dnd

Cuckoo clock (from Wikipedia)The last 2 months have been filled with a lot of waiting. Waiting for announcements. Waiting to learn more. Waiting for the mourning period to be over. Lots and lots of waiting.

The hard part, for me and a fair number of others, is that we love most, if not all, of the changes that were made in 4e. I realize that in presentation, the game easily could be seen as a radical departure from the past. And the particular way the designers evolved the rules of the past to form the 4e ruleset at least makes it harder for some to see the game's past in them. I can only speak from my point of view, but to me, 4e was an amalgam of previous editions, letting the non-combat be more freeform and rules light like my experiences in OD&D were while providing rules to make fair the life and death combat scenarios. I know others will disagree, but that's how I've always seen 4e.

Some of you will remember this but it bears mentioning anyway. When I started playing, I was enthusiastic about the game. I loved to post about what I did and how I enjoyed it. I'd get some people who would put me down for not playing D&D correctly and others in the community would support me. The latter is and will continue to be the awesome part of what we have online.

But I also learned something else, not everyone enjoyed the game the way I did. Part of what led to me learning game design was a desire to take the 4e ruleset and create the type of experience they talked about because I have a huge amount of empathy for people who love D&D but don't feel like the rules support their style of play. Why? Because I spent over 20 years on the sideline, watching, and unknown to me, waiting for 4e to come out. I truly want this to be a game that captures the feel of D&D in all, ok, most, of its forms and also supports the vast array of playstyles shared by the D&D community.

The early editions of the game, because they were the seeds of the D&D tree, were lighter weight and more tightly focused on the implied style of play of the time. If we're going to have a game for all, the core of that game has to look very similar to them. This makes sense because everything we know today was built out from that core. We need to test that the game can handle an adventure from that time period and still both feel like D&D and come across as fun. And Caves of Chaos, part of the introductory Keep on the Borderlands, is the perfect adventure to use since many, especially at a convention like DDXP, no longer play D&D that way, at least not on a regular basis.

So, it's going to take some time before they get to the mods that form the basis of the 4e playstyle. I'm ok with that. I'm going to do my best not to worry about whether or not every mechanical choice in the core rules feels like 4e, because, in fairness, they probably shouldn't. I will try to give my opinion of what I think is fun. I will try to figure out if the proposed core rule precludes the feel of a 4e game. When I think it does, I'll say something constructive. Beyond mechanics, I will be a voice who tries to push to a more inclusive world story, but again, doing my best to stay constructive.

To the fans of the later editions: Our time will come. We just need to be a little patient and wait.

The Head of a Nymph by Sophie Anderson (from Wikipedia)Like many things, my feelings about water-nymphs are a bit complicated. Part of me absolutely adores them. I can't tell you the number of times as a child that I wished I could be a water spirit, free to play in the water all day and night, splashing and roughhousing and exploring the depths of a world that most would never see. As I grew older, their lack of modesty appealed to me. They didn't have to segregate their lives into the sexual and the non-sexual, their sexuality was part of who they were.

Nymphs inspired creativity. They gave life to the wild and the civil alike. They healed. They pulled pranks. They warned heroes of danger. Sometimes, they found their own danger. They danced and sang. They attended the assembly of the gods on Mount Olympus. They were creatures of their own will, outside the the bounds of civilization and etiquette. In these ways, they were women as women were meant to be.

The problem, to me, came in with others, the people who would define them by their sexuality, forgetting about the rest of their nature. The life-giving, nurturing spirits became examples of everything the proper woman shouldn't be. We emphasized their ability to dazzle those attracted to them to the almost complete exclusion of everything else. They became mere playthings instead of givers of life. Their sexuality inspired fear, lest it trap the unsuspecting and soil the otherwise spotless hero. In short, they became yet another expression of womanhood, of femininity, that had to be categorized and avoided at all costs.

Here's how I would love to use water-nymphs in my game, working within the existing legends about them while, I hope, providing them greater depth and utility in games.

