A little while back, during the Meetup of Doom, my friend Nick and I were talking about D&D and the kinds of things you can do to it to make it run more smoothly at the table, and to make it more improv-friendly. It got me to thinking about various ways that I’d like to hack the game before running it again. I figured I’d share them here, if for no other reason than to get some feedback on them.

Hacking Monsters
I like the way monsters work in 4e quite a bit. However, making encounters can be a real bear sometimes, and you have to spend a lot of time doing it if you want to fill a session. The problem with all this front-loaded prep work is that you wind up creating a fairly linear path for the PCs to move down.

I’d like to go for more of a sandbox-style game, running pretty much everything off of the Page 42 Table (or whatever the more modern version of that is). To that end, I’d probably wind up creating a few sets of generic monster stats and just making up monsters on the fly, adding abilities to them as I feel appropriate.

In addition, rather than tracking individual hit points, I’d like to use a series of check boxes. That is, a monster can take X hits before it dies, where X is probably around four or 5 for a standard monster, 6 for a brute, 8 for an elite, and 10 for a solo. Each time a player hits a monster, check off a box. If the player does a large amount of damage (as strikers are capable of doing), check off two or even three boxes. Easy book-keeping, and I’d probably feel better about just declaring a monster dead if a PC did something really cool to finish it off.

Hacking Powers and the Action Point Economy
I like powers. I like that they give everyone cool stuff to do. I also like action points, but I feel like they don’t do enough. There’s the start of an economy there with action points, but I feel like it could be pushed further. So, here are some ways I’d like to change action points, and how they interact with powers.

• At the beginning of the day, players start with action points equal to their level, or possibly half their level (not sure yet).
• They get the same number at each milestone.
• The various pillars of character creation–race, class, theme, and background–are treated sort of like Fate aspects. They can be invoked for a benefit by spending an action point, and they can be compelled in order to give players action points.
• Action points are used to power Encounter and Daily powers. These powers can’t be used on their own. Instead you spend X action points to use one of them, where X is probably somewhere around 4 for an Encounter power and 8 for a Daily. Powers of a level lower than your character level get a discount, allowing you to use them more often. As long as you can pay the price, you can use these powers.
• Doing awesome things allows your friends to award you action points!
• I’d also like to reduce the number of powers that PCs actually get. Instead of getting tons and tons of Encounters and Dailies, I’d like to have Encounters eventually replace At-Wills, and Dailies eventually replace Encounters. Because powers can be used multiple times, I’d probably try to stick to having two of each type of power: two At-Wills, two Encoutners, and two Dailies–at the most. This might have to be altered a bit for some of the Essentials classes that don’t use the standard power structure.
• Finally, and this isn’t necessarily related to the above stuff, I’d probably want to cap the game at level 10, but start telling epic-style stories around level 8 and paragon-style stories around level 5.

Hacking Conditions
Conditions eat up a lot of time and brain-space at the table. However, I like them and think they’re necessary to the game. Rather than getting rid of them, I’d like to just get rid of the explicit mechanical effects of conditions. Instead I’d run them sort of like aspects or consequences in Fate. So, if you’re Blinded, that doesn’t impose any kind of explicit penalty. However, any time you do something that being Blinded would affect, the DM can compel the condition to complicate your life. This winds up being an additional source of action points, and also allows for situations where players can use their conditions creatively to actually invoke them for a benefit.

Hacking Magic Items
This might be controversial: I want to get rid of magic items. Well, not entirely. I want to get rid of all of the pre-created magic items in the various books and replace the mathematical necessity of them with inherent bonuses. Magic items, themselves, would be pretty rare and, again, would be a bit more Fate-like. For example, you might find a sword that has magical properties like Flaming, Bloodthirsty, and Protective of its Wielder. These can then be invoked or compelled with action points.

Going along with this, I’d probably do away with the gold piece economy altogether and instead add a more abstract wealth system, similar to what’s found in Fate, World of Darkness, or d20 Modern.

