Iron Heroes: A low magic tabletop game

ajs writes "Monte Cook Presents: Iron Heroes is an advanced role playing rule book, based on Wizards of the Coast's d20 System (the rules that underpin the current edition of Dungeons & Dragons). What's unusual about it is that it presents both a setting and rules for "low magic" fantasy that doesn't sacrifice high adventure to get its gritty action." Read the rest of Aaron's review. Monte Cook Presents: Iron Heroes author Mike Mearls pages 240 publisher rating 9 reviewer Aaron Sherman ISBN 1-58846-796-1 summary d20 System variant Player's Handbook

Monte Cook Presents: Iron Heroes (I'm just going to call it Iron Heroes from here on) is published under Cook's imprint, Malhavoc Press, by Sword & Sorcery who are best known for their d20 System rules variants and supplements. Sword & Sorcery, in turn, is owned by White Wolf Publishing, well known for their World of Darkness line of storytelling games. Originally titled "Iron Lore", the title was changed before publication due to legal entanglements. But, enough about the publisher, let's discuss the book.

Mike Mearls, a regular contributor to Dragon Magazine and long-time d20 System author, has a vision, it seems. His Iron Heroes game gives us a window into a world where the fabled dragon-slaying knight doesn't carry a glowing trinket of a sword that solves his problems, but has to rely on his skills and experience. On its own, this would be a serious undertaking, but the goal of Iron Heroes is to balance such a world as closely as possible with the established mechanics, threats and rewards of the d20 System. This is something which I would have considered difficult enough to be impractical before I read Iron Heroes.

The book begins by explaining that inexperienced role players need not apply. This is intended as an advanced rulebook, and those not already familiar with d20 will have everything that they need, but may find the book daunting (this is the only major flaw I've found in the book). If you are aware of the d20 System, you will note that none of the usual d20 classes are there. Instead of the rogue, there is a thief. Instead of barbarian, there is a berserker. These are not capricious name changes, however, since the mechanics of each of these variant classes are quite different from their d20 equivalents. More on why in a bit...

To begin to explore the idea behind Iron Heroes, imagine the iconic fantasy setting that D&D generally presents. Now suppose that you make two changes: there are no overt gods interfering with the daily workings of the world (and hence, no divine magic), and magic itself is a wild and dangerous force, not to be toyed with lightly or without consequences.

These two changes produce a world in which the focus of high fantasy adventure turns from the wizard and the magic sword to the muscle-bound weapon master or the stealthy thief. To compensate for the fact that the characters will not have access to powerful magic, each of the core classes in Iron Heroes is substantially more powerful than their standard d20 counterparts. The base attack bonuses (BAB) increase at a faster pace and feats are gained much more quickly than in the SRD (the official, and freely available d20 System rules).

For the rest of the system, the mechanical differences can be summed up as follows:

• Feats are more tree-like, allowing progression and specialization in each feat.
• Skills and other actions can be used in creative ways by players and game masters alike, with a well balanced system for determining difficulty of unusual "stunts" and "challenges".
• Traits, a "variant rule" in standard d20, are a core mechanic in Iron Heroes.
• Since magical healing is rare at best, characters have reserves of hit points that they can make use of between encounters.
• Armor class is replaced by defense and damage reduction. Defense is the active capacity that a character has to avoid a blow. Armor, on the other hand, reduces damage taken by a character, using the standard d20 rules for damage reduction.

Of course, the most glaringly different element of Iron Heroes from d20 is the magic system. Magic is dangerous and unpredictable in Iron Heroes, so while there is an "arcanist" class, their spells are used cautiously and often with consequences. The magic system itself is quite different from d20. An arcanist pulls "mana" from elsewhere and focuses it using a "method". Methods are the mechanical effects of a spell, but the strength and "special effects" (to use a Hero System term) of a spell are determined by the amount of mana used and the player's preference respectively. This makes for a magic system which is much more flexible than in standard d20, but not as free-form as, say, the magic system from White Wolf's Mage. Magic is also quite a bit more limited in Iron Heroes, but I imagine that that will be addressed by later supplements.

The system is not easily combined with an existing campaign, so don't look to Iron Heroes for classes to add to your existing characters or for NPCs to introduce into other games. In a world full of magic items, for example, Iron Heroes combat classes would be far too powerful, and Iron Heroes arcanists would be hobbled by the restrictions on their magic use.

In short: this game marks—for me—what the d20 System and the Open Gaming License are all about. It presents a rich set of mechanics that build in compatible ways on what we already have access to, and gives us new ground to cover in the already well-covered ground of the fantasy role playing industry."

You can purchase Monte Cook Presents: Iron Heroes from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.

Comments

But..but...

[Anonymous Coward]

How am I going to cast fireball at the darkest?

Re:But..but...

[j-pimp]

Magic missle. Although spels are cast using methods so you could probally overload the mountain_dew().

Re:But..but...

[Anonymous Coward]

I wish I had some Mountain Dew or some Mod Points for you.

Low Magic?

[AviLazar]

Monte Cook making a low magic game? Geez, Monte has a reputation for making extremely magical and powerful additions to DnD.

Re:Low Magic?

[Techguy666]

"Monte Cook making a low magic game? Geez, Monte has a reputation for making extremely magical and powerful additions to DnD."

The D&D guy was "Monty Haul". Monty Hall was the host of "Let's Make A Deal."

Beware of people named Monty or Monte. You're bound to gain a ton of unusable junk or nothing at all.

Re:Low Magic?

[Anonymous Coward]

Monte Cook making a low magic game? Geez, Monte has a reputation for making extremely magical and powerful additions to DnD.

Actually, it's a Monte Hall low magic game. Instead of dice, every "roll" involves choosing one of three doors, one of which contains a good outcome and two of them a bad outcome. The Dungeon Master then reveals one of the other doors to reveal a bad outcome, and you get to decide whether to change your selection (of course, 2/3 of the time it's better to switch but most people can't figure out the logic so it's a bit of a moot point). In any event, the only people playing this mod are usually disaffected stats students.

Re:Low Magic?

[Anonymous Coward]

I thought it was Monte Haul, a type of game play that that just involved selecting doors and loot to haul back to town to pawn. Inspired, of course, by Monte Hall from "Let's Make A Deal".

Re:Low Magic?

[Red Flayer]

" (of course, 2/3 of the time it's better to switch but most people can't figure out the logic so it's a bit of a moot point)"

Uh, no. The only information you have is: There are two doors left. One of which is bad, one of which is good. 50% of the time it's better to switch. P(good) = 1/2.

Re:Low Magic?

[aramael]

It turns out to be better to switch 2/3 of the time. There's a couple of ways to think about it; one is by noting that you had a 1/3 chance of picking the right door in the first place, which means there's a 2/3 chance that the prize is behind one of the others. Switching after Monty opens a door is like making a choice of "one of those two." Which is clearly better.

Or look at it this way: consider a variant where there's 100 doors. You pick one, then Monty opens 98 empty doors. Are you still going to stick with your choice? Of course not; you will have a 99/100 chance of getting the prize by switching.

The extra information you have is that Monty knows where the prize is.

Re:Low Magic?

[starwed]

You should look again at this part: most people can't figure out the logic. Becuase of the 5 sentances in your post, none are correct. ^_^

Re:Low Magic?

[Chris Burke]

Uh, no. The only information you have is: There are two doors left. One of which is bad, one of which is good.

Wrong, you do have more information. You know which door you picked initially. You know that this pick had a 2/3rd chance of being wrong, and you know that if you were wrong the remaining door is the correct one. Based on this knowledge, the probability is greater for switching.

If you walked in off the street after Monty had opened one door, and not told you which the original one was, then your assumption of no knowledge holds and it would be 50%.

Re:Low Magic?

[Red Flayer]

Ooops. Forgot about conditional probability. Serves me right for coming to work (well, going to the office to slashdot) on a holiday.

Re:Low Magic?

[Anonymous Coward]

You have 100 doors. 1 has a prize. Thus, any door you pick has a 1/100 chance of being right.

Monte then opens 98 doors. The original door you chose now has a 1/2 chance of being right. So does the other, unpicked door. Originally, both had a 1/100 chance of being right, now both have a 1/2 chance of being right.

If you still think switching is the right choice, answer this question: After you've switched, is it a good idea to switch again? You originally made your 'switching is better' argument after gaining some new information. After the switch, though, you're in the exact same position, with the exact same information. Thus, the argument still holds, and switching back is better than taking the one you have.

To look at it a slightly different way - You pick a door. Monte then switches around all the doors randomly, so you don't know which door was yours. He knows, though. He then opens 98 doors that you didn't pick, revealing them all to be bad, and says that one of the remaining two doors was the door you originally picked. He doesn't tell you which door you originally had, and says that you must now choose among the two. Assuming you choose randomly again, will one door win more often than the other? The answer is, of course, no. All doors are equally valid.

In this case, knowing about the other, wrong doors does not change the information you actually have. In slightly more complex examples, though, knowing things does indeed affect your chance of being right.

Re:Low Magic?

[DavidTC]

Yes, it is better, always, to switch, because Monty is required to open a door that has nothing behind it.(1)

If there are 99 doors that are wrong, and one that is right, and he's opened 98 wrong ones, you still have the 1/100 chance the door you originally picked was the right one. It doesn't magically change as other doors are revealed. If the door you picked, at odds of 1/100 is not correct, the other door must be the right one, and thus has odds of 99/100.

That's what people are missing. When you are given the chance to switch, you know have information you did not have before...you know one door of the two you did not pick does not have anything behind it.

Your door still have a 1/3 probility, and those two doors together still have an 2/3, but now that entire 2/3 is in one door.

And your example of switching back makes no sense. He can't open another door, because you've only got two, and he can't be sure of having one without the prize behind it. And, if he did have that, you'd have no doors to switch to!

1) Actually, even if he wasn't required to do that, the odds would be the same. If he opened the door with the prize, though, you'd just be screwed no matter what you did.

Re:Low Magic?

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem is that you're approaching the problem wrong. Everyone analyzes it from the position of being right, but it really only makes sense when you're wrong.

3 doors, pick one. You have a 2/3 chance of being wrong. Even if one door "goes away" after your choice, it doesn't change the probability that you were wrong because the door that is opened is specifically selected based on your choice, and is not a random event.

Re:Low Magic?

[drDugan]

Turns out the 2/3 analogy works only if Monty will reveal another door every time (or at the least has comitted to doing a second reveal before you make your choice). If he makes a choice if he will reveal the second door contents based on your choice of the first door, then bets are off on probability of the switch. This is a point rarely discussed in the treatment of this problem.

Re:Low Magic?

[drDugan]

required

I'm glad someone got to this lower in the thread... The fact Monty is required to open another door, and not the right door makes the probability calculation possible.

Re:Low Magic?

[Cheetahfeathers]

How is staying an 'of course not'? There are still 2 doors left, and one has a prize and one doesn't. In the 100 door version, the alternate door has a 99/100 chance of having a prize behind it... but so does the door that you originally picked.

The 'extra information' that Monty knows where the prize is also confuses me. Monty knows where the prize is.. it's behind one of the two doors he did not open. The one you picked originally, or the other one. There is no extra information here at all.

Ok, 3 doors. You pick one. You have a 1/3rd chance of being correct. A door is opened revealing a non-prize. This leaves 2 doors left, the one you picked and the other. _Both_
have a 2/3rds chance of having a prize.

I have seen this 'logic teaser' several times, and it still looks very wrong.

Re:Low Magic?

[kocsonya]

> (of course, 2/3 of the time it's better to switch but most people can't figure out the logic so it's a bit of a moot point)

Actually, it is not better, you have 50% chance. Yes, there is that argument that when you chose the initial door you had 1/3 chance and they show you a door that is definitely not the correct one, so you have a 2/3 chance that the third door is the good one. The problem with that argument is that it is plain wrong. You can very simply figure it out if you count all possibilities. We can assume that you choose door A, and just see what possibilities there are and whether changing helps or not:

-The treasure is behind A, they open B -> changing is bad
-The treasure is behind A, they open C -> changing is bad
-The treasure is behind B, they open C -> changing is good
-The treasure is behind C, they open B -> changing is good

There are no more possibilities if your initial door was A and all cases are equally probable, so you have 50 percent chance. If you initially choose B or C, the above schema still holds.

The issue with opening doors giving you more information is that it is a conditional probability excercise and if you do the actual maths, you will see that your chance goes up from 1/3 to 1/2, but you can't get higher than that. If you have a 1000 doors, then your initial chance was 1/1000 and you can increase that to 50%, but not more.

The doors and treasures can be changed to an other form: there are 3 baloons being pumbed up from a gas cilinder. Sooner or later all 3 will pop. Your question is, which one will pop last. You chose one, then an other pops and then you still do not know if the next one will be your chosen one or the other one. It is the exact same problem, with different clothing.

Re:Low Magic?

[Cheetahfeathers]

Derdaduh. You're right. I was looking at it bas-ackwards, really. It's better to switch. I switch my answer.

Re:Low Magic?

[Slurm-V]

Nice try - but the probability doesn't change when they pick a door because you've already picked a door and that's when the probability of a correct guess should be determined. Observe. You have a one in three chance of picking the right door - you pick it, you've got a 1/3 chance of getting it right. They open a door - has your chance of picking the right door initally changed? Nope! Still one in three. The only thing that changes is the probability of the other door being correct. Your four option scenario actually shows the same thing. If the right door is B there is 100% chance they will open C, and the same with B if the right door is C. On the other hand, if A is the right door the chance of B being chosen is only 50% all things being equal and the same with C. So the chances of A being right is 50+50/50+50+100+100, or 1/3. QED

Re:Low Magic?

[kocsonya]

Yes, you are right.
I made the very mistake that I was preaching about with the conditional probabilities.
I stated (and assumed) that the popping baloon excercise is the same as the doors but it is not.
The door experiment is rigged, because in baloon terms it is guaranteed that if your chosen baloon
is *not* the last one, then it would be the one before the last (your door will never be opened even
if it is a wrong door).
The opening of the other door(s) is just smoke and mirrors, the real problem boils down to a
"choose a door at random and then choose if you think that the treasure is behind that door
or behind any of the other doors". Indeed, a nice one.

Re:Low Magic?

[Anonymous Coward]

It looks wrong, but it's not. View it from the perspective of picking thr wrong door and it is easier to understand.

