So, here’s the deal.
First, if you’ve been following my updates on Patreon and Kickstarter, you know that I’m traveling right now. Well, depending on whether you get early access as one of my patrons or not, I might not be traveling when you READ this. I might be getting back as you peruse this article. But, when I’m writing it, I’m traveling. The thing is, before I went traveling for good reasons, I had to run off the internet to deal with a bit of a personal emergency. I’m okay. The Tiny GM is okay. But things went to hell and I lost the week before I supposed to travel for fun reasons and it put me behind. Point is, this article is mostly getting thrown together on Tiny’s laptop in a hotel in Kenosha, Wisconsin. So, if it smells like Kenosha, that’s why.
Second, I used to do this thing called Ask Angry, where people would send me questions and I would answer them. Well, first, I’d berate them for not providing me a name to credit or for taking a simple, one sentence question and stretching it out to like, ten freaking paragraphs of unnecessary background information. You know, like they’d ask, “recently, a player asked me to explain the difference between the Investigation and the Perception skill in D&D 5E. What should I tell them? For context, let me explain to you in excruciating detail everything that has happened in the last six months of my campaign.” It used to be a weekly thing. I’d like to make it a weekly thing again. And if not for STILL having problems with the damned Kickstarter and the fact that something different breaks every other week in my life, I’d have brought it back three months ago. Maybe next month. I really miss it. It was fun. Especially insulting and berating people who can’t follow simple directions.
Funny thing is, though, that people are STILL sending me questions. I haven’t answered an Ask Angry in ages. Like, I have no idea when the last Ask Angry article went up. I have piles and piles of questions.
I can’t give you the next magic item crafting system article right now because of the aforementioned issue with running around and traveling and stuff. It’ll have to come next week. But what I can do is provide some hopefully fun, neat comment in the form of a Lightning Round. I’ve grabbed ten questions from the pile and I am going to blitz through them all, giving each about 400 to 500 words. This is partly because I find giving a quick, off the cuff answer a fun challenge and partly because it’s the sort of thing I can do a few stolen moments at a time in a hotel in Kenosha. Because let me tell you, it’s freaking Wisconsin. There’s not a lot of draws on your time when you’re in Wisconsin.
All right? Ready…
Set…
Go!
Aleph Ozone asks…
Will the RPG you’re developing include rules or advice for converting Pathfinder content to it?
Hey Al. Great question. The answer is “nope.”
Wow, I hope they are all this easy. I didn’t need 400 words.
All right, all right. Let me give a more detailed answer.
The thing is, there is NO converting stuff from one RPG to another. Not unless the systems are really, really similar to begin with, both mechanically and thematically. And rarely even then. For example, it was once de rigueur for new editions of D&D to provide conversion guides so that you could convert old edition content to the new edition. And I know Pathfinder provided conversion rules for D&D 3E content too. But, once you get beyond the ability scores – which were on the same scale in every edition and didn’t change at all – all of the conversion crap was about “find a spell or skill or feat or whatever” that was close enough to the existing concept and choose that. In other words, it was basically about “take the concept of the old thing and generate a new thing using that concept as a guide.” And if you look at some of the conversions of older edition D&D content to 5E, you’ll see what I mean. And I don’t mean the complete ground-up reimaginings of adventures that WotC keeps publishing as original content. I mean Goodman Games’ Into the Borderlands and The Isle of Dread Reincarted. They are pretty direct conversions, sure, but they are also pretty much just built as 5E content from the ground up. Not a criticism, by the way. Goodman Games is really good at doing that. Reimagining old-school stuff under new editions. But it isn’t translation work, it isn’t remastering, it’s building 5E content that does exactly what the original does.
Even if my game were similar enough to D&D or Pathfinder that there was anything that could be directly converted or translated with a simple process, I wouldn’t do it. Because it’d be kludgy, complicated, and it’d never work as well as just creating content under the proper ruleset. Trust me. Those conversion guides were junk. No one used them. At least, no one used them for long.
Hải asks…
I want to ask about mass combat/large scale combat in DnD 5e. To be more specific, I am thinking about running scenes in which the PCs can control an army in a battle or scenes of heroic PCs fighting alone against an entire enemy army. Do you have any advice? Do I need to make up a specific mode of play or structure to run those scenes? If yes, how can I start making it?
Look, I don’t know what the hell is going on with that little thing over the ‘a’ in your name. I can’t figure out how to replicate it and I am not doing the copy-paste thing over and over. This is a lightning round. Speed is of the essence. So, I’m calling you Ted.
So, Ted, the mass combat thing. There’s basically two schools of thought on it. There’s the standard advice you’ll get from most GMs and then there’s the standard response you’ll get from the rest. And both of them are crap. The first thing GMs will tell you is to create tasks that involve the characters doing specific things to affect the outcome of the battle and not really participating in the war. You know, things like sneaking behind enemy lines and killing an enemy commander or infiltrating a strong point. Basically, that amounts to “run a standard D&D type adventure thing, but also there’s a war going on outside the adventure. That’s a terrible answer because it ignores the fact that one of the reasons to run a damned war is to get some variety in the gameplay.
The other answer you’ll get is that “D&D really can’t do mass combat and no one plays D&D to play a wargame so don’t bother.” That’s more correct. D&D can’t do mass combat. It can’t handle heroes fighting an entire army. And, not since it evolved away from the Chainmail rules has a D&D mass combat supplement ever actually worked. There is NOTHING in D&D to hang a mass combat system on. Nothing. No matter what people claim. No matter what mechanics seem like they might port over to mass combat. Nothing. D&D doesn’t even have the basic skeleton of a wargame anymore. Not with any kind of scale.
But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try. Variety in gameplay is very cool. And, despite what lots of people think, there’s nothing wrong with letting the players control things other than their characters. Like armies or whatever. Even if their characters aren’t in direct control of the military units, it’s okay to let the players step out of their characters and play something else.
Here’s what it comes down to, though: if you want a mass combat system for D&D, you have to build it. Or at least, you have to steal it from something. And if you have no experience with large-scale table-top wargames – army scale not small unit scale – it’s going to be hard. So, the first step is to try some wargames out that do the kind of things you want your D&D system to do. And, unfortunately, that’s where my help ends. I just don’t have the experience with wargames to give you any pointers. At least, not any advice that isn’t 20 years out of date. But maybe talk to me in six months. Because I do need the experience and it’s on my list of things to research. In case, you know, I wanted to write an RPG with an in-built mass-combat system.
Hope that helps, Ted.
Spam Spamalot asks…
It might be slightly outside your purview, but I wanted to ask you why Dungeons and Dragons 5th Edition is so much more popular (at least in volume of sales) than other editions.