So, that’s what I’d do. Thoughts?

Marcelo Dior comes back to us with a review of Heroes of the Feywild, WotC’s latest D&D supplement. He makes it sound pretty good, too.

It’s been a while since I read a D&D book (almost two years) so I was very surprised by the quality of this supplement. At fist, I though “oh boy, a book about fairies and pixies, rainbows and unicorns, all pink and flowery…” Man, was I wrong! Of course there are pixies and rainbows, Princes of Summer and cities of eternal autumn, but they’re the ones from old Greek and Irish myth — dangerous, deadly, incredibly powerful and not at all impressed with humanity. It’s the kind of fairy tale that reminds you all too well how fragile mortal life is, and how fleeting our achievements are compared to the immortal and godlike beings from beyond the Veil.

I need to give special praise for the layout of this book. Throughout the pages you see leaves, masks, branches and uncut stones decorating the book — a very nice touch that conveys the idea of a book about the Feywild. But the best part are the “Bard’s Tales” sections, side-blocks of stories small and large, conveying the most interesting, strange, and bizarre folklore tales. They not only set the mood at every chapter, section, and page, but also give immense amounts of material to weave into your games if you want to.

The only downside of the book is the lack of DM-related material: the book is 95% for the player, who will have a ball with the new backgrounds, races, and builds — not classes, mind you, but new powers for existing ones, and new builds, which I find brilliant, for there are more than enough character classes out there. I’d give special attention to the very last chapter, where you could create a rich backstory for the entire party at random — a tip of the hat to the old AD&D “Complete” supplements, I think. The three races added to the Dungeons & Dragons mythos (the hamadryad, the pixie and the satyr) are surprisingly interesting and fun. I’d not only allow, but indeed invite at least one character from those races in my table at any time.

If it wasn’t for the lack of love for the Dungeon Master, I’d have given Heroes of the Feywild 4 stars. Let’s hope something in the vein of The Shadowfell: Gloomwrought and Beyond is in the pipeline for the Feywild.

We had that meetup today, and it was a rousing success. We had a mixed group of game designers, podcasters, artists, and editors, and it was really interesting to get together and talk about the process of game design from all of these varying perspectives. There was a lot of general chatter at first, with topics ranging from what’s wrong with the current state of D&D, to how Paizo took everyone by surprise with Pathfinder, to how various board, card, and roleplaying games achieve their goals with varying levels of success.

We also discussed what we want out of this thing in the future. There was a general consensus that it should stay relatively casual; we want to hang out, talk, play games, eat snacks, and drink beer (well, Jenn and I drank beer; everyone else abstained). However, we also want this to be a resource for Philly area game designers, and we want to achieve that in a couple of different ways.

First, this is a good networking tool. It allows people connected to the industry in various ways to meet up with people connected in other ways, ways which may be valuable. Hopefully it’ll grow as it goes on, which will make this element of the meetup even more valuable.

Second, this is a great opportunity for game designers to playtest their games and get feedback from other people who are looking at the game with an eye toward analyzing it from a mechanical and thematic perspective. Jenn ran her game, Project Ninja Panda Taco, and not only was it great fun (seriously, back this game when it goes to Kickstarter), I think she got a lot of valuable feedback from the group there. She was presented with a group of people who were really enthusiastic about her game, and who wanted to make it as awesome as it can be, many of whom had experience designing games, themselves. Valuable stuff.

Third, something we want to do is play actual complete games–games that are currently for sale on the market–with an eye toward analysis. So maybe one day we sit down and play Settlers of Catan, or Nightfall, or Fiasco, and we talk about what works and doesn’t work, and what can be applied to other games.

All in all, very successful, and a lot of fun. There is an extremely high degree of likelihood that there will be another one in January, and a similarly high likelihood that there will be further meetups in the future. This is something we want to keep doing, and something we want to grow. As such, I hope you’ll join us in the future.

