Morality & Justice

AKA What I Learned from Saint Cuthbert

Yes, another post about alignment in Dungeons & Dragons.

My last post on the subject (just reread it this morning) is a good example of just how far down the rabbit hole one can fall when one spends an inordinate amount of time theory-bashing, putting the cart before the horse when it comes to world building ("cart") and running ("horse"). NOW...well, I've been running the game for a couple-three weeks, and I just wanted to share my experience. 

When we started this up, I decided to simply ignore the entire concept of alignment until such time as it became "necessary" to the game. There were a number of reasons I made that decision, but the main one had to do with laziness: I am running Advanced Dungeons & Dragons (1E) for small children, and I didn't relish the idea of putting a 9 point alignment system in terms they could understand (i.e. in a meaningful, playable way) when the concept is A) pretty shaky anyway, and B) mechanically meaningless. Besides which, as a parent to these small children, it's already my job to instill in them a sense of right and wrong, and I don't need to confuse that message with the artificial concepts of a game...especially a game that (often) celebrates murder and robbery.

We are, after all, Christians, and the main lesson of Christ is to love everyone (including one's enemies) as much as you love yourself. I'll be honest, I've been less rigorous in my proselytizing as I probably should be (given that we haven't been to Mass since February) but I try to point out examples as they come up in daily life. And they both understand that D&D is a game and that stabbing people is a "no-no" without me needing to throw down a disclaimer at the beginning of each session.

But rather than confuse things in their mind...forcing them to shift their paradigm of thinking when we're deep in the throes of imagining and expecting them to compartmentalize...instead of that, I've simply tried to create a bit more richness to the game world and pay closer attention to the depth of choices that abound AND the consequences of those choices.

Some examples:

The players were ambushed by a half-orc (read: "mutant") thief and his mountain lion pets while conducting a raid of the old goblin fort where the mutant made his home. The players won the fight, reducing the thief to negative one hit point which (per AD&D rules) left him alive. They then ministered to his wounds so he would survive, and took him hostage...for a time. What they found was that they had little use for an NPC who bore a great deal of resentment for the party (they'd invaded his home, killed his pets, robbed the place...not to mention beating the crap out of him); any "gratitude" he might have had for sparing his life was tempered by the overriding desire for revenge on his oppressors! 

The players on the other hand, were clearly loathe to murder an unarmed captive...what to do with the guy? Enslave him? Keep feeding him like a pet? After a couple-four days at the village where the players were staying, the town Elder asked the players to resolve the situation as it was making the locals decidedly uncomfortable (for a number of reasons). So they took him to the edge of town and let him go...basically banishing him into the wilderness, charging him with keeping his nose clean. This small mercy would give them a spot of trouble later, but in the end it was a decision they could live with.

In a later game session, the players were able to end their personal feud with a certain goblin tribe through a combination of negotiation and concession, sparing additional bloodshed (on both sides) and creating the possibility of allies while somewhat mitigating a local threat AND advancing their own goals.

In Saturday night's game, the players came upon a village that had been recently devastated by a band of gnoll raiders. Literally (per the adventure) there is NO ONE LEFT ALIVE in the place, except the gnoll chieftain (and his dog) who was abandoned by his own people for being too wounded to travel/fight. The players captured him pretty easily and, after getting what info out of him they could, were discussing what to do with him. I had the henchman magic-user blow him away with her single (unused) magic missile spell. She had, after all, been hired in this very village by the PCs a month earlier...she'd known these people and enjoyed their company, and this creature had led his people here to rob and slay every single man, woman, and child in the place. Killing him was justice for an unrepentant monster (who was only bitter at being left behind).

None of this has anything to do with alignment.

The plot of the adventure module (which I still plan on blogging about, one of these days) is that one ancient artifact of "good" (The Sentinel) has a beef with another ancient artifact of "evil" and wants the players to carry it into a final confrontation. But when one examines the reality of the artifacts' histories, it is clear they were simply created by two rival nations who were at war with each other...a war that has long since ended and which was won, rather peaceably, by the "evil" side (one kingdom being subsumed into the other). The sentient "good" artifact wants to be wielded by creatures of good alignment (and uses the know alignment spell to discover the proper person)...if PCs are unwilling or unable to use the item, the adventure provides a wandering 10th level ranger lord to which they can dispose of the thing...but this part of the narrative is completely unnecessary to the scenario. All it does is penalize (i.e. "You can't go on the adventure") players who don't buy into the module's heavy handed morality. Characters of evil alignment (not to mention druids, thieves, assassins, and bards, all of whom the Sentinel ignores) need not apply.

