The need for Loresheets

Before I begin: Kickstarter! Woo!

As of the time of this post, we've blown through our funding goal by nearly double AND there's still a week to grab your copy of the game. Get to, you fantastic mutants! 

 So okay, I wanted to talk about Loresheets today. I've made a lot of fans of Legends of the Wulin nervous with my cavalier and sometimes dismissive attitude towards them. I think there's this notion that I don't "get" them or that I don't care about them and I want to address that. 

Because the people that love loresheets do so for a reason, and I feel like they deserve to have their concerns answered. 

The state of roleplaying games during the design of Legends of the Wulin 

So Legends is a surprisingly old game. I ordered my copy before I became a father, a small lifetime ago. In the early 2010's, tabletop roleplaying games were largely defined by the 3rd-edition era of D&D gamemasters and the style of game mastery that they either adopted, or the burgeoning movement against that style that embraced a radical, authorial style player-agency, what came to be known as storygaming. 

Pic.... Unrelated?

It's important to understand that the one shaped the other; storygame conceits were an answer to a shabby, frustrating style of Game Mastery that emerged from the 3rd-edition era of design, a style I'll call "Scripted" style. 

 Scripted Style GMing 

Scripted style works thus: You, as the GM, prep a short script of events for your players to follow. Typically locations involved in the script are detailed, as well as any adversaries or NPCs. 

Importantly, the ending of this script assumes that the characters succeed and the game session(s) end, allowing the next script of the game to be prepped between arcs. 

Long-time fans of the blog will doubtless note how much this diverges from the more prep-intensive "crawl" style of gaming that I advocate, and have also been thoroughly inundated by my invective to prep situations, not plots, so you have a strong counterpoint of comparison that throws both the benefits and weaknesses of this style into sharp relief. 

This doesn't have anything to do with the article. I just hate D&D 3rd ed's bluff mechanic

However, its important to note, that a massive volume of literature in this era of gaming assumed that this was the only or at least default style of how roleplaying games were run, and that the majority of GMs did this exact thing. This assumption was not only reinforced, but propagated by modules and GM advice assuming and teaching this as the "way it's done"

A ton of gaming culture for ttrpgs is bedrocked in the assumptions of the Scripted Style, even to the point of defining players as "good" or "bad" based on how well they follow the script (i.e.: "behave"). Or how skilled a GM is when they make the structure of this script invisible to players, so as to make an imaginary agency for them and let them feel (but never be) empowered to make their own decisions with consequences for the game.

Problems with the scripted style

Many, many irritating issues arise when you run a game in this style. Players going off-script is a huge problem, as GMs in this style lack the tools to create a wider world, so exploration is an enemy to the nature of this prep style. Events as well must be adhered to, so player death and greater-than-predicted-success both effectively ruin this fragile causality, requiring either the abandonment of all prep from the GM or "cat-herding" the outcomes back within the original script's purview somehow. Even unexpected events, such as "random encounters", essentially upset the fundamental pacing of the game's cadence and so are undesirable, as they introduce "noise" to the game's rhythm.

Bizarrely, the elements that fought must fiercely against this style of GMing are fundamental to the older D&D style Crawl experience, to the point where most gamers were utterly baffled by their inclusion. What's the point of a "random encounter" in a script? It seems like a non-scripted, potentially disruptive fight scene barging into an otherwise carefully tailored experience. Why were HP totals so low, monsters so deadly, saves a do-or-die affair? Player death was undesirable; they're supposed to WIN at the end of the script, dammit! What's with all the artificiality of hexes and underground dungeons; aren't the walls of the script, and the techniques for getting players back on-track, wall enough?

A Storyteller System for a Scripted Style

A style of games that was an early contemporary of this movement was White Wolf's Storytelling system, a much more accommodating system for the style. 

Storyteller had simpler, non-level stats, allowing characters to assume a more specific (but importantly, simplistically defined) shape. It had a big, rich, believable above-ground setting, based in the familiar modern world (so you didn't need an arcane knowledge of pre-industrial society to freestyle when your players went off-script). It had big power players that could scare your players into following your scripts. 

And vitally, it was socially-focused, not goal-focused: you never got the treasure and leveled up. You simply dug yourself deeper into the font of future scripts by getting closer to the seat of power in your monster society.