Metatopia showed me how awesome it can be to sit down with a bunch of game designers and talk shop, and how much it can jump start the creative process. Unfortunately, it’s only once a year, and it’ll be a little while before I can go to another con.

However, a solution presented itself in the form of a suggestion made by my friend Nick a month or two ago. He suggested that we try and get some Philly area game designers together to hang out and talk games. I thought it was a great idea, but it didn’t really go anywhere for a while. Well, that has changed.

A week and change ago, I decided to actually put my money where Nick’s mouth was and organize this thing, so I started contacting people. This get-together is going to be small affair, but I’m hoping it’ll be the first of many, and I’m hoping to make this a fairly regular occurrence. So, the details.

It’ll be happening next weekend, on December 3rd at my house. There will be five of us in attendance (unless more people express interest last-minute), including myself, Jenn from Jennisodes, a guy who’s done work for WotC, an independent game designer of a game that is awesome, John Adamus, editor to the (game design) stars. Sorry for the vagueness, but I haven’t actually gotten permission from most of these people to use their names. If they want to identify themselves, they can do so in the comments.

The plan is for us to get together, get to know each other, talk about games and game design, and maybe playtest stuff for each other. I’m hoping that this thing grows as it continues, and that it becomes a valuable resource for local designers and industry folk.

So, here’s the part where you potentially come in. If you consider yourself to be in the game design industry, and you’re in the Philly area, and this sounds like your cup of tea, email me at engard (at) gmail (dot) com. Tell me who you are and what you hope to get out of the deal, and I’ll likely provide you with the details.

This past weekend, I attended Metatopia, a new Double Exposure convention. I didn’t really know what to expect when I signed up, but I figured that it was close by and it sounded cool so I’d give it a shot.

Boy am I glad I did.

Metatopia, for those who are unfamiliar, is a convention meant to help independent game designers hone their craft and refine their ideas. It provides a venue for playtesting by providing time slots to run your game and matching your game with people to play it; it provides the ability to conduct focus groups and workshops about your game, if it’s not yet ready for playtesting; and it has a truly excellent series of seminars, which were both packed and small enough that they behaved more like large conversations than traditional talks.

At Metatopia, I got to play a very cool game called Fortune Cookie Kung Fu. Keep an eye out for it. While it still needed a little bit of work, there was a huge amount of promise there, and even in its current stage, everyone had a lot of fun around the table. The basic premise is that everyone creates kung fu characters by drawing inspiration from their fortune cookie fortune and the meal they ordered (you’re supposed to order Chinese food before playing; it’s in the rules). Then everyone takes turns providing opposition for each other as the story is created. It tends toward the ludicrous; there was a herd of wizards, an army of defeated Bobs, and a cooking challenge against the Great Evil at the end (“Battle Long Pork”). I had a great time, and will be playing it again (the creator, Russel Morrisey, graciously gave everyone a playtest copy of the game).

I also got to participate in a focus group for a game called Wanderlust. This one’s still in its infancy to some extent, but there’s a huge amount of potential there. Created by Shoshana Kessock, Wanderlust is a game about what the humans and the fey do when the Earth is used up, and they must turn to space-faring in order to find a new home. There are a lot of great ideas at work: shared narrative control, a rotating GM role, and a very cool token economy. Shoshana was extremely receptive to our feedback, and her enthusiasm made me very excited for the game. I’ll be keeping an eye out for it.

And then there were the seminars. I participated in various seminars about indie publishing, talking to the talent, designing games (from both a mechanical and story perspective), and just the state of the game industry. The seminars were lively, and audience participation was both encouraged and frequent. The seminars were lead by the likes of Ken Hite, Brennan Taylor, Fred Hicks, and Rob Donoghue, and the conversations were very engaging.

All of the scheduled activities were awesome, and worth the price of admission, but they weren’t even the best part for me. The best part was that this was a place to meet up with a bunch of enthusiastic game designers, and that enthusiasm was contagious. I came away from the con energized and ready to work on my own projects (of which I have a few at this point). It’s also a great place to network; by the end of the convention I had eaten with Brennan Taylor, Fred Hicks, and Rob Donoghue, played poker with Ken Hite (we both lost all of our chips), and come away with a new freelance project for Evil Hat. From a professional development standpoint, Metatopia delivered and then some.