Spam Spamalot? Uh huh. Well, at least you aren’t making me look up crap on the character map to figure out how to type your damned name. But still…
If we were having this conversation in person, the first thing I would do is hold you down and demand you tell me what the D&D 5E sales numbers are and how you got them. Because WotC sure as hell isn’t telling anyone. Except in terms of very carefully worded, hyperbolic phrases like “the most core books sold of any edition.” The thing is, no one outside of WotC and their parent company knows what the sales actually are. I have no doubt that 5E has outsold all previous editions of D&D, mind you. But I also have no doubt that every edition has outsold every previous edition of D&D. That’s how it should be. Any hobby, any franchise, any endeavor that isn’t actively failing or dwindling is growing. And it’s a normal business fact that the rate of growth grows. In fact, that’s how businesses actually measure success. They measure it by the growth of their rate of growth. And, hell, even if that weren’t the case, the population of the world has more-than-doubled since the mid-1970s. Any hobby that has been around that long should have seen some rampant growth. And that is not to take into account how global markets have changed, how different types of media have made things more accessible to more people in more countries, and so on.
The point is, the growth from edition to edition is completely natural and expected and if it didn’t happen, there would be a problem.
But your question suggests that you think the growth in popularity of D&D under 5E is not just that normal sort of growth, but that there is some sort of extra explosion in popularity. And, of course, WotC wants you to think that. They keep releasing all sorts of statements about how popular the game is and how much it is selling and all of that crap. At least, they say that stuff in roundabout ways. And that’s because they have a vested, financial interest in making themselves look good. It gets them media coverage, it gets them investment and credit opportunities, partnership and licensing opportunities, and so on. Which is precisely why they say the same shit about every edition. 3E was the biggest edition of D&D ever. It brought D&D back from the brink of death. It was a gigantic explosion. 4E? 4E was huge. It brought more young, fresh, new gamers into D&D than any edition ever had. Organized play at conventions and game stores was the biggest thing ever under 4E. And, of course, it was the most popular and fastest selling edition of D&D ever. It sold more core rule books than any previous edition. And now they are saying the same crap about 5E.
I’m not saying it’s not true. I’m just skeptical. Because it’s the same song and dance every time. And a lot of it is corporate speak. It’s about finding the proper way to say something to make it sound good. For example, last year, WotC publicly stated that 50% of people playing D&D watched live stream games online. That sounds pretty cool, right? But what does it mean? They aren’t saying 50% of all new players coming into the game got in because of Critical Role or something like that. They are just saying that, of all the people playing D&D right now, half of them have at least once watched a game played online. And that’s important. Because if Critical Role really did bring them a gigantic influx of players, they’d say that. Unambiguously. But that’s not what they said.
It’s important to remain skeptical if you really care about how the RPG market is going. Remember, the corporation has a vested interest in making D&D look better than it has ever looked before. And, fortunately, every edition of D&D will do better than the edition before. Yes, even 4E. It did. And remember, corporations are like devils. They will rarely outright lie, but the truth you hear may not be the truth they speak.
Zack asks…
I read your first three articles on monster building, and I was wondering how to craft complex actions like the ghost’s “possession” and how to account for them in CR. I’m building a creature that asphyxiates its targets as an action (CON save) and can continue to choke them with gas each turn as a bonus action (they repeat the save each time). Each failed save leads to penalties to their rolls and poison damage. How would you approach such an attack from a mechanically balanced perspective?
Here’s the dirty secret about setting CRs in D&D 5E: it’s all about damage. It’s all about either how much damage the monster deals or how much damage the monster can take. Offensive CR is determined by how much damage the monster deals in a round – or averaged over three rounds – and then modified by how likely the monster is to actually hit with an attack. Defensive CR is determined by how much damage the monster can take and then modified by how likely an attack is to miss the monster. That’s all. That’s it. Nothing else. So, when you want to consider the effect of a special ability, you just need to consider whether it increases the monster’s damage output or hit points.
So, with the asphyxiation ability, all you have to consider is how much damage is done per round. And then average it out over three rounds. For example, let’s say the ghost has a basic attack that deals 5 damage. It can also make a possession attack that deals 10 damage. After it makes that attack, it can continue to deal 5 damage each round to the victim as a bonus action.
How will that play out? Well, round one, it makes a possession attack for 10 damage. Round two, it has a victim possessed, so it deals 5 damage as a bonus action and then it makes a basic attack against someone else for 5 more damage. That’s 10 damage. And so on. So, it does 10 damage a round.
The only time you consider bonuses and penalties is when those bonuses and penalties somehow affect either the monster’s damage output or its hit points. For example, if it can inflict disadvantage on all attacks, that’s the equivalent of a +4 AC. If it can gain advantage on attacks, that’s the equivalent of a +4 to attack.
Oh, and assume that any effect that can be ended with a save will break one full round after it was put in place. So, if the possession ends with a Will save, assume it’ll last for one full round AFTER the round in which the initial attack was made. And assume that any area effect will hit two targets. Those are the rules of thumb WotC seems to follow.
And that’s it. That’s all you have to do. Just figure, in your head, how the ability is going to affect its damage output or hit points and it’ll get you in the ballpark. And remember, you’re never going to get it dead on. The system just isn’t that precise. You’re looking for close enough.
Binky Betsy asks…
Why is a 5e zombie CR 1/4 instead of CR 1/8?
This question is a challenge for a number of reasons. First, Binky Betsy didn’t include a name. So, I had to assign them a name. And that name is, obviously, Binky Betsy. Second, Binky Betsy also included a writeup for her own zombie and asked me to evaluate it. I am not going to reproduce it here. I’ll just say, “it looks okay; it’s probably fine.” Third, this is really going to be hard to answer without my books to refer to. I have to do this from memory. As best I can.
Fun Fact: Binky Betsy is actually the tip jar goblin’s name.
First, zombies have one of those abilities that affect their CR in weird ways and that you just kind of have to think through. If I remember correctly, whenever a zombie takes damage that reduces it to zero hit points, it gets to make a saving throw. If it succeeds, it ends up with one HP instead of none and gets to keep fighting. Effectively, that makes the zombie’s hit points a little irrelevant. That is, they are not an accurate measure of staying power. The zombie can stick around for one, two, or even more rounds after it’s dead. I would guess the easiest way to assess a CR based on that would be to treat it the same as a creature that has lots of damage resistances and figure the CR as if the creature had double the HP. Now, I bet that would probably be enough to push the defensive CR into 1/4 territory – but again, I am guessing, I don’t have the books in front of me – but zombies also have very low ACs. Like, single digit low. I think they have an AC of 9 or something. And, with an AC so much below the baseline of 13 that is normally used for low CR monster defensive CRs, that should take the defensive CR down to nothing. But I’m guessing they also ignored the effect of that AC as somewhat irrelevant. I don’t really think the rule of “every two points of AC drops the defensive CR by a point” is always the best way to go. There’s a diminishing return on AC drops when AC is already fairly low. I mean, yes, from a pure probability standpoint, it’s a linear probability curve and so every decrease or increase is the same as every other. But, remember, all of this crap is really fuzzy anyway. It’s not just a game of raw probabilities. Combat is messy and players and GMs make lots of decisions. There’s terrain, there’s teamwork, there’s strategy, and all of that messes with the numbers. So, my gut tells me that the extra rounds of combat a zombie gets from their saving throw power roughly balances how easy zombies are to hit in a loose, seat-of-the-pants close enough way that it doesn’t make any difference.
