The Ups and Downs of Playing These Games for Decades

 

Well the #1 Up is that I'm still around to play them and a close second is that I have friends I have known since the 80's that I still play with regularly - that's important.

At times though the years catch up and I get to feeling a little cranky when I see something praised as a brilliant new innovation that has been around for most of those same decades. Over the past year or so one of the highlights has been "Shadowdark has you roll to cast spells"-OK? And? People constantly praise games for innovation that they didn't innovate.

I realize a lot of people came into D&D specifically and RPGs in general with 5E but c'mon: we've had "rolling to cast spells" in games for 40+ years. Fantasy Hero (85) had it, GURPS (86) had it, Shadowrun (89) had it and if you want a more D&D-descended game Dungeon Crawl Classics has had it since 2012! I don't expect every teenager who starts playing D&D to know the complete history of RPGs but you'd think that somewhere in the online discussion around this stuff there would be some ancient guardians of knowledge who would emerge and share some enlightenment but maybe there are fewer of us out there than I realized. 

So yes a downside is that very little these days seems innovative. When I read a new set of rules I can quite often start picking out where certain mechanics came from. It doesn't make a game bad - there are a lot of good mechanics out there that work very well in an RPG and deserve to see more playing time. I'm always happy to see something I liked in an earlier system make a return in a new one. 

The counterpart of this is when you see an online discussion lamenting how a game works and someone mentions how they think it could work better and, well, yeah - it used to work that way and then they changed it. For whatever reason. There was a long discussion on EN World recently about high level play in 5E D&D - mainly about how it's so uncommon - and it was mentioned that high level characters had too many options and one solution was that it would be better if lower level abilities were replaced by higher level abilities as one leveled up rather than everything being additive and just piling up. 

<sigh>

Just tell me you never played 4th edition D&D - at least not for long - as this is one of the things 4E does, Starting at 13th level you replace attack powers instead of adding them. Since the game runs up to 30th level that is starting at not even the halfway point of the leveling process and yes it does solve a lot of the "pile-up" problem. If you want to make high level play work in a D&D type game 4E did a ton of good work on that. But a lot of people decided they didn't like that version - mostly without playing any of it in my experience  - and so some of the really smart, innovative, mechanics go unnoticed 10+ years later.

I suppose one of my main points with all of this is that it's worthwhile to read other RPGs, even if you aren't running or playing them at the moment, to see how other people are doing things. You may see something that can be stolen for a game that you are running.

• Take Advantage/Disadvantage from 5E D&D. This is a tremendously useful concept for a looser/more casual RPG and gets rid of almost all of those wonderful lists of modifiers we used to see in older editions. It has shown up in a ton of games over the past decade and I think it could be used in more. Any game that has long lists of +1 for this and -1 for that ... ask yourself "do we really need that level of precision? Is it actually precision or just the illusion of that? What would we lose by taking another approach?" 
• Besides Advantage there is 4E D&Ds approach of +/-2 or +/-5 for all modifier scenarios. A lesser condition or situation = a +/-2 and a major condition or situation = +/-5 and that's it - there are no more levels to it. Limited visibility? then it's a -2. Full darkness? It's a -5. No need to refer to charts for specific modifiers - that's it. 
• Now for a bit more granularity consider mixing those two options. Minor advantages or complications = +/-2 to a roll and for a Major situation you could go to Advantage/Disadvantage. I haven't tried it this way but it might work better for some games. 

 I suppose that's an "up" - I've seen a lot of cool innovations with mechanics over the years. It's a "down" when so many newer players are unaware of them. 

• If you think rolling for spells is a cool idea try "no levels". Traveller was the first game I played that had no levels and it was pretty damn revolutionary to see it in action the first time.
• Traveller was also the first game I played with a skill system - remember early D&D did not use skills - and that was mind-blowing as well.
• In the early days Champions was the first game I played where you didn't roll for stats. Nowadays point-buy stats are pretty common but Champions with point-buy for everything - again no classes here but points for stats/skills/powers - was again revolutionary. This was also the first place I saw advantages and disadvantages for characters. This was not rolling multiple dice but could be seen today as the forerunner of Feats in D&D terms. From having a code of honor to  missing a limb to going berserk when injured it was a new way to codify a character beyond stats or skills or class abilities and make yours unique.
• The FASA Star Trek RPG was not the first but was probably the biggest game to use Action Points. Early D&D really only accounted for move, attack, or cast a spell as things you could do in a round. Champions kind of had it's own system for all of the things one could do in a round, and Snapshot was the first AP system I know of but it was a separate boardgame-type optional add-on to Traveller that not everyone had or used. Star Trek built it into the game for resolving personal combat and I loved it. Opening a door might cost 1AP, drawing a weapon 1AP, movement might be 1 AP per square, applying first aid might be multiple AP ... basically everything you could do in a round had an AP cost and every character/NPC had an AP allowance, typically based on Dexterity. it was pretty easy to adjudicate costs if something unusual came up. if you needed to arm and load a photon torpedo in the middle of a gun battle in the torpedo room maybe that's 6AP or 10AP - the GM could make a call there based on other costs and the situation. How is this relevant to today? You think Pathfinder 2E's 3 actions per round with variable action costs came from nowhere? That's a 3AP/round system in action. 

This doesn't even touch on so many other "firsts" over the years - the first dice pool systems, the first fate point mechanics giving players some control over die rolls, the first time we saw templates for characters, the first abstracted chase systems ... there are a lot of games from 30-40 years ago that have directly influenced what's popular today.

The last thing to note in my rambling notes on longevity is that over the years you will see both rules and settings show up again and again and again and something to keep in mind is that games are not technology - the newest is not always the best and a new edition is not automatically superior to what has come before. Many times you will find improvements mixed with unnecessary changes. Another thing to remember is that you don't have to play the latest and greatest version of an RPG - or any tabletop game. 

Rules-wise I started with Holmes Basic D&D. After that you get Moldvay B/X, Mentzer BECMI, the Rules Compendium if you want to count it as a separate edition from BECMI - that's 3-4 editions of a relatively simple early version of D&D in slightly more than a decade. Then we have 5-ish versions of what was AD&D. Plus Pathfinder 1E & 2E. Plus all of the OSR stuff like Labyrinth Lord and Black Hack and OSE and the rest. Plus offshoots like DCC. There are 15 versions of D&D type gaming rules just with what I have mentioned here. The companies that own them are not going to stop putting out new versions and other people are not going to stop riffing on those versions with their own versions.