You have 3 doors hiding stuff. You want one of those stuff, but not the other 2.

Here's your decision matrix.

Y N N
N Y N
N N Y

Pick any door, but pick the same door in all 3 rows (it really doesn't matter which one). I'll pretend I selected the left door. In one of the three rows, I've chosen correctly, in two rows I've chosen wrong. 'Monty' then opens one 'wrong' door, letting me know one place where the prize isn't. In the case where I chose correctly the first time, this means that the unchosen, unopened door is bad, but in the other two cases, it means the unchosen, unopened door is good. Therefore, if I change my selection to the unchosen, unopened door, 2 out of 3 times I come out ahead.

The logic puzzle *seems* wrong, but is, in fact, correct.

Re:Low Magic?

[OwnedByTwoCats]

This leaves 2 doors left, the one you picked and the other. _Both_ have a 2/3rds chance of having a prize.

This cannot be. The probabilities have to add up to one.

With three doors, your initial pick has a 1/3 chance of being correct, and a 2/3 chance of being wrong. With 100 doors, your initial pick has a 1/100 chance of being correct, and 99/100 chance of being wrong. _After_ Monty removes all incorrect choices (one door in the three-door version; 98 doors in the 100-door version), switching means flipping from correct to incorrect or vice versa. So with 3 doors, switching improves your chances from one-in-three to two-in-three. With 100 doors, switching improves your chances from 1 in 100 to 99 in 100.

Just because there are two choices does not mean that both are equally likely to win. This fools a lot of people.

Back on topic, I gave up D20-style games for 3 six-siders (Melee, Wizard, In The Labyrinth, and later GURPS) around 1978.

Re:Low Magic?

[DavidTC]

I just throught of an example. Who here has a d20?

Roll to get a number. Seriously, do it.

Now...I pick number 5.

Now you tell me 18 numbers you didn't pick. You cannot tell me 5, and you cannot tell me the number you picked. (If those are the same number, of course, you will be leaving off a random number from the list.)

Now, take the numbers 1-20, and remove the numbers you told me. And remove 5.

Is that your number?

Wow, it's an amazing magic trick! It works 19/20 times!

It's just really obvious when you get into the large numbers, but it works all the way down to 3. Unless you're really unlucky and pick the 'right' number first, you win. (At 2, of course, it still 'works' if they open all doors but one and the one you picked, but that is exactly no doors, and you just switch 1/2 odds for...1/2 odds.)

Re:Low Magic?

[feijai]

Let's put it another way. There are N doors. One of them has the prize. Each door has a 1/N probability of holding the prize. When you pick a door, you partition the set of doors into two subsets:

1. The door you chose. (1/N probability in total)
2. All the other doors. ((N-1)/N probability in total)

Once you have set this partition, Monte Hall makes his move: reduce all the doors in the second set until there's only one door left. That's what he always does, and the composition of the second set was determined by you, not him. He is forced to work with that set.

So now you still have two sets:

1. The door you chose. (still 1/N probability in total)
2. All the other doors (still (N-1)/N probability in total) now reduced to a single door

Which set will you choose?

Re:Low Magic?

[Anonymous Coward]

If he makes a choice if he will reveal the second door contents based on your choice of the first door, then bets are off on probability of the switch. This is a point rarely discussed in the treatment of this problem.

Well put. Given that Monty has opened a door, the opening of the door may (or may not) reveal information, but the optimal strategy depends on what rule Monty follows.

If Monty only reveals a door and offers the switch when you initially guessed the prize door, then the strategy of switching will never get the payoff. In this case, if he opens a door, it reveals the complete state of the system.

On the other hand, if his rule is:

1. always to make the offer if you initially guess the prize door, and

2. to make the offer at random with probability 50% if you initially guess a wrong door,

then the strategy of switching is no better nor worse than the strategy of not switching, provided that you're only allowed to switch if he opens a door. This is a type of rule in which, when Monty opens a door, you learn nothing.

Re:Low Magic?

[Chris Burke]

Thus, any door you pick has a 1/100 chance of being right.

Monte then opens 98 doors. The original door you chose now has a 1/2 chance of being right. So does the other, unpicked door. Originally, both had a 1/100 chance of being right, now both have a 1/2 chance of being right.

Your statement that the probability of your initial pick being correct has suddenly and inexplicably changed should be your first clue that you are doing something wrong.

If you still think switching is the right choice, answer this question: After you've switched, is it a good idea to switch again? You originally made your 'switching is better' argument after gaining some new information. After the switch, though, you're in the exact same position, with the exact same information. Thus, the argument still holds, and switching back is better than taking the one you have.

Yes, you have the exact same information -- that the first door you picked had a 1/3rd chance of being right. Since you still have this information, you know that switching back to that door is not the same as switching away from that door.

To look at it a slightly different way - You pick a door. Monte then switches around all the doors randomly, so you don't know which door was yours.

In that case, you don't know anything, so you have to guess. But that isn't the case, now is it? You do know what door you picked, so you know that if you were wrong initially switching will get you the right door.

The fact is that if your initial guess is wrong, switching will win. This has nothing to do with probability; it comes directly from the description of the problem -- Monte will only open a door that does not have the prize in it, so if your initial pick did not have the prize, the other door remaining will have the prize. If your initial guess was wrong, switching will win. If your initial guess is right, staying will win.

The probability is then simple. Your initial guess is right 1/3rd of the time, so staying wins 1/3rd of the time. Your initial guess is wrong 2/3rd of the time, so switching wins 2/3rd of the time.

Sounds interesting

[faloi]

Now I just wish I hadn't moved away from all the PnP RPGers I used to know...

Re:Sounds interesting

[Anonymous Coward]

I once had the same problem, but after frequenting local gaming stores (and attending college) I put together a new group of people whom I have a lot of fun RPing with.

Re:Sounds interesting

[Anonymous Coward]

Or, you could do as I did and use voice chat programs (like Skype or Ventrilo) to play the games online. I assume you have a net connection, being that you're posting on /. ;)

Re:Sounds interesting

[jp10558]

Anyone tried using say, OpenRPG for this? I mean, voice chat is fine, but you still have problems with maps and such.

Re:Sounds interesting

[Anonymous Coward]

Or you could look at programs such as OpenRPG http://www.openrpg.com/ or WebRPG http://www.webrpg.com/ which allow you to PnP games online through a virtual tabletop.

Re:Sounds interesting

[jiawen]

There are a lot of ways to find players (self-link, but a useful one). Just avail yourself of them. :)

AE, and other Malhavoc books

[ajs]

This was about Iron Heroes, of course, but if you thought my review sounded like something that would interest you, I suggest taking a look at all of Malhavoc's books. Monte Cook has his name on Iron Heroes, but Arcana Evolved is actually his work, and it's equally good, IMHO. They both have their own setting, but AE takes it a bit further. It has some published fiction to give you a sense of the world, its own spell lists (many of the spells being core d20, but some are removed and many are added), and it's more compatible with the core d20 classes than IH is.

Ready to Roll?

[slashbob22]

We attack your site with a +5 Slashdot.

Re:Ready to Roll?

[Anonymous Coward]

Magic missile! MAGIC MISSILE!

Too many Slashdotters on that server and you'll be attacking the darkness. :-)

Re:Ready to Roll?

[RancidMilk]

They said reduced magic, you forgot to add the reduced magic modifier. Slashdot only provides +2, but it has an agro of 5 million.

Re:Ready to Roll?

[Digitus1337]

Natural 20! Critical Hit!

Re:Ready to Roll?

[Anonymous Coward]

A +5 slashdot? More like an extra sharp diamond slashdot if you wanted to keep with the low magic setting. I think all the trolls will "smash dat serva good!" before you have a chance to get anywhere near it with your sword though.

Re:Ready to Roll?

[x_man]

Bah! Real tabletop gamers don't use simplified rule systems and only one die. We want to-hit tables, armor charts, save modifiers and most importantly, lots of dice rolls. When my warrior executes a jumping, 360 degree sword sweep while simultaneously imbibing a potion of gaseous form and making a rude gesture to the boss monster, I expect to feel the beginnings of carpal tunnel!

I fling my poo at the d20 system and especially D&D 3E with its new fangled, computer-artsy books and "prestige" classes. No good DM should be letting his players live past level 10 anyway.

Long live HackMaster!
http://www.kenzerco.com/

X

Re:Ready to Roll?

[Gryle]

Use the duping artifact to double or triple that value.

Re:Ready to Roll?

[Korben Dallas]

Real tabletop gamers know that the "d20 System" uses more than just a d20.

Re:Ready to Roll?

[Chris Burke]

I fling my poo at the d20 system and especially D&D 3E with its new fangled, computer-artsy books and "prestige" classes. No good DM should be letting his players live past level 10 anyway.

Okay, your poo-fling attack uses a base of 6 dice. Would you like to invoke your Simian Ancestry skill for an additional 2 dice? The d20 handbook has a base defense of 4 dice, with a bonus 2 for it's high-gloss low-stick cover.

The most carpul tunnel-inducing game I ever played was Shadowrun (though I'm sure others can name worse). Every attack took at least ten dice rolls with most seeming to add up to nothing. The funny thing is that at an age where I was still all about the hack-and-slash, we quickly developed a style of trying to solve problems without resorting to violence, since violence meant at least 45 minutes of dice rolling.

Re:Ready to Roll?

[Anonymous Coward]

Good thing my web server has mod_evasion.

Re:Ready to Roll?

[MightyMartian]

Ah, if only real life resembled that:

Comrade Anatoli, I want to bomb capitalist pigs in Washington DC!

Comrade Boris, I would love to comply, but building missile that works requires skill check, then building missile silo means another skill check, and then aiming missile requires combat round, and maybe capitalist pig president has armor rating too good for good Communist missile. Then, if we hit, we have to do skill check to run like fucking bastards away from missile site because capitalist missiles have better attack skill than us.

Sigh, I suppose you are right Comrade Anatoli. Put dice away and grab potato chips. Perhaps there is rerun of Babylon 5 on satellite.

Re:Ready to Roll?

[InsideTheAsylum]

Komrad speaks truth, the longest I've lived (starting from level 1) is a measly level 4.

Re:Ready to Roll?

[The Wooden Badger]

Funny, my experience with Shadowrun usually involved very brief combat. Of course my character knew his limitations and only engaged in combat when the odds were in his favor, usually heavily in his favor. Oh, the fond memories of decapitating sleeping guards with my monofilament whip. The only time there was drawn out combat was when our trigger happy paranoid street samurai thought our smooth talking was STARTING to turn south. We didn't even actually get into trouble and the fool started to empty his magazine.

Re:Ready to Roll?

[steveo777]

Oh shit. I almost fell off my chair at work on this one! Thanks... halarious

Re:Ready to Roll?

[Schitzoflink]

I have a Nazi Dm friend, you should compare notes...

Though my other DM friend is much more fun...ahh the days of having a lvl 25 werechetah....I could jump 3 stories straight up....

Monty Haul Gaming at its finest....

[TiggertheMad]

...To compensate for the fact that the characters will not have access to powerful magic, each of the core classes in Iron Heroes is substantially more powerful than their standard d20 counterparts...

Oh, good. I was just saying to a friend of mine the other day, that the 3.0/3.5 D&D rules don't crank up the power gaming factor enough for me over the 1st and 2nd edition rules. And here, we go, instant karma.

Re:Monty Haul Gaming at its finest....

[Mayhem178]

I wouldn't say IH provokes power gaming any more than straight up D&D. Having played a coupla IH one-shots, I was fairly impressed with the simplicity yet robustness of the system. It was good times. And not needing to worry about magic (or non-human races) was nice.

Re:Monty Haul Gaming at its finest....

[temojen]

Try GURPS. It's much less prone to power gaming. When a superhero can be taken down by a grenade as easily as a conscript, you have to think about your actions a bit more. Although I noticed that the new version seems to have left out powerstones (basically mana batteries), which makes being a D&D style combat mage much more difficult in GURPS v4. It also helps to have a more mature group to play with.

Re:Monty Haul Gaming at its finest....

[Elvis Parsley]

Powerstones may not be in the Basic Set (my books aren't to hand, so I can't check), but they're definitely still in GURPS Magic.

Re:Monty Haul Gaming at its finest....

[ajs]

You don't actually play GURPS or you're thinking of a much more constrained version of "super hero" than I'm used to in GURPS. Your average 200pt super in GURPS might well be vulnerable to physical attacks like a grenade, but they might also be insubstantial, have a massive force field, or any number of other forms of limited invulnerability.

In a 500pt game, I'd be shocked to see a character that found grenades bothersome.

Of course, I'm using 3rd edition as a benchmark. I never read 4th (by that time, I was locked into running a D&D 3.5 game under protest, which I eventually learned to love).

Re:Monty Haul Gaming at its finest....

[Valdrax]

Try GURPS. It's much less prone to power gaming.

Cough. It doesn't let you power game by increasing power as fast as D20, but its point-based character creation system lets you munchkin really hard (though not as bad as Champions). GURPS appeals much more to Tactician-style gamers than Power Gamers and Buttkickers, though. It's pretty much the poster child for that style of play.

Personally, I can't stand the amount of dice rolling and the complexity of combat in GURPS, but I've always been a diceless / rules-light gamer. The Star Wars D6 system is pretty much the outer treshold for my rules discomfort level. It's a shame, though, because GURPS really has some of the best supplements of any game system, and it really encourages you to build your own game setting.

Re:Monty Haul Gaming at its finest....

[Anonymous Coward]

Beefed up character classes for a low-magic game doesn't mean powergaming. Part of the balance in the D&D d20 system is the magic gear you're expected to have for your level. Thats why there's charts for wealth by level and all that in the PHB and the DMG. If you take that away, you're down on power compared to monsters of your CR, so for a specific low magic campaign, you've gotta make up for that some other way, which Monte Cook did by making the base classes stronger.

Re:Monty Haul Gaming at its finest....

[shinma]

I try not to play games that sound too much like bodily functions.

Seriously, the only thing that GURPS ever had that kept my attention was the Wild Cards supplements for GURPS Supers.

Don't even get me started on their atrocious adaptations of the World of Darkness. They were so bad that White Wolf didn't even let them finish.

Re:Monty Haul Gaming at its finest....