And considering the item's raison d'etre and purpose (a mutual destruction suicide run) the alignment of the wielder has zero impact on the possible outcomes. It doesn't even mean anything as far as forcing the players down a specific railroad: the item itself has an incredible 38 personality (the sum of its intelligence and ego). To put that in perspective, the Sword of Kas only has a 34 personality, and "will certainly attempt to control whomever takes it as his or her own." (DMG161) If the Sentinel wants to force the PCs to do its bidding, it has no need to appeal to their "better natures;" it can simply seize control, in what I'd argue is a typical hazard of D&D.

[Blackrazor's personality is only 33]

The POINT being (man, I wander) that alignment is easily removed from the adventure...and from the game...and isn't really missed. This is perhaps even more clear when one examines the second module in this series (UK3: The Gauntlet) and find the PCs in parley and allied with a lawful evil fire giant family.

But what of clerics and deities and extra-planar cosmic struggles? Because those things are often cited as reasons that alignment makes sense and should be retained (some have said that alignment ONLY makes sense because of this). But I've been thinking long and hard about clerics and religion and theisms (poly- versus mono-) lately and I had a bit of an epiphany the other day, spurred in part by a recent post at Grognardia: one does not need rival gods to have a multitude of competing temples and religions. Even in the medieval Catholic church, you have different orders, different saints, different motivations, not to mention multiple schisms, scandals and heresies.

Why do all clerical spells look the same (as opposed to water magic from sea gods and battle magic from war gods and whatnot)? Because they're all coming from the same divine source. The "lords of light" in my campaign are simply a collection of ascended saints and holy men. Saint Cuthbert, for example (if I ever decide to throw Hommlet into my world). But while a seaside fishing village may have a church dedicated to Saint Barto of the Depths (or whatever), and the people pray to him like travelers rubbing their medals to St. Christopher, everyone understands that their patron's power comes from a "higher source."

[where does this leave traditional "evil high priests" and their underlings? In the realm of demon worshippers and satanists (diabolists), I suppose, performing twisted "miracles" (reversed spells) due to the nature of their patrons. Does that make their patrons as powerful as God Almighty? Hardly. The evil cleric's magic is (for the most part) destructive in nature while the good cleric's heals, restores, and extends life. In the final race for supremacy, Good can be expected to outlast Evil]

All of which is a long-winded way of saying: I'm finding less and less need for alignment...for any reason...in my game. 

Issues like paladins' alignment restriction can be accomplished through oaths and vows; their penalties are, after all, based on behavior and actions taken. Assassins and thieves, purveyors in murder and theft respectively, need no artificial stamp of "evil" and "non-good" as their professions speak for themselves. Things like whether or not a patriarch will heal a character can be judged by what purpose such restoration will serve, regardless of what "alignment" is noted on the character sheet. Likewise, sentient magical items can decide for themselves whether or not a character's motivations fit their own.

[with regard to other magic items with effects based on alignment...a libram of silver magic versus one of ineffable damnation, for example...I think it's fine to allow use to any character, especially as no character can benefit multiple times from a work of the same type. Other items, like a talisman of pure good (or ultimate evil) are fairly self explanatory in their function, regardless of the existence of "alignment"]

In closing this post, I think it's important to consider that "heroism" may be more a matter of reputation than inherent propensity for good (or evil); heroes are known for their press releases far more than even their actions. After all, how many folks in the D&D world actually get to witness the party's fight with the dragon? Sure, sure, the PCs have the thing's head (and hoard) to show for their prowess, but tales of their battle might well be greatly exaggerated (and/or "spun") by the party itself...especially if less-than-heroic means were used to slay the beast. I am reminded greatly of Reid's Rangers, a band of NPCs from the Rifts RPG sourcebook The Vampire Kingdoms. Considered legendary heroes by the local population for their exploits in fighting blood-sucking extra-dimensional entities, they are (to a man) of evil and anarchist alignment, a group consisting of sadists, bullies, drunks, necromancers, and megalomaniacal narcissists. Still, because of their reputation they remain beloved by the people; it's one of my favorite write-ups in any RPG ever.

Removing alignment (as a system) from my game has not stripped it of meaning, nor caused players to devolve into murder-hobo lifestyle. BUT (and, yes, I want that "but" emphasized) this is mainly due to the PCs' actions having consequences in the campaign world. Behavior matters; reputation matters. Villages are not unlimited spawn points for hirelings, goods, and services...NPCs are not (all) nameless/faceless masses. Sentient monsters (like goblins) are not motive-less kills-waiting-to-be-tallied. Relationships matter, and issues of morality, justice, and honor all all tied up in those relationships.

At least, that's what I'm finding in my game.

Annoyances

 September, huh? Guess it's time to throw some content up on Ye Old Blog.

While gaming in the time of Covid must certainly suck (I wouldn't know, since I have zero opportunity to game), school in the time of Covid sucks worse. Does it suck as much as this new Blogger interface that I am finding it tricky to decipher at the moment (WTF Blogger)? Yes, more...because it affects the entire household, not just the education and developmental years of our children's lives.