Traveller has at least 5 versions of Marc Miller Traveler, a couple of Mongoose Traveller editions, plus a GURPS version or two, plus a d20 version. Roughly ten editions of Traveller. I doubt we have seen the last.

Champions has become the Hero System and we're on the 6th version of that unless you want to count the "completes" as a new edition in which case we're up to 7. Down the road I'm sure we will see another. At least these are fairly consistent and compatible with each other.

Shadowrun is a fairly niche game and we're on a 6th edition of that. You'd think something like that could settle out for a long edition run but like most games someone new comes in, wants to put their stamp on it, and decides to put out a new edition where you will no doubt see some innovations and a bunch of unneeded and likely unrequested changes that will not be playtested nearly enough leading to ridiculous levels of errata and FAQs. 

That's another takeaway from all of this time I have spent - there is never enough playtesting. Many times I expect there is near-zero playtesting based on how quickly people find broken or nonsensical things in RPG rulebooks. A designer playing with his home group is not "playtesting" at anything approaching useful levels because they are right there to explain. Let people learn it cold, straight from your draft rulebook - and I mean multiple groups - and then you're getting somewhere.

Then we get into IP games - we've seen at least 5 versions of Star Trek - Heritage, FASA, Last Unicorn, Decipher, and Modiphius and they are all dramatically different from each other. Considering FASA and Modiphius both have second editions I suppose we are up to 7 total editions.  That's a lot for one setting but Star Trek has been adding new material for most of the last 40+ years so maybe there is some need for it but I'm pretty sure you could do everything one might expect to do in a Star Trek game using FASA or Last Unicorn's rules. New aliens, new spaceships, sure - but are they really doing anything significantly different in the newer shows and movies?

With Star Wars we have 2 West End Games d6 editions, 3 WOTC d20 versions, and one (kinda) version with FFG. Again, these are radically different mechanical takes but having played them all I can say - they all work. It really comes down to personal preference for feel and what kind of support you want for a given era or type of campaign though lord knows given that it's Star Wars there is a vast array of fan-created material for all of that across all versions. 

Lord of the Rings has what, two editions with Iron Crown, a Decipher edition, and then One Ring with Cubicle 7, One Ring 2E with Free League, and a 5E sidestep edition with both? So around 7 different versions? I've never felt compelled to run a LOTR campaign but I know the people that love one of these systems really love them and often continue playing them after an edition change. I mean ... it's not like the lore changed so if edition x works for you and your players why not? 

Them there are the superhero licenses - we've had these for 40 years as well, mainly Marvel and DC, and a lot of them have been good. A few of them have been terrible so again, newness and a name brand are absolutely no guarantee of quality. I won't enumerate all of the versions here but superhero games tend to be pretty innovative when it comes to mechanics because they push all of the boundaries of a roleplaying game both physically and dramatically. If you want a universe-spanning campaign with time travel, soap opera drama, and ridiculous physical and mental powers along with all of the stupid technology and magic you can think of this is where you come. They're not all good, but a lot of them are and a lot of them are also really interesting even just to read - but if you get the chance try a few test scenarios at least, just to see what they can do.

I'm not even getting into things like Conan, Babylon 5, Ninja Turtles, Robotech, Battlestar Galactica, Call of Cthulu, James Bond, and other former or potential licensees here. There are a ton and they can get really niche-y - we're getting a new Invincible RPG I see. I wonder what it's going to do that you couldn't do in an existing superhero game? I guess we will see.

Again, and especially with licensed games, there will always be a new version sooner or later. Someone will come along and think they have unlocked the secret to making money with a property in the RPG space but I can promise you two things:

• It will have a limited lifespan. The deal only lasts so long or the licensing fees will increase and the publisher will have to let it go. Even if it's published in-house - looking at you here new Marvel RPG - the odds are that it will not make enough money to be worth the hassle and the line will be cancelled and eventually handed off to an outside team that will try to do it once again. So my advice is to just hope that it lasts long enough to crank out all of the supporting material you could possible want or need before it ends. 
• When it ends, all of those wonderful PDFs will become unavailable to buy. because of the way licensing an IP works that's just how it is. Can you buy any of the d20 Star Wars material from WOTC these days? No. They didn't really do PDFs then but a lot of their odder D&D material is available - because they own it. The MWP Marvel stuff was all available in PDF - until a little while after they announced the end of the license - and then it wasn't. SO if a new version of one of these IP games comes out and you like it then grab it as it does because it gets trickier later. 
  
  Also many times the physical books get a lot more expensive too. Not always, but quite a bit of the time it will cost more to acquire them once it's out of print than before.

Finally there are the settings. RPG companies love to reprint setting material. Presumably it sells well but also I suspect it's because most of the work is already done. All they have to do is update the timeline if it has one that has advanced - and/or update the metaplot if it has one of those - and look, here's a book that's ready to go, barring art - and they will probably reuse some of that too. Should we be upset about that? Probably not but that means you end up buying a lot of material that you already own if you stick with a game for a long time.

Take the Forgotten Realms as an example. We have had:

• An AD&D 1E box set
• An AD&D 2E box set
• A 3E hardcover book
• Two 4E hardcover books
• A 5E hardcover book ... kind of ... and then other campaign material spread across multiple adventure books ... it's messy here.

Sure, there is some timeline advancement here so there is a layer of new history and current events added on with each one, and there are usually some new edition game mechanics included as well, but a huge chunk of each of these is pretty much what you got in the prior version. 

Do you want it? Well, if you're a fan of the setting, probably.

Do you need it? Well, how much of that new stuff actually affects your campaign? Some of the mechanics, maybe. The change to which obscure god is now worshipped in Narfell? Which new continent has arisen or sunken or teleported in from a moon for this edition? The current order of battle for the Mulmaster Beholder Corps? Eh, probably not. 