And that, really, is what it comes down to. The monsters in the Monster Manual don’t follow the CR rules in the DMG. They’re usually close, but there are some that are off. And some that are off by more than a little bit. And that’s because human game designers looked at them and tweaked them. And tweaked them for various reasons. Like, for example, the difference between 1/8 and 1/4 is pretty small and they might have pushed zombies to 1/4 because they didn’t see zombies as filling out the same sorts of hordes or flocks as things like kobolds and stirges and dire rats or whatever stuff lives at CR 1/8. Or, they might have tweaked them because, in playtests, they played too powerful to show up in the sorts of numbers that a CR 1/8 creature did.
Point is, they are 1/8 and not 1/4 because they don’t follow the system in the DMG. Depending on which particular version of WotC’s story you believe, the system in the DMG is either a massive oversimplification of a super-secret totally accurate scientifically brilliant the designers have hidden in a vault somewhere that they use which would be too complicated for us little gamer plebs OR the system in the DMG didn’t exist when the designers were carefully designing and testing monsters during the thousand iterations of the D&D closed and open and closed-again playtests and they cobbled it together based on those iterations and tests told them.
Andrew T. asks…
My question is about magic in 5th ed. Spell slots always seemed a bit of a mess mechanic to me regardless of what system. I checked out the spell point rules in the DMG and wanted to know if it actually gives more versatility to spellcasters or just the illusion of it. On a side note, I notice you don’t spend any time talking about the magical mechanics of systems. Was just wondering if there was a reason. If you get to this question, thanks in advance.
Yeah, there’s a reason there Andrew. The reason is that the whole damned spell slot thing in D&D is a mess mechanic. And I don’t just mean the Vancian or semi-Vancian part or whatever the hell we need to call the current crap system. I also mean the very idea of spells. But that’s a whole different article.
With regards to the spell point system in the DMG – and you’ll again have to give me some leeway as I don’t have my books and I’m going from memory – the answer is “yes.” Yes, the system technically gives spellcasters more versatility. That’s simply by virtue of the fact that using spell points, they have more options for what combinations of spells they can cast. Instead of casting three first level spells and one second-level spell – or using that second level spell slot to power a first level spell only better – they could cast, like, two second-level spells and only one first level spell or five first level spells or whatever. Though, if I remember correctly, there’s some weird restrictions in the DMG system when it comes to higher level spell slots, isn’t there? Like, no matter how many points you have, you can’t cast more than so many high-level spells, right? And, of course, there’s also a limit on the level of spells you can cast. So, unless you’re a third level caster, you can’t cast any second level spells, even if you’ve got so many spell points, they are coming out of your third eye.
And THAT is really the thing, isn’t it? Yes, technically you have more versatility, but from a practical standpoint, how much does it really get you? Like, the ability to forgo a third level spell to cast one extra first and one extra second level spell? Does that really change the game a lot? Or the ability to blow a bunch of low-level spells in exchange for one extra high-level spell? And then, there’s the question of whether versatility is really something spellcasters need more of anyway? Spellcasters have more options to do more things than non-spellcasters by a pretty big margin. That’s why they are tempered by having limited ammo.
Here’s what you should consider: from the very earliest days of D&D when wizards were basically “if you prepare properly, you can do anything you want to… ONCE,” pretty much every evolution of the spellcasting system has been about getting around those limits. 3E added bards and sorcerers, spontaneous casting for druids and clerics, and the entire magic item creation system to get around the limits on wizards. 4E added the idea of cantrips as unlimited-use spells. 5E has drastically changed the Vancian system so that you only have to kind-of, sort-of prepare spells and casting the spells doesn’t make you forget them as long as you have extra magical mojo. Spell points – and, by the way, there has been an optional spell point system somewhere in some supplement in every edition of D&D – spell points are just another way of writing around the limits of the semi-Vancian nightmare that is D&D spellcasting. Isn’t that a sign that something is rotten in the state of magical Denmark? That we just keep trying to find ways to make the system feel a little less like crap?
Ted asks…
I just finished reading your book, it was really great! You wrote in it how an absent player can be a pain. But you didn’t tell us how to manage it when you can play without him, for example, one missing player in a group of five. Does the GM play the character? Does another player control the character? Do you come with an in-game excuse for the also absent character? Does it follow the group like a brainless zombie?
Ted is of no relation to Hải above. I didn’t realize there was a Ted coming when dubbed Hải Ted. Sorry about that.
You’re wrong, Ted. I didn’t say that an absent player can be a pain. I said an absent player was absolutely always a pain in the ass and there is absolutely no good way to deal with absences. And every one of the solutions you proposed is equally sucky. And those are pretty much all of the ways to handle it. And since you have to do something, you have to pick one of those sucky ways. I didn’t tell you how to handle it because there’s no good answer. Just a bunch of equally bad answers. Welcome to being a GM. Sometimes, every option sucks, but you have to pick one anyway.
So, pick one. Or rather, don’t. See, I could go through the list and tell you the pros and cons of each approach and help you pick the best solution, but I don’t want you to pick the best solution. I don’t think it’s something you should have a standard approach for. It’s something you have to deal with on a case by case basis. You can’t ALWAYS write the character out, you can’t ALWAYS rely on another player to play the character, you can’t ALWAYS handle playing the character yourself, you can’t ALWAYS let the character be a zombie. So, every time you have an absence, you have to decide what’s best for the game, the current adventure and the current situation, and your group. Sorry. You want to be the GM, you have to make the hard choices.
Keanan asks…
I’m about to introduce some of your suggestions to make combat faster and more intense. What tools do I have as a DM to make sure the party doesn’t die while learning to deal with less planning time?
None. Holy crap. When did it become your job to keep the players alive? Just turn up the treadmill and let them keep pace. And if they can’t, well, it’s always fun to watch someone get launched off a treadmill into a wall. Trust me.
Look, here’s the thing you – and your players – have to learn. Things. There’s two things. No. There’s three things. Number one, characters in RPGs aren’t nearly as delicate as people fear. Which doesn’t matter much because, number two, in RPGs – as in real life – an okay plan that is executed swiftly is better than a great plan that takes six freaking hours of deliberation to arrive at. The thing is, most of the time, the players can’t make decisions that are SO bad that they will spell doom for everybody. The players can’t really turn a balanced combat into a TPK without A LOT of really serious mistakes. Number three, IT’S A FUCKING GAME ABOUT PRETEND ELVES FOR WHICH THERE IS NO CASH PRIZE! I’m sorry, it’s pretty much the lowest stakes of any situation anyone will ever encounter in their lives. If someone’s character dies, SO WHAT?!