*sigh*

So, yeah, school started up for the kids last week, and I've been dealing with that since the end of August. Oh, and a few other things. But fortunately the fam had a chance to get away for a mini family vacation in the mountains (far away from Covid country) and THAT as much as anything is still keeping my batteries charged up the last couple weeks. Oh, and the return of sports on the TV.  Everyone's happy when the Storm or the Sounders can take someone apart (as has become my custom the last few years, I have ignored the Mariners since they fell under .500 and will continue to do so until they can put together a respectable season), and hey football season started! I wear Seahawks merch all year round, but at least now I won't look like such a tool (or, rather, I'll have company with the rest of Seattle).

Mmm. None of that is really "content." Apologies.

Just because I haven't been blogging doesn't mean I haven't been reading (and listening to podcasts) from other folks. Thanks to all of you who have continued to entertain me...it helps keep me sane.

On my own front, well, as said, we've been pretty darn busy the last couple weeks

[ugh...just as an aside, I'm listening to my child's remote learning class in the next room. Is there anything more obnoxious than a 4th grade teacher that claims to love fantasy and cites Harry Potter as her favorite book series? Well, yes, there is...a 4th grade teacher who also touts her Nintendo Switch as her favorite game/toy. Gosh, I am a crusty old man...]

...but before things started heating up, the kids really REALLY wanted to play a superhero RPG. And not just any RPG but, specifically, Heroes Unlimited. Because, as everyone knows, Palladium has the greatest design for an RPG ever. I mean EV...ER.  😉

Actually, here's the deal: an inventory list that includes Real World equipment, especially FIREARMS with ILLUSTRATIONS is pure nectar of the gods to my children, especially the boy. The random character creation which allows one to create a Soviet agent with enough money to buy a Yugoslavian assault rifle (wow, dated) is more adolescent geekery than I can stand, but for my kids, it is FAN-fricking-tastic. Heck, what they wanted to start with was Ninjas & Superspies, but got overwhelmed with the extensive martial arts lists, and decided they'd prefer to make mutants and robot pilots and whatnot.

[no, my kids haven't gotten to that stage where they argue about which culture's kung fu is better. Maybe some day they'll get into the Hong Kong action theater, but right now Lego Ninjago is about the extent of their cinematic martial arts experience]

Anyway, I just decided to "roll with it;" that is, I figured I'd just run the game By The Book, rather than complain about the thing. But, as has happened before, things fell apart in the usual places: character creation and adventure creation. I know, right?

It's actually the latter issue that I wanted to write about. Character creation, despite being convoluted, is still relatively straightforward. And depending on the character type you rolled (or chose) it might even be fast, other than the skill selection process which is O So Awful (sorry, Kevin Siembieda...it is). For a guy who's owned, read, and played the game over three decades...well, it's still a laborious process (depending on the type of character being created), but it's doable. For newbies (like my kids) there's a lot of hand-holding required...unless you want to circumvent it with your own rules (which I did).

Adventure creation...or rather campaign creation...is another matter, though related. Basically, the problem is this: you can't prep anything until after you've got the characters created and the team established. Which may be a big "duh" from long time GMs of the supers genre but was a bit of an "ah ha" moment for Yours Truly.

See, I'll let you in on a not-so-secret secret of mine. I'm not a fan of "Session Zero;" quite the opposite, in fact. When I sit down to play a game, I want to play the game, not "prep" for the next game session. That is a big fat waste of my time. It's what makes D&D such a great go-to game: there's plenty of time to create dungeons, scenarios, adventures, etc. in one's free time (or read and familiarize yourself with a pre-written module), and then when come to the table you simply pull out something that matches the characters' general level. Even for campaign play, you can have multiple established adventures or scenarios ready to point a party towards...or let them choose amongst...based on their comfort level with various risk/reward factors ('No, we don't feel like tackling the Necropolis of the Dead, seeing as how the party cleric got eaten in our last session.'). Hell, even if the party takes a left turn from where you expected an adventure to go, it's fairly easy to come up with something "on the fly" just using random tables.

But that doesn't fly with the supers genre. Unless you're playing a pre-written scenario that includes pre-generated PCs (for example, any of the old TSR adventure modules for Marvel) there's no way to come prepared to the session until AFTER the characters have been created. Starting a basic D&D game? You show up with adventures suitable for 1st level characters (and then let the players put them together in 5-10 minutes). But with supers characters the range of divergent power levels is so wide that you can't do that. You can't prep for a street level Daredevil style game when players are creating Thor-level characters...and vice versa. 

Likewise, there's no way for a GM to set-up a campaign until AFTER you see what the characters are you're dealing with. Diego's robot pilot ("Red One") is a Soviet special forces soldier driving a prototype power vehicle with the explicit sanction and blessing of the military institution that developed it. Sofia's  tech-savvy inventor is British secret service. While this in itself can be an interesting dilemma to resolve, given an 80's Cold War setting, how the heck am I supposed to have an adventure prepped for that prior to play? Or, rather, how do I prep for the possibility that these are the characters that will be generated at the beginning of the game session?