But with every new edition of a game a setting update will be published. In fact, you will probably get a basic overview of the setting in the main rulebook and then a separate setting book with the full story on it. I mean, would be real new edition of  Shadowrun without a "Seattle 20xx" book incrementing the last one by 10-20 years? 

Yes this is very much like buying a movie on VHS, DVD, Blu-Ray, 4K Blu-Ray, and whatever 8K or 16K comes next ignoring side trips like Laserdisc, or a digital copy. It's the same content, possibly even the same special features, as what you bought 20+ years ago with some updates that don't really change what you are watching. It may be prettier but it's unlikely to surprise you. Vader is still Luke's dad (spoiler). 

Sometimes they break things here too. A lot of people hated the 4E changes to the Forgotten Realms. A lot of people hated the Rebellion in Megatraveller splitting up the Imperium. A lot of people then hated the next edition with Traveller the New Era making the setting a sort of interstellar post-apocalyptic thing while also changing all of the rules mechanics at the same time. This did not help GDW. The GURPS version avoided it by ignoring it for one version and dropping back hundreds of years in the next. I believe Mongoose has also gone with the approach that "we are a separate timeline where none of that stuff you hated ever happened" and it seems to be working out for them.

To me it seems that the best long term solution for setting stability after the top choice of "make your own" is "pick one that you already like, pick a version of it or a time period in it that you like, and stick with that - regardless of rules changes". it will save you a lot of time and churn over the years.

Anyway that's more than enough rambling for today. I've been digging into games and systems a lot lately which spurred this epic monologue and I'm sure that drive will continue for a while longer. It's an interesting time in the hobby and it feels like changes are in the wind. I'm looking forward to seeing where it goes. 

Encounter Balance in Modern D&D and Tales of the Valiant

I've never been too concerned with "encounter balance" as in most editions the guidance and numbers given for it are terrible. In my experience 4E did a pretty decent job at providing something useful but that's the only one I liked. I haven't been worrying about it much with the current game but now I feel like the group is verging on having too easy of a time with a lot of the dungeon and then suddenly ending up in a life and death struggle when they hit a certain area or combination of inhabitants. 

I'm running Temple of Elemental Evil but the characters are from Tales of the Valiant. So the old school encounter setups are somewhat offset by them having old school numbers in the party and then being characters in a post-5E system and having much greater individual power than an AD&D character, slightly balanced out by using late/post-5E monsters with more interesting capabilities as the opposition most of the time. I mean, in the end they will most likely win but I do want them to work for it. 

Given the way my players are flattening a lot of the opposition now I am paying more attention to how the various CR's in an area add up and I intend to do some tweaking for some of them - mainly the big temples as they should be some epic, memorable, fights and they should involve some actual elementals which are surprisingly sparse in some areas. Between the various monster books, some allegedly solid encounter guidelines, a big dungeon map, and the 3D printer, I can drop all kinds of elemental evil on them. But ...

What is "balance" when it comes to a dungeon-crawling D&D game? Is there a solid way to define that? How about ...

• 0 characters drop = easy encounter
• 1 character drops = challenging encounter
• 2+ characters drop = hard encounter?

I mean words and descriptors get tossed around with this stuff without any real definition but the focus on systems like this is on math. ToV's system is this for 5th to 10th levels, which is where we will be living for most of this game:

• Half of total PC levels in the party is your "Benchmark"
  (so this is 15-20 for me depending on who shows up)
• Add up total monster CR in an encounter:
• Total > Benchmark = "difficult or dangerous" encounter
• Total < Benchmark= "Less challenging" battle
  (So going by this a total CR of 10 would be easy, 15 would be average, and 20 would be challenging)
• Maximum single monster CR = average party level x 1.5
• Minimum monster CR = 1/2

Now to be fair they do mention adjusting these to better fit your own party and there is a handy chart with average level in the left-hand column going from 1-20 and the top row covering number of PCs from 3-7 and then the cross reference gives you the Challenging Benchmark. 

As far as adjusting for my game I decided to count them as one level higher due to magic items in the party and figured I would start with a 6 character party as my target. That means my Min CR is 1 and my Max CR is 9 and my Benchmark is 18. To try this out I threw two Young Green Dragons at them on the return trip from Verbobonc as that made some kind of sense for the region. That's two CR 8 critters for a 16 total. We only had 5 characters for that session  which made the Benchmark CR 15 so we were right there. 

The party knew something was up as they heard traffic on the road had dwindled over the past week.  They spotted something up in the air as they traveled and made for the ruined keep that marks the halfway point between Hommlet and the city. They determined that it was a dragon about the time they reached the keep and that's when the second dragon stepped out from behind a tower. 

The fight lasted 5 rounds which is probably fine. The fighter charged one, caught the breath weapon, then caught it again when the other one landed nearby and that was it for him - down. The wizard hit them with a Slow spell and that really reduced the melee output as it means even if they have multiattack - they do - they can only make one attack per round so instead of a claw/claw/bite they get a claw or a bite. I think the first one dropped round 3 or early round 4 and the second one was attempting to flee on round 5 when it got fireballed by the wizard (wand) and blew its save. 

Going by their method and my own method mentioned up there I'd say this was in the "challenging" ballpark. One character down, most of the party damaged in some way, they had to use at least one potent spell followed by a powerful wand ... sounds like "challenging" is a good description. 

The party mix in this case was fighter, cleric, ranger, wizard, mechanist. Typically we would have a bard and/or a paladin in there too but not this time. I have seen discussion online that having a second healer in the party really amps up the difficulty in challenging them and I do concur with that - between a full cleric, a paladin who can heal here and there, and a bard that can give out the option to use healing surges during combat they do tend to be very resilient. I will watch the specific party mix  to see if I notice any patterns developing.

I will say I do find this kind of thing fairly tedious. I lean much more towards the "natural world" kind of approach where asking around, looking for rumors, and doing research will tell you what kinds of things live in an area and then knowing that some of those are extremely dangerous will guide your decisions. The world is the world and your characters are living in it - it doesn't level up or down with them. 