I will definitely be going again next year, and I hope to see you there.

Marcelo Dior graces us with another guest post (those who are unfamiliar with him should check out his older guest posts on The Gamecrafters’ Guild). This time he asks the question: is role-playing essential to the experience of playing an RPG?

A fallacy permeates the RPG scene. The fallacy is that it’s more important to role-play than play; this means that, if you don’t role-play, you’re playing wrong.

The misconception starts by the clumsy affirmation that, when combat starts, role-play stops. Consequently, there’s no role-play during combat. I don’t know about you, dear reader, but to me that idea won’t float. What do you mean, there’s no role-play in combat? Better people than me already tackled the idea: Randall Walker, from Dungeon Master’s Round Table, answered this question on the podcast’s episode 26; “You can role-play in any event. It doesn’t matter if you’re working through a Skill Challenge or if you’re working through combat. Any time the player says ‘I stand up and swing it and hit it with my sword’ it’s a kind of role-play—-it may not be sophisticated, but it’s still a kind of role-play.” Then he adds “Sure [4e] has a lot of mechanics, but it doesn’t mean that you can’t role-play those situations”.

Nevertheless, the whole situation is invalid by the simple reason that, if this isn’t role-play, we’re assuming one should role-play in order to play right! This line of thought is very dangerous because it implies there’s a correct way of playing the game, and a wrong way. This idea is offensive!

Is there a right way of playing RPGs? Is there a right way of having fun? Shouldn’t playing right be playing it in a way that is fun for you and everybody around the table? Isn’t “right” spending a couple of pleasant hours with friends or maybe total strangers in a convention? Perhaps I’m being bold here but I doubt there’s anybody who’d disagree with that logic.

So, as long as everybody’s having fun, there’s really no wrong way of playing—-hence, no right way either. It’s really great when somebody stands up from their chair, wave their arms and says “my warlock traces runes in the air, which shine with mystic energies from Shadowfell, while she shouts ‘thou shall never harm another soul from this sphere, ruffian!’” but it’s equally valid and rewarding if the same player rolls a d20 and say “I hit the mind flayer for 16 point of necrotic damage”. Who’s to say it isn’t? Just because they’re not “role-playing”? That’s not role-play; that’s improv theater.

Therefore, yes, role-play is part of combat (an integral element of so many games) but, more importantly, role-play isn’t essential to have fun. Having fun is essential to have fun! The rest is ornamentation—-bells and whistles-—and some people overreact.

Wow, it’s been . . . a month or so since my last post? That’s not so good. I’m going to make an effort to start up again. The thing is, I have freelance writing and such that I’m working on, for pay and publication, and every time I sit down to blog, I think to myself, “I could be designing right now.” My own personal hangup, and probably not the best mindset, but there you go; I’ll try to get past it.

At any rate, I thought I’d go ahead and post my schedule for Metatopia, which I will be attending on the 4th, 5th, and 6th of November. For those who are unaware of what Metatopia is: it is a gaming convention with a primary focus on helping independent designers test their games and learn their craft. You can go if you just want to play games; that’s allowed, and helps those designers get their things tested. However, you can also sign up as a designer (which is a little more expensive), and schedule events for people to participate in. Pretty cool, right? I signed up as a player because none of the stuff I’m working on is really ready for prime time yet, but I’m going to be attending a lot of seminars to help me get better at what I do. Here’s the rundown:

Friday
Fortune Cookie Kung Fu – 8pm – 12am

Saturday
Self-Publishing – 10am – 11am
Wanderlust Focus Group – 12pm – 1pm
Game Design Roundtable – 3pm – 5pm
Independent Gaming Roundtable – 5pm – 7pm
Champion of the Realm – 8pm – 12am

Sunday
Game Mechanics: What Works, What Doesn’t? – 1pm-2pm

Note that, while I only have a single event scheduled for Friday and Sunday, that doesn’t necessarily mean that those will be the only times I’m there. Work is going to make it difficult to spend a lot of time at the convention on Friday, but I might use Sunday to meet up with other people at the convention. If you’re attending, feel free to send me a message on Twitter (@Zelgadas), or shoot me an email (engard at gmail dot com) if you want to meet up. If you’re not attending but want to, well you’ve basically got the rest of tonight and tomorrow (Halloween) to sign up. Best of luck.