[Anonymous Coward]

GURPS really has some of the best supplements of any game system

Amen to that... But just because you don't play GURPS, don't shy away from those supplements. Most are useful in any game system -- especially the historical or genre type books. The actual amount of "crunchy" rules is often low in those books and they're very easily adapted to any game system.

I also dislike the slow moving combat, though I haven't yet played 4th ed which supposedly streamlines some of that.

Re:Monty Haul Gaming at its finest....

[Anonymous Coward]

The idea is that an Iron Heroes character of Xth level should be able to face the same challenges as a D&D character of Xth level. Since he doesn't have an equipment list that blinds anyone who casts detect magicz on him, he has to make up for that by being more inherently badass. Now, if you want more powerful characters, you could try using Iron Heroes classes in gestalt (from Unearthed Arcana, basically choose two classes at each level and use the best from each) and then add magic items on top of that... THAT'll show you overpowered.

What classes are there?

[ZombieRoboNinja]

Since the link isn't working, I'll ask here: what classes are in the game?

Of the base D&D classes, only two (warriors and barbarians) have zero magic-derived abilities. A couple more (rangers, rogues, maybe monks and paladins) could be fairly easily adapted to be magic-free. But is that it? Or did Monte cook up (pun intended) some new and innovative magic-free classes for us?

Re:What classes are there?

[garrulous]

Off the top of my head:

Archer, Berserker, Harrier(a rapid moving scouting class), Armiger(heavily armored tanks that learn to take shots and turn them to their advantage), Thief, Executioner, Man at Arms(the every soldier, can retrain some of their feats each day to optimize them for the situation at hand), Weaponmaster(very very good with one type of weapon), Hunter(exploits terrain to his advantage). There's also a very poorly built arcanist class.

Re:What classes are there?

[Anonymous Coward]

I can answer this easily, and go beyond your question.

You have 10 classes in Iron Heroes. One, the arcanist, is special and wierd, because it's a magic user. It is actually statted out seperate from the other classes. The other nine are the meat of Iron Heroes: the fighting classes!

First comes the archer. This class is for all ranged weapons, be they bows, slings, or daggers. They gain a number of abilities that rely on you spending time aiming at your target. While any class can be decent at ranged, archer is required to truly master it.

Second is the armiger. This is the tank class, who specializes in wearing heavy armor and making it look good. He gradually gains the ability to wear the heaviest armor effortlessly, while wearing down his opponents.

Third is the berserker. Screaming as he rushes headlong into battle, the berserker is fueled by fury. He has the standard ability to make himself stronger through anger, but also has many other abilities that are about battle rage and being the biggest, strongest motherfucker around.

Fourth is the executioner. Cool, collected, and deadly, the executioner places his blade precisely and cripples his opponents. This class gains full Sneak Attack and a number of abilities related to crippling the opponent.

Fifth is the harrier. This class is the essence of speed - the lightly armored, supremely mobile fighter who vaults over her enemy's weapons. Their abilities are focused around dodging and movement.

Sixth is the hunter, though this class would perhaps be better named Commander. A capable ranger-analogue by himself, the hunter excels at making sure that his team performs at their best.

Seventh is the man-at-arms. This is the simplest class, but also the most versatile. His only class ability is feats. Lots of them. Also, some of his feats are 'Wildcard'. Rather than selecting this feat once and being stuck with it forever, he can re-select it every day, thus tailoring his abilities to the situation at hand.

Eighth is the thief. This isn't exactly equivalent to the D&D rogue, but it's close. One of the least combat-worthy classes, the thief specializes in skills, skills, sneak attack, and skills. He has the best access to the Social feats of all, and accumulates a number of aliases to help him do his shadow-work without being caught.

Finally, the weapon master. An expert in one weapon, the weapon master learns a number of tricks specifically for his weapon. He is a duelist, most of the time.

That's the basic overview. The review left out a lot of very cool stuff, such as the Mastery Ratings that each class has that determine when you can pick up certain types of feats.

Most importantly, it left out the idea of tokens. Seven of the ten classes utilize tokens to balance their abilities. You build them up by acting out the class archetype in battle. The archer, for example, builds tokens by spending actions aiming. The hunter gains a number of tokens automatically from his study of battlefield tactics, and can earn more by studying the field. You then spend these tokens to use your abilities. This mechanic allows the class abilities to be balanced per encounter, rather than per day like many D&D abilities. As long as you still have HP left in your body, you can continue to fight and use all of your abilities all day, without running into some arbitrary limit and having to rest for the day.

Finally, the best part of Iron Heroes is the community! http://p222.ezboard.com/fokayyourturnfrm36 This is the official Monte Cook Iron Heroes message board, filled with people who love the game and love developing new things for it. Best of all, it is full of errata and clarifications to make playing the game as smooth as possible.

Not The First

[MightyMartian]

This isn't the first such setting. The Harn setting was a low-magic medieval/fantasy setting that really discouraged over-the-top mages. I played in the setting a few times, but found it duller than hell. It's fun to read, though.

Re:Not The First

[MrLizard]

Harn was, as you note, dull. Iron heroes isn't. It's a sword&sorcery setting with the 'sorcery' pretty much in the hands of NPCs or suicidal PCs. The focus is on Cool Combat, not on how many hecatres of wheat you can grown. Think Conan or Thieve's World.

Re:Not The First

[Arandir]

Hârn is a great setting, but many of its gamemasters prefer the "serfs stuck in the manner" campaign. These can get quite dull. But it doesn't have to be that way anymore than D&D has to about silly dungeon crawls. It's a great setting for cthulhu-esque horror, political intrigue, exploring ancient civilizations, and sweeping military campaigns.

Where many newbies to Hârn get messed up, is that it doesn't provide a pre-determined campaign direction. You'll have to figure that one out on your own. More info on this great game at www.harnforum.com

Re:Not The First

[mark-t]

I agree. Harn is boring as crap, but the maps were I-have-no-words-but-off-the-scale fabulous, and easily worth the price of admission.

Re:Not The First

[Walsfeo]

I always wanted to play Hârn, but D&D turned me off a long time ago. I can't wait to get my hands on the new Pendragon though.

Re:Not The First

[Arandir]

I always wanted to play Hârn, but D&D turned me off a long time ago.

Don't let D&D stop you, because it has nothing to do with Hârn! You can use the Hârn setting with D&D rules, but most people prefer the HârnMaster rules instead. Check out www.columbiagames.com or www.kelestia.com.

Branch out

[Arandir]

If people are excited about this, maybe it's time they broadened their horizons and examined some non-d20 games. Really! They do exist! You don't have to settle for the Microsoft of roleplaying.

If you want gritty low-magic, Chivalry & Sorcery and HârnMaster have been around for two decades. Newer games such as Burning Wheel and The Riddle of Steel also provide nice gritty action. Or explore completely new genres with Serenity, Traveller, Call of Cthulhu, and Tekumel.

Re:Branch out

[ZombieRoboNinja]

Actually, D&D has some fairly nifty mechanics for non-magical combat, and an infamously cumbersome magic system. A "low-magic setting" is probably what D&D could do best!

Re:Branch out

[ClayDowling]

I'm going to strongly recommend nosing around the Internet for these different games. I've found that only the most progressive and free-thinking of game stores stocks anything outside of the old standbys of D20 and White Wolf.

Have a look at http://www.chaosium.com/ and http://www.anvilwerks.com/ for some excellent examples.

Re:Branch out

[Arandir]

Most game stores get their stock from distributors, and distributors want to buy in huge lots that will quickly sell. It's a small market, so most games and supplements never show up in a game store. You're going to have to find them online.

Re:Branch out

[Nevereverend]

In addition to those listed previously: Hero Games has "Valdoran Age", a gritty, low fantasy, classic sword and sorcery inspired setting for Hero System. And for the d20/OGL people, the Conan RPG has been out for about two years. There is nothing particularly new or unique with Iron Kingdoms... I am so sick of d20 fanboys raving about the latest batch of schlock Monte C(r)ook and Co. spew forth into the RPG market.

Re:Branch out

[ajs]

I've done a lot of tabletop role playing. I've played D&D in many forms (Basic, Advanced, 2nd ed., and d20-based 3.5). I've also played GURPS, Traveller, Champions (as "Champions", but I've also played a number of Hero System variants), World of Darkness (a few Mage games and a Wraith game), Shadowrun, some home-grown systems and some other stuff I'm probably forgetting.

While I don't want to enter into the flame-infested waters of "what's best", I will say this: good role playing and a creative GM/DM/storyteller/what-have-you is far, far more important than what system or setting you choose. If everyone knows D&D, by all means use it, but don't feel constrained. Focus on the quality of play.

I tend to avoid single-genre systems, which is why I'd written off D&D for many years (I was barely aware of 3.0's release), but the fact that I was dragged out of GURPS and Hero System into some World of Darkness games made me remember that, even using a system that I despised, role playing was fun. That's why, when I asked my friends to join a game I was planning, I reluctantly chose to use D&D 3.5...

And now, I'm hooked. d20 is everything that D&D should have been from day one. The Microsoft of games? I think not... perhaps the Linux of games would be more like it. It's based on a rich history going back to the early 70s, and yet it's completely new. It retains some of the quirks of the original (e.g. classes), but for the most part, it's a ground-up redesign with modern usage in mind. It's also free (though in the case of d20, it's a non-commercial sort of "free", but you can still run a pretty good game from nothing but the d20 SRD).

Re:Branch out

[NitsujTPU]

You don't have to settle for the Microsoft of roleplaying.

Your comment makes my Brujah angry. Rawwwrr.

Re:Branch out

[lbrandy]

if people are excited about this, maybe it's time they broadened their horizons and examined some non-d20 games. Really!

I was thinking the same thing right up until the last few words. I would have gone with "the beach" or "outside" or maybe even "a girl".

Re:Branch out

[sphere]

Don't forget HeroQuest, the latest fantasy RPG set in the extraordinarily detailed world of Glorantha. Wily old veterans may remember RuneQuest, the first Gloranthan RPG (circa 1978 - 1995) and perhaps the closest rival to D&D/AD&D in the early days of role-playing. Others may have tried the A Sharp's Gloranthan computer game King of Dragon Pass.

I'm an old RPGer and I'm playing my first HeroQuest PBEM (play by email) campaign. Frankly I think Glorantha is a blast. Jaded role-players ought to give it a once-over.

Re:Branch out

[Fujisawa Sensei]

N00B,

i have a copy of Conan that has been around for more than 20 years. :-P

Re:Branch out

[CoderBob]

Dammit. For a minute there, I thought you were referring to an old board game called Hero Quest, and I was going to be all nostalgic.

Re:Branch out

[corbettw]

Your comment makes my Brujah angry. Rawwwrr.

Pfff. What wouldn't?

Re:Branch out

[AviLazar]

The words "new genres" and "Call of Cthulhu" cannot be utilized in the same sentence. Most geeks who don't know much of DnD and RP in general still can make references to Cthulhu jokes (which involve creating a character, dying, and then creating a new character 5 minutes later)

Re:Branch out

[zuhl]

Traveller!!

Man I LOVED playing that game. But we always cheated and gave ourselves a TON of money/XP so we could just start building a ship, etc.

Re:Branch out

[Planesdragon]

You don't have to settle for the Microsoft of roleplaying.

Bad, false example.

d20 is a copylefted version of D&D, which makes things like SpyCraft, Iron Heroes, the World of Warcraft RPG, Mutants and Masterminds, and a slew of others possible, without a single dollar ever being paid to Wizards of the Coast.

d20 is the Linux of Roleplaying, not the Microsoft.

Re:Branch out

[sammy baby]

Independent RPGs fo' life, yo!

Re:Branch out

[khallow]

Goal one of a traveller game: get a ship!

Re:Branch out

[MightyMartian]

D20 is more like the OSX of games. Fudge, now that's the Linux of games. It's not necessarily for the tame of heart, but what a quick resolution system.

Re:Branch out

[Arandir]

In the past TSR/WotC used their size and legal clout to force independent adventures and fandom off the internet. If they think I'm going to kiss their butts just because they've given me "permission" to do what was always legal to do (but for their horde of lawyers), they've got another thing coming.

The d20 license is nothing more than an elaborate scheme by WotC/Hasbro to get their logo on other publisher's games.

Re:Branch out

[Arandir]

I meant "new genres" in terms of something that isn't a high fantasy dungeon crawl. To most D&D players, Cthulhu is just another monster that can be defeated with a sufficiently high experience level.

Re:Branch out

[Anonymous Coward]

d20 is the Microsoft of RPG. Like Microsoft it's a rip off of other people's work. Following Cthulhu will lead one to RneQuest (http://www.mongoosepublishing.com/home/runequest. php) and HeroQuest (http://www.glorantha.com/new/index.html), like Apple beging ripped off by MS these games follow a lineage that has been integrating low magic and high magic for over two decades. Now you're going to tell me this is somehow new?!

MICROSOFT OF GAMES - it's user friendly but it'll frustrate you before you know it.

Re:Branch out

[Planesdragon]

If they think I'm going to kiss their butts just because they've given me "permission" to do what was always legal to do (but for their horde of lawyers), they've got another thing coming.

It has always been legal to re-design Windows from the ground up.

It has NOT always been legal to copy Windows and turn it into whatever you want it to.

The OGL is a significant and real copyleft, no matter what you may have been told by "fandom" types who think D&D is a terrible game that everyone should abandon for their particular rule. The exact text of anything released under the OGL can be reproduced in ammounts far exceeding anything that a Court would recognize as fair use--up to and including selling the SRD as a seperate product.

The d20 License, OTOH, is a shameless attempt to get their logo on other people's compatible games. Except that, by and large, the companies who put it on their books (like Malhavoc and Mongoose) are the ones pushing for the logo, not Wizards.

Re:Branch out

[bytor4232]

Parent is hardly insightful. d20 is the *NIX of the gaming world, or at least the BSD. The only reason Iron Heroes exists is because of the OGL, or Open Gaming License. Wizards of the Coast is the only reason why Tabletop games exist and enjoy the popularity they do today. They saved the industry from the real Microsoft TSR.

Re:Branch out

[RyatNrrd]

Why do we get so many geek trolls on the D&D threads? Jeez, this is SLASHDOT - didn't you read the front page?

Re:Branch out

[Syberghost]

Fudge is the Linux of roleplaying. d20 is more like Java.