Besides, remember, intensity comes from tension. And tension comes from uncertainty. You literally cannot increase the intensity without also increasing the risk that the players are going to lose. If you can’t handle that idea, well, you aren’t ready to manage combat like a dolphin. Dolphins are assholes. They punch each other to death with their noses just because they can.
DS asks…
I am planning a military campaign game with aspects of peeling the onion. There is an NPC (The Onion) whose role is to sow chaos and misinformation on the ‘good guy’ side (PC’s side) while providing intel via informants for the ‘bad guy’ side. In this endeavor, he acts much like a chess master villain. However, if he is discovered and killed, the military aspect of the campaign continues, just made easier for the PCs due to The Onion’s demise. I would make it still possible for the ‘good guys’ to win, even if The Onion isn’t killed. I want to try and keep The Onion around as long as possible, but still give the PCs a chance to root him out and kill him, for their satisfaction. How would you go about introducing clues and making opportunities for the PCs to discover that their intelligence is being tampered with and by whom?
Okay, first of all, that’s not really peeling an onion. Peeling an onion refers to a specific style of campaign where every revelation deepens the mystery. Every answer leads to more questions. And no one has any damned clue what’s going on, what the aliens really want, whose side the cigarette smoking man is actually on, what the smoke monster is, and why there actually was a polar bear there at all. And no matter how you end them, the ending will always suck. What you have is a general, run of the mill mystery.
Now, the thing is, this mystery has two parts to it. First, the party has to recognize that there’s someone betraying them from inside the organization. And that’s something that you have to build up over time. You have to build it up slowly. And you have to build it up by setting and then subverting expectations. So, early on, imagine if the PCs are sent on a mission to steal some supplies or something. And you reassure the PCs – as some NPC mission giver, obviously – that the supplies themselves are unguarded. But then, surprise surprise, they are guarded. A little later on, there’s another mission where the resistance expected is light. Untrained, green militia or something. But, in fact, there’s a well-trained unit in place of the light resistance. And, by the way, as you narrate this, you have to point out the difference between what was expected and what actually happened so the PCs will catch the difference.
“As the soldiers form up in disciplined lines under the captain’s orders, you realize these aren’t raw recruits. They know what they’re doing. You’re in for a nasty fight.” In short, make sure you editorialize and tell the players exactly what you want them to know. Keep doing it and keep escalating the situation and the players should start to recognize eventually that something is wrong. That they can’t rely on anything they are told. And then let them start investigating the mole from there.
Eventually, they will start conducting an investigation. And, at that point, you’re going to have run that like you would any mystery adventure. Leads and clues, branching paths, the whole shebang. The adventure itself can be self-contained. That is, you don’t have to worry about leaving clues throughout the entire course of the campaign. Instead, wait until they decide to investigate and then build a solvable mystery with clues and leads from that point. Basically, what you’re doing with all the previous adventures in which the PCs get screwed by the mole is just setting one very long adventure hook. Once they take it, you can build a self-contained single mystery adventure which will allow them to root out the mole. That’s easier than what you’re trying to do.
That said, you should be very consistent in who the mole is and how they operate and what information they have access to from the get-go. That is, don’t worry about leaving clues and leads in early adventures, but DO know who the mole is, what information they are passing, and how they came by the said information. That way, the mole can be a background character throughout the course of the campaign and, when the players look back, they might be able to see the clues. In retrospect.
I hope that makes sense. It’s getting late here.
Oyyo asks…
In your “Four Things You’ve Never Heard Of That Make Encounters Not Suck”, you discuss dramatic questions. I want to design an encounter where PCs will go in with the question of “can we capture this character”, but I need the actual question to be “can we gain vitally important information about this character” and not end in his capture at that moment. Is this possible? How can I do this without railroading (or pissing them off)? Are they going to kill me if I try to Deux Ex Machina my way out?
Okay, last one.
So, if I understand what you’re saying, you want to set your characters up to try to capture an NPC, but you want to make sure the NPCs gets away and the players end up with some important information as a consolation prize. Is that right?
Well, I hate to tell you this, but you ARE railroading. Basically, you’re creating an encounter whose outcome you already know. The players can’t actually change the outcome. Nothing they do will affect the capture of the NPC. That’s the very definition of railroading. But, here’s the thing: it’s totally fine to do that. Sometimes. Not all the time. But sometimes.
I know, I know, I just gave a bunch of internet GMs a stroke.
Here’s the thing, though, if you rescue your NPC with some deus ex machina contrivance that is totally inconceivable and comes out of nowhere and snatches the NPC from the players’ clutches at the last possible moment, the players might be pissed off. They might not, but they might. There’s no way to know. If you want the NPC to have an escape plan, come up with an escape plan. Make sure it makes sense for the NPC, make sure it’s within the NPC’s power, and see if you can foreshadow it a little bit. Like, say, the characters meet the NPC at the docks. And there’s a lot of dockworkers wandering around with large heavy crates. Maybe the crates have holes in them. Just mention it as part of the flavor text. And then, at the vital moment, the workers break the crates open and a bunch of dire rhinoceroses come stampeding out, tearing the hell out of the docks, trampling people, and the NPC escapes in the confusion.
Once you’ve got a good plan that at least suits the situation and maybe you can even foreshadow, the next thing to do is to figure out what you’re going to do if the players DO manage to catch or kill the NPC anyway. Because here’s the thing: no matter how good the plan, you should be ready for it to fail. Never underestimate the players. They might come up with some insane, crazy, stupid plan that deserves every chance to work. And if you’re GMing honestly and adjudicating actions properly, that means you have to let them have the chance.
See, it’s okay to set the players up for failure, even to leave them with a vanishingly small chance of success, but what keeps you honest is always making sure you’re ready to cope with that success in the rare event it does happen.
This was a fun read. I liked the topic hopping. Learned a bit about zombies.
Enjoy your Vacation. Hope you’ll all get up to Door County sometime, hey? Pick some cherries. Get on the water. If you think Kenosha smells like Wisconsin, try Kewaskum or Kewaunee. Plenty of “Ke-” towns to go around for everybody.
I liked the topic jumping too. Some short, good insight on random topics that feels like eating a small snack next to the large pizzas the normal articles are.
Those mystery adventures sound like fun to run. I’ll have to try one sometime.
They’re very fun. Assassin’s Knot is one of my all-time faves.
If you will ever have the time, I would love to read a good article about the game mechanics of magic and spells!