Hope to see you there!

Recently it was announced that Monte Cook was returning to work on D&D, an announcement that got the Internet in a tizzy. Speculation abounds, with many people asking the question: does this mean that 5th Edition is on its way? Certainly there have been hints of this, in Mike Mearls’ Legends and Lore articles. I’ve made it no secret that I’m a little burnt out on the current edition of D&D. I still like it, I still think it’s great; I play Encounters at my FLGS whenever I can. However, I’m finding more of what I enjoy playing in various indie RPGs, so that’s where my interests currently lie.

However, I’d be interested in seeing what Mearls and Cook do in a 5th edition of the game. I might not adopt it as readily as I did 4th Edition; I saw 4th as a vast improvement over 3.x, so I had immediate and intense enthusiasm for it, which lasted several years. That said, 4th Edition is not perfect. It is largely a combat engine, and I find that I want more than that in an RPG. With that in mind, I’m going to discuss some things I’d like to see in a 5th edition of the game.

A few disclaimers first. Some of these ideas are extrapolated from, or even shamelessly stolen from, a Twitter conversation between Sarah Darkmagic, Fred Hicks, and the Newbie DM. Credit where it’s due. Also, note my bias: I’m really into a variety of indie RPGs right now; most notably, FATE has been on my mind a lot due to a number of reasons, such as Bulldogs! and The Demolished Ones.

Mechanics that Support Roleplay
Back when D&D was my bread and butter, I would have scoffed at this notion. Why do you need mechanics to support roleplay? It’s roleplay; the players should be doing it, and there don’t need to be rules codifying it. I’ve since read a number of games in which such mechanics are employed, and I’ve changed my tune about them. A well-developed roleplay mechanic can stay out of the way when it’s not needed, but can reward and incentivize good characterization when it is.

The main issue, as I see it, is that everything on a D&D character sheet describes what your character does, what he or she is good at. Most of this is also combat-oriented; what does he or she do in a fight? There’s little to nothing on that character sheet that describes why the character does what he or she does. What are your characters goals? Motivations? Relationships? Fears? These things matter if you want to play a convincing person rather than a set of stats. While it’s true that there’s nothing preventing you from coming up with this stuff on your own, there’s nothing supporting it either. There’s nothing making it easier, or making it worth your time, within the game. Some groups will do it because that’s the kind of game they like; others won’t because it won’t even occur to them. I’d like to see rules space devoted to this kind of thing; not just advice for players, but real, concrete rules that encourage you to play a person in the game, with all the baggage that goes along with being an individual.

More Power to Skills
Skills are an underutilized commodity within D&D. Everybody has them, to some degree or another, but there are too many arbitrary limitations, and their utility is far too situational. In some games, skills will get a lot of use; people will jump across chasms, swing from chandeliers, run up walls, charm the guards, create cunning distractions, and so forth. That’s awesome. In other games, skills will be numbers on your sheet that mean very little. What I want to see is more mechanical benefit for taking those skills, and fewer restrictions on which skills you can take. Why, for example, can’t my fighter take Bluff without spending a feat on it? Are fighters incapable of lying without special training or effort? These sorts of things play to stereotypes, which can be a useful shorthand, but has the mechanical effect of limiting character concept potential.