If I were to take this way too seriously and actively recalculate each possible encounter every session for the number of players I had it would rapidly drain significant fun from the run. So I won't ever be doing that. These things may work alright as guidelines but don't take them too seriously. All of the math presumes that each creature has been given a CR that accurately reflects the danger they pose to a party. Given the variation one could have in a typical group I think that's optimistic at best and misleading much of the time. If everyone in the party has fire resistance then that red dragon is somewhat less threatening than if no one does. There are ranges give for things like damage output and hit points at each CR but having lived with these kinds of frameworks for 25-ish years now I remain skeptical. That said I will give it a chance, keep trying it out, and see what I find.

This did not go well for our greatsword guy

The Tales of the Valiant Temple of Elemental Evil Campaign Details

 

Well we are 22 sessions into the campaign now and the party is at 5th level. That's despite using individual per-session XP. One character is lower but he's only showing up about every third session so that's how it goes. I wanted to share some thoughts about how the game is going.

First up - how we run: We get together on Saturday nights and run about six hours. Now the first hour or so is eating and catching up so we actually play more like 4-5 hours. We play in-person, sitting around a table, moving miniatures on a battlemat when useful, typically rolling real dice. 

This campaign started in July of 2024 and while the goal is "weekly" we do have occasional skips when the DM (me) has other obligations but I've made this a priority so I keep those to a minimum. I have things 2 out of the next 3 weekends so we will likely only have two sessions in March. If a player can't make it we just play short. With 8 players though, "short" means 5 or 6 players most sessions - we almost always have one or two out - and it's very rare that we cancel a game due to lack of players. I'd say we would have to drop under 4 available to really consider that and it almost never comes up. We did have a long pause at the end of the year when I lost my dad but we've been rolling pretty steadily since then.

People ask about keeping a game going for the long term and honestly it's not that hard to find the plan: commit to running a game and stick to it. Now actually executing it can be challenging, but it has to start with that commitment from the person running the game. Individual players will miss here and there but if the GM is available then things can happen. I probably have enough on this to make a whole new post so let's leave it there for now.

As far as the system we chose for this one I am very happy with Tales of the Valiant. It feels like 5E+. My players are also very happy with it and they too feel like it's a step up from 5th in both the mechanics and what their characters can do within the framework of the rules. I have used 2014 Monster Manual monsters, new monsters from the adventure itself, a whole bunch of creatures from the Monster Vault (the ToV monster book) and a few from Kobold Press' Tome of Beasts series. It's seamless. That said I like the newer critters better as far as having interesting options before and during a fight so I use them most of the time.

For the adventure we are playing through well it's the TOEE - it's a big old-school dungeon with traps and secret doors and exploitable fragmentation amongst the enemy factions. Now are my players exploiting this division in the ranks? No ... but they could if they wanted to. Hommlet makes for a nice base area where we have had quite a bit of interaction with the locals and the wizard is planning to build a tower himself and supplant Burne as the official resident mage*. Nulb has not seen as much action but I suspect some see it as a future opportunity while others are probably looking to make it the target of some kind of war crime as a warning to the Temple, Hommlett, Verbobonc, or possibly all three - time will tell. 

One of the other fun things about this adventure is dusting off my wandering monster skills. traveling the countryside near Hommlett? Random encounter checks! Pushing through various temple dungeon levels? Random encounter checks! Taking the road to Verbobonc? Random encounter checks! It has been fun using the tables provided in the adventure and tuning them up to keep things both thematic and at least somewhat challenging. 

That leads into my one concern about the whole thing and that's that my party is very strong in a fight - and there are theoretically 8 of them. Now this is an old-school module and was not rewritten into 5E's encounter balancing numbers based on a 4-person party so it is meaner - if the old one had 8 bugbears in a room on the first dungeon level then the new one has 8 of them there as well. BUT ... they wipe the floor with most of the things they encounter unless it's a very nasty batch. They have old-school numbers with new-school power levels so it's not quite as even as I had hoped.

I did some of this to myself by giving them more access to magic items than just "what they find in the dungeon" via a traveling merchant I used to use in the old 3E Return to the Temple campaign and also by being able to go to Verbobonc to seek out magic item crafters and a bit of a market. Most of it is checking for a few random items when they seek them but ToV does have rules for crafting - as did 3E and 4E - so I want to give them some options to play in this area. Even then, the strongest items have come straight out of the adventure itself so it's not -all- my fault.

The two hairiest fights so far happened when a)they pulled the inhabitants of 4 rooms all at once by making noise at a bad time and b) the fight for the Water Temple which had multiple lighter creatures and a juggernaut fighting in melee while some clerics stayed back and cast at them. A serious fight means that usually the greatsword-wielding fighter (no shield) drops, then the paladin may or may not go down, then the ranger switches to melee and the cleric wades in with his staff of striking and the wizard and bard start pulling out the big spells like haste or fireball.

Part of the challenge here is that even though I went through beforehand and figured up all of the XP available in the adventure my party ended up going in through a side entrance and punching their way into the dungeon starting in the middle instead of starting at the top and working their way down like most people would - theoretically at least. So they were immediately in some tougher encounters than I had expected but I pulled no punches and their larger numbers helped them power through. We've had no permanent deaths though we have come close a few times.

Seeing that I began to realize that I may need to do some tweaking. Really, I started doing this from the beginning and it takes three paths:

• I started using later monster designs right from the start. These are generally better than the early 5E "bag of hit points" style monsters and have started to find their way back to 4Es ways of making things interesting. With the Monster Vault pretty much replacing the Monster Manual 1 for 1 I have a good supply of opposition.
• As they have pushed into the temple dungeon proper I am keeping in mind that this is more of an organized facility than a random set of monster lairs - noises and alarms will draw a response. One of the signature features of the temple is the competition among the 4 temples and the ways players can exploit the factionalism to avoid being overwhelmed. Well, my players do not seem concerned about being overwhelmed and are not at all concerned with infiltration or deception thus far so I'm going to play it as more of a rivalry between the elements than open conflict. That should lead to some challenging escalations as they plunge ahead.
• I have also, somewhat reluctantly, started digging into the encounter design math given for ToV. I find most of these systems terrible as they fail under scrutiny almost immediately. 3E was bad pretty much from the start, as was 5th edition. 4E's encounter design was the best in my experience but even it was not always great. An overland trip to Verbobonc gave me the chance to try it our with some wandering encounters on the road, culminating with a pair of dragons and ... I am withholding judgement for now. I want to see how it works in the dungeon environment and it really only aims at a "challenging" encounter with some guidance as to harder or easier around a calculated benchmark. I am somewhat skeptical that a thing like a dragon can be reduced down to a single numerical rating when it comes to danger factor but I will give it a try.