Water-Nymphs Lore

Water-nymphs reside in ponds, streams, wells and other collections of fresh water. Each nymph has a home body of water and her connection to that water is so strong that some say if the water dries up, she will die. They are known to be whimsical, beholden to no law or man. They love to play, often basking in the sun or daring each other to aquatic tricks. The water spirits are experts at not being seen although the splashes that result from their quick dives beneath the surface are frequently heard.

The various races differ in their views towards water-nymphs. In some areas, the local populations worship them as water spirits that they believe are the result of dalliances between the fey river spirits and humanoid women. Often, these groups view nymphs as great healers and providers of information. Other areas, especially the more civilized areas, fear them, afraid that their wild ways will entice away their young. In these areas, the people tend to believe that nymphs are not the daughters of the river gods but are instead either young women who ran away from home or the result of unions between seduced young men and the nubile nymphs.

Legends tell of the healing power of water-nymphs, claiming they can infuse small amounts of water with healing energy. However, they must feel moved to do so and cannot be compelled. Water-nymphs often lose this ability in the presence of an evil act (attempting to compel is an evil act) or an evil creature. Some believe the water spirits can sense a person's suffering either by being near him or a personal item, although it is harder for them to sense through the item. When a person seeks healing, family and friends may transport the afflicted to the water's edge and if that's not possible, brings a personal item instead. If a nymph feels moved to help ease the suffering, she will appear and bless water with the ability to heal the afflicted. Rarely, a person is so full of good that a group of nymphs will appear and their cumulative blessing is enough to bring a person back from death if he hasn't been dead more than a day.

(from Wikipedia)Beyond their healing abilities, nymphs are rumored to be great sources of information. Every child knows that voices carry much further and louder across water. As a result, anything murmured near a water's edge is likely to find the ear of a water-nymph. In addition, the various streams, rivers, brooks, ponds, lakes, and other bodies of water create a giant network across the land and nymphs frequently travel to visit one another, trading information as they go. They also can speak with animals, frequently gathering information from the creatures who quench their thirst at a watering hole.

In general, nymphs are most likely to appear before good creatures, although they often are unsure of those who are lawful good. For unaligned creatures, they might appear if the creature tickles their fancy or if sense the creature is a prankster like them. Whenever possible, they hide from evil creatures as the presence of evil takes away their healing abilities.

The daughters of water are able to leave it for short amounts of time, an hour or two during a sunny day to an entire night. If out in the sun, they must take care not to let their skin dry out. They also are able to sense good creatures within a mile of their water's shore. A number of legends speak of a well-timed warning delivered by a nymph who sought out the hero.

Anatomy and Appearance

Undine by John William Waterhouse (from Wikipedia)Water-nymphs often are beautiful. While they are not immortal, they have long lives similar to elves, a trait many believe they get from their fey river spirit fathers. Their mothers can be from a number of races, and they often retain a trait or two from them. They have webbed hands and feet and tend to have strong, lean muscles. However, they can appear as a woman of their mother's race, hiding these features at will. When they wear it, they tend towards clothing that is soft and flowing. Their hair is almost always long and loose.

Tactics and Combat

Alberich steals the gold by Arthur Rackham. (from Wikipedia)Rarely will they enter into combat, although they will defend themselves and their watery homes if attacked. Their primary means of defense is enchantment, often through song or the shimmer of their wavy hair. Often one will appear and entice the enemy to follow her into an ambush. Creatures entranced by their beauty will follow the nymph into the water's depths, often forgetting that while she can breathe underwater, they can not, leading them to drown. For those who don't fall to the nymphs' charms, they are adept at spears and nets.

Treasure

Water-nymphs often have eclectic treasures, collected from freshwater shipwrecks or overturned boats, goods washed away in floods, and from the fallen who died in battles in the water. They keep their treasures hidden in deeper water, often obscured by weeds. Underwater, they are fierce opponents, quite adept at quick movements and handy with the spear.