Re:Branch out

[NitsujTPU]

I loved HeroQuest when I was a kid.

Re:Branch out

[Anonymous Coward]

Which wouldn't be so bad if half the frickin companies using the OGL could do so without violating it...

Monte Cook is one of the worst when it comes to violating both the letter and the spirit of the OGL..

And guess what? He has a Waterdeep/Undermountain clone that he will sell you for just $120......

Re:Branch out

[Planesdragon]

I was going to point out how Fudge isn't really a copylefted game--but then I went to Grey Ghost's page, and found that Fudge is released under the OGL.

Hmm.....

My Take

[Hoplite3]

I've read the book, and I really like the idea of classes not dependent on magic items. There are two principle troubles I have with Iron Heroes:

(1) Armor provides variable damage reduction. That means that every successful attack involves another die roll. This requires discipline, or it will really slow the game down. Every extra: "make an x roll" instruction from the DM is a slow mechanic. The power of the d20 system is its speed and ease, and I think this idea runs counter to that.

(2) Many of the new feats and classes are strongly reliant on a battle grid. That means Iron Heroes is a tactical game in addition to a roll-playing game. That's not necessarily bad (in fact, it's fun), but it might not be everyone's cup of tea.

Overall, I'd say there's lots of good stuff, though. Didn't Cook write the rule system for Fallout? That had the best rule system of any computer RPG I've ever played. His expertise shows in the rules for this game.

Re:My Take

[Spent Casings]

Many of the new feats and classes are strongly reliant on a battle grid. But that's just D20 for you. You can certainly play without a battle grid, but everything assumes that you are using a mat and miniatures.

Re:My Take

[Zephiria]

Uhm... DnD has allways really been a tactical game, depending on how you approach it. I remember playing ADnD and the DM putting out a massive (1mx500mm) grid on the table and drawing on it with washable marker and things, we used lil plastic soldiers for markers and so on. Now i'm not saying DND is allways about tactical combat but it certainly is a core theme of it, given its origins. All that aside i havnt seen this rule book myself, but it does sound interesting, the idea of a better/different armour system and also more powerfull "basic" non magical classes sound good to me. Makes a big change from the "invincible" mages you end up facing so much :(

Re:My Take

[Bellum Aeternus]

Just do what I did: Create a Javascript script and run it on your handlheld... instead of roll, roll, roll... just tap, tap, tap, results. I love it and it sure makes stuff easy - espcially when you don't have to that difficult math... like addition. :-P

Re:My Take

[Hoplite3]

It's true that DnD started as a tactical game made by war gamers. But as it matured, it developed more role-playing aspects. 3rd ed comes across as a real action-packed game when you read the source books, but I found that the simplified rules really help to keep a session fluid and focused on characters rather than combat.

I've always had a problem with the standard DnD magic system. They throw in spell-casters without examining how implausible medieval society is in such a world. Who would build a castle if any joe can turn rock to mud? Who would ride to battle in shining armor if it makes him a target for deadly spells from afar? But that's my slant. Others say I'm too boring, which is probably true.

Besides, I do like some light tactical combat with my RPG. Heck, I even like some heavy tactical combat (it's not like you can find it in videogames these days). But most of the people I play with are indifferent to it at best. I thought I should mention that IH is more reliant on the battle mat than vanilla DnD.

Re:My Take

[fishbowl]

>It's true that DnD started as a tactical game made by war gamers.

I knew some of those gamers, and the level of immersion that I observed in their traditional tabletop infantry battles was beyond anything I ever experienced with a FRP game. Those old tin soldier guys took their gaming seriously. It rubbed off on me enough that in my D&D gaming days, my games had a huge focus on what was represented on the table by the miniatures. We'd measure distances and calculate things like areas of effect and line of sight with rulers and compasses. I played with other groups later that took a completely different approach (approximation of time, space, and distance was common, players were much more into fluffy character details and things like romance and aristocracy, the whole other end of the spectrum from what I had always regarded as a WAR game) I lost interest at that point, and got into things like Avalon Hill bookcase games.

Re:My Take

[midnightblaze]

(1) Armor provides variable damage reduction. That means that every successful attack involves another die roll. This requires discipline, or it will really slow the game down. Every extra: "make an x roll" instruction from the DM is a slow mechanic. The power of the d20 system is its speed and ease, and I think this idea runs counter to that. Why can't one just roll two dice at once? And only apply the 2nd die when necessary?

Really?

[jar240]

Sorry, did you say "gritty action" and "D&D" in the same breath? Chris

Ars Magica

[sckeener]

People keep reinventing the wheel. It is neat that this is a D20 system, but low magic systems are plentiful.

My favorite low-magic system is slightly biased towards mages, namely Ars Magica. It is on its 5th version (2nd was my favorite.)

It has a magic system where you can create spells on the fly, healing is difficult, and god is real (and so is the Devil)

Re:Ars Magica

[Stachybotris]

I've only ever played Ars Magicka once, but I have to say that I much prefer its quasi-successor Mage.

You could easily create earth-shattering effects in Mage, but between the threats of Paradox (basically reality punishing you for pushing too hard with magic) and being found out by the Technocracy (scientifically-minded mages) or other 'bad guys', most people kept their spells on the subtle side. In a way, it's as low-magic as you can get. Sure, it was mired in the World of Darkness setting, but with the right storyteller, that didn't matter as much.

Re:Ars Magica

[okoskimi]

Humm. Having played Ars Magica more than a few times (my favorite game too), I would say it is biased towards a historically accurate setting (with the twist that magic was real and not just superstition). With even the title being "The Art of Magic", saying it is slightly biased towards mages is like saying Linux community is slightly biased towards open source. Well, you do have all the other character types as well, but the bulk of the available source material is related to magus characters.

IMHO though, that is the strength of Ars Magica. Is has the best magic system bar none, and the setting has real depth because you can use any history book about medieval Europe for reference (and many do - there are quite a few historians among the players). Low-magic or high-magic is up to you - it depends on how common or scarce magical resources are. In our games, magical resources were more common and some of the mages became pretty powerful - and a powerful Ars Magica magus is a damn scary thing...

Oh, and if you feel curious - the previous (fourth) edition of the rulebook is available for free as a PDF, have a look at http://www.atlas-games.com/arsmagica/.

Re:Ars Magica

[sckeener]

I wish I could mod you up. I hadn't even thought about tossing in the link to the free rule book.

Funny that you should mention historians playing Ars Magica. I had a friend historian at University of Houston a long time ago working on his master's that I introduced to Ars Magica. He was so taken with Ars Magica he went off and found even more games to play in than ours. I ran into him online several years ago and he thanked me for introducing him to the game.

It does have the best Magic System bar none....and you are correct about the resources determining high or low magic...but in a spring game, resources should be low.

AD&D 2.ed

[talornin]

Hah! d20 is for inferior minds!

Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 2.ed, now THAT is role playing!

Long live Forgotten Realms and Elminster!

re: AD&D 2.ed

[ed.han]

yeah...um...you can keep elminster and drizzt, and the re-named tanar'ri and baatezu while we're at it. you can also keep the system in which there is no mechanical difference b/n your human fighter 20 and my human fighter 20 except for their magical goodies.

ed

Re:AD&D 2.ed

[Heembo]

Now you are talking! AD&D 2nd edition was by far my favorite - and had a fantastic series of hard-cover books with great. Art. My friend was a Dungeon Master made it really tough - characters ran away from many battles. My campaigns, I gave out lots of magic items, characters sailed up levels, they took out 2-3 dragons at once - massive power-gaming battles with more magic flying around than we could keep up with at times. They played in my campaign for 4 years.

Long live gratuitous power gaming!

Re:AD&D 2.ed

[Heembo]

Now you are talking! AD&D 2nd edition was by far my favorite - and had a fantastic series of hard-cover books with great. Art. My friend was a Dungeon Master made it really tough - characters ran away from many battles. My campaigns, I gave out lots of magic items, characters sailed up levels, they took out 2-3 dragons at once - massive power-gaming battles with more magic flying around than we could keep up with at times. They played in my campaign for 4 years.

Long live gratuitous power gaming, Forgotten Realms and Drizzt knock-off PC's!

Re:AD&D 2.ed

[bhaalchild]

Long live Elminster! :s revive Kasus and lets do some real magic

Warhammer FRP

[kaffiene]

Sounds rather like Warhammer FRP

Re:Warhammer FRP

[propagandize]

Warhammer...best RPG...ever (at least when I played it 15 or so years ago).

Old-school

[brainstyle]

I recently played D&D for the first time in a bazillion years, and it was something of a disappointment. I just wanted to do that first adventure, D&D basic, go down into the dungeon, and find some evil druids in the last room. Instead, we wandered around a town in the Forgotten Realms for a while, worried about boring minutiae ("What colour do you want the stitching in your robes to be?"), and in general had a boring old time.

Now, I have a sample size of one, so I don't know if this is just a case of a DM with very different ideas of what should go on in a game of D&D or what, but it seems to me that RPGs aren't what they once were. When I go to local game stores, I just can't find much that captures what they were like back in the day. Is there something out there for people like me, looking for a more old-school kind of game outside of an MMORPG?

RPGs seem to have become way too bloody serious. I just want to kill some kobolds.

Re:Old-school

[Anonymous Coward]

You need to find a better group to game with. I play D20 every Friday night; we don't worry about what color our stitching is, we worry about how we're going to kill the blue dragon flying straight at us. (We're lvl 17 average btw, so if you're lower insert smaller but equally scary monster here)

Re:Old-school

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

Was it true, old-school, or some new basic modern starter kit, with printed floors and paper chits for orcs and stuff?

Never had as good a time as with good old graph paper. Those colored, glowing pools, man what an image in your mind.

But I always felt anything from 2nd edition (inclusive) onward was a horrid bastardization. D&D Basic Edition, then D&D, then, wow, AD&D.

Gimme a +3 battle axe and my 18/91 strength, get rid of 19 strength half-orc players, and point me in the right direction...

Re:Old-school

[wolff000]

You definately had a bad DM. I game semi regular with some people and nobody takes it serious. Besides if there are rules you don't like just don't follow them as long as your DM agrees anyway. I like the 3.5 system it's robust and you can easliy tweak it to your liking.

Re:Old-school

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

Bell curve on the stats, that's where the fun was. Not this modern, computer shit where characters get ever-climbing stats that are rendered meaningless by generalization curves.

You guys understand that AC, etc. are no longer linear scales that you can work to improve, right? That they define a "proper" AC point for a given level, and anything more than 20% below that might as well be naked, even if it's AC 1000, and anything much above that is about 1.20% as effective, end of story? (Note: This must be done to combat twinking, so twinking has corrupted the system behind the scenes. Sad.)

The likelihood of being hit is then scheduled according not to the AC, but to the desires of the developers as to how often you should get hit at that level with "average" equipment, "infinitely good" equipment, and poor equipment (= naked). Average = (say) hit 1 of 4 times vs. average monster that level. Good equipment = 1/4.5 times, and infinitely good peters out to 1/5 times, no more.

It's fine to balance, but removing the linearity makes for much more boring "stat maxing". Hoo-rah. The difference between Super Chestplate of Awesomeness and Super Duper Chestplate of Awesomeness is 1 fewer hits out of 100?!?!?

Are there any games still like this out there, like old-school D&D? Anybody know what I'm talking about? Any "18 ints" out there who can parse the question and give an intelligible answer?

Re:Old-school

[jdigriz]

Your DM is inept. Sack him.. We've been gaming for a couple of months with 3.5 rev rules. Started at 3rd and got to 6th level by now. In between, we've rescued hostages, fought goblins, ogres, hill giants, pteranadons and a bunch of giant bugs, acquired a pet Dire Weasel, met an angel, discovered ancient temples with powerful secrets, accidentally found ourselves on the wrong side of the planet, and are currently preparing to defend an abandoned but strategic dwarven city from a half-demon and his band of duergar. Fun times!

Re:Old-school

[talornin]

I hear you my friend!

Now a days its all about getting under the skin of your character, playing the part to the full! BECOMING the role! I have acutaly played with groups that didnt want to use stats or skills at all, they just wanted to write character descriptions for three hours.

It was a relief when my group from the old days got togeather over christmas and dusted off our old heroes! Fireballs flew, dices where rolled, critical hit tables where once again hailed as manna from heaven!

I do enjoy some modern role playing. Its fun to dwell deep into a character, but sometimes I just want to take up my old Talornin a level 23 mage (I used MANY years to get him here) and battle dragons and liches once again for old friendships sake!

Man, Im almost crying now! :D

Re:Old-school

[ajs]

This was not a "D&D thing". Go pick up an issue of Dungeon Magazine, and you'll see that the art of the dungeon crawl in modern D&D is not dead. In fact, it's now more popular than ever. There are, however, a practically infinite number of ways to run a game, and your DM might decide to run a ROLE-playing game, rather than a role-PLAYing game. That's their call, and you should let them know what you think.

For old-time's sake, I ran the first session of my new D&D game (my first D&D game in most of a decade) as a dungeon crawl, and I was shocked that my players actually liked it. Sure, I was unsteady with the new rules and taking far too long at combat, but sometimes players just want to go kill something.

Of course, they also enjoy the role playing, but it's not an either-or proposition at all.

Re:Old-school

[TrueBuckeye]

My opinion is that is the fault of the DM, not the rules or the game. Some people want that game, so the DM should be able to deliver that, but if you want a hack and slash sort of game, then that's what you should be able to play.

As an example, in a game I started recently within 10 minutes of sitting down (character creation was done via email before the session) the characters had been in a bar brawl, were falsly accused of murder, and were on the run from the law trying to clear their names. The session ended 4 hours later with them having a massive fight against flayed monks and an evil cleric in a long forgotten tomb they uncovered.

Either look for a new DM or explain to your current one what you would like to try for just one session. It can be a blast if you play the game that fits you. There is alway room for the other stuff here and there (investigating, contact building, negotiating) but if you want hack and slash, d20 can certainly do that.

Re:Old-school

[Newander]

Have you taken a look at Hackmaster?

Re:Old-school

[RSKennan]

RPGs seem to have become way too bloody serious. I just want to kill some kobolds.

Why not check out Goodman Games' Dungeon Crawl Classics?
http://www.goodman-games.com/DCCpreview.php
They're a series of modules that are meant to capture the old school feel.

