Well Then, What Next?

I'm still on a bit of high after finishing Age of Heroes. Just completed the appendices that include designer notes, and a short overview of the history of RPGs and where AoH fits in. So nothing left to do but await the proof readers.

Dang slow proof readers. But we love them.

So I'm sitting here trying to decide what to do next. I think I read a book first, yet another Urban Fantasy novel looking for something as good as the Dresden Files. It will likely be horrid, so far only the October Daye books have been worth any effort at all (mix lot those, but good enough).

After that I'll likely finish up the Claymore Campaign Supplement. It's rather far along.

And then... beats me. There's not like there's a demand for this sort of stuff. But I'll likely work on the Magic Expansion next. Or maybe the Firearms Expansion. It will likely be driven by what we're playing after we finish our current Claymore campaign.

And It's Done...

Finished the play test draft of Age of Heroes last night. The wonderful wife did her proof reading, I created the PDF and sent it off to my other two proof readers.

But I'm counting it as effectively complete, the first time ever that *all* the core rules have been assembled in one place and formatted for prestentation and use. Previously there was a spiral bound copy of the very most imporant core rules. Nice but about half the size.

It ended up a bit longer than planned, 242 Pages with 116,030 words. Nearly all of it rules although a bit of our settings got in the Bestiary with the creature descriptions.

From here I'll let my two remainingg proof readers point out any lasting typos they can find (knowing they'll never find them all of course) and then order a couple of bound copies for final playtest. I'll give it a few months mostly to make sure I didn't screw up something mechanically as there is some new stuff (in detail, not in concept) in there before I call it really really done, remove the playtest stamp, add the designer notes and handout hardcopies to the players in our groups.

Interesting feeling to be here, even with something I don't intend to market. Likely due to my never imagining that I'd write anything that would result in a bound hardcover. When I was born, it was just something out of the realm of possiblity for the typical person, and is only reasonable now due to Print on Demand.

Just a Few Pages More

Still working on Age of Heroes, and it's looking like I'll finish the proof and play test draft this week and send it off to Lulu.It's currently at 230 pages with only five more creatures to write up (and a few paragraphs in the intro).

Exciting times, well at least for my gaming groups. It only took 31 years, although before print on demand there was almost no reason do it.

Infinity: An Example of a Bad Die Mechanic

One of my kids was into Warhammer 40K. He's realized now just how bad of a game it really is, and we've been looking for a replacement.

In this search, he came across a game called Infinity and I decided to take a look at it. It's not a very good game, and there's a lot to take apart as a result. In fact, I consider 40K better than it. It's not a RPG and so I won't delve too deep into it. But it so happens to have a rather brain dead stupid core die mechanic that I've seen in RPGs before. And that deserves a comment.

Basically the system resolves things with each player making a opposed d20 roll. Whoever rolls higher but still under his skill rating wins. So a skill of 14 with range weapons might fire at a defender with a skill of 12, whoever rolls higher wins, as long as the first guy doesn't roll a 15+ and the second roll a 13+.

There's some other minor details, but they don't significantly modify my core point that this system manages to meet the Two S Rule: Simple and Stupid.

Just consider it for a moment. In a game you don't want things missing most of the time, that's not fun for most players. But if you're using dice, you don't want to hit all the time either.

So what does that mean for the range of possible skill numbers? That's right, it's very narrow. I would expect them to range from... oh 12 up to about 16. And sure enough, that's where most of the units in the game fall (you can look at a number of them online at the link above). There's some exceptions (especially for cannon fodder type units), but most of the standard units fall right into that line.

To make that narrow range even worse, the game uses a linear die d20 die roll.

The end result is to make unit skill of minor importance, i.e. it's very difficult to move far away from a coin flip in your chances unless you really pile the modifiers on.

Makes for a very limited game, basically only those settings where everyone is roughly equal. That hardly seems the point of games like this but then I'm not a member in good standing with the modern wargame crowd. Maybe they dig pointless differences.

Combined with other issues, we quickly discarded it as a option.

Vortex however is looking interesting...

Can WotC and D&D go home again?

To their credit, it appears that WotC is willing to act after losing the top selling RPG, they've hired back Monte Cook to do future R&D. And that seems to imply that the future is the past, and that we'll see a 5th edition that is far closer to 3rd than to 4th.

Not that bad of move considering that 4th Edition is effectively a failure. But will it work? Yes, 4th edition was a poor design, likely driven by concepts taken  from the worse of the last decade's online game theorists. But it only existed because WotC gave D&D's core IP away to people like Pathfinder. It was in effect a Hail Mary pass to create a new replacement IP, hurled with the hope that the marketing and brand loyalty would turn the tide.

That failed. Will going old school suceeed?

Like anything in the market, hard to say. The brand loyalty is lost and it is now the other guy's club to beat WotC with.

Marketing they may still have-  deep pockets and the return of a well regarded by many (not me BTW, but hey- its D&D. No one could make that a good game IMO) designer. They'll certainly be able to create a lot of noise, and get a lot of people to try a 5th edition if that's where they're heading.

But the old saying is that you can never go home. And the simple truth is that they don't really control the old IP, and thus will in the end need to fight tooth and nail for every sale against an successful company who can offer want is effectively the same product.

If they go this path, they will at best split the D&D style market between them, better a half pie than any, unless the two half pies aren't enough to live on... and that may be the plan. Let Pathfinder die of hunger while living off the fat of the parent company, then everything flows back to WotC.

Can that work? In this age of Print on Demand and low cost market entry? And what about the fact that WotC still wouldn't control the IP and the problems that causes?

I wouldn't go this path. I'll give 5:3 odds WotC won't either in the long run.More likely we'll see WotC try the 4th edition Hail Mary again with a different enough system that's it's different. Maybe a almost good one this time.

But will that even work? I doubt it.

Maybe they'll do a change up. A 5th edition to kill pathfinder, followed by a 6th to stake out new ground. That's a long shot that already failed once.


Either way they go, they have a chance. An uphill against the wind chance. They need to be hit by lightning, but that's business in today's world. So let's give them a cheer for making the attempt.