Trouble is, the articles Angry writes that I don’t want to read are few and far between. If he’s struggling for topics, sure, but I’m happiest to let him write whatever he’s passionate about at that moment. Those are usually both the funniest and the most insightful.
This was a nice, more relaxed article. Please write the follow up of “Gambling on Action”, would love to know about that sistematic approach to Action Gambles (and to know why you’re not touching the odds)
This was great! You were about the only reason I went to Twitter, to get more Angry Insights throughout the week. I would thoroughly enjoy further short, off-the-cuff responses to stuff if it suits your site!
Here is some random advice on army warfare for Hai:
1. Quick army rules generally have damage triangles, like arrows beat magic, magic beats melee, and melee beats arrows (Runescape), or mounted cavalry beat infantry, infantry beat spear men, spear men beat cavalry. Something like that. This creates easier and more intuitive play. I would personally keep it to 1 triangle unless you are going to do a lot of this type of play. If you are going to do a lot of this, introduce 1 triangle, and then later add the other (like cavalry > infantry > spear > first, and then add bowmen and magic later).
2. To hit can get really complex or really nerfed if you just use a d20. In a typical army, you really will not see a whole unit miss on a charge. Some people will die. A single d20 roll is too hit or miss. Also, you don’t want to use all d20s for everyone. Needlessly complex. Instead, think about a d6 system where unit roll 1d6 for every 4 people. A group of 20 has 5 rolls. If you are using a lot more, just up the number of people per roll. 8 people per roll and 40 people equals 5 rolls. This can get wonky, but its more of a ballpark roll and less of an exact science. On a hit, kill people in the same increments. One hit kills 4 people or 8 people, etc.
3. Units have a defense (min 2 / max 4). Roll a d6 and hit if you meet or exceed the defense. If they are attacking something they are strong against on your damage triangle, give them a +1. If they are attacking something they are weak against, give them a -1. If the PC is with the unit, give them a +1.
These are not hard and fast rules, but a launching ground for customization. If you hate them, at least you have figured out you don’t want this approach.
I”you hate them, at least you have figured out you don’t want this approach.”
There’s something oddly poetic about this… In a good way.
5e already has a battle system. UA When Armies Clash.
https://media.wizards.com/2015/downloads/dnd/UA_Battlesystem.pdf
It’s so bad, you didn’t even know it existed. Seriously.
It takes a good idea someone else posted here of grouping participants into tens called ‘stands.’ And then fails/falls all over itself by adding fiddly new rules that only apply in battle and are completely unlike the rest of the game.
Make up your own. It will probably be better, because it’s unlikely to be worse. And please playtest it before you spring it on your players.
For the mass combat thing:
My character fights a small platoon. The platoon is a soldier NPC character with hp x 10 and damage x 10. It hits my character with swords 1d6 x 10 damage, or take the average, 35.
My character fights back, hacking and slashing through the platoon. The platoon’s hp is a soldier NPC 10 x 10, total 100. My character hits normally and causes 50 damage total. Enemy platoon’s size is now cut in half and also the damage.
Make different platoons by changing the base character (keep it simple), change the troop size by changing the multiplier (x50, x100…).
I think a good basis for an ‘Army Battle’ scenario are the Dynasty Warriors games.
In them you control a hero (or sometimes you get to hope between controllable characters) in the middle of a massive battle between your army and the bad guys. The mooks aren’t actually a challenge for your incredible heroes (they usually just serve to build up your special meter), but your tactical decisions during the battle DO matter. There are keeps and other areas where you can get reinforcement that you need to control, powerful enemy generals to dispatch and friendly general to rescue and, as a real battle does, the situation is always changing. New enemies might show up on your reat, or a large explosive might be moving down the battle field to ravage your defences, or you need to make a detour to prevent the enemy from throwing rocks down at your doods!
Let the players make tactical decisions on the fly, roll using the fast and loose rules described byrightbackatchya (@EarsToTheWeb) and keep the fight dynamic!
Maybe use some magical dooda to let commanders and PCs communicate.
The trick in Dynasty Warriors was that pretty much every mook group had a general, and fighting generals is where the challenge is.
A 5 vs 50 4e minions + 1 actual enemy fight sounds interesting. The minions do still affect positioning and similar.
Don’t worry about Hải Ted, I had a laugh when reading your answer !
I was expecting this reply, but hey, what can we do when a player forgot that we were playing this night ?
I knew when I start GMing that it can sucks sometime, but for the moment, there have been a lot of good moments and just a bit of sucky ones. So I’ll continue I guess !
Well, hope your troubles will become no-troubles in a near future. In the meantime, take care Angry !
The obvious answer is to have the characters adventuring in an area with weak dimensional borders so people and objects fade in and out of existence all the time!
I kid but that was a great adventure to throw at the group during a couple of months where everybody’s schedule was so hectic we were running at least 1 or 2 people short all the time, often with people needing to leave or show up mid session. I wish that I could claim it as master planning but it was set up as the adventure before everyone’s schedule went to hell. All I did was NOT give them the artifact that was supposed to make the group immune to the effects.
It also depends on the temperament and style of the group. We have had everything from “That guys is sulking in the corner” to “this guy is gone, so he is scouting behind in case someone is tracking you guys. He saw some signs of it earlier, and it might be nothing.” We have also had a couple of ‘enemies’ and the absent PC fighting on the sides or just outside the room, with a “I’ll hold them off,” type statement.
It depends on what breaks the engagement and believably of the world for the players.
The only other thing is whether to dial down the difficulty. I have done simple things like reduce enemies’ damage output and total health by a percentage of missing players: 1 in 5 missing means a 20% reduction. This might be terrible advice, so I am not advising it – just saying what I have done in the past without too much time to think it through.
Angry mentioned that he’s developing a RPG and running a Kickstarter (maybe the same thing?). I couldn’t find any links though – would someone be able to provide them?
The kickstarter is funded and over and most of us have already gotten our books, which can now be purchased at the top of the page. The RPG is still being developed, so the main link to what it will entail is just the homepage of this site as he’s been subtly dropping hints here and there for a while now.
I only ever ran an army battle once, and to do so I took inspiration from RISK. I drew out a battlemap with different “territories”, and assigned a number of units to each. Battles were determined using competing D6’s, as seen in RISK.
In place of RISK style reinforcements, there were battalions stranded in different areas. For instance, there were some on an island off the mainland, with enemy navy in the way, others were under siege in a castle etc. The players could choose whether to retrieve/rescue these men, or to prioritise defeating as many enemies as possible.
Player characters involved in individual battles could either roll their damage die in place of a usual d6, or use other abilities to affect the battle. For instance, bardic inspiration allowed one d6 to be increased by 1d4, while area damaging spells allowed large numbers of enemies to be defeated in a single turn.
