Elves. Why'd it Have to be Elves?

In their upcoming book, "Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes", WotC are going to introduce a "blessing of Corellon" whereby they can change sex at the start of each day.

Which is annoying, for two reasons. Firstly, the makers of D&D really need to get past their fetish for elf-love. Whether it's 2nd Ed's "Complete Book of Elves", or 3e or 4e's 'elf for every class', or this... it's just a pain that every time the designers think of something cool to add to the game, they promptly tack it on to the elf. It's frankly boring. (It's also limiting - if you want a gender-fluid character, you should play an elf?)

The other reason is that, naturally, the elves I'm using in my campaign are different - Corellon doesn't exist, the elven society has much more fixed gender-roles, and so on. So that bit of lore doesn't really fit.

That said, it's an interesting idea, that I'll promptly be stealing... just not for elves. So...

Eberron, of course, already has one gender-fluid race - Changelings have the ability to change sex (and much else) pretty much instantaneously. I'm inclined also to declare that Dragonborn and Dwarves are gender-fluid, to a greater or lesser extent. Specifically, I'm inclined to suggest that Dragonborn are capable of changing sex over a period of some weeks/months (and, as a corollary, that Dragons are also gender-fluid in the same way), while Dwarves adopt a sex at puberty, after which it becomes fixed. (I'd kind of like one more, changeable daily, but no candidate leaps to mind.)

Finally, I'm inclined to rename and reskin this trait as the Blessing of Li (goddess of passion), allowing those who have it, who may be of any race (yes, including elves), to switch sex each day - becoming male, or female, or somewhere in between (or even none of the above).

(And really finally, as I've noted in a previous thread, I'm of the view that Warforged and Shardminds have neither gender nor sex - it's not in their nature. This contrasts with a theoretical race with a construct body into which a human (or other) soul is transferred - which would probably be sexless but have a gender. Or kalashtar, where a human body is possessed by an alien spirit, and so where the two might not match. Basically, there's room for vast numbers of options, for people who want them. And for people who don't, they're easy enough to ignore.)

As for why: well, why not?

The Core Experience

When "Doctor Who" had its 50th anniversary, the episode that was produced was "Day of the Doctor". When the James Bond films had their 50th anniversary, the film was "Skyfall". In both cases, the entry that was produced was very much an example of the core of the thing - DW was a fairly lore-heavy episode, with multiple Doctors, much shifting between time zones, and a re-statement of the core ethos of the show; JB had the classic lines, the classic car, several key locations, action scenes, and of course the "Bond girls".

When I did my "Gygax Tribute Game" ten years ago (and that's a sobering thought!), I likewise adopted many of the classic tropes, with one no-name character, a Fighter called "Bob" and a second called "Bob Two", a dungeon, deadly traps, and so on. Which was fine, though it suffered for a lack of preparation time - I put that one together over the course of a week, between the passing and the weekend's game session.

For the upcoming 30th Anniversary Game, then, I'll be looking for something very similar in tone, though not quite hitting the same tone.

Some of the elements I'll therefore be looking to hit:

• I want to feature all three of the pillars of the game prominently: combat, exploration, and interaction. Two of these are fairly easy - it's not hard to construct combat encounters, and the dungeon setting makes exploration pretty easy, too. Interaction may be a touch more difficult, but not beyond the wit of men.
  
• I don't intend to put too much emphasis on the name of the game. There will be a dungeon, since that's easy to conceive of; and there will be a dragon, but the dragon won't be a major part of it. In particular, the climactic big-boss fight won't be the dragon. Unless it is. :)
  
• There should be at least a couple of cunning death-traps. I'm inclined to feature one truly deadly "encounter trap", a couple of smaller standalones, and one or two terrain traps.
  
• There will be a riddle, but it won't be absolutely essential.
  
• There simply must be fantastic treasures to be found. However, where many games feature the treasures as the result of the successful adventure, this one will need to include the treasures early on, with the intent that they'll be used later. Otherwise, what's the point - "oh, yay - my character, who I'll never play again, has just found the Ultimate Macguffin, which I'll never get to use!"
  
• And, of course, there will be a call back to the past - whether my gaming past or to the past of the game, I'm not sure. Under the circumstances, the former is probably more appropriate, while the latter is more likely to actually make sense, so I guess we'll see.