With the announcement of D&D Next, I hope to talk about issues of inclusivity and how a game can foster a more friendly environment for non-traditional fans. Over the past two weeks or so, I've been using Pinterest to collect images that are closer to the style and content that I really enjoy. I've also been trying to be more conscious of the media I consume, looking for things that really appeal to them and thinking about why. I hope to do more of these posts in the future but for now, here are a few that stood out to me.

Knight Exemplar

Knight Exemplar from Magic: The Gathering

What I love:

• She's part of the army. The card just reads Knight Exemplar. I have no reason to believe that there aren't more female knight exemplars.
• While her breastplate is given extra room for her anatomy, it doesn't emphasize her breasts. They are just a part of her, not objects to look at.
• She's looking at the camera. While she has an aura of confidence otherwise, she's riding with her back straight and shoulders back and is properly equipped, looking into the camera contributes to this feeling of self-assuredness.

Arctic Druid

Arctic Druid by Gary Gill (via Deviant Art)
What I love:

• Somehow she has been able to get a polar bear, a wolf, and a snow owl all to follow her and not go after each other.
• She's wearing something other than Western European clothing. It makes me wonder more about what her culture and her life are like.
• It's a scene out of her life. She and her animal friends are going ice fishing so they can fill their stomachs.

Elven Archer

Elf Archer by Michael Ivan.

• An action shot where a woman character is going up against multiple foes. What isn't there to love?
• It's hard to tell for sure, but it looks like she is protecting a fallen ally. I love when women are shown as martial protectors, not just the people who need to be rescued.
• She's determined. I don't think she'll give up without a fight.

The Conscripted Girl Soldier

I love the TV show, Once Upon A Time, for a number of reasons. One of the big ones is that it often passes the Bechdel Test by having two or more women on screen without talking about men or a man. What I love even more is that it doesn't do so at the exclusion of the romantic element.

One scene that got me really excited happened in the episode "Desperate Souls." The episode centers on Rumplestilskin's origin story, the lengths he went to to save his son for being conscripted into the army at the tender age of 14 and how they changed him. It opens with the duke's people conscripting another child into service. However, instead of a boy, they take a girl. Not only that, there's no discussion about whether or not a girl would make a good soldier. The default is gender equality and the focus is on their young age.

Each edition seems to have its own way of dealing with skills. While I haven’t had time to study each edition, I think I’ve had enough experience with each of the systems I discuss here to give general impressions about the system and some observations on how I react to each.

Before I talk about expressions of skills in each of these editions, I'd like to lay out two ways skills are often used in a D&D game.

Skills as Resources

For some, skills constitute a resource that players invest in or not. When used this way, the DM generally presents a more generic challenge to the PCs, such as traveling a long distance through the wilderness. If no one in the party chose skills to help with such a challenge, the hope is that the characters spent other resources, such as silver and gold, to obtain resources to help them through, such as a map, rations, camp equipment, hiring skilled allies, and the like. If they didn’t, then they often suffer the consequences of their choices by getting sick, starving, not resting well, and the like.

Skills as Adventure/World Building

For others, the skill choices serve as a menu, allowing the player to tell the DM what sort of world they expect. In this play style, if no characters took wilderness survival skills, it’s possible that the DM won’t ask the players to play through a survival scenario unless the scenario was very important. Why would a group of people untrained in the arts of the wilderness enter it when they could do x, y, or z instead. Likewise, if a player takes a skill such as blacksmithing, that’s a clear message that the player is interested in having that trade be part of the game. Additionally, this way of handling skill choices can make it easier to game with a smaller group without adding the complication of henchmen and other skilled NPC allies.

Not all games will be one or the other. Some skills lend themselves more one style over the other, for instance, a skill such as balance might be something we want to view as a resource a player either invested in or didn’t whereas sailing would be part of adventure or world building.

Expressions of Skills

In the Fellowship of the Tweet games I was in, we used OD&D (Rules Cyclopedia). In that game, the only defined skills I could remember were set by class, with the thief having the majority of them. For instance, when we wanted to climb, I believe just the player of the thief made the check for the entire group.