Oh, yes, yes...I understand that one could say at the outset: "Hey, everyone: your team of superheroes is a special task force put together by the American government to deal with alien invaders" (for instance) "so make sure you create a superhero to match." But, again, what if someone rolls up the equivalent of a masked vigilante while another gets the equivalent of Superman? Point buy? Okay, that's just conceding (again) that the entire first session is going to be spent in character creation as people hammer out concepts and figure where and how to spend points in order to build some sort of coherent, consistent team.

And if you're going to do that, you might as well let the players use their own imagination (rather than set parameters) and prep your adventure based on what they come up with.

This is, in the end, my point: you need a Session Zero (i.e. a game session where no part of the regular game "play" happens) if you're going to run a campaign of any longterm value in the supers genre. You need to establish origins and relationships and how characters complement (or don't) each other and what the power level is going to be. Regardless of the planned scenario (or "story arc") for the campaign.

At least if you plan on running a game that allows for a wide range of different super characters with disparate power levels, i.e. something that emulates the superhero genre. Because in the genre, you DO have characters with divergent power levels: Thor and Iron Man with Hawkeye and Black Widow. Superman and Wonder Woman with Batman and Black Canary. Dr. Manhattan and Rorschach. Green Lantern and Green Arrow. Etc.

And I hate Session Zero. I just do. And I kind of hate pre-generated characters (at least, for this genre of game) because I do NOT want a game to be about how well the players can role-play a particular established piece of intellectual property. Don't give me your Tony Stark impression, pal.

Hmm...that's a lot of hate (probably grumpy due to, you know, everything going on in the world. Lot of smoke outside my window at the moment). But it explains why I've always had difficulty getting superhero campaigns off the ground, despite personally enjoying the idea of running such a game. And it explains why (for me) D&D is soooo much easier to run. 

My next post should be on that particular topic.

Diving Into The Inelegance

For those who come here for the D&D posts: apologies. Until the last couple days, I’ve had a bunch of Palladium rulebooks, several sets of dice, and piles of paper and pencils covering my kitchen counter (now everything's been moved to the coffee table in the living room). Even if I hadn’t originally planned on doing a deep dive exploration of Kevin Siembieda’s work...well, it’s kind of ended up happening.

It started off...hmm, let’s see...last Friday. After taking the kids to mini-golf in Edmonds, they decided we should go to our favorite game store (“since we’re in the neighborhood”), Around the Table Games. While poking around a bit, I was somewhat amazed to find no more than TWO Palladium books gracing the shelves (not two product lines...two single rule books): a used copy of Heroes Unlimited Revised and an equally used copy of Ninjas & Superspies. While I do own both of these and have in fact had HU sitting on my bedside table the last couple weeks, my son appeared to have been oblivious to this fact, asking if we could get one or both to play.

So we've been playing Heroes Unlimited.

*ahem* Kind of. Let's back up a few hours earlier in the day when I had a chance to futz around on my computer with everyone else still asleep in bed (kind of like this morning). Having just written a post about HU a couple days prior, I decided to actually go through the chargen as written in the ORIGINAL game, and create a handful of characters. One thing I've continuously had to learn and re-learn over the years: there are reasons a game is designed the way it is, and it's best to try it out before trying to "improve it."

And of course, with a laptop it's a lot easier to generate random characters than it was back in my youth. Armed with an Excel spreadsheet and the "randbetween" function, I was able to quickly generate four PCs using original HU's near-100% random system. And guess what? It worked pretty darn good! Each character came out with enough pieces that I could form an adequate picture of the character and their backstory with relative ease. I had the bullied Australian scholar from the poor background who'd ended up working for a private company and stealing their robotic exoskeleton; the silver-spoon Frankforter who'd joined the German military at a young age and built himself into a brick outhouse; the shy professor who wears hats to hide her small horns, and prefers to use her own academic prowess over her mutant psionic abilities; and the Canadian farm boy who volunteered for experimentation and was only (grudgingly) allowed to leave only after the installation realized they had no real way to hold a person with the ability to teleport.

That's some cool stuff right there.

Of course, it all falls down when it comes to the first non-random part of chargen: skill selection. I only took the time to go through the whole process for the Physical Training character...partly because skills are the WHOLE of his "power suite;" partly because, as a guy with an enlisted military background (rolled randomly) he had a lot fewer skills to bother worrying about than the guy with the Masters degree or the lady with a Doctorate. And even knowing that I was just going to take as many physical skills as possible, it took a loooong time. As such I didn't bother finishing up the other characters, let alone spend the time buying their equipment (Palladium, unlike most supers RPGs, doesn't have an "abstract" system for modeling the economy...instead you're counting individual dollars and buying every piece of equipment (even your costume, in the original rules!) from the budget that is your character's life savings).

