Kingbeast's Lair

Summary

I started running Dungeons & Dragons 5e (5e) campaign for my kids and one of their friends.  As part of the preparation I read the main three books cover-to-cover.  After reading the books I came away with a realization, “They done good.”  Many of my perceived minor foibles that were present in 3e and earlier additions are smoothed over or rewritten.  I know this is 5 years or so late but…here is a simple review of the changes in 5e that caught my attention.

Rolling Thunder

The dice mechanic has changed subtly for the better.  First off all rolls are now high.  Instead of rolling low for skills, high for attacks, etc players now always want to roll high.  Skills are rolled using a d20 plus a characteristic bonus plus a proficiency bonus based on level if you have the skill.  This means skills automatically improve as the player levels.  Neat.

They have also introduced rolling with Advantage or Disadvantage.  If the PC is at an advantage they get to roll two d20 and take the best.  If the PC is at a disadvantage they roll two d20 and take the worst result.  Simple yet really effective.

Occasionally a PC might be in a situation where a roll is not done as they are not actively performing a task.  For example, someone is trying to sneak up on them as they walk down a trail.  In this case there is passive checks.  Passive checks are a calculated number (10 plus modifiers) that is compared to a target.  So in my example, if the walker has a passive perception of 14 the person sneaking up has to hit that with their roll to stay hidden.  Again…simple…effective.

We All Go To Town Together

Everything is condensed to one experience point chart.  Gosh this make so much sense and should have been done ages ago.  This also makes it easier to treat advancement as characters will often level at nearly the same time.

The GM is also give advice on how to balance encounters based on level and a simple formula.  This makes it easier to plan encounters and adjust them on the fly if say one of your players cannot make it.

Inspirational!

One really fantastic change is stolen right from systems with bennies like Savage Worlds.  There is a new mechanic called Inspiration.  This mechanic gives the player an Inspiration point when their character follows one of their flaws, traits, or bonds.  This point can be spent to give them Advantage on a roll.  I really appreciate mechanics like this that give the players a bit more control of outcomes if it is really important to the character.

More Hit Points (HP) at level 1 is also a very nice touch.  This makes starting PC able to take at least a couple of good hits before dying.  This is great at giving PC a bit more staying paying up front.  Also healing is simpler.  In fact it makes it so that every party does not need a cleric.  Another wonderful change.

Magic Mana

Magic is changed as well.  Characters using magic have prepared spells but these do not restrict how many times they can use each spell.  The amount of times a caster can do a spell is driven by spell slots.  So a wizard might memorize Magic Missile, Unseen Servant, and Identify.  During an adventure they can use their spell slots to cast any of those spells until the slots are gone.  Again…simple but less restricting.  Nice change.

The amount of magic items each PC can use is controlled.  Characters have to bond with magic items.  This takes a brief amount of time.  The key here is that they can bond to 3 items only!  This means characters are less dependent on magical crutches and forced to use the talents of their class.  Excellent.

Conclusion

I really looking forward to see how things turn out as the campaign advances with these tweaks.  I guess this goes without saying…this might be my favorite Dungeons & Dragons Edition to date.  Critical hit WOTC!

—there are just too blasted many of you! The National Security Council can’t even keep track of who’s coming and going!

Hi Gang!

This is the first of a group of posts that I will make between Sessions 1 and 2. In this post I wanted to relay the salient points of a thread that I started on one of the Blades In The Dark social media sites. I think it was MeWe. 🙂 On MeWe I asked the following question.

I will be running Blades for 6 players. I have run it for 4 players and it went fine. I have run it for 2 players and it was fantastic. I am worried about running it for 6 players. I feel based on the way actions push the fiction that adding players will make the system considerably harder to run. Does anyone have any advice for running Blades with 6 players?

The entire first replay stream starts with this simple response, “Don’t.” This very articulate author then follows this up with solid arguments why running Blades for 6 players is not a good idea. He also points to the rule-book which actually says Blades should be run for a max of 4 players. I had not noticed that point on my first reading.

One of his points reflects the concerns I raise in my question above. In PBTA actions from the players (aka rolls) drive the fiction forward. After the player takes action the GM responds with complications from the setting. This could be in the form of damage, new threats, etc. With 6 players this means between each player action the plot will push forward. This can make it difficult for the GM to share the spotlight in critical scenes. The players need to wait their turn as the world pushes forward sometimes at a rapid pace. This started to happen in our first session when one of your noted, “How come the bad guy did all that and some character did not get a chance to act?” Actually in Score 1 the fact that the PC were in two groups actually helped. It made it easier for me to apply complications to each group instead of having to throw it all at a single entity.

Another argument against running for a large groups of players is doling out damage and stress. This is one I have spoken to Chris about at work on and off again. Since it happens in all PBTA games Chris and I have some experience with it through other systems. The idea is simple, in Blades terminology after every mission if the GM is doing their job there should be some wounds on characters and/or at least some stress use from everyone. If more players are present that means there are more characters present to absorb ill effects. It follows that the GM then has to add more threats to handle more characters.