Observations:
• When limiting skills to a particular class or character build decision, they can become more memorable. I didn’t read all of the rules and we only played a few sessions yet I remember this about our game.
• In a game where you combat should be a component but not the focus of the game, having characters that are poor in combat but useful outside of it helps spread the game’s emphasis since the DM must run non-combat scenarios to ensure the spotlight spreads around to all players.
• If the skills are only available to certain classes or character builds, the game may become too limited for many players. Furthermore, it may force a player in the group to play a character class he or she doesn’t want to because the group would be missing a crucial skill otherwise. The most frequently cited example is people feeling they had to play the healer.
• It may be difficult, if not impossible, to use skill choice as a world/adventure building engine in this system since other factors are much more likely to enter into the decision of which class to pick. The presence of particular skills has less bearing on whether or not the player is interested in playing out that skill.
• For new and casual players, the system may be easier for them to use. It’s also might help players who are used to more clearly delineated races and classes.

Another skill system I have experience with is the skill ranks system from 3.x. In this system, the skills are, for the most part, codified in one place instead of being mixed in with the various classes and other character build options. Every character has access to every skill. Classes favor certain skills, giving the player a bonus for taking them. Players start out with a certain number of skill ranks when they start the game and gain additional ones each level. Some skills can only be used while trained.

Observations:
• This system supports both skills as a resource and skills as part of world/adventure building.
• The combinations are limitless. Players can go deep in a small set of skills or cast a wide net.
• World building skills are mixed in with necessary combat and other play skills, making it harder on both a DM and player since participating in world building might come at the expense of effectiveness within the party.
• Not all players want the depth of choices nor do they want to revisit skill selection at each level. Since the skill system touches so many different levels of the game, it serves as a barrier to entry for some players.
• The system needs to set limits on how much advancement in a particular skill a character can have compared to its level.

The system I’m most familiar with is the 4e system. In 4e, we have a stripped down skill list with many skills from earlier editions combined into one, such as Spot and Listen becoming Perception and many of the Knowledge checks becoming part of History, Arcana, Religion, and the like. During character creation, players decide which skills they want to train in and skill modifiers go up by ½ level throughout the character’s career. Generally, class choice decides which skills are available to a character, although that may be modified through themes and feats among others.

Observations:
• The system is a simple yet flexible framework to help DMs adjudicate non-combat and even some combat actions.
• The training system and automatic leveling makes the game easier for new and casual players since a player makes the skills decision once instead of each time the character levels. The skill system is also tied into fewer other parts of the character so it’s easier for a new or casual player to make an informed choice.
• The system lacks depth for invested players and training in new skills requires a player to expend resources that might be used to produce a more effective character for combat.
• The skills available are spread across the classes, akin to the OD&D model but a few character build options open up other skills to characters.

My Preferences for D&D Next

I’ve spent a lot of time over the past week or so thinking about these. They each seem to be on a continuum of complexity. For new players or those who don’t want to invest a lot of time into skills, do something more akin to the OD&D model. For each class and race, provide some skills that they would be trained in. No decisions need to be made by the players. For other players, do the trained/untrained model with auto-advancement. Finally, for those players who really enjoy the complexity, let them move around the points as they wish, still keeping some limits on the highest some skills can get in relation to level.

I’d also love a discussion of the two ways to use skills and a vocabulary to help the DM and the players communicate the sort of game they want or expect. I suggest that some skills might only be made available on an adventure or setting basis. If an adventure or setting is likely to call for a sailing skill then it will be present, but if the game is in the middle of a desert, then it’s not listed. In addition to class, I'd love skills to be tied to the character's background and culture.

Finally, I’d love to see tools for the DM to use to make skill use more important in the game. In a resource management scenario, such as a survival game, rolls regarding food finding might be pretty important since lack of food might trigger starvation or other effects. On the other hand, I’ve been in plenty of games where no one wanted to play that out, and instead wanted to concentrate on other areas of tension and story.

So that’s where I’m at with skills. How about you?