Anyway, it wasn't just "inelegant;" it was ugly. So I set aside the HU figuring I'd come back to it in another six months/years...and then my kid encountered the books later that same day and wanted to play.

SO...we ended up going through the entire character generation process for him (by hand). After some discussion we decided to play HU (first edition) instead of N&SS. He also ended up with a German; a mutant with the power of shrinking (no change in mass). We did all the skill selection (I provided him with no hints or nudges except to explain that didn't need more than one hand-to-hand skill), just walking him through the process. He spent his fairly ample life savings buying guns and ammo out of the equipment section. It took probably close to two hours to complete the process of making "Dave Dangerfield" AKA "DD." And while that time probably could have been cut down quite a bit with system familiarity, keep in mind that a mutant is probably the simplest of the character types to create, and that we were using the un-Revised HU rules (only one superpower, everything random, choices limited).

[my original idea was to create a character at the same time, a fellow adventurer who would act as an NPC companion; however, I gave up the idea when I rolled Hardware character with a $500K budget to spend. Even without the super-vehicle design of later editions, that's just too much work for the quickie game I wanted to run]

It really emphasized Kevin Siembieda's philosophy with regard to the game's design: HU is supposed to be a "thinking man's game." It is not supposed to be all four-color action and superhero cliches (though what's more cliche than super-powered individual's saving conflicts with their fists?). The time spent in such an elaborate chargen system represents an INVESTMENT in the character; yes, it's also a part of play, too, but in spending so much time building, your identification process (with the character) starts early in the game.

I also think that Siembieda has made very interesting (and astute) choices with what parts are random and what parts are not. A person's education CAN be effected by a host of random elements: opportunities provided by accident of birth, changes in a family's fortune, a person's approach to academic life and standardized testing and how that balances with other aspects of the character's life (social, familial, economic). Codifying that into a random table to determine one's final opportunity at skill selection is appropriate...just as allowing the player to select skill packages based on that (random) opportunity is appropriate. There are things within your control and things outside your control. It really takes the "meta" out of character generation.

[yes, I realize long-time Palladium players will say there's still "meta" involved in selecting physical skills that will optimize a character for combat. Siembieda looks at it differently, writing (in 1E) that players should OF COURSE be optimizing themselves as part of their "training" for a career in hero work. That's not "meta;" it's putting yourself in the mind of your character, deciding whether you should be learning gymnastics or how to speak Russian or how to fly a helicopter]

Yes, I am really starting to become a Palladium system apologist (if I wasn't one already), at least with regard to the HU line of games. The problem is, that such an elaborate, granular system REALLY requires some simplification in order to run the game effectively. Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, for all the "fiddly" it adds to player characters, still maintains a simpler way of codifying bugbears and goblins. A DM might care about every coin of encumbrance and the location of every belt pouch for a particular PC wizard or fighter, but NOT for individual monsters. And yet HU wants me to figure out skill packages and equipment lists for every NPC the heroes might encounter? Ugh! No way!

There are other good concepts in the game that fail in execution. Combat is still kind of a mess, as well as over-emphasized in this "thinking man's game." Some of what appears to have been "corrections" to (what was originally) a D&D chassis are over-thought, convoluted, or impractical in practice. Why bother splitting Charisma into "mental affinity" and "physical beauty?" Why bother having both "hit points" and "structural damage capacity?" And the firearms combat rules are just so...aaaaaRRRGH. I understand why they were revised (and why they were later re-revised), but going more abstract just doesn't jibe great with a combat system that was already over-specific, what with counting individual strikes and parries. The whole thing needs an over-haul.

Anyway...

Adventure setting.

The boy and I did get through the whole process of creating a character and had a chance to play an adventure; I used the "One Dam Thing" introductory adventure from Revised HU. While we didn't bother worrying how his German, rifle-toting mutant had ended up in Nevada, the nice thing about having the internet these days is that it's fairly easy to pull up specs for something like Hoover Dam (where the scenario takes place). I figured I'd saw the Revised NPCs down to 1E size (limiting Golden Eagle to just "gliding," for example).

But we never got that far. Danger Dave decided to set-up a hunting blind in one of the powerhouse outlets to the Colorado River a couple days before the projected sabotage was to take place. Failing a prowl roll and encountering a security guard, the PRINCIPLED character's first reaction was to blow him away with his .44 auto-mag, and did so with a natural 20 (critical) roll. After dumping the body in the river, he set up shop to ambush the other security guards (investigating the gunshots) with his H&K sniper rifle. Eventually this led to a bunch of State Troopers from both sides of the Arizona-Nevada border being called to the dam, where a melee ensued along the top of the structure. DD managed to dispatch maybe half a dozen troopers before being thrown off the top and plunging 762' to the concrete powerhouse below (while he succeeded at his "roll with fall" attempt, he still ended up taking 110 points of damage and splattering like a bag of blood and gristle).