Bottom line we are playing regularly and consistently, my players are having fun, some memorable characters are developing, it's a classic D&D  module, and I am enjoying it quite a bit myself. I can see that it may be quite a challenge to keep things interesting for another 5 or 6 levels but I am looking at that as a positive. Barring some unforeseen complications I expect we will finish this adventure this year, probably this summer or fall. I have given some thought to what might come after but for now I am going to aim to finish this one up right.

* Of course he also refers to the other PCs as his "minions" and ranks them, offering the occasional opportunity to move up in his rankings so it is in character.

Adventures in 3D Printing

 

So I finally got one. I've been talking about doing it for years and the wife apparently heard too much and decided to push me off the ledge as a birthday gift. With as much miniature work I do it's a smart move in general but the details ...

My main interest with them is printing a lot of the "extra" stuff like terrain, or custom bases, or different parts to use with "real" miniatures. Being able to print whole figures - indeed whole armies - is certainly a good option to have but it's not the priority.

A couple of weeks I am no expert at any of it but let me share some of the early challenges I have run in to in case anyone else is considering the option.

• If you mainly want to do figures you may be better off with a resin printer. They look more complicated to me involving toxic fumes and some kind of curing process after you print them but they do it without the layer lines you get with the other kind of printer.
• The other kind of printer is a PLA printer which uses stuff that looks like fishing line or weed eater string which it melts and squirts out into a shape layer by layer. The upside is that they seem to be easier to manage and I suspect plastic is more generally applicable for some things than resin but for the tiniest of things like miniature figures you do get some lines that will show. 
• The basic input - besides a spool of plastic string or a bottle of resin - for these things is a 3D model that you have probably seen discussed somewhere as an STL file. There are tons of them out there free and paid and it's pretty easy to find something you might be interested in. I signed up for One Page Rules monthly Patreon a while back in anticipation of doing this someday and they put out a big batch of STL files each month supporting various armies for their games. For a few bucks a month it is -way- cheaper than buying regular miniatures and each set includes some custom bases in various sizes, movement trays, etc. 

Now I knew a little bit already about the types of printers and I knew I would need STL files. I had some of those so once I got the printer hooked up I'm good to go right? Well ...

• The part you don't hear about so much until you wade in is the slicer. This is not a Star Wars NPC - it is the program that you use to translate the STL file into code your printer can use. Now each printer comes with one from the manufacturer and there are several that are not tied to any particular company. These are often a) free and b) generally thought to be better than the in-house slicers. I am sticking with the basic one for now but I can tell you it's a whole new thing to learn. This is a complex piece of software that will let you tweak all kinds of things but learning what all of the different fields and settings and their values mean is an uphill climb.
• At the basic level you open the slicer, import the STL you want to print, hit "slice", and it exports a g-code file somewhere, and then you send that file to your printer and print it. I've done this with some bases now and it works just fine because it's basically a flat square or rectangle or circle with some still flat-ish details on top so it's pretty simple. 
• The pit I fell in to is "Supports". This can be an absolute nightmare and is still blocking me on some models. Supports are those line-y framework-looking things you see on some 3D prints and while they exist for a reason they are a huge pain a lot of the time - at least at this point in my journey. 
• You can often get STLs in "unsupported" or "pre-supported" versions. Pre-supported means you don't need to change anything about the model - like adding supports ... until you do. Which is "sometimes". Depending on the model. Insert eyeroll here.
• Unsupported is for rugged do-it-yourselfers who prefer to add their own supports without the clutter and possible screw-ups of whoever did the pre-supported version. Basically if it has wings or arms outstretched or weapons out it's going to need some kind of supports to print those out and it's really just a question of do you trust the creator of the file or do you want to do it in your own slicer. 
• My determination at this point is that both are a pain in the ass. The promise of clean pre-supported models is great but I've found the reality to be decidedly mixed. The idea of doing it myself is also attractive except that I don't know what I'm doing at this point and end up with more support than actual model sometimes.
• The actual printing on this latest wave of devices is pretty easy. Most of them are network-capable now so you can send files to it directly from a PC in another room and some have a camera so you can watch it print in real time without ever going in there. You can also use a device like an SD card or a USB drive to to manually transfer files. The printers work, the PLA spool just feeds right in ... the physical part works great. The results depend mightily on your model and slicer results and that's the part I am still fighting regularly.

I will press on though. I had a flash of insight while running my D&D (er ToV) game the other night: monsters on demand. There are numerous files out there for all of your typical D&D monsters and while I have a lot of miniatures for that kind of thing there are times, especially when running a published adventure, that I need more of them. The Temple has one room where I need something like 12 gargoyles. Now I have some gargoyle minis but I do not have a dozen of them. But now, knowing the party is nearing said room, I could crank some out in an hour or three and have them ready to go next session - possibly even with a basic paint job. It's a dream worth fighting for ...

 I will post more on this down the road as I figure more out. Once I have some better things to show I will share some of the early disaster prints for comedic value. Onward!

Godzilla 1985

 

It's hard to believe it's been 40 years since this one came out - especially considering I saw it at the theater as a teenager. It's special to me for a few reasons: It was the first one I got to see in a theater, the first one I saw at the time of release, and it actually got attention in the press as a big new movie coming out. Prior to this we pretty much had to catch them as Saturday afternoon special features on local independent stations as even getting them on VHS tapes was not easy early on. 