Where D&D's structure chaffed at Scripted style, Storyteller thrived.

But the way in which it thrived is important to note here. Players were bullied in ST systems; the monsters and leaders of the factions were unfairly, impossibly difficult to vanquish. Travel in sunlight was a death-sentence to vampires, social interaction with the human world impossible for Werewolves, etc. You were chained into a small box of easily-controlled places and scripts and annihilated or steeply punished for deviating, losing life, limb, sanity or soul if you pushed too hard against the Script's boundaries.

And worse, if you DID manage to succeed, despite those obstacles? The game was over. If you beat the Wyrm, you had nothing further to do as a Werewolf. If you Diablerized the Prince of the city, then what? The game literally devolved into ennui; there was simply no drama if you weren't the victim, or the doomed hero. It simply did not know what to do with success.

Storygames for Story Scripts

The counter-movement to these systems and their failings posited a radical solution to the problem of restrictive, de-protagonizing, and frustrating scripts: what if the players, as well as the GM, got to edit the script?

The Storygame movement was born out of this radical idea. Games began to get Meta, with players being offered limited resources that they could use to change the player-GM power dynamic. Not merely changing the things their character did, but the circumstances within the game world itself. They were now co-authors, and the game was a script which everyone suddenly had the power to edit.

An important aspect of this is that this movement was attempting to answer a problem introduced by the adoption of a script in the first place. The restrictions and frustrations of being funneled, herded and vetoed in favor of a pre-written set of events and outcome produced a paradigm in which any power less than authorial control was a joke. 

The techniques used by Script-GMs undermined the agency of any player actions, to the point that only forcing co-control over the meta-level script had any real power to grant agency to players.

A Renaissance of Crawls

The frustrating element of this for me, as a GM that never uses this style, is that it is both highly effective in it's goals, and utterly redundant in any other circumstance. Reason being, we've had another movement take place in the wake of the Storygame revolution that taught us the value of the original style of GMing; namely the Arnesian, Gygaxian style of "Playing to find out what happens" or, more contemporarily, the 'Crawl style.

And although I COULD go on about how 'Crawl style solves the issues of Scripted style.... Like, completely, I'd rather remind you all that Egoraptor already did that for me. 

Basically it's this: If, in the Ocarina of Time, the PROBLEM with the script is that it invades the gameplay and forces you into situations and outcomes that both run counter to the logic of the game world AND remove your freedom to choose how and when you access the game's content, the SOLUTION could reasonably be:

(A) For Storygame style: Allow the player a "Mario-Maker-Esque" level of control over the programming of the game, so that they can co-craft the experience they want to play

OR it could reasonably be:

(B) For the 'Crawl style: Just toss the damned script and let players do what they want.

And although BOTH are valid and fun solutions to the problem, for the majority of players, the more desirable and elegant solution is B.

Loresheets and what they were trying to do

So let's come back, finally, to Loresheets

What did they do? Why was that desirable?

The exact function of a Loresheet was thus: There was some setting material, stories and area, character and situation descriptions, which were real and true elements of the setting of Legends of the Wulin. They had costs associated with different elements, which could be paid in XP by the players to "make it relevant" to the game.

In other words, they were an appeal to player agency via a co-opting and seizure of GM game-narrative authority. They were answering the issue of "wanting something cool in the setting to be important in the game" by giving players a minor GM role in introducing it and ensuring it's ongoing inclusion in the framework of an assumed game-script.

What happens to the need for this player-ability, for this expenditure of XP to make a game element script-relevant, when we simply omit the script? What we're left with is an alternative, meta-resource approach to getting an in-game element; a secondary, undesirable venue, when you as a player have the capacity, guaranteed from your avatar-strength, to simply go to where that element is and interact with it?

It is, in other words, essentially vestigial. Players access the setting content by... Well, playing the game. You don't need to edit the script; there isn't one to edit. There's just content, and the obstacles to that content can be overcome within the framework of a player's in-game capabilities.

Okay, so... What do we do with Loresheets, then? How can we keep this beloved piece of game design in the game, when half of it's function, the unique and innovative half, is redundant to the point of pointlessness?

The core use of Loresheet: Functional Fluff

When we return to the need being fulfilled by Loresheets, we find that abandoning Scripted style doesn't completely answer the problem they're trying to solve. Although we're giving players agency by allowing them to pursue game-relevancy by in-game means, we've not got any meaningful setting in which they can do that.