A fitting end to our "hero."

Which just goes to show: Palladim games end up looking much the same whether you're eight, eighteen, or twenty-eight years old (at least, mine always have).

My boy immediately wanted to play again by the way, and has since created a new character: this time a Dedicated Martial Artist (ninja) using the Ninjas & Super-Spies set. More later, perhaps.

Class Proliferation

Just continuing from where we left off...

First off, let me say that, aside from the reasons I noted in my previous post, there's no special reason you need to have a "class system" in your role-playing game. Traveller doesn't need a class system. Neither does Pendragon or original Gamma World. There are some systems like Vampire the Masquerade that actually confuse their own design purposes by including a class system (see "clan"), though VtM does demonstrate yet another reason class systems are expedient: they limit what might otherwise be a baffling number of choices/options to a manageable number.

[I hear some folks might saying, HEY! Gamma World has classes: humanoids, mutant animals, and pure strain humans! To be clear, original GW only offers two choices: a PC with mutations or a PC without. If you choose the latter, you get some bennies when it comes to interacting with ancient technology. I don't see a "class" distinction when there's no real, mechanical difference between choices]

I'm not a stupid man (usually), but I just don't have the patience to wade through some of the character creation systems out there. I've played FATE games on multiple occasions (at conventions) and had a good time using "lite" streamlined chargen (once) or pregen characters. I own a couple-three FATE games. But I haven't run them...haven't even finished reading the rules. My eyes just start to glaze over when I start skimming the aspects and stunts and skill lists (skills! why are there always skills!). I have a much easier time managing a "light" class-less system (say Over The Edge) than something so robust...I don't want to "build" a game with a toolbox, I want to PLAY.

It may simply be that Dungeons & Dragons spoiled me a long time ago. The expedience of its class system with its distinct, recognizable archetypes just proves to be such a useful working template for fantasy adventure games that it's hard to get away from it...whenever I pick up an RPG that has  "quick-start" characters or archetypes (like Hollow Earth Expedition or Shadowrun or Deadlands), I always find myself asking 'Why didn't they just make this a class-based system? Wouldn't that have been easier?'

However, it's not always wine and roses in the world of classes. Class proliferation, the expansion of the choice list to fill an ever greater number of niche interests, can eventually lead to wrecking the joint...especially in games where the classes cease to be recognizable and/or the distinctions get muddied or outright buried. Palladium's RIFTS is probably "Exhibit A" for class proliferation leading to a loss of expedience due to proliferation: the original core book contains 28 distinct classes (or more if you count each "dragon RCC" separately) and each supplemental "World" or "Dimension"  sourcebook (more than 50 of which exist) add another half-dozen...or more!...new classes to the mix, many of which are no more than slight variations of others. Do you really need to include six variations of the juicer? For that matter, do you really need juicers and crazies and borgs? Aren't they all just enhanced/altered fighters with different downsides?

In the world of Dungeons & Dragons, class proliferation isn't nearly as extreme, but it IS present, and has been for decades. The original Little Brown Books had only three classes in 1974, increasing to five with the release of Greyhawk (1975), seven with Blackmoor (later in 1975), and nine (including the psionic variation which "drained" existing class abilities in exchange for psionic ones) with Eldritch Wizardry in 1976. That's nine classes if you're not counting each multi-class or race-class combo separately. By 1978 the AD&D Players Handbook had eleven classes available to players, with a character's race providing only slight variation (though many-many multi-class options).

While this was only officially increased to fourteen with the advent of Unearthed Arcana in 1985, the time between 1978 and 1985 saw the appearance of a number of classes in Dragon magazine, many of which were used in peoples' home campaigns (we used at least two or three, and I'm sure we would have included anti-paladins, if we'd had that copy of Dragon).

So how many classes do you really need? How many classes are "too many?"

It's pretty clear that most folks feel you need more than three (unless the capabilities of those three are so minimal in distinction that a race variation can make one feel "heavily modified;" see OD&D). But is 4th edition's 22 (spread across three PHBs), each possessing four "paragon" options (4E's equivalent of "prestige classes") that become accessible at 11th level, too many? I would certainly say, "yes," but it's possible I'm in the minority.

Classes (and class-race combos) are certainly something that can be tailored for each individual's campaign; in fact, in some games (like Rifts) I'm not sure a campaign can really function without a strong editing hand. But what a particular gaming group can stand with regard to class quantity is up for debate.

Back in D&D's "primordial ooze" days, new classes (and class options) were added in dribs and drabs until a saturation point was reached round about 1979. My evidence for this? The very unscientific fact that TSR was happy to stand pat with its "official" class list till 1985. While I realize that other things were keeping the company's main designers busy (lawsuits and finding new ways to spend their wealth), I have to think that if there'd been a real clamoring for new classes, the company would have found some way to put out a new or updated or modified PHB; heck, just a "revised edition" that included a handful of extra pages.