Re:Old-school

[fishbowl]

The secret to D&D is having a really talented DM.

There's reading Shakespeare in the loo, and then there's Barrymore's Lear. Same play, completely different experience.

A *really* good DM is far more than just an effective referee and more than just a creative writer and storyteller. If you had someone as your gamemaster who the player would be captivated just listening to narrative prose, and then you add the dimension of the interactive game to THAT, you go to the next level of gaming. The trouble is, most game circles are basically groups of peers, and talent like that is one in a million.

Re:Old-school

[meringuoid]

Any "18 ints" out there who can parse the question and give an intelligible answer?

Sorry. I mostly play NWN. So I've got the int, but not the lore...

Re:Old-school

[bytor4232]

I recently played D&D for the first time in a bazillion years, and it was something of a disappointment. I just wanted to do that first adventure, D&D basic, go down into the dungeon, and find some evil druids in the last room. Instead, we wandered around a town in the Forgotten Realms for a while, worried about boring minutiae ("What colour do you want the stitching in your robes to be?"), and in general had a boring old time.

Yeah, you need a new DM. Stuff like equipment purchases are best done "off-panel" so to speak. Only game the stuff that needs to be gamed. Join a community playgroup if you want to be an actor.

Re:Old-school

[jp10558]

Personally I think the main thing to get in D&D is some sense of why you're invading the dungeon, and maybe some changes you can bring to the world through your actions. Not so much focusing on RP, but adding something that can't better be done in an MMORPG.

I mean, if all the game is about is killing things, it's faster and easier to play WoW or Diablo II.

Re:Old-school

[Anonymous Coward]

You may want to check out the board game Descent: Journeys in the Dark for you basic hack 'n slash dungeon crawl needs. It's not really a role playing game, but if you like rolling dice to kill monsters in a dungeon without a bunch of "talking", this might be the game for you.

Re:Old-school

[Anonymous Coward]

I know how you can beat the half-demon! You just have to yell "sit boy!"

Re:Old-school

[ajs]

"I mean, if all the game is about is killing things, it's faster and easier to play WoW or Diablo II."

I think the primary advantage to playing tabletop is that the DM can react to the events in the game, and tailor the results to the play style of the players.

Take The Shackled City Adventure Path for example. This is a series of 12 modules published in serial form by Dungeon Magazine (they're now doing a sequel called The Age of Worms). In it, there's something that bears a passing reseblance to the kinds of quests that one sees in games like WoW or Diablo or Dungeon Siege, but here's the difference: it's designed to play out across the course of months with a DM who uses the modules as a framework. Development tips are given on how to shape the progress of the campaign while continuing to run the modules as presented. There are possible hooks for player backgrounds, NPCs which the DM can expand on, and even involve in the campaign in different ways. There are notes on using the entire campaign in a different setting or as pieces of a larger campaign. Players can go completely "off-script" and decide to leave the area; forge ahead into areas that don't enter the story-line until later; you can even have a party that decides to turn to the "dark side" as it were, and help the antagonists to succeed. None of these things are terribly easy to do in a video game, because you have to plan for all of the contingencies ahead of time.

Re:Old-school

[jp10558]

Very true. But some games like NWN and certain MMORPGs overcome this by allowing a DM sort of character, or like the Star Wars Jedi Knight games have huge amounts of scripted things, so again, if the main point is dungeon crawls, it just seems like video games have a better experiance:
i.e. you can have a complex combat system with the computer doing all the rolls in split seconds.

Video games are much less limiting than they once were. All that said, there's also the social aspect of D&D that I have yet to get out of any game - though I also refuse to pay a monthly fee for an MMORPG based on what I've seen so maybe I'm wrong.

In any regards, I miss my D&D days - and wish I could figure out how to get started with OpenRPG.

Lord of the Rings is "low magic"

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

Lord of the Rings/The Hobbit is a "low magic" system. No, not the stupid games (though they may be), but the stories.

Think about it. The two greatest wizards in the world fight and can do little more than a few very light telekenisis-type tricks (lift and throw human body, cause a small avalanch, etc.)

The greatest magical swords could, umm, cut a ghost, but were otherwise not particularly awesome in combat.

Yeah, the invisibility ring was nice, till it got retconned with all that mind control crap and stuff.

Re:Lord of the Rings is "low magic"

[meringuoid]

Think about it. The two greatest wizards in the world fight and can do little more than a few very light telekenisis-type tricks (lift and throw human body, cause a small avalanch, etc.) The greatest magical swords could, umm, cut a ghost, but were otherwise not particularly awesome in combat. Yeah, the invisibility ring was nice, till it got retconned with all that mind control crap and stuff.

The fight between Gandalf and Saruman in the film was... probably not how it went. I imagine it as being a mirror-image of the confrontation with Saruman after the ruin of Isengard - just as Saruman caved in before Gandalf the White without putting up a fight, I imagine Gandalf the Grey didn't really attempt to resist Saruman. It would be pointless. It's also not made clear that the weather on Caradhras was Saruman's doing; it might have been Sauron's influence, or even malevolence on the part of the mountain itself.

However, open magical combat was seen on Weathertop, and at the climax of Gandalf's duel with the Balrog of Moria on Zirak-zigil. Those both made a considerable mess.

As for the magical swords, Glamdring was effective against the Balrog, Narsil was able to cut clear through the... flesh?... of the hitherto invulnerable Dark Lord, and as Andúril, the Flame of the West held similar terrors for all creatures of the Darkness - with some indications that it literally does flame. However, it's unclear whether its powers here derived from the sword itself, or from its being in the hand of the rightful King. And while Boromir's sword bounced off the hide of the cave troll of Moria, Sting, the elven dagger of old Gondolin, cut it deeply.

As for the One Ring: well, that's powerful mojo any way you cut it, unless, as you say, you pretend the story ended with The Hobbit and that Gandalf never found that *Identify* scroll in the vaults of Minas Tirith...

You're right in saying that the world of Middle-Earth is one of generally low magic, in the roleplaying sense, but the heroes of the War of the Ring are exceptions. There are only five Wizards in the world, but they're powerful. There are many rings of trivial magic like invisibility, such that a Wizard might safely leave in the hands of a clueless hobbit, but may the Valar save anyone who dares meddle with one of the twenty Rings of real Power. High-powered magic exists only in rare cases, usually as a relic of the Elder Days.

Moreover, the model of magic is rather different in Tolkien's world. It's subtle. Galadriel does not draw a distinction between the works of superior elven-craft and works of magic - she doesn't even clearly understand how such a distinction can be drawn. Magic is the result of a deeper understanding of the underlying, spiritual nature of the matter of Arda, not of any mysterious external force.

Incidentally, in writing the above it occurred to me to try to gauge the strength of the Balrog of Moria by comparing it to the entire Dwarf-city it supposedly overthrew - thereby demonstrating how mighty Gandalf and Glamdring must have been to harm it. But I just can't see it happening. The masked dwarves of Belegost were at the Battle of Tears Unnumbered, where they fought bravely and well against the dragon-horde of Morgoth - while Men betrayed the Eldar and the great armies of the Noldor were destroyed. Yet Belegost was a much smaller Dwarf-realm than Khazad-dum.

I wonder if perhaps the ruin of the kingdoms of the Noldor caused a collapse in demand for mithril equipment? Certainly none of the kingdoms of Men could afford such expensive armament. With the mithril market in deep recession much of Khazad-dum would likely be abandoned as Dwarves sought a living elsewhere in the world, leaving the deep mines empty as a hiding place for the Balrog fleeing the destruction of Angband.

And perhaps once the rise of the Dunedain provided a market once more for such exotic materials, the Dwarves returned to their deep mines, and got a nasty surprise...

Re:Lord of the Rings is "low magic"

[TedTschopp]

And your comments should be ignored cause they are based on the movie, not the books. Granted, Lord of the Rings is Low Magic, it's in the Third age, and if you want to see high magic, then travel to the first age, or the time before that. That's when you have magic that sinks whole islands, reshapes whole mountains, turns fields of grass into burning plains of lava. And the few pages which are published on the sequel to LotR have no magic at all in them. Interesting stuff.

Ugh...

[Anonymous Coward]

"I cast Magic Missile"

It's all about the GM

[Red Flayer]

It's nice to have a d20 system that provides what some players and GMs are looking for, but most great GMs I've played with (and I've tried to aspire to) have made roll-your-own solutions.

It doesn't matter what system you play with. The setting, the gameplay, the amount of die rolls -- it just depends on the GM.

All the DnD games I DMed were low-magic. Getting a +1 sword was a Big Deal (tm). And typically, items with beneficial effects also had drawbacks -- i.e., that +1 sword drew a lot of not-so-positive attention from NPCs. Playing magic-users or clerics was discourage (though not that big a deal, since I required 'natural' die rolls for stats -- it was a rare cleric who was wise enough / pious enough to cast a lot of healing spells)

My point is that while differing rules systems can provide better frameworks for a good game, it's up to the GM and the players to make a good game. It really helps if the GM and the Players are all very honest when they discuss what kind of world it's going to be.

Re:It's all about the GM

[argStyopa]

Ben, we never told you: we all hated it. :)

-S

This was probably a misprint...

[Randolpho]

The book begins by explaining that inexperienced role players need not apply. This is intended as an advanced rulebook, and those not already familiar with d20 will have everything that they need, but may find the book daunting (this is the only major flaw I've found in the book).

"Inexperienced role players need not apply"? A more appropriate sentence would be: "This book is only for rollplayers* with at least three advanced mathematics degrees."

Seriously, though, I've read it, and if you're the type who likes tons of solid rules about what you can and cannot do in combat, along with more Final Fantasy style limit break special moves than you can put in a Bag of Holding, it's the book for you. But you'd better be ready for some slow combat, 'cause there's lots of stuff for you to keep track of.

IMO, this is more of a miniatures wargaming ruleset than a roleplaying ruleset. If you're more into roleplaying, you're probably better off with a more abstract combat system; then you can do whatever sort of cinematic moves you want, with a single role.

* Misspelling deliberate

Re:This was probably a misprint...

[Randolpho]

Er.... That last word should be "roll". Looks like I feel into my own homophonic trap.

Re:This was probably a misprint...

[ajs]

"This book is only for rollplayers* with at least three advanced mathematics degrees"

First off, there's no need for anything beyond basic grade-school math in the game, and even that's pretty tame (no long division, even).

Ok, hyperbole aside, this game is really not that complex, but you need to REALLY GET d20 before you even think about looking at it. You need to understand why the feat system is the way that it is, and what it is that you're trading off in terms of progression by removign magic items. You also need to have the combat system pretty well in hand.

Once you do, this is not that bad. There's a feat-tree, and there's an armor-base damage-mitigation system. It's really not that bad. Yes, it's combat-focused; that's the point to the book, I imagine. Yes, it also has some complex feat progressions, but for the most part, they're easy to understand if you look at how normal d20 feats and normal d20 magic items interact. For example, the Two-Weapon Combat feat has a progression that's intended for rogues. It adds extra dice of sneak attack damage at higher levels. You get the same thing in raw d20, but you get it through magic, not feats.

Above all, you have to treat the rules as a framework, not the game itself. You learn them and then forget them, letting the game itself guide your actions as the game master, not the rules.

Re:This was probably a misprint...

[Anonymous Coward]

If you'd actually *played* the game, rather than just read the book, you'd realize that you very quickly internalize everything. That's the strength of the rules - it's just an extension built on top of what you're already used to. Your armor roll is quick, your token abilities are simple and easy to learn, and the feats are only brain-intensive when you're selecting them.

When you really play the game, combat moves as fast as ever, assuming that your players aren't idiots, and your previous combats didn't consist solely of "I move toward the monster and hit him."

To directly address what you said in your post - There are no more rules telling what you can't do in combat than there are in normal D&D. There are, however, extensive rules for doing lots of cool things which you just have to handwave in D&D, which helps you maintain balanced *and* fires your creative juices because you don't have to rely on DM fiat to do cool stuff.

There are definitely no "Limit Break" moves or anything of the ilk, or at least no more so than regular D&D. Do you consider Fireball to be Final-Fantasy style combat?

Finally, it's not wargaming. It's roleplaying. It's D&D, only with the magic stripped out and replaced with muscle and skill. If you're cool with D&D, you're cool with Iron Heroes. There is nothing special about this game that makes it combat-centric. It's just a rewrite of the combat system. You can still roleplay to your heart's content. The only thing that even approaches wargaming is that Iron Heroes assumes you are working with a battle grid and so lists movement and ranges in squares rather than feet. You may notice, however, that D&D almost 100% lists movement and ranges in multiples of 5, which, surprise surprise!, correspond exactly to combat grid squares.

I avoid all things Monte Cook

[ltwally]

I avoid all things Monte Cook.

Why? Simple: his books, though certainly original, are consistently the least balanced in the DnD world.

One perfect example of this is The Book of Vile Darkness (BoVD). Anyone that's actually used this book knows that the creatures inside are far more powerful than they are listed as. The result is an imbalanced game where the players and DM alike constantly have to second-guess the information inside the book. Wise DM's often outright ban it.

What about Malhavoc Press? Those books make the ludicrous foes found inside the BoVD look like child's play. Malhavoc Press books consistently bend and break the DnD system, and an experienced DM carefully restricts their useage.

So, does my rant have a purpose? Yeah, it does. Monte Cook should be relegated to an "idea man," where he comes up w/ ideas and leaves the implementations to people that know what they're doing. Unfortunately, he has a direct hand in his creations. This results in the George Lucas effect, where something that could have been wonderful is turned into a horrid aberration. All you really need to know is to stay away from any product with his name on it. (The only exception being the core DND books.)

And, no, I'm not trolling. I'm speaking from a wealth of experience with this man's books.

Re:I avoid all things Monte Cook

[ajs]

BoVD is not unbalanced, but:

1. It and the Book of Exalted Deeds are meant to be used together or not at all, and
2. The creatures in it are meant to be used in a game that involves characters similarly empowered.

Those two books modify the nature of your game, and expand it. It's not unbalanced if used as intended, but if you treat it as an appendix to the Monster Manual, you're going to unbalance your game.

Re:I avoid all things Monte Cook

[starwed]

That's great and all, but Iron Heroes wasn't written by Monte Cook. So this is kind of off topic.