And speaking of feats, I’d like to see feats directly tied to skills. I’m thinking specifically of a system similar to FATE’s, with feats taking a role similar to those of stunts. Rather than a bunch of conditional combat bonuses, I’d like to see feats used as ways to do additional things with your skills. Some of these things might be combat bonus-related; for example, maybe an Arcana feat can be taken to imbue a weapon with magical power for +1d6 fire damage for a short period of time. The key is that they’re tied to skills, making the choice of skills more important and the payoff for taking a particular skill greater.

Finally, I’d like to see the explicit link between skills and ability scores go away. In some cases, this makes sense; Endurance and Constitution make sense together. But I’d much rather see a system in which the bonuses are separate, and your description of how you use the skill determines which ability score bonus is added to it. For example, a fighter flexing his muscles menacingly could use Strength + Intimidation, while a ranger employing his knowledge of how to survive in a hostile environment could use Wisdom or Intelligence + Endurance to survive a desert’s heat. The description is a requisite for this; you can’t just say “I use Intelligence + Endurance”; you have to explain why the two go together.

Less Explicit Combat Focus for Powers
I like powers; I like the variety they can add to the game. However, they can also cause monotony, when players simply tell you what power they’re using, rather than describing their actions. I think that part of this is due to the fact that so many powers are simply attacks. I played a game of Old School Hack a while ago, which uses things called Talents, which are similar to D&D’s powers. However, many Talents are not simply attacks, and are not purely combat-focused. The magic-user for example, rather than taking a spell that might make her more powerful in combat, took a spell that allowed her to talk to doors, and unlock and lock them at will. It turned out to be a great choice, not just mechanically (though it was very helpful during the game), but for fleshing out her character and informing her decisions and descriptions during play. I’d like to see fewer powers per character, and I’d like to see them do something other than just damage + condition + effect. I’d like to see powers that you have to work a little bit in order to use, powers that require descriptions in order to make useful.

The Rest
There are a lot of things that I still like about D&D. I like the simplicity of hit points and defenses, and I like the way monsters work quite a bit. I like experience points and levels, and I like action points. The class system is simple, evocative, and fun, and I like the different races and how they work. I like a lot about D&D, but I think it can be more than it is. I hope it will be.

Recently it was announced that Monte Cook was returning to work on D&D, an announcement that got the Internet in a tizzy. Speculation abounds, with many people asking the question: does this mean that 5th Edition is on its way? Certainly there have been hints of this, in Mike Mearls’ Legends and Lore articles. I’ve made it no secret that I’m a little burnt out on the current edition of D&D. I still like it, I still think it’s great; I play Encounters at my FLGS whenever I can. However, I’m finding more of what I enjoy playing in various indie RPGs, so that’s where my interests currently lie.

However, I’d be interested in seeing what Mearls and Cook do in a 5th edition of the game. I might not adopt it as readily as I did 4th Edition; I saw 4th as a vast improvement over 3.x, so I had immediate and intense enthusiasm for it, which lasted several years. That said, 4th Edition is not perfect. It is largely a combat engine, and I find that I want more than that in an RPG. With that in mind, I’m going to discuss some things I’d like to see in a 5th edition of the game.

A few disclaimers first. Some of these ideas are extrapolated from, or even shamelessly stolen from, a Twitter conversation between Sarah Darkmagic, Fred Hicks, and the Newbie DM. Credit where it’s due. Also, note my bias: I’m really into a variety of indie RPGs right now; most notably, FATE has been on my mind a lot due to a number of reasons, such as Bulldogs! and The Demolished Ones.

Mechanics that Support Roleplay
Back when D&D was my bread and butter, I would have scoffed at this notion. Why do you need mechanics to support roleplay? It’s roleplay; the players should be doing it, and there don’t need to be rules codifying it. I’ve since read a number of games in which such mechanics are employed, and I’ve changed my tune about them. A well-developed roleplay mechanic can stay out of the way when it’s not needed, but can reward and incentivize good characterization when it is.