[by the way, this falls into the "more evidence" drawer when it comes to my idea that subsequent editions are written MAINLY for returning, experienced players. Once you've added a bunch of classes over time, veteran players come to a new edition with an EXPECTATION of being able to play with their favorite shiny bauble. It's why there's so little "pruning" that occurs between editions, despite the fact that a dozen plus classes is probably excessive for a new player]

So what, JB? Having classes is fun! Having more classes just means more options which means more fun! You just said that groups are going to vary in opinion over "how many is too many."

That's right; I did say that. I said that limits are going to vary depending on groups...but there reaches a point, with ALL campaigns, when the proliferation of classes is going to be too many. When the number of class options is so many that game play is no longer expedited. That number may vary from table to table, but each table has a number. And I think that knowing that number...or, rather, finding that number...can be useful.

I've delved into this a little bit in the past when I was reminiscing over the gaming group of my youth. While it lasted only seven or eight years, it represented a substantial investment of time (in hours spent) back before my friends and I had much in the way of responsibilities or distractions. I would estimate that we spent at least three times as much time on Dungeons & Dragons as on ANY year I've spent regularly playing as an adult, the equivalent of a 20+ year (adult) campaign. Which is about right for the power level we were often playing at.

[to be clear, we ran...roughly...three full campaigns during this time period, taking characters from 1st level up to (what would be) a retirement-worthy high level]

Most of this was played with 1st edition AD&D; our group disbanded shortly before 2nd edition was released. Including the Unearthed Arcana (we never used Oriental Adventures), here's our breakdown of classes:

Cavalier (subclass: Paladin): never used. Never ever ever. It wasn't that they weren't cool, or that we couldn't roll up characters with high enough ability scores. No one wanted to be strait-jacketed by their codes and alignment restrictions. Plus, what good is a horse in a dungeon?

Cleric (subclass: Druid): we saw several clerics over the years, though the first PC cleric did not appear until we picked up the Expert set (circa 1982) and the followers that came with high levels outweighed the lack of "oomph" at low levels. My friend Matt's longest running PC was a cleric of Athena. A visiting player brought his high level cleric to one of our game sessions (another cleric of Athena? Maybe). There were also two Drow clerics of Lloth at later points (one male, one female, both played by different players at different times); one of these (female) was multi-classed. We never had a PC druid (I rolled one up, a female half-elf with the oh-so-original name "Galadriel;" she never saw play time). One half-elf "converted" (mechanically and religiously) to a cleric of Artemis. There was also one "healer" PC, based on the NPC class published in Dragon magazine; "Fr. Cornelius" was Chaotic Evil and insane and lasted all of one session before being castrated and left for dead by his fellow party members.

Fighter (subclass: Ranger, Barbarian): my co-DM (Jocelyn) 's second oldest PC was a straight B/X fighter, and probably the most badass character to ever roam our campaign; she deserves her own post. My brother played a dwarf fighter/thief; another player (Crystal) played a 6'3" female human fighter fighter who sported about 50 weapons including a man-catcher ("to catch me a man") and exceptional (%) strength. My brother played a barbarian also ("Bork") who was killed at least once in an intra-party feud. There were a couple 1E bards who started in the ranger class (one was mine) but we never had any dedicated rangers. One of the earliest character sheets I still have stashed is a level one elf (B/X) named "Silver Fox;" no idea whose it was. Jocelyn's oldest character was a 1st level (B/X) halfling that I gave her when she randomly showed up to the first adventure I ever ran and needed a character...it is the only "halfling fighter" I remember anyone ever playing back in the day. Matt also ran a half-elf "archer," though I can't remember if this was taken from Bard Games' The Compleat Adventurer, a Dragon magazine, or was some kit-bashed combination.

Magic-User (subclass: Illusionist): quite a few of these, though most were played by one guy (Scott); his longest running PC was a straight MU named "Lucky Drake" (later "Lucius Draco"). He also ran an illusionist (who adventured through D1: Descent to the Depths of the Earth), and a (male) Drow magic-user/assassin with house-ruled pyrokinetic (psionic) ability. Also seen: a half-elven fighter/magic-user and a female (wild?) elven magic-user with red hair and a penchant for fire/arson. Now that I think of it, fire and arson were fairly common proclivities of magic-users in our games. Not Lucky, though...he was a strict lightning bolt type of mage.

Thief (subclass: Acrobat, Assassin): quite a few of ALL of these. Jason's longest running PC was a thief, grandfathered into AD&D from B/X. Matt had an assassin. Scott had the aforementioned magic-user/assassin. After the UA's release, most thieves (at least three, maybe four) chose to become thief-acrobats upon reaching 6th level (two bards did). In one campaign, my bard took assassin as his second class (instead of thief...no, this was not the guy who started as a ranger). My brother's halfling thief-acrobat was the kind of douchebag only an annoying younger brother can run. A couple of (prominent) halfling thief henchmen/NPCs. Scott ran a female half-elf thief who was brutalized and killed by a tribe of bullywugs (I1: Dwellers of the Forbidden City) in what may have been the lowest point of our many year campaign...a campaign that had MANY low points (see Matt's healer character above).