Writing setting will solve part of that problem, but consider the issue of players going "off-script" when you have a robust setting; we still don't fundamentally know, as GMs, what to do to translate the prose of that setting ("fluff" as it's known) into interactable game-elements. We have no translator between instruction manual and game level. Functionally, the knowledge that there's a dungeon somewhere, even a really cool one, does not give us the blueprint of that dungeon nor instruct us in the techniques of dungeoncrawling.

Now the processes of the game gives GMs the tools they need to run a robust setting, so we have two parts of the solution within the framework of the rules. But, we're still missing that essential bridge which translates setting into those explorable game-elements.

So there's still a functional element of Loresheets that needs to be served; giving players the tools to interact with a setting doesn't give GM the tools they need to create it.

How do we do that?

Another Trip to a Purple Land

I've spoken about the subtle and majestic genius of Yoon-Suin before, so I won't retread that ground here. But I will demonstrate how Yoon-Suin gives us the techniques we need to translate fluff-into-crunch in a meaningful way, thereby giving us the final puzzle piece of translating the function of Loresheets into this game's conceits.

This is what genius looks like

The only remaining bridge is that between the writing of the the setting material descriptively, and the creation of game-content that can be interacted with via the game's mechanics and processes. Yoon-Suin's author understands that bridge intimately and masterfully crafts a guidebook not merely for constructing a single, ideal bridge, but for constructing a process by which an enormous volume of ideal bridges can be made.

The charts pictured above create 480 unique sets of circumstances, but these are mere building-blocks which invite further refinement and specificity. However, each of these myriad circumstances still falls within the purview of what is permissible and expected from the setting material we're given.  We know there are cockroach farmers, we know they have rivalries, and we understand that friction can exist between them and other castes of society, such as Archivists. 

This blossoming of structured, but unpredictable content from such simple and usable lists represents a machine by which the true elements of a setting's broader reality can be made manifest uniquely within the circumstances of a game. They are setting detail engines, solving the issue both of translation and of expedient generation of unexpected (but reasonably present) content.

We can now prepare a social circle, complete with conflict and rivalry, before play begins and we do so in a way that reflects the setting we've read and functions to reinforce it's reality to the players. But additionally, we can generate another social circle of equal setting-appropriateness and complexity with such efficiency that doing so while running the game is possible. This ensures that the setting remains fresh, explorable and vibrant both to the players and to ourselves. Their exploration of Yoon-Suin's society becomes ours in a true sense.

The most impressive genius of this is way in which that vibrancy, the sheer imaginative energy of the setting can be encoded into the sets of elements that comprise the lists. Contrast, for example, the bustling and socially exotic urban environment that the Yellow City charts evoke with the foreboding, eerie and hostile environment made from the Mountains of the Moon charts. In both cases the population of the charts themselves is a sort of programming for the at-the-table play.

Good, evocative charts that create the places, people, and situations suggested in the setting material. That's it; that's the way.

Updates, playtest, and the Kickstarter Round 2

Quick post today, updates on the game and other stuff that is happening.

Who does Hiro give that flower to? Become a Patron and find out!

First! I've been working on some minor tweaks and updates, streamlining and cleaning up the rules. This is a bit more extensive than the original scope of the tech-edit I'd planned, but as I'm a completely idiot, I am thoroughly playtesting all of these changes as soon as I write them. They're also being made available to patrons, who can click on our shiny patreon button up there and get both those updates and some sexy new art from our rockstar Kazuki Shinta.

Second: We're proceeding at a great pace. The writing had a big leap forward this week, and I'm plowing forward with the remaining content and process rules today. Once those are done, we can finally get to the meaty fun parts of the system, the kung-fu supermoves and other associated badassery.

An accurate depiction of the writing process

Third, I'd like to have the second kickstarter campaign, Round Two, launch in December. Right in time for a very merry Fistmas to all. I've got some groundwork to lay for that, but it starts here, with this declaration. Spread the word; we're delayed, not dead.

HO HO MOTHERFUCKER

Below is a three-hit combo, my writeup of my late-night Denny's-based playtest session and my thoughts on it. This first appeared on our Discord, the Fistoverse. Part one are my musing on the current design and rewrites, part two is a video I recorded this morning after a few hour's sleep post-session, and part three is the written session recap.