This however, was a big new Godzilla. Prior to this one the last new G-movie was released in 1975 and barring the occasional re-release - which my parents would not take me to - it was a TV-only thing. Now it was big-screen time and it quickly became apparent that there were some differences:

• Most of the action scenes take place at night and this gives a very different feel to things. It's a different look and this version of Godzilla emerges from the ocean in the dark and lays waste to your city in an apocalyptic-looking scene of ruins and smoke lit by fires  as he stomps his way through. It gives them a chance to use the lighting as something other than bright happy daylight like most of the prior movies.
• In the city many of the buildings are bigger than Godzilla. That's not something we really saw before and it adds to the massive scale of what's going on. The city sets themselves are just ridiculously detailed and the amount of moving parts and the lighting is just incredible.
• More attention is paid to the human story, really to the story overall, as a definite effort is made to have a coherent narrative of problem arises, devastation continues as solutions are pursued, a major battle is fought and lost, but then one solution comes together and science saves the day - for now. The main group of human characters is kept small so when they end up in danger it actually matters - we have a reporter, a sailor, his sister, and a scientist ... and possibly Raymond Burr depending on which version you end up watching. It's a solid approach that will be used again in some of the future movies. No aliens, secret aliens, government conspiracies, or time travelers here. Just humans threatened by a force of nature.
• The cold war does make a guest appearance via the U.S. and the Russians and some questionable stances here end up prolonging the problem but it's nice to see a nod to the time in which it was made without going to an outside solution and it directly address the "why don't they just nuke it" question in a satisfactory way.

One of my favorite elements of the movie deserves a separate callout: the Super-X:

Now we had all seen Japan's obsession with giant robots before in various incarnations, most notably Mechagodzilla and Jet Jaguar in the earlier movies, but this was a different take. This little over-armored-flying-Volkswagen-bug-tank-thing was both awesome and hilarious as Japan's secret super-weapon takes on Godzilla and goes toe-to-toe with him in a running fight through a burning city at night in one of the best battles in the entire series. In fact it pretty much wins!

But after knocking him out with some special missiles the Soviet screw-up takes effect and brings him back to life and you can feel the desperation in the crew and in the observers as the tiny defender vehicle fights a losing battle that can only go one way now that it's one special trick has failed. The second part of the fight is great but leads to the end of the valiant Super-X.

(Someone else must have loved it too because we do eventually get a Super-X2 and a Super-X3!)

We do get a nicely done resolution though as the other scientific solution is implemented and leads Godzilla to a  nearby volcano and drops him in - Japan is saved but ... it is Godzilla you know.

It's just a well-done movie. If you have any interest in Kaiju films it's definitely worth watching as it (eventually) kicked off a whole new wave of Godzilla films that ran into the 90's and are pretty decent as a group. It was a ton of fun to know it was back after a ten-year gap - even if it took another 4 years to get the next one and as far as I know most of us could only see it on HBO when it did arrive, not the theater.

My only caveat for this is right up there: you do need to have some love for Kaiju films. It is still a man in a rubber suit stomping around a (awesome) model city even if it does have a decent story and better effects than prior entries. It's not Minus-One: if someone doesn't like this genre this one will probably not change their mind. 

That said I love it - it's one of my favorites and it has me fired up enough that I will probably work my way back through the series and I'm sure I will end up talking more about it here. 

One Question Answered on the Marvel RPG Status

 

Apparently Marvel has announced - or at least is taking orders for - a new sourcebook on the Avengers. Good! That should cover a lot of ground and combined with the X-Men book that's already out and the Spider-Man book coming soon that really just leaves the FF as the last of the big four classic groupings not covered. 

The 2024/5 Monster Manual Kerfluffle

 

Yeah ... yeah ... so they took orcs out of the Monster Manual. Drow too. It's the "50th anniversary of the game" edition and they took two pretty significant D&D monsters out of the monster book. 

Now I've read massive discussion threads online about how this is good or bad and watched some takes on YouTube as well. I've seen WOTC's sort-of-stated position that "if it's a playable race in the PHB then it's not a monster in the MM" which is just a ridiculous take. Let's look at why:

First up there is a set of generic NPC statblocks in it which are pretty much human. The suggestion is that one can just reskin those as an orc commoner or wizard or whatever. Except that there is nothing provided to further customize them by species such as orcs, say, seeing in the dark, or being tougher than a human, or perhaps going berserk or hitting harder in some way.

So what are we trying to do here?

If the point of the book is to provide the numbers a DM needs to run opposition for their party of player characters then there should be ready-to-go stats for all of the typical D&D monsters. I shouldn't have to make calculations or edits or apply templates for the typical common versions of these things. If this is a great approach then why not use it for other beasties too? How about a single "dragon" statblock for each age category and then just reskin it by saying what color it is and changing up what kind of damage the breath weapon does? You could do the same thing for giants and many demons and devils as well.

Except the point of the monster book is to provide a variety of interesting things for players to encounter. Quite a bit of time they will end up fighting but not always. But if they do end up opposing each other then mechanical differences matter a great deal - even if it's not a straight-up combat. Does this thing have a high save vs. charm abilities? How about AoE damage spells? Does it get by with a higher armor class or is it a huge block of hit points?  Does it have any special senses? Immunities? What is it good at? What is it terrible at? All of this matters.

Taking iconic D&D "monsters" out of the core D&D monster book is a terrible decision made for no solid reason. 

Secondly I saw some discussion of how the tastes of modern players are different than they were years ago which is why Orcs are a playable race - players today, mainly younger players in this discussion, expect different things in their fantasy. Sure, that's fine - we've had half-orcs in the game from very early on and it's not a huge leap to just go full-orc. That doesn't concern me a great deal. But D&D is it's own fantasy "thing" at this point with its own settings and assumptions and expectations and one of those is that orcs are a very common low-level opponent and Drow are a pretty common mid to high level opponent. Adding in some new player options - sure. Taking DM options away? Why? How does it make the game better? I have yet to hear how this makes for a better game.

World of Warcraft is often cited as an example of how players have come to see orcs as a playable race. Sure, they are in that game and that spilling over into D&D really isn't a huge problem. But if one plays an  Alliance character you will be fighting orcs in great numbers in the game. So why do we only get one part of that situation and not the other?