The main issue, as I see it, is that everything on a D&D character sheet describes what your character does, what he or she is good at. Most of this is also combat-oriented; what does he or she do in a fight? There’s little to nothing on that character sheet that describes why the character does what he or she does. What are your characters goals? Motivations? Relationships? Fears? These things matter if you want to play a convincing person rather than a set of stats. While it’s true that there’s nothing preventing you from coming up with this stuff on your own, there’s nothing supporting it either. There’s nothing making it easier, or making it worth your time, within the game. Some groups will do it because that’s the kind of game they like; others won’t because it won’t even occur to them. I’d like to see rules space devoted to this kind of thing; not just advice for players, but real, concrete rules that encourage you to play a person in the game, with all the baggage that goes along with being an individual.

More Power to Skills
Skills are an underutilized commodity within D&D. Everybody has them, to some degree or another, but there are too many arbitrary limitations, and their utility is far too situational. In some games, skills will get a lot of use; people will jump across chasms, swing from chandeliers, run up walls, charm the guards, create cunning distractions, and so forth. That’s awesome. In other games, skills will be numbers on your sheet that mean very little. What I want to see is more mechanical benefit for taking those skills, and fewer restrictions on which skills you can take. Why, for example, can’t my fighter take Bluff without spending a feat on it? Are fighters incapable of lying without special training or effort? These sorts of things play to stereotypes, which can be a useful shorthand, but has the mechanical effect of limiting character concept potential.

And speaking of feats, I’d like to see feats directly tied to skills. I’m thinking specifically of a system similar to FATE’s, with feats taking a role similar to those of stunts. Rather than a bunch of conditional combat bonuses, I’d like to see feats used as ways to do additional things with your skills. Some of these things might be combat bonus-related; for example, maybe an Arcana feat can be taken to imbue a weapon with magical power for +1d6 fire damage for a short period of time. The key is that they’re tied to skills, making the choice of skills more important and the payoff for taking a particular skill greater.

Finally, I’d like to see the explicit link between skills and ability scores go away. In some cases, this makes sense; Endurance and Constitution make sense together. But I’d much rather see a system in which the bonuses are separate, and your description of how you use the skill determines which ability score bonus is added to it. For example, a fighter flexing his muscles menacingly could use Strength + Intimidation, while a ranger employing his knowledge of how to survive in a hostile environment could use Wisdom or Intelligence + Endurance to survive a desert’s heat. The description is a requisite for this; you can’t just say “I use Intelligence + Endurance”; you have to explain why the two go together.

Less Explicit Combat Focus for Powers
I like powers; I like the variety they can add to the game. However, they can also cause monotony, when players simply tell you what power they’re using, rather than describing their actions. I think that part of this is due to the fact that so many powers are simply attacks. I played a game of Old School Hack a while ago, which uses things called Talents, which are similar to D&D’s powers. However, many Talents are not simply attacks, and are not purely combat-focused. The magic-user for example, rather than taking a spell that might make her more powerful in combat, took a spell that allowed her to talk to doors, and unlock and lock them at will. It turned out to be a great choice, not just mechanically (though it was very helpful during the game), but for fleshing out her character and informing her decisions and descriptions during play. I’d like to see fewer powers per character, and I’d like to see them do something other than just damage + condition + effect. I’d like to see powers that you have to work a little bit in order to use, powers that require descriptions in order to make useful.

The Rest
There are a lot of things that I still like about D&D. I like the simplicity of hit points and defenses, and I like the way monsters work quite a bit. I like experience points and levels, and I like action points. The class system is simple, evocative, and fun, and I like the different races and how they work. I like a lot about D&D, but I think it can be more than it is. I hope it will be.

The Kickstarter for The Demolished Ones is now up! If you’re interested in seeing this Lovecraft-inspired dystopian steampunk mystery game/adventure come to fruition, please go and back it. Donate $10 and you’ll get a PDF and your name in the credits. At $40, you’ll get a copy of the book. At $75 you get to start having input into the development of the game. At $500+, I will personally run a game of The Demolished Ones for you at GenCon 2012. What are you waiting for? Get to it!