This playtest was based on Blood from God's Eye, the Quickstart Adventure which you can download for free (or money if you want to see more art sooner rather than later) and follow along with. 

PART ONE: HOLD YOUR FISTS UNTIL AFTER THE ROLEPLAY

"So! First: It went well. Actually so well that I was surprised

The lone combat (which happened two hours into the session, wowee) was a gigantic setpiece with tanks, armies, and six Degree 1+ heroes

Lasted about two rounds, but they were big and explosive with a ton of action

Takeaways:

1) I have no idea what I was thinking with the new Prana calculations. What, FIVE in the pools? What?

So that needs to get fixed

2) Effortless doesn't work as a core for action. BUT, it works well as the passive defense and the basis for unrolled actions. So that's nice

3) All or nearly all of the way processes and content are being designed works like a motherfucker in play. This pacing was solid

4) I need to probably divide the way Imbalances work; it's fine to have the GM doing rulings and adjudications for player actions (basically expanding their interpretation and veto powers) but it doesn't work for NPCs under their direct control. I should probably just have a set of guidelines for roleplaying and describing injured characters that GMs have to adhere to, because if those are available to players, then you effectively flip that adjudication role and the player is given limited veto over GM descriptions. That feels like a more functional paradigm, will have to work on it

5) Argh failure spiral. Bad guys might never be tough enough to survive an asswhuppin' in round 1 by a table of capable players

And THAT problem might actually be unavoidable so long as NPCs and PCs use the same rules to advance

We'll see if my fixes to mid and high-level Techniques, which gives them expanded free functionality against groups, can turd the tide there and make bosses tough enough to feel right

I also might make it more explicit in the rules that followers can absorb attacks for you, so they can be used to pad out the health of bosses

Even though that feels kind of lame, like Frieze never hid behind his minions. Motherfucker was just a solid wall of asskickin'

"Punch THIS you dirty monkey!"~My hero, the genocidal bishonen alien

Anyway, the players were incredibly engage and had a fantastic time. They basically begged me to run again, and now man I want to because I want the boss battle with Flesh Eating Sage."

PART TWO: PUNCH-DRUNK LOVE

PART THREE: WHY PUNCH ONE TANK WHEN YOU CAN PUNCH TEN

"Okay so the session itself

I took it from where the last playtest left off, which actually makes this a record third consecutive game in a playtest for me

Which is good, because I need to see how the game holds up as it acquires rulings and has to deal with it's own history

Spiteful Prince, our Silver Phoenix, was recovering in Last Hope Fort, having been wounded by Oily Manyu and brought there by Hiro and the surviving Golden Lion soldier from the tank battle at the Battle Zone

Anyway, they were soon joined by Seven Sorrows Raven (player reprising her from an earlier playtest, actually) who was seeking out Hiro (a friend in that game) to help her get revenge on Flesh Eating Sage

Finally, Cave Buffalo, newcomer to the group, came down from the Brotherhood stronghold to ensure that package they're carrying gets delivered to Bao.

Quick sidenote: That player was a dream player for me. Constantly working within the fiction, thinking tactically, roleplaying consistently, just jumped feet first into the game and was a fucking blast the whole time. Every one of my players was radical but that guy, whom I have never roleplayed with before, was just a joy and it was such a blessing to just, luck into a dude like that

So, here's the interesting thing about this session

Next guy to show up, with his army, is Luckless Chuan

And he DEMANDS the package from the party, citing the desperation of his circumstance and the huge consequences if Flesh Eating Sage takes his goldmine (and no joke, they are DIRE)

And... They talked it out. Like not one punch is thrown

Almost pure roleplay, players are engaged, trying to find compromises, figuring out the tactical situation, trying to come up with plans

It was beautiful. And unexpected, my players are usually such hilarious murderhobos

So they investigate the fort, since Buffalo uses his water-charming mantra to sense the presence of old, stagnate water in the pipes around the ancient fort, and he finds a water main leading WAY downward and they figure they can get into his stomping grounds that if they follow it down

They are CORRECT; they actually wind up in tunnels that connect them eventually to the resting place of the ORIGINAL Two-Souls Bao