Re:I avoid all things Monte Cook

[Anonymous Coward]

"1. It and the Book of Exalted Deeds are meant to be used together or not at all, "

Even though they were published two years apart, and use two sepperate editions of the base rules. A more accurate statement would be: "After the steaming fetid pile that was BoVD, and the complaints and low sales that resulted, Hasborg executive imports decided to publish a balancer book called BoED that ended up being even more power-gamer than the book it was suppossedly going to balance. Then when this was pointed out, the party line became 'but that is becasue you are suing it wrong', and fanboy appologists bought it hook line and sinker."

Re:I avoid all things Monte Cook

[ltwally]

BoVD is not unbalanced, but: 1. It and the Book of Exalted Deeds are meant to be used together or not at all, and 2. The creatures in it are meant to be used in a game that involves characters similarly empowered.

I hate to sound like one of those obnoxious, rule-whore gamers... but you're quite wrong.

The BoVD was created over a year prior to the BoED (which is also less than balanced, but not quite as badly so as the BoVD). While the BoED's index even says that it was written as a counter to the BoVD, you cannot turn that around and say that the BoVD was written with the BoED in mind. The BoVD was very much intended to stand on its own. Thusly, its material must be viewed as such.

As to your second assertation, only a fool would attempt to run a "normal" game and use the BoVD. Not only does that not counter my claim that the BoVD bends the dnd rules, but actually lends support to my claim.

Re:I avoid all things Monte Cook

[Monkey]

even more power-gamer than the book it was suppossedly going to balance

I can vouch first hand for that. In my group I have one player who has a formula for building a cleric based on stuff found in BoED. His typical cleric has Exalted Turning, Exalted Healing, Exalted etc. and he takes pretty much every vow they have in there. His character ends up being pretty stacked and unbalanced compared to other party members in the group of the same level.

Re:I avoid all things Monte Cook

[Anonymous Coward]

True horror comes from the multiclassed Monk/Sorcerer with the Vow of Poverty. Wis to AC, [i]mage armor[/i] and [i]shield[/i] for an extra +8 to AC. Exalted Ki Strike AND Exalted Weapon backed up by [i]chill touch[/i].

I know that the two damage-boosting "Exalted" feats are not SUPPOSSED to stack, but nothing in the rules for the Monk or the feats themselves prevents it. One feat says that the bonus damage is gained whenever using an unarmed attack, the other says it is gained whenever using a MELEE WEAPON, and the Monk Unarmed Strike ability says it [b]counts as a melee weapon for the purpose of enhancing effects![/b]

yet one mor ereaosn to think that the folks over at WotC/Hasborg are not even reading or playtesting their own material.

Re:I avoid all things Monte Cook

[zGraf]

This is, unfortunately, true. However Mike's books are consistently balanced (I expect its one of the reasons Wizards picked him up to do their in house DnD books after they let Monte go). The balance problems in his games are one of the reasons why (one presumes) his this-is-going-to-replace-DnD Arcana Unearthed game was almost immeadiately released as a new game book and then largely been abandoned. Still he's made his $ and he's turning it toward gifted creators who are adding to the d20 open game mechanics and that's to be respected. Incidentally people who are "anti-d20" miss the point. The vast majority of fantasy worlds can be constructed on the back of a d20 system. Shifting around a bunch of mechanics just to be different is just a waste of time. It's a lot more valuable and interesting to have books that work -with- DnD/d20 instead of a bunch of conflicting systems.

Re:I avoid all things Monte Cook

[starwed]

The book of evil darkness contains a "mature only" sticker because of the graphic nature of the content. (Drugs, sex, etc...)

The book of exalted deeds contains a "mature only" sticker because it's meant for people willing to work with the system presented, rather than those who see it as another resource to min/max their character. (Well, maybe that's not the offical reason, but it's still kind of true. ^_^)

Re:I avoid all things Monte Cook

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh please. The BoVD is widely considered in various circles as one of the weakest books in the DnD market as far as power. Unless you perform convoluted PrC combinations from two other books, you can't min/max this thing terribly well. And the monsters are about as appropriate as far as CR delegation as anything else WotC has put out.

The only reason Monte Cook *might* be accused of creating overpowered products is only through mixing the stuff with other products outside of the core books; as min/maxing can be created anytime you increase the number of options. Since this can be applied to ANY other DnD product outside of the core three books, Monte Cook hardly deserves the 'overpowered writer' insult.

Every experience I've had with Monte Cook's products have been solid, and I find these accusations of powergaming to be either without basis. At the very least, anything I've used of his has had less potential for powergaming than anything not written by Monte Cook.

Re:I avoid all things Monte Cook

[ajs]

"yet one mor ereaosn to think that the folks over at WotC/Hasborg are not even reading or playtesting their own material."

If you're that down on WotC, why do you learn the rules to their games so deeply? I've been running a pretty fun D&D campaign, and I have to say that, even with two players who are rules lawyers, it's pretty smooth sailing. I think the primary problem arises when a DM sees the game as zero-sum, and/or tries to treat the game as a contest of numbers.

Sure, you might have built the world's most competent monk, but you've taken a vow of poverty and you derive your special attacks from divine intervention... that sounds like a wonderful opportunity to me! I'd allow that player in a heartbeat, and I'd build story lines around him that would really challenge him and give him back as much fun for having taken the time to build the character as he was willing to take advantage of.

I have a Cleric who is really pumped up with respect to undead turning. At first, I was a bit taken aback, since I like to use undead as grunt adversaries / minions etc. But, after thinking about it, I realized that it was an opportunity. I've toyed with him a lot. I've given him opportunities to "save the day" by turning / destroying undead, but I've also given him situations where he jumped into the middle of the room of undead, held his holy symbol aloft and... did nothing for reasons that he would discover later, and tied into the back-story of that scenario.

Are those books unbalanced? Well, perhaps. If they break the CR system, then yes they are, but it's hard to say that MC's stuff is unbalanced, since 3rd edition is was largely his baby. But, even if they are unbalanced, you can compensate by just making everything that the players take advantage of, also available to their adversaries, and/or building story around them so that the odd stupidly powerful monk or the earth-shattering cleric just isn't as much of an issue.

Any game like that will be tactical.

[khasim]

Any game that relies upon individual combat for progression will end up being tactical.

If for no other reason than the players will want to be VERY specific when their characters are in danger.

Baldur's Gate

[Dareth]

I am replaying Baldur's Gate. Already played thru with my power character fighter/mage/cleric multi-class. Now I am trying a humble str 3 bard, 17 con, 18 everything else. More of a challenge and good way to do more than just fight. I can wear armour only if my mage casts strength on me. Mostly I strum my harp and get the hell out of the way, cast a couple spells.

Good game. Can export character to BG2 and expansion and keep right on playing.

Play Style

[Valdrax]

I recently played D&D for the first time in a bazillion years, and it was something of a disappointment. I just wanted to do that first adventure, D&D basic, go down into the dungeon, and find some evil druids in the last room. Instead, we wandered around a town in the Forgotten Realms for a while, worried about boring minutiae ("What colour do you want the stitching in your robes to be?"), and in general had a boring old time.

Sounds like you're a Power Gamer or Buttkicker in group full of Character Actors & Storytellers (if you follow the player types in "Robin's Laws of Gamemastering"). You just have group mismatch. You want action and monster-slaying. They want setting detail and role-playing. They'd probably be just as bored to tears in a game like you want because they'd get no thrill from the same things you like.

I'm personally boggled by the fact that they were playing D&D. D&D (particularly 3.0/3.5) is much more geared towards fast, kick-in-the-door style play than drama. There are other systems that aren't so crunchy and filled with combat-oriented mechanics that would suit them better.

If you want to find some "old-school" play, then look to very young gamers. People don't usually find a taste for Character Actor or Storyteller* style play until they've had exposure to it. Once you get into college aged gamers, you tend to find Power Gamers and Buttkickers crowded out or in a subtle war for control of a group against other player types (and you really don't want to join the latter disfunctional kind of group).

If your local game shop handles coordinating meeting other players, see if they have a way of listing play-style preferences instead of just game preferences. With D&D and White Wolf games, you're going to get a huge grab bag of different people because many people who play those games do so because of popularity or because it's the only games they've ever learned. Such groups are frequently torn between people who want very different things out of gaming or are all centered on some random play-style that may have very little to do with the game title they're playing.

* Note that Storyteller sytle play is all about moving forward a story along a cinematic or plot-driven basis. It has nothing to do with White Wolf's "Storyteller system" which is far more facilitating towards Power Gamers and Character Actors than Storytellers. See Feng Shui for a Storyteller (and Buttkicker) focused game.

(Oh, and just to be on-topic, the idea of a low-magic D20 system game just makes me personally curl up into a ball and shudder. That's just my play preferences, though.)

Re:Play Style

[Chris Burke]

I'm personally boggled by the fact that they were playing D&D. D&D (particularly 3.0/3.5) is much more geared towards fast, kick-in-the-door style play than drama. There are other systems that aren't so crunchy and filled with combat-oriented mechanics that would suit them better.

Maybe it's just me, but I don't see why you need any "mechanics" to handle anything but the combat. Why do I need "rules" to govern anything other than what happens when I try to stab someone with a pointy stick? To me role-playing is about all the things you need a human gamemaster for, the things no rule system can encompass anyway.

Re:Play Style

[NeoSkandranon]

off the top of my head, most of the non-combat D&D rules deal with how you interact with NPCs--hard to just roleplay that out, since the DM *is* the NPCs for purposes of roleplaying, and it's hard for the omniscient one to be unbiased (in a situation of say, trying to bluff or change someone's attitude towards you) --so some mechanics were necessary to eliminate DM-partiality from the equation.

My take on it at least. I agree that Player-player interaction should be totally freeform and not involve any dice at all (unless they're trying to kill each otehr)

Re:Play Style

[jp10558]

I guess the reason is to balance the mental stats against the physical ones. For instance, if CHA isn't used in skill or RP rolls to say, affect how people react to you, then everyone's going to have a low low CHA and pump points or the better rolls into the physical stats.

No one will play any of the classes or prestiege classes that focus on interaction.

It has to do with min/maxing(which is really munchkinism the way most people use it) really. You may not care - and it's fine to ignore INT, CHA and WIS scores, but it does fundamentally change the balance of the game IMHO.

Also, say you have a character with an 18 INT. Well, it's unlikely you can play that character that smart, so dice rolls help. Likewise, your 8 CHA should have some affect in how your arguments go say - but you might be very elequont - doesn't mean your character is. Playing it differently would be in some ways equivelent to asking you to do a bench press to set your characters STR or asking you to run on a treadmill to determine how long you can run away from some bandits chasing you.

A "gutwrench"ing experience

[Valdrax]

Monte Cook's stuff is all great for a very particular style of RPG play that I personally despise -- the "life is cheap" style of gaming. There are no heroes, because PCs can and will be dropped like flies almost at whim. Evil is stronger than good, and the world is very bleak. It's a very old-school way of play where you don't really identify well with your characters either due to lack of interest or as a defensive mechanism if you're trapped in a game with GM like that.

Personally, I dislike Monte Cook's stuff too.

obligatory

[acslat3r]

I want to cast magic missle!

Re:obligatory

[Anonymous Coward]

Lightning bolt! Lightning bolt! Lightning bolt!

Re:obligatory

[homebrewmike]

imagine a beowulf cluster of those...

Re:obligatory

[tnsimonson]

Aight, I put on my robe and wizard hat.

I "beta" tested some of the game

[Raleel]

I have a fair amount of experience with it. We did some betatesting for the bestiary book that came out for it and ran an online game through OpenRPG for about 6 months. I've also run a couple of one shots.

1) there are magic items, but they are generally cursed. Like... gives you +1d6 to damage, but you berserk blindly killing everyone around you.

2) the powers of magic items are often rolled into feats.

3) you get more feats. Generally, one every other level. Some classes get more (men at arms defining ability is them getting a feat every other level in addition to the regular feat every other level.. thus they get a feat every level)

4) the skill stunt rules and attack challenge rules are very fun. they really make the system. Nothing you couldn't port over to D&D, but it would be hard to get people to do them due to general lack of skill points (the thief in IH gets 12 skill points per level vs the AD&D rogue at 8). The attack challenges would be easy to port, but no one would do them since AD&D has AC inflation (in IH, you get a base defense bonus, but suffice to say, you can lose it easily and people can then power attack you into oblivion).

5) It is very fun. It can also get old. If you want a light game, I would definitely recommend it. If you want a heavy game, it can work, but is a little harder. If there is something you have a hard time doing in AD&D (for instance, a swashbuckler or an archer type that isn't munched like crazy), IH probably has the fit for you. I felt it was particularly strong in mounted combat, ranged combat, and special maneuvers.

Re:I "beta" tested some of the game

[jp10558]

OT: but how does OpenRPG work? Are there any good communities where someone might get started in a game with it? I've looked over the main site, but not much luck so far for me.

I've installed the program, but I really don't get the whole tree/node thing.

Save THIRTEEN ($13) bucks!

[Anonymous Coward]

Save yourself almost THIRETEEN ($13) bucks by buying the book here: Iron Heroes: A low magic tabletop game. And if you use the "secret" A9.com discount, you can save an extra 1.57%!

An incident I witnessed at the mall.

[CyricZ]

When I was in the US several years ago I visited a mall, and noticed that they had a D&D shop next to the mall eatery. You know, a shop where they sell board and roleplaying games targetting the geek/nerd community.

In any case, what surprised me most were comments I heard while I was sitting there eating. Many people had a very, very negative image of the shop. I counted at least eight negative comments during the 15 or so minutes I was sitting there.

I have to wonder how much the negative image such gaming has in the eyes of popular culture leans people away from investigating it. It is quite likely that many of those who made the negative comments had never actually played any of the games in question, yet they still felt the need to believe the negative (and false) stereotypes associated with such games.

Perhaps the industry should work on legitimizing such games in the eyes of the general public. Even a single celebrity endorsement might turn the tide.

Re:An incident I witnessed at the mall.

[CyricZ]

Actually, I have never played D&D, or any such games. I have watched others play, but never bothered to play it myself. And as for my parents, they have been dead for decades, and thus no longer own a house with a basement.

Re:An incident I witnessed at the mall.

[fishbowl]

"When I was in the US several years ago I visited a mall, and noticed that they had a D&D shop next to the mall eatery."