Hey, thanks for the answer!! Well, I’m glad to know none of the stuff I do is gonna be made obsolete once I can buy your game Bxp
Lotsa good answers and good advice all around!! I particularly love your answer to Zack’s question!! Man, why do developers gotta make stuff like that all secret-like. Once I work on my own game I’ll make sure to be open about how stuff is balanced and why it is the way it is, so everyone’ll know what to do when homebrewing.
Not sure if you’ve ever head of MCDM. But they just released a supplemental book called Strongholds and Followers which has an entire section on warfare. If you’re interested in seeing how the rules play out you can check out their streams on twitch. But after going through the book myself, I’m quite excited to use their simplified rules for warfare in my own campaigns.
I always thought the 5e thing with ‘memorize some spells and then you get spell slots’ was a pretty decent compromise between pure Cast-and-Lose-it’ and Everyone’s a Sorcerer Now!
Except I hate how they explain spell slots. I know it’s anachronistic, but it makes much more sense to me to think of a spell slot as a Spell Battery. You need a charge 3 battery/slot to cast a level 3 spell. Charge 2 isn’t enough. If you use a charge 4, maybe your spell can make use of that extra energy.
It also feels safe and logical then to say ‘you can combine X batteries of level 1 to cast a level 2 spell.’. If X is 2, you need 2 level 1 batteries to cast a level 2 spell. 4 x 1 to cast a 3. 8 x 1 to cast a 4. Keeps things logical and simple to explain and calculate. But that’s just optional. I use Spell Battery to explain it to new players though, works really well in my experience.
Maybe its caused I fist started with palladium and rifts before transferring over to DND proper and spell points were baked in.but slots , memorization and components always felt like bad taxidermy. Not saying that palladium was anything but a Frankenstein’s chimera .Spell points always seemed smoother. A large self recharging internal battery of magic juice like bioelectricity. More complex spells require more juice. Use to much juice and you get tired needing rest and food to recharge. Men, different schools of thought.
If you can find a copy, the 3.5e supplement Heroes of Battle is really good for running big battlefield scenarios. I don’t have my copy with me so I can’t be super specific, but it’s based around designing battlefields like a dungeon; it’s less about the players controlling a lot of troops at once, and more about the party fighting alongside other troops, with the party being a single squad acting alongside the others. It’s also sort of it’s own mode of play, where you design a series of combats and encounters which take place on a bigger battlefield, and based on how the party does you award or take away points which determine which side wins the battle. I’ve run sessions using it a few times and it’s gone really well. That said you should make each encounter’s goal and fail state explicit to the player, like “take down the catapult before it breaks the wall in 5 rounds”. It doesn’t satisfy the desire to control a whole army, but for my players who wanted to feel like they were fighting against a big army, it did a pretty good job.
The trouble I’ve had with this is it tends to make war feel small. If a group of 5 with no military training can win or lose your war, how large a scale was it really?
I think it’s a good principle, but needs something more. Maybe it’s just a matter of adjusting the time scales to make it feel like players are doing more than adding 5 soldiers.
Sir, I have been smelling the state of magic Denmark for so long I no longer smell anything else. I completely agree that every new edition has tried to put new shoes on a 3 legged horse, but that has been true of a lot of the design choices I have seen out a the game over the years not only in how they made with the sparkly bits. You completely answered my question about the illusion of versatility of the tacked on spell points system though, just gave me more to think about. I am personally looking forward to see what your take on a sensible and elegant magic system in your upcoming game. Thanks for answering the question though, I will tell myself its because of the value of the question and not its distance from the top.
You know, you should probably stop foreshadowing exciting articles because you know we won’t stop bugging you about them until you write them.
….so I’m excited to hear your thoughts on the spell system! The peanut gallery demands it!
I really like this article but one thing I disagreed with was your point that character death didn’t matter. “If someone’s character dies, SO WHAT?!” Now I’m not sure how much of that was just hyperbole but considering it was one of the 3 piece of advice you gave to Keanan I got the impression you were being at least some what serous. I think there are some major caveats to that, because while that advise can work for some tables, for others it can significantly reduce player investment. It depends on what type of game your running, a high lethality combat focused game or a rp and story focused game. If the primary interest of the players is the combat and beating quests then sure, being blasé about character death can work. However if the players primary interest is rp and character development, then regularly killing off their characters removes their primary reason for playing the game.
I guess my point is, that piece of advice is not wrong, its just not applicable to every table. Like most things the gm and players need to be on the same page on what type of game they will be playing. Not caring character death can be fine for players who mostly want intense combat, not so fine for players who want to get invested in their characters.
Who said anything about regularly killing off characters? I don’t remember where I said “go on a murder spree.” I said character death should not be treated as something it’s the GMs job to prevent. The game is about player choice, player agency, and player consequences. It is the GM’s job to make the players live with the consequences they earn. And if that advice doesn’t work at your table, well, maybe neither do role-playing games.
Saying that character death doesn’t matter gave that impression. Yes, the game is about player choice and consequences. If they make a stupid decision they should face appropriate consequences, and that includes death. However that doesn’t mean player death is completely the responsibility of the players, the GM is the one who sets the challenges for the players and has a big impact on the level of difficulty of the game. I mean, you can see how telling someone character death doesn’t matter can effect how they design encounters, right?
Sure cranking up the difficulty and having players fly off the treadmill can be fun, and if that’s what the players are looking for too that’s fine. I’m just pointing out that you can overdo that and how well such a challenging pace goes over with the table will depend on the players. Saying that character death doesn’t matter isn’t necessarily applicable to every table.
Hai: Lots of people seem to be recommending an on-the-ground approach, mixing it up with the enemy soldiers, etc. That can theoretically work, but PLEASE consider what Angry said, about giving players control of things outside of themselves. Just spitballing here, but what about giving each of the players an executive role instead of an infantry role in the army. This way, the ranger can be a scout lieutenant who commands the recon, the wizard can stand alongside the warmages in the back and tell them when to cast Shield or hurl lightning bolts or whatever, etc. Give every player a role that feels right for their class in the context of the battle, then design what your “battle” is going to look like. Basically, I’m saying make your own war-themed subgame, complete with distinct roles for the players and certain kinds of actions they can take. Yeah, it’s more work, but your players will love it.
Ted: Have you ever played a fighting game called Marvel vs. Capcom? Can’t really draw a TON of parallels with tabletop RPGs, but one thing that game does are these things called assist attacks. You’re not just controlling your main guy, you’re controlling like a whole squad of fighters, who can hop in and out of the fight as necessary. And the teammates you’re NOT currently controlling can swoop in for a second and do something sort of trademarky, like Ryu can throw a hadoken, Cyclops can shoot out an eyebeam, so on.