And with that, it's time to start building specifics!

30 Years of Adventure

Earlier in the week it occurred to me that this year will see the 30th anniversary of my first RPG - the 30th anniversary of first picking up the d20. Which has kind of crept up on me - I didn't really mark 20 years, or even 25. But given that opportunities to game are now fewer and further between, and therefore more precious, I think I'll have to mark this one somehow.

I'm not certain of the exact date of my first game - it was a Thursday either right at the end of August or near the start of September, which makes it either the 25th, 1st, or 8th. Of these, I think the 1st of September is the most likely, so I'm going to take that as the date.

Additionally, my first game was one of very few sessions of AD&D 1st Edition I ever played. My character was a nameless Thief, who I believe was level 12. Pretty much all I remember from that first session was picking the pocket of a passing noble and scoring some hefty loot, and I was hooked.

I do recall that it took place in the English department of Chryston High School, where Mr Stewart ran the RPG group. And those first few sessions were run by an older kid called Eric, who disappeared a few weeks later. I didn't realise at the time, but he'd gone off to university. That almost certainly wouldn't be allowed now - it was a different time. After Eric left, various people tried to run games, mostly using the D&D Basic Rules. Almost without exception these games thoroughly sucked, leading to a long-term preference to run the game myself. Though looking back at the games I ran in those days, they weren't that great either - perhaps a 3/10 compared with the 2/10 games I'd been playing in.

Of course, it's not possible to go back to recapture that time again - you're only 12 once. Therefore, rather than put together a 1st level BD&D game and run a linear dungeon against uninspired foes, I figured I would instead run a 5e game in an old-school-ish manner - do something new that also hearkens back to the old days, and applies everything I've learned since. Ideally, it will feel like one of the better Conan or Lankhmar stories.

That's assuming, of course, that I can run such a game at all. Though with six months of lead time, it's probably possible.

Pathfinder 2nd Edition

I was a little surprised when Paizo announced the 2nd Edition of Pathfinder. Not hugely so, since it's a pretty old system and has probably been overdue a revision for some time, but I wasn't expecting it right at the current time.

Since then, I've kept about half an eye on the developments of the system... and it's a pass from me. Having finally gotten a chance to play Pathfinder, I decided that it wasn't for me, and I'm also of the opinion that I don't need another variant on D&D-style fantasy. I wish them well with their new edition, but they'll be proceeding without me.

Sadly, I think the time is also coming for me to cancel my subscription to the Pathfinder Adventure Path product. I'll keep it going until they switch to the second edition, but that's as far as I'll go - once they're using a ruleset that I no longer own (or have any great interest in), it's time to stop. So that means three more Paths, taking me up to PF#144.

The Rogues Gallery

I was thinking about my epiphany about D&D combat being best compared to a comic book fight scene earlier, and it occurred to me also that a good D&D campaign can probably benefit from stealing another concept from comic books: the Rogues Gallery.

The Rogues Gallery is a simple concept: it's just the selection of enemies associated with a particular hero - for Batman we have the Joker, the Riddler, Cat-woman, the Condiment King, and so on. Spider-man deals with Doc Ock, Sandman, the Green Goblin, Venom, and so forth. In D&D, then, the Rogues Gallery would be all the villains associated with a particular PC or, more likely, a group of PCs.

A few thoughts:

• The villains are probably another really good place to reflect the theme of the campaign. If the theme is "lost honour", it's probably a good idea if the villains all reflect that - the guy who has lost his honour and is revelling in it, the guy who has lost honour and is seeking to regain it through dubious means, the guy who is willing to trade his honour for power...
• Likewise, the villains are probably at their best if they relate to the PCs in a key way - if a PC is a paladin knight-in-shining-armour, perhaps one villain could be the dark knight. Or there's the classic family connection, or the sins of the father angle, or the inverted-powers villain, or similar.
• Unlike comic books, RPGs probably don't get a lot of play from recurring villains. They're more like comic book movies in that regard - a villain crops up, causes mayhem, and is then dealt with and never really appears again. If an over-arching threat is needed, it may well be best if it's a conspiracy of villains of some sort (basically, SPECTRE), rather than a single villain who then needs to constantly escape to fight another day. This is particularly true in level-based games, where a threat at 1st level isn't going to work at 10th level - compare Ironmonger in the first "Iron Man" film versus Thanos in "Infinity War".
• It's probably no bad thing for the DM to seed hints of upcoming threats earlier in the campaign - introduce Otto Octavious in the first session as a somewhat-overreaching scientist, so that later on he's more relatable as a villain when he becomes Doc Ock.
• The DM really needs robust recycling facilities. A really good Rogues Gallery can only be fully fleshed out once the PCs are themselves defined, and yet there's a really good chance the campaign may fold before the PCs ever meet them. To minimise the waste, the DM shouldn't be afraid to reuse as much of that work as possible for the next (or subsequent) campaign.