Next up I believe that organized intelligent races as enemies are hugely important to a D&D campaign. Sure, the big monsters are cool but infiltrating the underground Drow city full of a variety of dark elf types is a huge challenge. Orcs, Drow, Goblins, Bugbears, Giants ... all of these should have multiple statblocks reflecting different roles in whatever civilization they have - not fewer, and not "zero". Sure there can be a basic Orc Warrior entry but then there could also be Orc Berserker, Orc Ambusher, Orc Fire Wizard, Orc Priest of X, Orc Necromancer, Orc Greater Chieftain, etc. Drow could have similar takes and specialists. This has been a concept going back to AD&D even if it was often "for every 50 orcs there is a boss that fights as a hobgoblin and for every 100 there is a big boss that fights as an ogre". 

Third edition pretty much went back to one entry per monster but then had a bunch of templates you could add to these statblocks for the weird stuff but it also had a the option for adding class levels to monsters which opened up a huge number of options by turning the PHB into a monster options book as well. Now granted, you had to do the work ahead of time but on the upside you could end up with the Fiendish Orc Priest of Gruumsh who had a magic item he could use and 7 levels of cleric so it was a lot of fun with a bit of prep. 

Fourth edition went with my favorite approach to this by including no less than 7 statblocks for orcs alone: Orc Drudge, Orc Warrior, Orc Raider, Orc Berserker, Orc Eye of Gruumsh, Orc Bloodrager, and Orc Chieftain, tactics for each type, sample encounter groups for various levels, and a list of results for an Orc Lore check at various DCs!

But sure, just taking them out is much better. 

(Drow have 4 entries + bonus info in MM1. They get more later. Goblins get 7. Hobgoblins get 7. Humans get 6)

The 2014 5th Edition Monster Manual carried this forward with 4 distinct statblocks for Orcs and Drow. Goblins were down to 2 and Hobgoblins had 3. 

So yes, this is a weird direction to take. As a DM more mechanically distinct representations of a type of monster give me more options to work with when placing that monster in my campaign. That helps me differentiate "a patrol of" vs. "a camp of" vs. "a city of" as my players journey around the setting. Having some other ways to adjust them as well like templates or level adjustments or size adjustments just enhances those selections, and even if I don't intend to use goblins in this campaign, reskinning is only made better with more complimentary types - those 4E goblins made a mean band of gnomes if the PC's got on the wrong side of them. 

Give me more monsters - not less, especially in the "Monster Manual" that so many campaigns will be based on. Taking them out means that if I want to run old adventures (like I am doing) using the 2024 rules I have to either sub in another statblock (hopefully not one I'm going to be using in the same adventure), make up my own entirely (seems kind of stupid to have to do this for orcs of all things), or I have to fall back on the 2014 version since this edition is Totally Backwards Compatible. This feels like a lot of effort for something as common as "orcs"  in a D&D campaign - because they should have just been in the MM to begin with.

Finally, The idea that being a playable race should mean no entry in the monster book is just a strange take. No other game does this. 

• In Runequest I'm pretty sure you can play a Troll via one of the supplements but you will also likely fight them at some point. They are one of the signature races of Glorantha and have been detailed pretty extensively as a culture for over 40 years but they are also still opponents to be fought. 
• In Pendragon you play knights and you will also likely fight some knights. 
• In Traveller you can find character creation options for almost any intelligent race and you can also find statblocks for them to be used as opponents. 
• In Star Trek you can play as a Klingon or a Romulan or any number of aliens and you will often end up fighting any of those plus other Federation species! 
• Even Paizo, who gleefully included goblins as a playable race in Pathfinder 2E, have a "goblin" entry in Monster core - with multiple statblocks to boot!

(Honestly, think about how many times Klingons end up fighting Klingons in the shows and movies.)

Again, no other game takes this stance because no one feels like it is necessary or improves the game. 

Yet here we are. Thankfully Tales of the Valiant does include a couple of entries for Orc in the Monster Vault (Drow too) so we will just continue using that for this campaign.

Status of the Marvel Multiverse RPG?

 

There are a lot of great superhero RPGs out there right now:

• Mutants and Masterminds is still chugging along. There aren't a ton of new things out there but they've been doing adventures lately which is about the only thing the game hasn't thoroughly covered.
• ICONS is another mature RPG that is still cranking out new material.
• Champions is not one I hear much about anymore but it is still producing things like .. .character creation cards? I'm not sure I get that but I'll have to take a closer look.
• The Sentinel Comics RPG is one of the newer entries in this category and the latest thing there is the new version of the starter set which is probably a good thing but I wish they were doing more! I'll have to cover it in another post but this is a very promising game that just needs a little more attention.
• Absolute Power is the new version of Silver Age Sentinels. It's been out for a year or two now and has decent support so if you think a BESM approach to supers is interesting it's worth a look. This one is probably worthy of a separate post as well.

All of the above games are currently in-print and have pretty solid support beyond the basic rules but there was one potentially giant new entry in the field in the last couple of years that many of us were interested in - the Marvel Multiverse RPG, published by, well, Marvel itself. My own account of a tryout game is here and I thought it was worth considering as a real option. 

For Marvel we saw the main rulebook come out in 2023 along with a starter adventure and  since then we've seen an "Adventure" - Cataclysm of Kang and an "Expansion" about the X-Men. That's decent enough and there is one other announced book coming which is the Spider-Verse Expansion. There was also a set of Marvel Dice and a short Deadpool adventure that came out around the time of the movie last year.

Recently though I saw new copies of the core rulebook show up at a local Half-Price Books. Not one copy, but multiples. Now Half-Price is a pretty regular stop for my wife and I - there are quite a few of them around DFW - and we hit them whenever we are out and about. Over the past few weeks I've seen multiple new copies in multiple stores in the area. That's not a great sign for a new game as that means they are remaindered or whatever the official industry term is and sold off as a bulk lot. It happens from time to time but being fairly aware of what shows up on the RPG shelf in local used bookstores sometimes things jump out like this. So I am concerned about how the game is doing - I decided to check around online.

The MMRPG D616 Facebook group used to consistently show up in my FB feed as a group with "10+ posts a day" as recently as last year. Now it's down to "5 posts a day". Well ... 

The MMRPG Reddit group has slowed from maybe around 5 posts per day to roughly 3 per day. Not as dramatic as FB but it does seem less active. 

There is also a starter set that was supposed to be coming out from Gamefound that has been delayed from September-November to "early next year" which is ... now. It funded in February 2024. It's causing some friction. Beyond that there were some other accessories mentioned like GM screens and maps and power cards and more dice  - all of them seemingly tied to some of the supplement books. None of them have appeared or seem to have release dates. None of that is good. 