The point here is that my table started adopting a similar system for absent players. Before the game night in question, the player who’s going to be absent gets to pick one (AND ONLY ONE) thing that works sort of like those assist attacks. Our convention is one method of attack, one spell, or one skill, but really, you can do whatever you want. And the attack can’t be like your super move or your Fireball spell or anything. It’s something kind of pokey and/or lame, like ONE basic weapon attack for fighters, Acid Splash for wizards, etc. So yeah, they’re not there and they can’t impact anything substantially, but you can still tag them in to contribute in their own goofy way. They only get one turn per round, the party has to agree on when to use it, and they don’t have HP per se, but if the party loses, they go down with the ship. Maybe it doesn’t work in the context of the kind of game you’re running, but it’s a low-key way to keep their dude or dudette around.
Magic in D&D. Hoo boy. I’ve literally encountered so many problems (starting with 3rd edition) with the way that magic is designed that I started giving the problems catchy names as a shorthand. There’s the Dr. Strange Problem (you can solve any problem with magic), the Shopping Catalog Problem (spellcasters can just learn ANY spell they want as they go, with no sense of developing up a track), the Something for Nothing Problem (in lieu of actual, creative limitations on what magic can do or how it’s cast, there’s just lame-ass components and no one pays attention to them anyway) the Are You Kidding Me Knowledge Skill problem (the druid knows how to bend nature to control the damn weather, I bet they know which f#$&ing berries are poisonous), spells per day has always been immensely unintuitive and everyone hand-waves it, and then on top of that, there’s no way for spellcasters to redirect, subvert, or control an enemy’s spell? Even if they’re from the same spellcasting class? If somebody gestures towards counterspelling, I’ll puke on the floor. I’ve hacked around these various problems and come up with my own magic system instead, because screw all that noise.
It’s weird, for a game that takes so much of its world and flavor from fantasy novels and mythology and such, it’s like they left all the cool ideas for how magic can (and SHOULD work) in a fantasy universe completely alone.
Personally, while I hate counterspell I’ve been theorizing on the effects of magic that stops other magic – or even takes away consequences.
In the structure I’m theorizing I’ve been considering no counterspell at all, no healing (or at least no “in-combat” healing), and magic that doesn’t allow players to create something from nothing (with the focus instead being on manipulating whats around you) and “magic things” acting like the “real thing”. And they can’t magically make things go away either.
like fire, the the firemage can strengthen and spread fire magically – but can’t create fire from nothing. They can’t magically take away the fire. The might be able to magically manipulate nearby water to dowse it, but otherwise something will burn.
Magic, especially magic cast by the non-extremely-skilled-mage should add to the consequences and have reasonable limits.
Your ideas are awesome. KEEP RUNNING WITH IT.
I meant to reply to this directly, but accidentally posted my longer rant in response at the bottom of the page.
I’m feeling you man. I get we all have a different perspective on what magic is, how it works and where it comes from. And its that perspective that we use to run and hack our games any wrong way we please. Same as you I hack my way around the issues I see and eventually have a system that works for my table. It would be nice to not feel like I’m cutting square pegs to fit round holes more often then not.
Angrys answer got me thinking about it. Why have we been trying to fix magic for so long while keeping the worst parts of the system. A system designed as an afterthought by a bunch of number crunching old wargamers who home brewed a way to zoom in the action on single units. Brilliant guys and the founders of a lot of my fun but we have stood on their shoulders and build something different. 3rd ed did something really awesome for me when they retooled the entire system with one mechanic, it removed a whole lot of unlinked systems into a smoother game. But magic still felt like another jumble of systems left over from old number crunching wargamers. And again angry is right, every edition after has tried tweeking or hacking that same set of old broke systems in an attempt to make feel less like suck.
Magic is a powerful and versatile resource. It fires our imaginations and has become an integral part of the games we want to run and play. I want that $#%& in my game! I want ritual magic and alchemy built around raw components anyone can learn. I want people with brains and the talent to be able to study to unlocks complicated formulas of gestures and sounds that control the power of the universe. I want mortals granted amazing powers by higher and lower being with agendas. I want epic items that turn the normal into awesome. I want everything my imagination screams at me is #$%&ing magic! I want all this stuff laid out and working with each other because it was built with the same care that they rebuilt the core mechanic.
Right there with you. Extended rant about the system down below.
Hey Angry, I only found your page in the recent past, and I noticed something that I may just be too stupid to figure out. On most of your old posts, you refer to stuff being in your “Pile O’Shit” but none of the links work anymore. I would really love to get those old documents and things. Am I Shit outa luck? Are they in your book or something now? Thanks for all the pretentious crap and teaching me to look down on my players.
Stay Angry
Might be mistaken but I think your referring to before Angry went to patron. He nows has a secret stash for tier 3 and up I believe. Not positive though if its the same though.
See!? What you’re doing there is already more interesting. Because you’ve created concrete Constraints. Now your example wizard can’t cast Burning Hands unless he’s smoking a pipe, or burning incense, or walks around awkwardly holding a torch. None of that component nonsense, you need your wizard player to actually explain where the fire’s coming from. And conversely, now your players’ party is gonna be extra careful around any bearded guys who are hanging out around open flames. Maybe they’re packing, there’s NO WAY TO KNOW
Here’s some other totally crazy, way out-there ideas about how a magic system could work:
–What if instead of just pushing a button to cast a spell, magic types were ACTUALLY linked to skills? Like mages have to roll for Arcana to cast, clerics/paladins have to roll Religion, etc.? And if you roll really low, you lose control of the magic at work and something sucky happens?
–What if instead of having spells per level per day (ugh), you get a small allotment of freebie spells (regardless of level), and then when you go over your limit for the day, you can keep casting, but at a cumulative -1 to your roll to cast as the magic takes its toll on you? And there are ways of negating the “takes its toll” penalty, but you have to pay a price? And the price you pay is actually themed around your class so THE DIFFERENT SPELLCASTING CLASSES ACTUALLY FEEL BLOODY DIFFERENT
–What if instead of picking any spell you want to learn out of your spell list willy-nilly, the spells were organized into tracks? You have to learn Charm Person before you can learn Hold Monster, you have to learn Burning Hands before Fireball. And your spellcaster can ONLY learn a small number of tracks (like… 3) so you can’t magic your way out of every problem. And each track has its own concrete form of Constraint (no plant magic if your feet aren’t touching the ground).
–What if a skilled spellcaster can dispel an opponent’s spells without having to take a lame “Dispel” spell nobody wants, just by rolling for it? Or even TAKE COMPLETE CONTROL of the spell? So now every time you use magic, you look both ways to make sure there isn’t a bad spellcaster of the same spell type around, because your magic is a potential liability AND COULD BE TURNED AGAINST YOU AT ANY MOMENT
Just saying. Totally out there, I know.
Apologies, this was supposed to be a reply to Theraj The Theorycrafter. Not sure what happened, probably a case of me being a numbskull.
