point much of the technology described is essentially magic, which seems fitting.

Chapter 1 deals with Characters, presenting the usual raft of Advanced Classes, Occupations and Feats for a future game. These are okay, but nothing special. The highlights are the feats, of course. The chapter runs to 28 pages, 20 of which are Advanced Classes.

Chapter 2 describes Campaigns, and in many ways is the meat of the book. There are eight campaign models here: Bughunters (Aliens), Dimension X (Sliders), From the Dark Heart of Space (eh, X-Files meets Resident Evil meets Event Horizon?), Genetech (Dark Angel; this first appeared in Dungeon magazine), Mecha Crusade (the Singularity Campaign, this first appeared in Dungeon), Star*Drive (a revival of an old TSR campaign setting), Star Law (um, there was a Gerry Anderson TV series that was just like this, but I can't think what it was called. Cops in space is what it is) and The Wasteland (Mad Max).

The campaign models are good, giving a flavour of each aspect of the book, and providing lots of good motivations for campaigns. I like this a lot. The chapter runs to 22 pages, 6 of which are filled with material reprinted from other sources.

Chapter 3 deals with gear, and seems mostly plausible. One neat idea is the "item template", which is a feature or set of features that can be added to otherwise notmal gear to make it better, or to adapt it to the appropriate PL for the game. This expands the utility both of the equipment here, and also elsewhere, at the cost of very little space. This chapter is also 22 pages. I like it, but as with all other visions of the future, it will look really silly in 5 years, when much of this either exists, or has no chance of ever existing.

Chapter 4 deals with Environments, detailing such hazards as radiations sickness, gravitation, atmospheric effects, and star systems. The only problem I have with this is that, at 6 pages, it's too short.

Chapter 5 discusses Scientific Engineering, and is the point at which the book starts to drag. In 12 pages, it discusses genetics, cloning, nanotech and matter replication. Some of this stuff is okay, some of it is really far fetched (sorry, I just don't believe in Star Trek replicators, and won't until I own one), and I'm pretty sure I spotted a couple of glaring scientific errors. Still, it's not too bad. The biggest weakness here, and one that's carried on in the rest of the book, is that they don't call out what is reasonable expectations based on current science, what is wild conjecture, and what's pure fantasy made up to make a better game. If this book is to be used for all sorts of games, that should have been done.

Chapter 6 is Traveller Science, and covers all means of getting about. It described realistic and fantastic space travel, both between planets and stars, dimensional travel (a la Ace Rimmer) and time travel. One thing it does not cover, and really should, is realistic interstellar travel in the absence of faster-than-light drives. Whether through the use of stasis, cold-sleep or generational ships, mankind will eventually reach the stars, unless we're wiped out first. There are several good games that can be based on such a setting (mostly one-offs, I'll grant), and it would have been nice to have seen those covered.

Chapter 7 deals with Starships (38 pages), chapter 9 with Mecha (22 pages), chapter 10 with Robotics (18 pages) and chapter 11 with Cybernetics (8 pages). Each discusses what is possible at each PL, the appropriate rules for each system, and then provides a bunch of samples, both in parts and completed units. Nice features include the starship templates (which work just like monster templates in D&D), and the entire robotics chapter. Oh, and the cybernetics rules are very nice, too, if rather more generous that I'd be around the whole issue of post-op care.

Weak areas are as follows: The startship combat rules are lifted from Star Wars revised, and while they don't entirely suck (and have been improved since that game, I think), they allow heroes far too little impact on the performance of their fighter craft, and far too much impact on the performance of larger ships. Basically, the pilot can apply his Defense bonus to the ship he's flying, but not his hit points. Which means that Luke died long before entering the Death Star trench, and that the Enterprise is impossible to hit with Sulu at the helm. Sorry, I don't like it.

The various construction systems are weak, too. A single character can theoretically put together a Death Star in his local mechanic's workshop. He can theoretically put it together without, in fact, and only takes a -4 penalty on the Craft roll!