The US is a big, diverse place. Where were you? What kind of negative comments did you hear? Depending on locale, I'd expect different kinds of negative comments. "That game store just wants to sell warhammer miniatures and the guys that work at the counter don't even know anything about the games they sell..." That's one variety. "Those heathen devil worshipping sinners with their evil satanist dungeons and dragons..." is another. The former, I might understand. As for the latter, I expect to hear similar things outside clothing and music stores.

There's 'The popular culture', and then there are 'popular cults.' Don't confuse the two. It's not just a USAn phenomenon. They have outspoken religious fanatics in many other countries too.

Re:An incident I witnessed at the mall.

[Anonymous Coward]

I thought everybody knew that Vin Diesel plays D&D. If he's not a celebrity, then I have no idea what the word means.

Re:An incident I witnessed at the mall.

[MightyMartian]

A lot of that comes from Fundie Christian nonsense, and from that Tom Hanks career-starting abortion, Mazes and Monsters, which was, despite any claims one might have heard, based on incredibly loosely on one James Egbert Dallas III. But I find for a lot of folks, that movie (which was about LARPing anyways) seems to have convinced them of the Satanic influences of D&D.

Re:An incident I witnessed at the mall.

[CyricZ]

San Francisco, of all places. Considering the large number of high-tech firms in that region, I thought that there would be a greater degree of tolerance towards such games. But perhaps its proximity to Hollywood and L.A. has some effect, too.

The comments were towards the culture itself, not towards the service of the store clerks, or anything of that sort. I believe one of the comments was along the lines of "limp-wristed nerd faggots playing their Torture and Dragons". I remember that particular one because of the homophobia it displayed, along with a complete lack of understanding regarding the gaming culture itself (mislabelling the game as "Torture and Dragons").

Re:An incident I witnessed at the mall.

[jiawen]

RPG gaming has already had celebrity endorsements. The forward in the D&D anniversary book is by Vin Diesel, who games.

The problem, though, is that gaming is a weird activity in many people's minds. Spending your time imagining things is "child's play". That, and "role playing" has a whole other association in this society.

TSR tried to make D&D legit back in the 80's. There was even a commercial on regular TV. In the past decade or so, the White Wolf games have done a lot to make RPGs more mainstream. They've certainly attracted more women to the hobby (I'm one ofthe strange ones who was in it almost from the beginning -- blue box D&D), and there are many more subcultures now where RPGs are "cool".

But making it truly mainstream is going to be really hard. You'd basically have to overcome the insidious anti-intellectualism in the US, as well as several other problems (probably including homophobia, as you noted in your other post), before RPGs could truly be accepted.

Re:An incident I witnessed at the mall.

[fishbowl]

Haha, I love San Fran. Anybody you run into in a Mall there is probably a tourist though. Cheers!

Re:An incident I witnessed at the mall.

[Boarfury]

There's such a thing as a D&D shop!? Where? I don't believe you.

I Play Iron Heroes

[osarusan]

I play Iron Heroes regularly now, having switched over from regular D&D in the fall. In short, Iron Heroes is fantastic! The lack of magic everywhere makes for a game that feels more like Conan or Willow as far as cinematic action goes. Someone asked about classes... The classes are not divided among social roles anymore either; they are divided up among combat styles. Off the top of my head, there is an Archer, Armiger (gets huge bonuses in heavy armor, acts as a tank), Berserker, Executioner (assassin-like character), Harrier (speed, moving through combat, and dodging), Hunter, Man at Arms, Weapon Master (specializes in a single weapon and kicks ass with it), Thief (great at diplomacy and manipulation), and an optional Arcanist class (which is much weaker than a standard "mage," but much more flexible in terms of spell effects). I think I may have left one or two out, but basically you can play any type of hero you want using this system without being bound by "Bards all sing songs" and "Fighters all wear plate and swing swords." The characters get really powerful on their own, without the need for powerful magic items and spells to buff them up. So the players in my game have not been fighting eachother over who gets the best treasure. It makes the game a lot more about adventuring than about the reward at the end of the adventure. It's allowed me to create a more story-driven than reward-driven game for my players. As for magic, it's there, but very weak. The arcanist can shape spells to the area, shape, and range that he wants. You can also cast more spells than in standard D&D, and more powerful spells... but if you cast a spell that is too difficult for you, you risk taking abilit damage. The main game mechanic is based on "tokens" that the PCs get, which allow them to do more powerful things. If you play WoW, think of this like a Warrior's rage. Archers get tokens for spending time aiming, berserkers gain tokens whenever they get hit or when a friend takes damage, armigers get tokens for using their armor well, thieves can get manipulation tokens against NPCs... all these tokens replace the extra power that magic items once gave to PCs, and it gives the PCs more control over the special moves that they can do. The system also changes combat to become more cinematic by inventing ways to combine skill checks into combat. So if you want to run up the huge ogre's club to stab him in the face, you can... if you want to use a knife to slide down a tapestry and avoid falling damage, you can... stuff like that, that you've seen in the movies. So players get a lot more into combat as well. I was really getting jaded from playing the same old D&D, and then countless d20 custom rules just to keep the game from getting stale. IH has really changed the scene by putting the game back in the hands of the characters and not the gear that they carry around. I hope this answers some of the questions you guys posted about the system. I'll check again tonight for more answers.

Re:I Play Iron Heroes

[ClamIAm]

You know, I think this reinforces the reviewer's comment about the power of a flexible engine with an "open" license (I'm not up on the specifics of that, so in go the quotes). It's great that the d20 system can be modified such that you still have some base rules that you don't have to relearn but you can layer cool new mechanics on top. IANARPer..yet.

Re:I Play Iron Heroes

[osarusan]

I wish I had formatted that post better -- it was my first Slashdot post. I'll do better next time.

Anyway, at the risk of going a little OT, that's the beauty of d20. It's completely transformed the RP industry, which prior to 3rd Edition D&D (and d20), was vanishing fast. D20 offered a simplified and streamlined set of rules, and an open license to edit, reprint, modify, to the heart's content. It's why you now see d20 versions of many games that once used game systems that bared no resemblance to eachother whatsoever. Now you have Conan, Warcraft, Middle Earth, Dungeons and Dragons, Star Wars, World of Darkness, and many other popular game systems that use an underlying set of Core rules. It was a brilliant move by Wizards of the Coast to introduce d20, and the proof is the now thriving RP business.

Back to Iron Heroes -- despite what a lot of people here (who admit to not having played the game) are saying, Iron Heroes is a pretty big change to the rules. Most of the big d20 successes in the past have been basically d20 versions of pre-existing game worlds: d20 LotR, d20 Conan, d20L5R, Ravenloft, Call of Cthulhu, and of course D&D's standard Forgotten Realms and Greyhawk settings (both of which use Dungeons and Dragons rules, with slight differences). Arcana Unearthed (by Monte Cook) was one of the first very successful alternate rules systems that competed with D&D. Where many of the earlier books required use of the D&D Player's Handbook, AU was marketed as an "alternate player's handbook." It didn't just present a new world, but an entirely new rules set. Iron Heroes follows in the same tradition.

There have been other "low magic" solutions, but for the most part they just removed magic from the game entirely and presented a couple of alternates to the spellcasting classes (i.e. Paladins, Rangers, and Bards without spells). They changed the rules a bit, but they were still D&D.

Iron Heroes is *not* D&D, yet remains compatible with it. It feels a lot like a video game with the token pools system, but it finally offers a mechanics-based reason to run cinematic combat scenes, rather than just "because it would be cool if my character could do this." I've seen lots of d20 books on how to run cinematic combat scenes, but until Iron Heroes I hadn't found a system that seemed to built specifically for it.

In the end, I guess it all runs down to who you play with. If your players or your Game Master suck, the game might very well suck too. But I and my players are thoroughly enjoying this new take on roleplaying, happy that it still uses the same basic d20 mechanics so it was easy to learn for us... and we're especially glad that our old D&D and d20 books are not obsolete just because we changed to a new system, like they would have been before d20.

Game of the year 1987

[Bazzalisk]

I mean, come on, classes? levels?

This is not innovative in any way - much better games have existed for nearly twenty years - games that created innovative ideas which seemed to have become industry standards, like point-based chargen and skill-based character design. The release of a low-magic version of a game that has barely evolved since the late eighties is not news.

Re:Game of the year 1987

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd say the class/level system serves its purpose just fine. In a system intended to be this combaty/powergamey, it doesn't hurt to have a little enforcement of character effectiveness. The innovative bit of Iron Heroes is token-based special abilities, not character generation.

Re:Game of the year 1987

[Anonymous Coward]

Being a hard-core gamer, and familiar with most rulesets out there, I would have to say that d20 is one of the most consistent, elegant rulesets out there. The change from 2.0 was a drastic and dramatic change, and definitely one of the best. In many ways, D&D has gone from having one of the worst rulesets to one of the best. And, having said that, I play Iron Heroes and can't picture myself going back to D&D. Finally, I'm free of all those darn magic items and wealth inflation!

As to the point-buy chargens, I'm personally not a fan of them. In many ways, they make the game even more inescapably rules-heavy. First, they paradoxically tend to encourage less well rounded characters rather than more, in my experience. Second, the "disadvantages" they tend to use (GURPS, BESM, I'm looking at you) turn something that should be a roleplaying matter into a game mechanic that can't be changed without gaining new points. My character's dealing with his fear of the dark should not be a simple die roll. It also discourages the player from ever letting his character's personal problems get worse, as they wouldn't want the GM to spontaneously apply another disadvantage.

In a game like Iron Heroes, all that stuff is irrelevant anyway. The classes aren't based on archetypes so much as ways of getting the job done. I can seriously imagine the same character working with most of the different classes, just changing his methods around. He just uses a bow, or a spear, or big armor as his way of dealing with fighting. I'm running a game set in a slightly fantastical version of ancient Rome (crisis of the third century period) and I'm loving Iron Heroes for it.

OFF TOPIC

[dim5]

My wife loves reading sci-fi/fantasy, but is totally uninterested in the learning curve to get into D&D. We don't have any friends who play tabletop RPGs. I'd like to get the feel of a tabletop RPG without needing to memorize books and books of rules. I was hoping from the headline that this might be for n00bs, but it statesclearly isn't.

What would you suggest as a starting point? Is there anything that I could get together with 3 or 4 other people who are curious about tabletop RPGs to play? What can I try without having to pay an arm & leg to start?

Re:OFF TOPIC

[Anonymous Coward]

If you want cheap, http://www.anvilwerks.com/?The-Shadow-of-Yesterday (The Shadow of Yesterday) is free (Creative Commons) and a solid system.

Re:OFF TOPIC

[Newander]

It's out of print, but TWERPS might be worth a look. It's a single stat system, the first book is ~10 pages, half of it is an adventure (Indiana Jones type pulp) You can find it at Noble Knight Games for five dollars.

Re:OFF TOPIC

[cpeterso]

D&D evolved from 1970s wargame simulations.. and it shows! For some lighter RPG fare, you might check out:

• Polaris is cool if you are more interested in tragic storytelling than rolling dice.
  
• The Pool is just some simple rules and no world setting. Very easy and flexible, but it doesn't have much support material. Oh, yeah: it's free!
  
• Clinton R. Nixon's The Shadow of Yesterday if you want something in between. I suspect this game might be the best choice for your game group!
  

Also, if you are looking to find gamers interested in these types of "indie RPGs", check out Clinton R. Nixon's FindPlay.

Re:OFF TOPIC

[MightyMartian]

Try this out: http://www.fudgefactor.org/2005/05/fudge-dungeon-c rawl.html

d20 The Microsoft of roleplaying??

[RyatNrrd]

The Microsoft of Roleplaying:

All players must own a copy of the Player's Handbook, the Dungeon Master's Guide and the Monster Manual. Each of these books must be activated with your unique code before you can use them. Players using unactivated or photocopied material will be disqualified from playing after thirty days. Players who multi-class their characters may find that they need to purchase new copies of the books in order to continue playing.

The Dungeon Master's guide comes with twenty adventure modules, which will provide satisfactory enjoyment. DMs may not invent their own adventure modules, nor make any changes to the material provided. However, they may send feature requests to Microsoft if any part of the adventure proves unsuitable for players. Feature requests will be addressed in the next edition of the Dungeon Master's guide.

Microsoft will be re-using the popular Windows 95 security. Rogues now have two options for opening a locked door: they may either succeed an "Open Lock" check, or turn the handle of the door. Many dungeons will also have back doors through which the characters may enter, by which they can pillage the treasure rooms and obtain quest items without having to meet the requirements to defeat the monsters.

Microsoft's adventure modules support standard d4, d6, d8, d10, d12 and d20 dice. Microsoft dice are also available, featuring a number of innovative improvements and extra features, which are required to successfully complete the adventure modules.

The Monty Hall problem: cue a cascade

[meringuoid]

You have 100 doors. 1 has a prize. Thus, any door you pick has a 1/100 chance of being right.

Right.

Monte then opens 98 doors. The original door you chose now has a 1/2 chance of being right. So does the other, unpicked door. Originally, both had a 1/100 chance of being right, now both have a 1/2 chance of being right.

Wrong.

Let's say I pick door 1. Now, there are two possibilities:

Possibility A: The door I have picked is the right one. 1%
Possibility B: The door I have picked is the wrong one. 99%

Now, if possibility A turns out to be the case, then I would lose by switching after Monty opens the doors. If possibility B turns out to be the case, then I would win by switching after Monty opens the doors. What Monty has told me is that if possibility B is the case, then the actual door is door 'd'.

So, I should definitely switch.

For the three-door case, which is the one most people find confusing, it's reasonable to enumerate every possible outcome. Let's suppose that you've picked door 1. Then

a) The prize is behind door 1. If you switch, you lose. If you stay, you win.
b) The prize is behind door 2. If you switch, you win. If you stay, you lose.
c) The prize is behind door 3. If you switch, you win. If you stay, you lose.

And if you still don't believe me, then I'd like to play the three-door Monty Hall game with you a few times, for money. Try it with a friend. Bet, say, $1.20 for a $3 prize, and see which of the two policies of 'switch' and 'stay' actually wins you money in the long run.