I’m down for a lot of these ideas.
–casting linked to knowledge skills is also something I like working with in general as for me it adds weigh to knowledge skills. Spells being progressively more difficult formula that you can screw up for varying degrees of consequence feels good. Not too bad of a consequence mind you, nothing more severe then a missed melee swing in combat in most situations. Defiantly like the feel of it though, clerics are muttering prayers, wizards are incanting formula.
— I like the idea of can trips from 4th ed and like that they included it. Low level spells that are always available means they are always magically armed. I also love how some of those spells grow with the caster in a lot of cases. Makes the spell choices matter more and the hardcore spellcasters are never completely unarmed. I also like a scaled penalty for the casting check but would put it in the spell level rather. Harder spells mean harder checks. Defiantly into the constraint thing though. Maybe man’s burn for arcane casters and some like moment of doubt for divine casters. Cool idea.
— like I said, I dig spells that level with characters. Instead of putting your spells on a tracked progression why not build them with upgrades. Start with burning hands at lvl1 and build its changes as you go. Burning hands to scoring ray to fire ball to whatever. Less spells overall and you get the feel you want.
— counter spell.. That bitch.. I say drop that spell nonsense and make it a specialized skill or feat that works with the spell casting skill they use. Clever caster has a free action. Enemy wiggles fingers. Clever uses his action to identity spell with arcana and seize control of said finger waggin to either cancel or control said spell. Ties back to your whole skill thing nicely. Cool.
I appreciate the encouragement! You’ve definitely sparked some thoughts.
There should be different types of magic too I think. Alchemy should almost feel magical. Rituals should feel different. Enchanting should be a thing (and so should customizing gear – I’m freaking excited to see what Angry does about that).
I very well may end up linking magic flavors to skills – thus a religionist might have a better idea of what that cleric is doing than a sorcerer would – even if some effects are similar the manner of casting is different. And possibly even if mechanically they can cast the same spell. I’ll have to think about that more.
Thanks!
With you on the idea of different magics each with its own feel.
Personally I lump alchemy, item creation and ritual magic together. I think of them as recipes that anyone who can gather the components and follow the directions can pull off. It let’s the component aspect of magic have a home. All take time to complete. Now I think of most of this as fairly low level stuff cause I think components should only really pack so much magical punch. For anything really cool you need real power sources not eye of newt and crushed diamonds.
I tend to lump clerics,warlocks, druids and all the other casters who get their powers from an outside source together. These casters form some kind of bond with gods or powerful beings or nature itself. Doesn’t matter how so much as they are drawing power from something else. This gives me the caster a large well of magical power that gets a lot of flavor depending on its origin.
Sorcerers are those people who for one reason or another have been charged with a particular type of magical energy. They are their own power source dealing with the benefits and drawbacks of being your own battery. They will always have a more limited range of magic then anyone but they can tweek and manipulate their own magic better then anyone else.
If ritual magic and alchemy are high school science, then wizards are rocket scientists and particle physics genius savants who not only have the intelligence but that extra something special that has allowed them to figure out how to harness magic with word,gesture,material components, rituals, alchemy, summoning whatever. The only limit to wizards are what they want to go to the effort of learning and how easy it is to learn that thing they want. Wizards can should be able to identify a lot of magics and their uses, be able to figure out alternative methods for casting spells. Like don’t have components to bolster your spells, let’s add another 6 gestures and another verse of magic words to balance out the power.
[–What if instead of just pushing a button to cast a spell, magic types were ACTUALLY linked to skills?]
Yeah, I played another system that was much more systematic with skills, and every spell was a skill check. Nice one. It also had skill progression, so you would get better with your spells over time.
(Also, think of AD&D psionics. Much better approach)
[–What if instead of having spells per level per day (ugh)]
Or just something like mana, astral energy, or whatever you might call it?
[–What if instead of picking any spell you want to learn out of your spell list willy-nilly, the spells were organized into tracks?]
I’d find that a bit too much, but worth a try.
And what about modifing spells on the go? The system I mentioned allowed to change certain aspect of a spell, like range, area of effect, size of effect, etc, and that usually made the spell harder to cast or more expensive. Yeah, sometimes you don’t want to touch that slime or want a bigger force field.
What is this system that married magic to skills with spell modifications included? Asking for a table of friends…
Angry, what are your thoughts about developing a brand new custom school of magic? How would you do it and what kind of magic would it be so that it is unique from the others? What are the problems with trying to do this?
Not Angry but Id first fix the existing schools of magic so they’re actually something more than a grab bag of randomly predefined spells, or just get rid of them directly like in Starfinder
Not angry either, but I would create adjacent trees, letting folks grab spells on their trees normally, adjacent trees on occasion, and other spells only as treasure to jot down in their spellbooks.
Hey Angry,
I’ve been reading my way thru your compendium of commentary, loving it, and sharing it (prefatory suck-up complete). Question: the Megadungeon project seems to have died. Is it really dead, or on your “back burner”? Please expound. Thank you.
Just to start, your advice has at least made my GMing marginally less terrible. It is rare when I read one of your articles and don’t immediately agree. And when I don’t agree immediately… well that is just me being dumb.
Anyway, one thing I’ve been thinking about recently is the restrictive nature of the 5e spell system. To an extent, I think that comes from the spell slot system, but I think it also comes goes deeper than that, to the known/prepared spell system.
Some effects are repeated over and over in spells, and it has always seemed a bit strange to me that if you can, for example, animate an object with a 5th level spell, but couldn’t cant cause the same effect with lesser magic. Casting of spells at a higher level really seems like a stab at this, but just doesn’t do it that well, especially since that is almost entirely used for damage scaling which spell slots kinda do anyway.
I think if I wrote a magic system, I would structure it in a more flexible way. Rather than spells, you know effects which scale as you cast them with more powerful magic. So rather than hold person and hold monster, you just know an effect that slows at low level, eventually restraining at higher levels. Effects have some ability to be mixed together in creative ways. So when you cast a spell, you pick the school of magic, the potency, and then the effects based on what you know or prepared that day. That way you have a short list of effects, nowhere near as long as a spell list, but have the flexibility to mix them together in interesting and creative ways.
For example mixing an effect that makes someone faster with an effect that gives them flight.
Just my poorly thought out 2 cents. This is probably far to complex and cumbersome, especially if I made it.
Don’t be so down on yourself, you got some solid ideas. And that stuff about some spells progression while other don’t and some just come right out of left field is no just you. I feel, FEEL mind you. I don’t know. But I feel it has a lot to do with a lot of things in the game feeling sacred because they were written by so and so in such and such edition that so and so played in the summer of who cares. Schools.slots. known spells.components of all flavors . our game has accumulated a lot of baggage in areas that we all just kind of hand wave away. Damn but angry got me thinking about why we are hanging on to so much simply because it was there when we started.