So they encounter her out of sequence, which I found delightful, and skip the whole "Haha the quest was a TRAP!" twist and they actually NEVER meet the evil clone Bao

Man, Bao got their respect though. She's really high-degree and she just tears through their stealth attempts like tissue paper

Not that she does anything but invite them to her hobo-dinner because like, she's cool if they kill her. She just refuses to die without dignity and calls them out like "Look if you're gonna kill me, just do it. Otherwise it's supper time"

Anyway, they crack open the box, find the note from Hiro's deceased master, and actually get Bao to agree to return with them to Last Hope to defend the Lions against the Vipers. She Refuses the blade, saying it should be in the hands of a worthy hero (as she still considers herself a failure). Hiro winds up with it, since it was his master that sent the blade.

Anyway, they return to the fort, make plans, aaaaand then the tanks start rolling in

A runner arrives and tells them that the Viper's tank armada is on the move through the Battlezone, en route to Luckless Chuan's outpost

Shit gets real quick; they unearth some AT weaponry under Last Hope, but it's ancient and not necessarily safe. I rule that they get 1 shot per rocket (10 total) and they've got a 20% of being duds, with a 10% of catastrophic misfire

They make an actually great plan to hide the newly-arrived Brotherhood of Freaks reserve troopers under the marsh with the missiles, cover them in a thick mist summoned by Seven Sorrow's weather control, and ambush the tanks before they can besiege the mining operation and starve them out and/or demolish everything

Unlucky for them, BOTH Oily Manyu AND Yeman the Elephant-Eater are on those tanks, and Manyu's epic R6 Senses action discovers their hidden forces. He orders his line of five tanks to entrench and shell the area, while Yemen's brigade of 6 Blitzkriegs around

Roll Initiative

Thankfully, Buffalo bids high, grabs initiative and manages to snake out 7 hits with zero misfires (curses!), disabling the back line of tanks and wrecking Yeman's lead charger. Yeman leaps out and Buffalo personally engages the madman, they trade blows and Buffalo's Riptide Defense shield saves him from a near-certain decapitation

Manyu however, eager for a rematch, spots Spiteful Prince hovering above the battlefield and sends both a Glint of Hellish Steel and Summoned Hellish Armament (poisoned chalcedony shadow needle) his way, breaking through his defenses and sending Prince crashing into the mud

No tanks were thrown in the making of this conflict

ALTHOUGH, the previous battle had one punched to death by, who else, Hiro, who had snuck inside it's bombed-out husk and points the main cannon at Manyu's tank, cratering it and sending Manyu face-first into the dirt (and breaking just, so many of his bones and internal organs)

Hiro THEN proceeds to pop out of said tank like a DAISY, calls out Yeman (who's ass they had previous beaten in that fight) and punches him into a bloody pulp, finishing him via decapitation with his shiny new god weapon

The Prince, not to be outdone, summons a psychic shockwave that crushes the tank crews into a pulp Tetsuo-style, and in the next round, Manyu's attempt to escape is cut short by a Prana-devouring beam from Heaven's Tear and his LIFE is cut short by a fusillade of bullets form the machinegun-armed Brotherhood warfighters

Battle over, no enemy survivors"

 Lots of cobwebs around here

Loooots of cobwebs.

But hey.... It's Halloween. Cobwebs are appropriate.

We're talking about Gnolls today. Or, as I like to call them, Hyena-men.

I mean, which sounds scarier? Gnoll:

Hyena-man:

You get the picture.

I always found packs of Hyenas to be eerie. That might be a consequence of so much footage of them being shot at night. There's something very "cryptid" about those eyes reflecting the spotlight.

 There's also something about their nature as pack animals (and scavengers) that robs them of the dignity that animals like Tigers have. Something about their hunched backs and shaggy pelts, like walking vultures. They've got an uncomfortable facial similarity to dogs, too; something too close to the familiar but dangerous because of its distance from civility. The animal equivalent to a stranger glimpsed by the light of a streetlamp in a bad part of town.

So Hyenas themselves are a wonderful blend of savage and eerie. But Gnolls? Eh, they kinda fall flat with me. Their officially-licensed, sterilized, brand-specific versions are always limp. Pathfinder Gnolls are... Just another version of Pathfinder Orcs, basically. Their entry is functional and punctual, like it's in an interview for stooge monster. 