I'll now leave it to the reader to point out how trite and obvious all of the above is...

Introducing the Game

As noted, I have recently introduced the game to a group of new players. Having done that, I have some thoughts about how to proceed:

1. We Learn by Doing: The first and most basic thing is that it's generally a good idea to get new players actually playing as quickly as possible. So give them pre-gen characters to use, give an overview of some real basics, and then get on with the game!
2. Bite-sized Pieces: One of the consequences of the one-hour format is that time is at a real premium. That being the case, I definitely didn't want to spend an hour going through lots of rules details! Therefore, at the start of each of the first few sessions I quickly introduced some aspect of the rules, and then we went on with the game. To date, we've had five sessions, so the topics covered have been:
   • The types of dice. Basics of the character sheet (ability scores, attack bonuses, skill bonuses)
   • The three types of rolls (attack rolls, saving throws, attribute checks). More on the character sheet (class and race abilities, mostly)
   • Combat actions. The last of the character sheet (traits, background, alignment)
   • Spellcasting
   • Levelling up
3. Simplify, then elaborate: Starting out, nobody will have a really good idea of how things work. As far as possible, it's a good idea to abstract this out. You can then add more detail later. (My particular example would be spellcasting, where in the first session the Wizard was allowed to just cast any of his spells. The next session I added the "X per day" limit, and then in session four we introduced spell preparation.)
4. Do Something New Every Time: Ideally, every session should introduce something new to the game, until you're confident you've covered everything. So start with a basic combat against goblins, then add a bit of interaction, then add a bit of exploration, then a boss battle, then level up, and then open things out to be more player-driven...
5. And don't sweat it: Bear in mind that new players mostly just want to have fun, so don't worry too much about doing it 'right'! That may mean simplifying some rules for speed, it may mean letting them do something cool that their character normally couldn't, or it may just mean not worrying about how you present things. The key, after all, is just to have fun.

Of course, those are just the things that happen to have worked for me, this time. Next time might be different, and they may not work for you at all!

A Wider World

One of the things that the "Star Wars" original trilogy and the "Lord of the Rings" films do very well is that they give a sense that there's a whole wider world out there. Star Wars, in particular, actually has very few locations - the backwaters of Tattooine, the Death Star, Alderaan, and Yavin - but it gives the impression of a much wider canvas.

The primary way in which this is achieved is simply by referencing those other places and events: "I'm a member of the Imperial Senate...", "if there's a bright centre to the universe, you're on the planet that it's farthest from...", "Dantooine. They're on Dantooine."

Likewise, the "Lord of the Rings" films mention locations that aren't ever shown, and also make reference to thousands of years of carefully worked out history. Of course, they had the big advantage that Tolkien had meticulously worked out thousands of years of history (mostly because his passion was "The Silmarillion", rather than "Lord of the Rings").

What does that mean for RPGs?

Well, it's actually pretty straightfoward - during those early adventures, when the players are being introduced to the world, you're not going to have much opportunity to show them the larger world in which they are adventuring. After all, that would very quickly be overwhelming. And it's highly unlikely that the players will have read the setting guide (which is a very mixed blessing anyway), so you're very likely their only real conduit for setting information.

But what you can do, and probably should do, is seed little bits of setting information here and there. Make reference to them being on the road from one place to another, and name both places. Even if you don't introduce the local ruler, have someone mention him by name. Say something about local festivals and quirks (food is very good for this), and perhaps then contrast that with what the PCs are used to.

As noted, it's important not to overwhelm the players with a huge info dump, not least because all of this is less interesting than most DMs think it is. A little goes a long way! And, as with adding salt to a meal, bear in mind that it's always easy to add more, but it's really hard to take it out again!