Finally, the game needs more cyberware, and needs some thought put into the question of whether cyber eyes with built-in targetting and zoom and infra read count as one implant, four implants, of something in between. One seems too lenient and four way too harsh (that's the default number, by the way).

Chapter 8 deals with vehicles, in 6 pages, and covers hovercars and bike, and also the wonderful hoverboard. Very nicely, the hoverboard uses the Tumble skill in place of Drive. I like this.

Chapter 12 deals with Mutations, in 10 pages, and steals liberally from Dungeon's version of Gamma World. The rules are therefore a little wonky, although they seem to work not too badly. You can't build the Hulk with them, but if that's what you want, play Mutants & Masterminds.

Chapter 13 deals with Xenobiology, in 13 pages. It discussed using Monster Manual creatures as aliens, provides two "alien" templates, and then provides eight non-human PC races, probably from the Star*Drive setting. This chapter is alright, but nothing special.

The great strength of this book is its diversity. I can see running lots of games inspired by, or at least featuring, stuff from this book. However, the great weakness of this book is its diversity. By covering so much ground, the book fails to cover much of it satisfactorally. The Starship rules are pretty complete (and I don't think they need too many house rules). The Mecha and Robotics rules are really good, and the Traveller Science is probably just enough for what's needed. The rest is a very solid foundation, but probably not enough to run any game that's not directly taken from one of the settings in chapter 2.

Still, a good book, a good buy, and recommended for anyone interested in expanding d20 Modern to the future.

Next up: my long-awaited review of Vampire: the Requiem! (well, long-awaited by me, at least.)

Cleave and Great Cleave

I've just noticed that the Cleave ability can be used only once per round, not once per attack, as I previously thought. This makes the Great Cleave much more useful.

See, what I thought was the case was that if Fighter was facing three ogres, and had three attacks normally, he could attack Ogre 1 and kill him, then Cleave Ogre 2. With his second attack, he could then kill Ogre 2, and Cleave Ogre 3. Then, finally, he could use his third regular attack to kill Ogre 3.

The reality is that if Fighter drops Ogre 1, he can Cleave Ogre 2, then use his second regular attack to kill Ogre 2. However, he cannot then Cleave Ogre 3, but rather can only use his third regular attack, leaving him with one very pissed off ogre to fight.

Of course, it's entirely possible that everyone else already knew this.

"Sorry, it's the rules"

I had to bite my tongue on Saturday when the storyteller made the ruling that led to this particular comment. It was fortunate that I didn't really care enough to correct him, because:

1) The ruling involved a Self-Control roll to allow my character to light a cigarette. Should have been a Courage roll.

2) The difficulty of the roll was a mere 3, and I had 5 dice in Courage (this being one of Roger's characters). So, per the rules, I qualified for an automatic success.

There are two morals I wish to draw from this little rant:

Firstly, if the GM wishes to appeal to the rules to justify a ruling he makes during the game, it's fairly important that the ruling actually be correct. This means knowing the rules of the game very, very well. Otherwise, an unkind player is liable to correct him, leading to potentially significant advantage.

Secondly, and more importantly, the GM should never resort to saying, "it's the rules", to justify himself. Better just to say, "you'll need to make a Self-Control roll", and leave it at that. Otherwise, he opens the door for the rules lawyers to come out to play.

In other news, my name is Stephen, and I'm a rules lawyer...

Aaaargh! Hurty Brane!

So, I was thinking about multiclass spellcaster combinations, and all the odd things that can result. And I thought to myself, "you know, this really needs me to sit down and work through it all, to get it all exactly balanced." Then, I moved on to thinking idly about re-balancing for a low-magic system (remove most Item Creation Feats, add defense bonuses to the classes, reduce Damage Reduction values, etc). Then, I got back to thinking about all the multiclassing tweaks I've been looking at, and decided that the way to go was to write a fully-fleshed out point-buy system for character development.

Then I realised that I was getting back to my old 2nd Edition ways, where I was considering doing a near-total re-write of the whole system.

At this point, I'm hoping to just get through the day without starting on my revised Player's Handbook :-(