The current D&D Gnolls seem to be under review to determine if they were secretly a racist caricature all along and I'll leave that to those whose needs are served by it. As for me, I only care about the fun parts of D&D Gnolls.

So let's talk about what rules about them. In Bullet-point form, the superior format:

• Origins involve combining an already scary animal with a demon-god's rampage
• Offer no redeeming value, only rapacious and bloodthirsty, so there's 0 moral compunction about fighting and killing them
• No half-gnolls, no weird in-game ghettos, just straight-up invasive monster killin' fun. Good for the whole family
• Reproduce by cursing their foe's bodies; when a hyena eats them, they become a Gnoll

I basically love everything about that. But I say we take it a step further, And I'm gonna do that by fleshing out the psychology of the Gnolls. Or, rather, hollowing it out.

Let me introduce another Hasbro-property that I adore, good ol' Scragnoth:

I pulled this guy from a Tempest booster pack when I was a teenager (this one is some kind of reprint I guess? It doesn't matter. Magic is crack) and I loved that flavor text: "Only counter-intelligence" hmm? I liked thinking about that; what kind of being had retorts, but no point? They'd have complaint with no critique, reaction with no thought. They could mock and imitate, but would have no capacity to create.

Man, how weird would THAT kind of being be, amirite?

Pictured: a totally unrelated message board

Our entire culture became Gnolls at some point, but for a little bit, the pack was confined to cramped and squalid places on the internet. Places where there were dozens or hundreds of stock meme-responses to any question, any statement, any kind of original content. Places that catered to a culture of clannish anti-thought, where the assumptions of how things were became the laws of how they must be. Where hot-takes were more valued than genuine engagement. Where an appeal to conventional wisdom was more valid than actual observation, experiment, or innovation.

A place without intelligence; only counter-intelligence.

Such are my Gnolls. Not just scavengers of mortal things, but ontological scavengers. Beings for which originality isn't just a sin, it's literally incomprehensible. They don't need social sanctions to deal with rabble-rousers who dare to shift away form the group-think; they don't even have group "think", their very minds are mirrors, pure reaction. A social survival instinct but never, ever any thought.

And then of course, you have that most famous hyena trait: their laughter.

 

Laughter and mockery have a tandem, defensive social function: they degrade an idea. Divorced from thought, they function in the same way, like antibodies; they recognize an invader, absorb it, change it into something that is no longer a threat. 

Scavenged armor, scavenged weapons, scavenged voices. These Gnolls don't have speech, they steal the voices of their victims, communicating solely in the dying words of prey followed by vicious, empty laughter. they're heard before they're seen

If Gnolls are encountered as wandering monsters, after determining encounter distance and surprise, roll on the following chart to determine what the party hears as the Gnolls approach. The voices are from previous victims, and sound exactly like these unfortunates in their last moments.

What do they hear? (d12)

1. "I thought I heard something..."
2. "My baby! My baby!"
3. "Let go of me!"
4. "Please don't!" Followed by a cry of pain
5. Inarticulate shrieking
6. "Die monster!"
7.  Begging in a foreign language; sobs
8. "Help! Somebody help!"
9. "Let go of him!"
10.  A warcry that abruptly cuts off into a gurgle
11. I don't want to die I don't want to die I don't want to die"
12. Weeping, then a cry of pain

On a d6 roll of 5+, this will be followed by the mindless laughter of the entire pack.

Every round the Gnolls continue to fight, roll again on this chart as they babble and laugh through the battle.

Memetic Instince: Gnoll packs absorb the voices of those they hear. If the players say anything in-character, one of the Gnolls present will say the same thing, in their voice on their action. this will elicit the laughter of the rest of the pack.

Replace one of the results from the above chart with the stolen quote.

Sculpt by Anastasia Konkina, Based on a concept by Ilya Komarowski

Gnolls are commonly manipulated by powerful, evil creatures such as mindlfayers and liches, as they eventually become a reflection of their environment. A sufficiently cunning dark lord can engineer the Gnoll's parasitic culture to serve their ends.