Iron Heores Miniatures

[Anonymous Coward]

The game has official miniatures made by Magnificent Egos (http://www.magnificentegos.com./ They have minis for every class, plus a full line of monsters and general fantasy miniatures for any game. The Weapon Master is a little hard to assemble, but otherwise, they are all great.

Re:Iron Heores Miniatures

[MagnificentEgo]

Thanks for the plug. More figures are on their way.

Re:Iron Heores Miniatures

[MagnificentEgo]

http://www.magnificentegos.com/ http://magnificentegos.com/catalog/index.php?cPath =6&osCsid=ff37cb4880cb5a796015a9142191c174

Game of Thrones RPG

[bonknasty]

I've read some of the IH book, and another good D20 book is the Game of Thrones RPG, based on George R. R. Martin's series. It has some similar changes in combat mechanics - damage reduction instead of armor class, for instance, and characters only gain 1 hp per level rather than another whole hit die. That's the way it should be to keep the tension going at higher levels.

Re:Game of Thrones RPG

[Anonymous Coward]

It has some similar changes in combat mechanics - damage reduction instead of armor class, for instance, and characters only gain 1 hp per level rather than another whole hit die.

Not sure I agree with the hp/hd bit, but yes, distinguishing between avoiding versus absorbing hits is a good approach. Not that big a mechanical difference, but much more consistent with what you'd expect to happen - dodging or parrying a blow is quite a different thing from simply shrugging off the hit.

On that note, I quite like how some of the White Wolf games handle it. Attack is based on dexterity (rather than strength as usual in D&D) + attack skill, damage is based on strength + weapon damage. The attack can be defended against by dexterity + defensive skill, while damage can be absorbed by armor, natural toughness, etc. In addition though, any excess between the attack and what was needed is carried across as extra damage.

Re:Game of Thrones RPG

[AviLazar]

Damage reduction, in that manner, is nothing new or interesting. They have been doing this in Warhammer RP for years, Rifts, and I think DC superheroes and even Marvel superheroes did this also. As for the amount of HP - it doesn't matter, it is all about scale. If Games of Thrones gives 1 HP per level, but a longsword only does 1-2 damage then it is equivelant to a whole die (ranging from d4 to d12) when the weapon can do 1-8 damage. Not to mention, HP in dungeons and dragon is not just pure damage potential...really, who can take twenty sword strikes to the body? It figures in things like stamina, and the dodge. Those 10 points of damage may be a small nick, but the rest is you getting tired from dodging around for those few rounds. Anyhow, comparing damage scales from one world to another is never a good idea - it just doesnt work....put it this way - look at DC superheroes...average person has 1-2 in a given stat....in DnD the average person is 10 - does that mean DC is better balanced then DnD? No, I created a 750 point (which is average) build with a mental blast power that would literally destroy the minds of gods.

Mod parent up!

[jiawen]

I've had some awesome games in Harn. In regard to one campaign where I used Harnmaster rules but not actually Harn (I used a campaign world of my own devising, with a similar level of magic), a player I met again about a decade later told me she missed the campaign and that it was one of the best she'd ever been in.

Harn doesn't usually predispose itself to high adventure -- it's usually more about politics, mysteries and exploration than killing ever-greater numbers of orcs -- but that doesn't mean that it's not fun.

Shadowrun not the worst for complexity

[Infonaut]

The most carpul tunnel-inducing game I ever played was Shadowrun (though I'm sure others can name worse).

Aftermath! back in early 1980s (don't ask me how old I am) used a system combining a d20 to hit (including many complicated modifiers), a d100 for hit location, and variable damage dice. Armor reduced damage after damage was calculated, and the amount of damage prevented by a particular type of armor could vary depending on the type of damage inflicted (projectile, bashing, etc.).

It was a ludicrously complicated game, and combat between four or five PCs and a half-dozen opponents could easily take an hour to complete. Still, we loved it. Then again, we had more time than we knew what to do with. To think that I could have been learning the piano or playing on the football team or actually working on my homework during all those hours that were consumeed by battles between the grim survivors of the apocalypse and their mutant enemies.

As for elegant RPG systems, the second and third editions of RuneQuest win, hands-down in my book. RQ was attribute and skills-based. Everything, including magic, had skill percentages attached. Becoming better at skills became more difficult as you improved, so building up a truly powerful character took real effort. There were no feats or talents, but RQ's simplicity encouraged more role-playing and less power gaming. It also encouraged you to be careful with combat, because even the most powerful character could be taken out with a couple of lucky shots.

These original RQ rules served as the basis for the Call of Cthulhu rules, and a host of other games (like Stormbringer!) which have since faded into the same obscurity that long ago enveloped Aftermath! I play d20 games now, primarily because my gaming friends and I only get to play about four times a year, and we decided to standardize on one set of rules that would apply to a variety of genres. Still, the use of PC classes to define characters seems limiting to me, and the hit die mechanics of combat make for (in my opinion) an artificial distinction between weak characters and godlike characters. In all of the best fantasy and sci-fi fiction, even the most powerful character can be taken down by a lucky or inspired but weaker character. That just doesn't happen in d20, which leads to more wargaming/power gaming, and less roleplaying.

Re:Shadowrun not the worst for complexity

[The Wooden Badger]

I never could get my group interested in playing it, but Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay had a pretty good system for realism and complexity, but it seemed (by reading the book anyway) to be pretty fast moving as far as game mechanics. One of the combat elements that I liked was, if memory serves, a percentile to hit and reverse the numbers for hit location. Killing two birds with one stone is pretty handy. Of course I never actually played it, and most of the time my group never did bother with hit location.

Re:Shadowrun not the worst for complexity

[Grab]

WFR was mostly OK. However a few things (the magic missile equivalent for one) were very unbalanced, which made life difficult for the GM. When a level 2 (of 4) wizard gets a spell that allows one instant kill per turn, then it's tricky finding opponents that'll provide a challenge!

The combat system was easy to use (just percentages to hit). I found it unsatisfactory though, because it didn't take into account the relative skills of the other person. It allowed parrying to try and cover that, but parrying was very underpowered so it didn't really work. Instead of trying to block attacks, it was always better just to steam in and try and land more hits on the NPC than you took yourself.

Grab.

Re:Shadowrun not the worst for complexity

[jwo7777777]

Check out Powers and Perils from Avalon Hill sometime. It was not particularly dice heavy but it seems to have been designed by a mathematical theorist who moonlighted as an accountant. Every individual action could generate "experience points", even failure of the action.... and it all had to be tracked, added, checked against a chart, compared to opponent's numbers....blah blah blah...ad nauseum....

Low magic system?

[ChozSun]

I liked it when it was first out called "AEG's 7th Sea". For those D20 diehards, I liked it when it was called "A Game of Thrones RPG".

Geez.

GRUPS Lite and an Einstein Quote

[nusuth]

Imagination is more important than knowledge.

Re:GRUPS Lite and an Einstein Quote - oops!

[nusuth]

I misspelled GURPS, shame on me! http://www.sjgames.com/gurps/lite/ If you download a character designer program, you and your wife can skip boring details about character creation too.

Low magic!

[10Ghz]

Lighting-bolt! Lightning-bolt! Lightning-bolt!

A d20 Conan, the Barbarian adaption,

[__aalwyc6372]

came to my mind instantly after reading the first two paragraphs. Even though they believe in gods, it's more like a pagan mysticism than anything magical.

Why Rules?

[Valdrax]

Maybe it's just me, but I don't see why you need any "mechanics" to handle anything but the combat. Why do I need "rules" to govern anything other than what happens when I try to stab someone with a pointy stick?

For the most part, that's true. Most RPG rule-sets are defined by their combat rules because conflict is the root of all stories, and RPGs trace their lineage from Chainmail, the first fantasy, miniature wargame. D&D is particularly tied to combat since all the rewards for play in D&D come from combat. The experience system, the collection of treasure, and the ability to use 90% of your character's "crunchy bits" and powers all flow from combat. In the terminology of the gaming theory website The Forge, it's a heavily Gamist RPG -- one that focuses on and rewards the defeating of challenges. Read System Does Matter for a better idea of the terminology I'm using. It was sort of a watershed moment for me when I read that essay in the back of the RPG Sorceror.

There are other fine RPGs out there that reward different sorts of play and have rule-sets that encourage them. The RPG "The Dying Earth" lets you get into the world of a Jack Vance novel, where the people are venial, corrupt shysters trying to get maximum benefit for minimal work. The system has a schtick based "paper-rock-scissors" combat system that also has an analouge for fast-talking (and being fast-talked). Players are expected to play along and believe (at least until disproven) whatever their characters get talked into. The system also has a set of resistances to various forms of tempatation that all characters have to try to resist (and usually fail) to reflect the veniality of the typical character. There's also bonus experience points for using phrases handed out by the GM in a session to get people into using the wordy, convoluted way of speaking of Jack Vance's stories.

The Indy RPG "Dogs in the Vineyard" is set around playing enforcers of community and morality in a Wild West people of the faith setting vaguely reminiscent of the early days of the Mormon faith. It's a highly narrativist game (a game that focuses on character development and story). Stats in the game are attributes, skills, items, relationships, and vices -- all of which contribute dice to a pool for conflicts. Conflicts can be verbal, fisticuffs, or gunplay with each for contributing larger and larger dice to roll on a fallout table at the end of combat which determines how badly the conflict shaped a character (with death being very rare). In the end, the system rewards the growth of relationships and vices a little more than attributes, skills, and items because the whole goal is character building. It has a mechanic for adding to the difficulty of a situation as the sins of the community are revealed (to encourage players to handle things before they get out of control).

Some games facilitate the kind of play where PCs get to imagine living in a particular setting or situation. These games enforce rules that tie one into the settings whether that setting be "realistic" like the burdensome Rolemaster rules set or cinematic like Feng Shui's rules set. Rolemaster makes people roll for keeping their footing in slippery situations and to avoid diseases through proper hygene because players want that sort of "realistic" actions have consequences sort of play. Feng Shui gives a +! damage bonus on a shotgun if you take a small interval of a combat round to cock it and say "schk-chkt!" and penalizes sorcerors who use repetitive magic or who do not give flashy names to their spell effects because that enforces the Hong Kong action movie feel.

There are all sort of uses for rules in games. Even games not based on Fortune mechanics (mechanics that involve die rolls and other randomizers) have rules for certain things. The game Nobilis is a resource-based system where Sovereign Powers can cast li

the psionics material is good

[sroske]

Malhavoc's psionic splats are good. They are produced with the help of the same guy who made the official Wizards' supplements. They are nice and balanced, and I like them. I wonder if some of Malhavoc stuff will find its way into the Complete Psionics book coming out in the spring.

RuneQuest

[h1er0nym0us]

Sorry for the shameless self-promotion if that's taboo. I played RQ, and if you're looking for a current game that captures some of that feel, you might want to check out Reve: the Dream Ouroboros (pronounced "rev"): http://malcontent.sourdust.com/

Re:RuneQuest

[Infonaut]

Looks interesting indeed. Thanks for the link.

Try Savage Worlds!

[Ravelli]

Savage Worlds from http://www.peginc.com/ is exactly what you're after. It provides a fantastic play experience with easy to learn, yet comprehensive rules. It's extremely newbie-friendly without being lightweight. It was designed to accomplish everything other games do without their unnecessary rules bloat, slow gameplay and long preparation times. I've been gaming for 23 years and played scores of rpgs and find Savage Worlds peerless. I simply can't bring myself to run any other game than SW now. It certainly lives up to its motto of "Fast! Furious! Fun!".

You'll also appreciate the fact that it does all this in a single rulebook that covers almost every conceivable genre. That's right, you can use Savage Worlds to play fantasy, sci fi, horror, supers, WW2, modern espionage or whatever else takes your fancy. The game's system is robust enough to cover them all in style. It's also a simple matter to convert your favourite game world/book/tv series/movie/whatever to these rules and have a blast immersing yourself in their worlds. Check out the conversions others have made already at http://www.savageheroes.com/ for scores of (freely downloadable) examples of this. The online community for SW is the friendliest I've come across and there's a LOT of cool stuff available on the net to help you out with this game.

Anyway, don't just take my word for it, you can download the FREE Test Drive rules now and give it a crack!

http://www.peginc.com/Games/Savage%20Worlds/Downlo ads/SW%20Rev/TestDrive4.pdf

If you're after some fantasy adventures to play using the Test Drive, try these ...

"The Red Swamp" http://www.justhavefun.cc/files/pdf/swTheRedSwampF antasyAdventure.pdf

"The Legend of Jub Jub Lake" http://www.savageheroes.com/adventures/JUB%20JUB%2 01.pdf

"Against the Orcs" http://www.peginc.com/Games/Savage%20Worlds/Downlo ads/Fant%20TK/GWGFantTKa.zip

... and if you'd like a taster of some of the rules from the main book that don't get mentioned in the Test Drive, grab these two files:

http://www.peginc.com/Games/Savage%20Worlds/Downlo ads/SW%20Rev/SWRevScreenF.pdf http://www.peginc.com/Games/Savage%20Worlds/Downlo ads/SW%20Rev/Combat%20Survival%20Guide.pdf

For more free adventures in different genres and other cool stuff visit http://www.dragonsfoot.org/sw/ and http://www.sharkbytes.info/

What do you expect from Monte cook?

[Anonymous Coward]

As I recall from an interview in either KODT, Dragon or Dungeon (sorry, I'd love to give a source, but I don't have access to my books right here, nor do I have the time to look for the interview in question) as Monte Cook was leaving WotC to start Malhavoc press, one of the main reasons he cited was creative differences. When the reviewer pressed him on what TYPE of creative differences he basically said that he was sick of thinking up new concepts, rules and systems and then seeing them sit in playtesting for ages before they actually went in books and hit the streets. His company was going to eliminate that. When asked if that would create problems, he expressed faith that any boken rules / bugs would be quickly caught by the end consumer and errataed. Personally, while I agree with him that such bugs WILL be caught quickly and reported, I both find the attitude of letting your client do your job for you irresponsible, as well as objecting to a line of books that are dependant on the web and incessant errata updates for usability. Most DMs I know, myself included pick up their books, assume everything is kosher, and never go online to look for hotfixes. That's primarily why I keep a close eye on all books I purchase from certain sources, namely Malhavok, Sword and Sorcery, Kenzer Co., and any other company I'm not familiar with. It's far easier to only introduce quality into your campaign then to explain to your players why you're nerfing them.