1st Adventures: Development Log #3 - Halflings

The other day I wrote up my thoughts about how non-human cultures will influence the classes I intend to provide in my 1st Adventures game. This generated a lot of fantastic discussion from the community and even though I hadn't planned on writing about Halflings yet, all the discussion put them at the front of the line in my development process.

I have some unique ideas for Dwarf and Elf classes, but I'm struggling with a differentiation for Halflings to make them mechanically different from Human classes.

Culturally, 1st Adventures Halflings are not unlike the stereotypical Halflings you think about when considering Basic D&D, AD&D, or even Lord of the Rings. Below is a very early rough draft on the section for Halflings.

1st Adventures: Development Log #2 - Class and Cultures

I was reading an interview recently that the "race as class" design aesthetics of the original Basic Sets came from the idea that the reader already has a stereotypical "Elf" or "Dwarf" in mind when they think of those fantasy races. It was a conscious choice by the game designers to codify that stereotype into a combined race and class in order get the player into the mindset of that PC from the moment they pick up the attribute dice to roll their character.

"I'm a Dwarf -- short, burly, and I like hitting things with my ax."
"I'm an Elf -- a lithe creature of the forest with innate magic."

Having come from an AD&D background, I was never a fan of the race-as-class idea in Basic, but reading this blurb recently made that design choice much more understandable to me, especially as I thought of the role non-human races would play in 1st Adventures.

For the base classes, I knew I wanted to go with the core four - Fighter, Cleric, Rogue, and Wizard.. However, I wanted the non-human races to feel a bit different mechanically, and the race-as-class ethos was looking more attractive.

But I couldn't bring myself to do it. I desired for some class variation in the non-human classes, but I didn't want them to be just short or lithe Human Fighters or Rogues. So I struck a middle ground and designed some custom classes for Dwarfs, Elves and Halflings.

I considered, "What might a Martial class look like for each of these races? What about an Arcane class? Or Divine caster?" I wanted to build classes that fit in with the culture I imagined for each of those races. They will have their own different flavors, but just like the stereotypical "Elf" or "Dwarf" class, these classes will feel familiar to the player. They should read the class description and think "I get this. I understand how these classes fit within the culture of this race."

I will preview my non-human class ideas over the coming days to get some feedback from the community... but I will give a glimpse:

Elf - Warden and Wildsinger
Dwarf - Sentinel and Earthshaper
Halfling - Dogfighter and Ferret (In Development)

Dice Inking the Old School Way

You can see the wear on the old die that isn't high impact. 

So I was going through my dice sets the other day in the way we partially-OCD gamers do before starting up a new campaign. Several of my precision dice were not inked or had the ink chipped away, so I needed to find a good product to refill the numbers.

Looking at some of my retirees brought back memories. For those of you not old enough, d20's used to be numbered 0 - 9 twice. You colored half the sides to designate 11 through 20. Eventually they improved the molds enough to print 2 digit numbers in the smaller space, but many of those early dice were considered "cheater" dice because all of the high numbers were on one side. Note the grouping on the white d20.

Nowadays, you only need to color your precision dice for number visibility. [Side Note: Pre-painted dice are not considered "precision" dice because the painting process rounds the corners and can alter the shape of the die. Check out Lou Zocchi explaining the process].

Anyway, getting back to the main issue, my precision dice were hard to read because most of the numbers had lost their ink. I had gone over them a number of times with different pen types, but the ink never lasted long after drying.

Then I saw my daughter coloring with Crayolas the other day and I thought, "Hmm... why not try the old ways." So I stole borrowed her silver crayon and started to go to work on my blue gem d20.

The neon Gel FX color really stands out against the green.

Surprise! It seems sometimes the old ways are better. The faces came out pretty well and I was pleased with how easy the application and clean up was.You don't need to worry about ink drying before moving on to the other half of the die.

While I used silver on the blue d20, I also found some Gel FX Crayons in her 96 color set. I had once read that these bright neon colors are good for contrast on dark d20's and they did not disappoint. The Yellow Gel FX color is a fantastic contrast on the green gem die. Crayola also has some Metallic FX crayons that I think I'll give a try to see if I can get a little more contrast on the blue die. The silver looks good, but it is nowhere as bright as the Gel FX Yellow (you can even easily read the tiny Gamescience "G" on the 1).

Crayola used to sell a separate pack of only Gel FX crayons, but these are apparently no longer available and become extremely hard to find. Ironically, I found a 4-pack in the Target $1 aisle just last week... but I think this was crazy coincidence. The Metallic FX might be your best bet for a bright high-contract crayon color.

D&D: Inspiration and Behavioral Psychology

+Jack Mack  over at Rotten Pulp posits that the Inspiration mechanic is inherently (and objectively) bad because rewarding players for role-playing actually diminishes motivation for role-playing. His conclusion results from his review of a study on the  metadata of psychology experiments where extrinsic rewards devalued the intrinsic rewards when performing an activity. While his post is well put together, I believe his conclusions misguided due to a few factors.

1) We are not kindergarten students.
2) Inspiration is not a tangible reward.
3) There are multiple reward conditions at work when playing a game like D&D.

D&D Basic: Quick Critiques

This is not a review so much as a few random observations I thought of as I was working through the rules. I'd like to take a deeper examination of the Basic D&D when I have a little more time at my disposal,  but for now I wanted to post some of those thoughts.

Dislaimer: I really like 5th Edition, but that doesn't mean I don't have some critiques, some of which may even be subjective personal taste. This is not an "I hate 5e" or "D&D 5 is completely broken" post, so don't take it in that vein.

Raging Owlbear Turns 10,000

Source: http://hicksvillecomics.com/1752

Just a quick note of thanks to all my readers and for the support I've gotten from the fantastic RPG blogging community on Google+.

Raging Owlbear passed 10,000 page views on July 1st -- about 6 weeks since I started really actively blogging. I'm very gratified that my feeble ramblings have attracted such positive attention from the RPG community, and I hope to keep it going for some time to come.

 Thanks for reading and keep checking back!

Marty -- the Raging Owlbear

D&D / OSR: Two-Hit Minion Variant

Whether you consider yourself "old school" or you play a "new school" set of rules, one of the hallmarks of high fantasy is wading into a large group of opponents, swords swinging and spells a-blazing in order to cut a swath to the big bad. Whether you call them Mooks, Lackeys, Flunkies, or Henchmen, in D&D 4th Edition they were given a specific mechanic and called Minions.

 Oddly enough, Minions were somewhat controversial because the simulationist crowd couldn't wrap their heads around a person or creature that may be "Level 4" but still only have 1 HP. Don't Hit Points represent wounds and hardiness? Do Minions die constantly because they stub their toes?

No, of course not. Hit Points are nothing more than a combat pacing mechanic. And if you want you PCs to plow through dozens, if not hundreds, of grunts like Gimli and Legolas in the Lord of the Ring what better way than to use the Minion mechanic?