Feat not…all is not doom and gloom! After this discussion he then also went on to give some pointers. One really good one he said is found in a Dungeon World podcast called Discerning Realities. (Since getting this advice I started listening to Discerning Realities and a series of podcasts they have on learning Dungeon World.) In this podcast they recommend checking the location of each PC when the action is starting to get heavy with rolls. In their example the group of plucky adventures enter a hiddle temple of some ancient god then a giant snake and several goblin worshippers appear. They carefully ask the PC the position of their characters after describing the scene. This allows the GM to start considering the flow and how complications might happen. It also naturally helps point out the character that should start the action. For example, maybe the thief who is leveling his crossbow or the mage who is readying a spell.

Others also mentioned dragging characters into danger so that other characters can spend their actions pulling them out of danger. Again this makes it easier to drive the fiction forward based on the consequences of the actions. They used examples of a PC felling a goblin only to be in the path of the snakes massive maw.

So as you can tell I did not let the advice of “Don’t” win the argument. 😉 I think we can get this to work given some practice and patience from the group.

How about a question o’ the post…

Question #1 – The Pen Is Mightier Than The Sword! – Did folks enjoy the newspaper?
Doing the newspaper will obviously take some of my time and I do not want to do it if folks do not think it is fun. I think it will be a great way to show the effects of the Crew on Doskvol in an amusing way. I also think it can promote more player buy in on the setting which is an important aspect of Blades.

I have a few topics that I could do next…no hints yet…I’m not sure all of them will turn out…watch this space for more Blades goodness.

( FYI. Brownie points of someone can tell me origin of the quote at the top. 🙂 )

In the past I have done blog posts with a geeky Christmas list or a review of some of my favorite geeky products from the year but this time I decided to try something a bit different.  Instead of lists I am going to do a blog post on some of the fun I had in 2018 with tabletop gaming.

SPS Has Been A Resounding Success

Starting the Sipping Primordial Soup (SPS) group was a lot of work but I am having so much fun with it!  I have met a ton of great local gamers and had the chance to run some wonderful small-press tabletop games.  I can’t wait to play more!  😀

Running all of these games has really stretched me as a GM.  I am having to come up with adventures for games that are not in my wheelhouse then run them for strangers.  The result has been a wonderful learning experience.  SPS has really allowed me to fine tune my GM skills, get better in areas where I am weak, and give me a lot more items in my proverbial bag of GM tricks.  I guess you can teach this old dog some new tricks.  Many of these sessions have been the highlight of my tabletop gaming life in 2018.

Big Bad Con 2018 Excels At All Levels

Big Bad Con just nailed it again in 2018.  This little con that is rapidly growing just does everything with thought, acceptance, and skill.  From the massive amount of indie game designers, small-press RPG game sessions, and overall acceptance and love of their guests the con was a joy to attend.  Here is a Big Bad Con 2018 recap blog post with all the details.

Tabletop Highlights

I have played a ton of different games in 2018.  Here is a rough list of ones that spring to mind.  This lists includes RPGs and tabletop games that I had not tried in the past.  These are not in any type of order just how they come to mind.  (FYI.  This list is roughly twice as long as my 2017 list!  My guess is that my 2019 list will be really massive as SPS started in August.  ;)  )

• Monster Hunter Danger International – Finished the second campaign arc!
• Evernight Then Hellfrost Using Savage Worlds – The boys and their friend Spencer has an absolute blast gaming in 2018.  It so refreshing playing with inexperienced gamers!  All of those old tricks are new again.  😉
• Champions Complete Reliance Revisited – Playing in the Reliance universe was a blast from the past.  I think this might be the first game I played with Chris as well.
• Colonial Gothic – Ran this twice.  Both times were complete homeruns!
• Sentinels Comics RPG
• Dungeon World in the Plague Of Storms campaign setting
• Masks
• The Watch With Anna Kreider – Played with the author once and ran it once.  Both total homeruns!
• Blades In The Dark – I ran two different groups.  My old group is starting a Blades campaign!
• Bliss Stage And Mountain Witch by Carl Rigney – Wow…Carl…wow…if you can play with Carl do so.  End of story.
• The Pip System And Mermaid Adventures With Eloy Lasanta – Just a blast!  Want to try Infestation with my boys.
• Spirit Island And Thornwatch – Two board games that I really enjoyed.
• Adult Board Game Night With The Connelly’s – Really great!  We need to schedule more sessions!
• Nefertiti Overdrive is on the slate for next weekend!

Gosh so many RPG sessions stick out to me but I will mention a couple that really rocked.  These are roughly in the order in which the occurred.

• Evernight Session 10 – The Battle For Kingsport – This was the last session of my Evernight campaign with the boys.  It was so heroic and so cool!  I loved how well they played during this session.
• Dark Waters Rising Session 28 – “Guten Tag!” – This session was run with just three players but it stands out in my memory.  Loved how the adventure unfolded, the interaction with the NPCs, and how wrapped up.  Fun stuff!
• Mountain Witch With Carl Rigney – A large game but expertly executed.  Really showed me the beauty of what can be done with a game on such a focused theme.  Highlight of my Big Bad Con 2018 experience.
• Blades In The Dark Session 2 – “Cassandra Rivaldi” – The second Blades session with the SPS group.  In this session only Wade and Chris showed up but the result was an adventurous romp with a large wrench thrown into the works for good measure.  Really adored the role-playing scenes with Cassandra and the two Shadows.  My dream would be to have all Blades sessions run as awesome as this one!

See ya on the other side!