I wonder if some of the accessories are being held up or "reassessed" due to sales numbers maybe not being what they were expecting. The lack of announced books beyond the Spider-Verse book also does not feel great. I know a lot of this is anecdotal and I'm not trying to jump too far to conclusions - it's been a fairly slow-grow game line but it does seem to have gotten really slow here of late. I've been watching these things for a long time and what I'm seeing here is not positive. 

Let me say that I hope I am wrong about the direction things look to be heading. A thriving Marvel RPG could be a great way to both bring in new players and pull existing players away from D&D as their only game. I hope that we are just in a slow period where a company new to RPGs (Marvel) is working with a new partner on accessories (CMON) and things are just taking extra time. If that is the case I'd love to see a new Avengers book or Fantastic Four book announced - there is a FF movie coming out after all - for later this year. I'll be crossing my fingers as I watch for the next update on this game.

Top Ten Anticipated RPGs for 2025

 

EN World does this every year and I usually try to comment on them. I'm running a little late but I thought it was worth bringing up. The list and discussion is here.

10 - Starfinder 2E: Well I own a PDF of 1E but that's it and I've never run or played it so while I'm very aware of it I am not feeling a ton of anticipation. The straight up fantasy-in-space thing just has never really been my thing despite a love for Rifts and 40K and the occasional D&D/Gamma World crossover back when. I'm not sure why but I think a lot of it is the setting - expanding outward from their fantasy planet while leaving a big gap in recorded history as far as what happened to the place just does nothing for me. Maybe it's topo generic-feeling. So many other interesting settings out there that mix magic and tech - this one just never clicked for me.

9 - Alien Evolved: Another new edition of a game I haven't played.  We don't do a lot of horror here and if we did I'd probably lean more towards something like Mothership but I haven't done anything with that one either so ... no real anticipation here either.

8 -13th Age Second Edition: Well I did the Kickstarter for this one so yeah, I'm interested. Some genres just click with you and D&D-style fantasy will always be one of those for me. I liked 13th Age when it came out but I never ran it. I will make room to at least give it a tryout this time as I like what I see in the previews. It's just different enough to make it interesting. So yes, "anticipated" for sure.

7 - Coriolis The Great Dark: Well if you either haven't heard of it or weren't paying attention to it ... at all ... it's hard to say you were anticipating it. I've heard the name over the years and after perusing the Kickstarter page it looks interesting. I'm getting Expanse vibes from it and that's not a bad thing. I'm just not sure my players would choose it for "dark exploratory sci-fi game" over say 40K Wrath and Glory. It was not "anticipated" but I'll keep an eye on it.

6 - Dolmenwood: I did the Kickstarter here too so yes, it's definitely anticipated. It's another OSR thing but it has what looks to be an interesting setting and a lot of support material. I think it's a sandboxy campaign one could finish, to some degree, and not just another generic fantasy world. It's a big forest with specific inhabitants and an English folklore-y background and that approach and the art really pulled me in - all of the art on this post is from Dolmenwood.

5 - Discworld: I love the Discworld series of books and I've been reading them since the 80's but I've never felt compelled to make it an RPG setting. Even when the GURPS version came out I didn't really feel the need to get it, run it, or play it, and that is still true today. I don't think anyone could run it the way Pratchett wrote it and it's just not going to feel right in my opinion. Humor is a huge part of these books and running a comedy RPG that everyone at the table finds funny is damn near impossible in  my experience. I've been very aware of this new edition as a big time Kickstarter but I have no interest in it as a game.

4 - Draw Steel (the MCDM RPG): I became aware of this one only after the Kickstarter had run and I will say I am interested in seeing how it comes out as a lot of the descriptions of the rules look really interesting. For something that originated with D&D it looks like it's dumping or changing a lot of the core D&D concepts and I do wonder how that will go over with people who came in with 5E. I'd say it's "anticipated" here now.

3 - Daggerheart: Never heard of it, don't know anything about it. Looking at the web page doesn't tell me enough about how it works, what it aims to do, or how it's different from the endless supply of other fantasy RPGs to make me want to dig into it beyond that. So no, not anticipated.

2 - Cosmere: I am certainly aware of this one after the Kickstarter hype but I haven't read enough  Brandon Sanderson to care. I can't see much about the mechanics but it looks like it uses standard RPG dice. Yet another fantasy RPG ... I don't have any attachment to the books so I'm going to give this one a pass. Not anticipated here.

1 - Legend in the Mist: I know City of Mist has had gained some attention  - lord knows I see enough ads for it online - but I haven't played or run it, don't own it, and the modern urban fantasy thing is just not my genre. It looks fairly FATE-y or Apocalypse World-y and that's fine but this new version says it's a rustic fantasy using a similar system and ... just not my thing man. I would probably play it if I encountered someone excited about running it but this is not a game I'm going to drive with my players. So no, not anticipated here. 

Things not on this list that I am anticipating:

• d6 System Second Edition
• Ashes Without Number
• Deadlands: Abominable Northwest
• Savage Rifts: Europe

Among others. There are definitely games to look forward to this year and if tastes vary as to which ones well, hey, that's part of the fun of this hobby. 

RPG Stuff

 

Yeah I'm still running that. We did take a break while I was dealing with the other stuff but we have started back up and Session 16 will happen this weekend barring extended weather complications. They actually made it into the Temple Proper last session in a way I have never seen before. There were several highlights (including an illusion that fooled everyone for a bit) but nailing multiple party members with a lightning bolt -twice- was particularly enjoyable. If the old bounce-it-off-the-walls rules were still a thing they would have been in serious trouble. The players take on it is available here. I am looking forward to the next visit as they try to figure out where they are and what is going on in the temple.

Beyond that I haven't done a whole lot else. With one game running every weekend there is not much need for active development on another. I offered to split our time between two games (alternating weekends) if it would make scheduling easier for some of my players but it was universally rejected - they want to stay focused on the one game. So for now that's what we do.

I have gotten some Kickstarter stuff in and there is probably more on the way but for now it's mostly being set aside for future use.