Commonly, such packs have Hyena Diplomats that are able to speak and communicate (after a fashion) via a Helm of Comprehend Languages soldered to their skulls. Hyena Diplomats have an additional hit die, wear scavenged robes and aristocratic clothing, and tend toward the twitchy and socially obscene. They still interject inappropriate laughter into conversation and treat any original thoughts, social mores or ethics as a hilarious and slightly pitiable joke. Their weapons are invariable concealed, poisoned, and only brandished when the Diplomat sees no further use for their latest mark.

I don't like 5th edition but that doesn't mean it isn't good

I have a confession to make: I both don't like and admire 5th edition.

Prance! Prance against the giants!

I'm not in tune with the cultural zeitgeist this time around, I guess. Although I like the first season of Stranger Things well enough, and that Rocks and Marty is a pretty funny cartoon. I have trouble deciphering what the fuck is going on with a lot of this stuff:

I guess this guy's pretty normal, though

Here's some stuff I don't like:

1.  The players get stupid, stupid powerful, but the game keeps treating them like they're normal people. Like "Oh I'm going to go to the market and haggle cheese prices then cut a Basilisk in half later". Nobody recognizes the demigods wandering around and it bothers me. It's tonally incongruent.

2. There's no advice for running a game in the DMG. I had to get all my functional game-running advice from the Alexandrian; none of the subjects brought up in any of those actually useful articles is even hinted at in the $50 guide to mastering dungeons. I basically paid the price of entry to get my favorite mechanic from the D&D next playtest back, which was the skill die. It feels a lot better than the flat bonus. Fight me.

3. They use a bell curve on encounter charts! Why would you do that?!

4. Actually, they just stuff needlessly complex math into everything for no reason. The single-die systems for things like HD and encounter charts weren't just "stupid and simple", they were elegant and more functional than what you've replaced them with!

5. Why does everything have so many hit points? Is it because everything does piles more dice of damage for no reason? This smacks of solving a problem you yourself introduced by introducing yet more problems.

6. Is there any actual benefit to monsters having types? Ooo, you mean I get to know whether a Basilisk is a dragon-type or a magical beast? And I get to finally have official, cannon confirmation that a Brain Beast, a four-limbed giant brain monster, is an aberration? No fucking joke?

7. Paladins can be Atheists now? Who are they supposed to be appealing to, again?

8. Infinite ammo magic guns for all wizards forever. I once had a warlock treat his eldritch blast like a nail-gun on auto-fire strapped to his hand.

In defense of that last one, having a single one-time-use spell is pretty weak and always has been. I feel like, maybe reduce the die type of damage a step or something? Like make "I ran out of spells" still suck. Or maybe you've got to pass some kind of spell-casting roll to suck your magic well all the way dry.

...

I do admire 5th though.

It's so much simpler than 3rd, which is the edition I started in, and better-organized than any edition prior to that. You can kinda jump in with an idea and very rapidly cobble it into a perfectly functional and fun character; that's an impressive achievement.

I like that the game acknowledges that playing a role (you know, roleplaying) is fun. I get sick of the "it need social rules!" crowd sometimes and it's great to just level my finger at 5th and go "SEE?! TALKING LIKE A GNOME IS FUN ON ITS OWN"

I like that backgrounds are little packages of stuff you get. Like the criminal gets to break the law, that's fun.

I like the magic items quite a lot. It's clear they put some thought into limiting them so they're magical tools and not components of CCG-esque gonzo schemes.

I like that some monsters get to be extra most special monsters and have extra actions they can take to fuck with the players. It makes them hard to metagame and it's just a really neat idea.

Mostly though, I like how gosh-darn simple and friendly the whole thing is. It sacrifices a bit in terms of cohesiveness, and it certainly occludes it's inner workings needlessly from enterprising GMs (the better to sell you supplements, my dear) but as far as being something you can use right out of the tin: it's as delectable as pineapple spam.

Behold, Ambrosia

What's the takeaway here? How does this tie back to Tian Shang?

The takeaway is this: don't get too technical. You'll slam the door on too many of your fans. Not because they're dummies, mind you, but because, they're trying to use your game to have fun. Stereo instructions aren't fun; they suck. The clarity of instructions are great, but not if they're so painful to read that people don't bring them to the table.

Latest draft of LWF is scaling back on the technical elaboration considerably and it's a much stronger product for it. While writing it, I came to appreciate this aspect of 5th edition, so I thought I'd blog about it.

What? Sometimes they're only little revelations.