Monk: I created a monk character with the name "Soft Treader" (because I suck, okay?) who wore a cape with a hood that looked a bit like Moon Knight (not really an inspiration) and, as far as I remember never used his hand-to-hand attacks; had a crossbow and "jo sticks" instead and made it to about 2nd level before being abandoned (or killed...I honestly don't remember). Pretty sure he was Lawful Neutral, which didn't fit in all that great with the (usually Chaotic) party we were running.

Bard: three of these, though one (mine) really had three iterations across the years: first as a fighter-thief-bard, then as a ranger-acrobat-bard, and finally as a fighter-assassin-bard. The other two were both female; one (another half-elf ranger-acrobat) was a prominent NPC. The other was a crazy-ass mix of storm giant/human/elf that (I think) was of the "standard" fighter-thief variety...albeit one with a bunch of crazy air elemental type powers (this was NOT my character; another long post).

A few years after this group disbanded, I did have the opportunity to run a short (maybe three month?) AD&D campaign for my brother and some friends. They were in high school at the time and were tired of me maiming their PCs with Chaosium game systems (ElfQuest, Stormbringer, etc.). The group consisted of a fighter, a couple clerics, and an evil magic-user or two. Oh, and another (1E) bard who was sacrificed pretty early on in order to power The Machine of Lum the Mad. Since that time, I've really only run/played BECMI or B/X...at least as far as anything resembling a "campaign."

So what's the breakdown? How many different classes are we talking? Well, that's really only about EIGHT classes, plus multi-class combos and racial variation. I mean, the monk? I can hardly call a class played in one or two sessions by a single player (probably one just "trying out" the new rules) as really viable class. Other than the thief, most single-class characters were a "main" class: fighter, cleric, or magic-user. Subclasses were something to be shoehorned into a multi-class character (or bard) or left for NPCs. The thief subclasses were the exception for us, and I'd guess this was due mostly to them all being "thief PLUS" type classes: they had all the abilities of a thief, plus extra abilities. And UN-like other subclasses (paladins, rangers, barbarians, etc.) there were no behavioral restrictions mandated by their class. Any rule that restricted us with regard to who we could loot and what we could carry (treasure-wise) was enough to render classes undesirable and untouchable.

Getting crowded in here...

If we had played without behavior restrictions, would we have made use of more classes? Possibly. Certainly the cavalier's "boost ability score over time" looks like the kind of tasty exploit we would have lapped up. But it's hard to say: the original four B/X classes (fighter, magic-user, cleric, and thief) were so straightforward in how they worked. A class like illusionist seemed pretty easy to add, because it was (mainly) just about swapping out the spell list. And you can do a LOT with four classes, a handful of races, and an ability to combine the two (or more) elements.

Which, unfortunately, doesn't really answer my question.

I just want to add a couple-three more thoughts (as I wrap up an already-too-long post): one is that my remembering of my old campaigns' classes is probably not accounting how much of our enthusiasm or affinity for a particular class was due to level restrictions. No one played dwarves (for example) because they max level was capped in all but the thief class (and who wanted to play a dwarf thief? He can't even climb walls!). This was a major consideration for us "back in the day."

Secondly, regarding 3rd edition (and 3.5 and, by extension, Pathfinder): I've played this brand of D&D and despite it only having only 11 "core classes" (we won't count the later "Complete" line of 3.5 that added at least 12 additional "core classes" to the mix), it was TOO MANY for my taste, simply because of the lack of restriction in combination. I suppose there's nothing "wrong" with a gnome or half-orc ranger...in some ways, that's a nice option to have, an example of "outside-the-box" thinking, casting against type, etc. But there IS something about allowing (for example) ANY race to become a paladin, or a monk, or whatever that makes a class that once felt special and privileged to be "less special." And the open-ended multi-classing? That defeats the whole purpose (and advantages) of having a class-based system; instead you're doing a class-less system, just not one as robust as other "point-buy" RPGs (like GURPS).

In the original AD&D PHB, there were a total of 56 race-class combinations available to player characters (58 in games that allowed the human and half-elf bard options). 22 of these were specific, demihuman multi-classes, almost all of which were composed of primary classes (not subclasses). 50 is probably more than one will see in a long-running game (mine used less than half this number, and we enjoyed trying out new things and tinkering)...but I can see wanting to have 150% to 200% more available than what one would expect to find over the life of a campaign. For me, based on my past experience, 40 would feel like a pretty safe maximum.

Besides, I could always add more if some player really REALLY wanted to have something unusual (a half-giant pyrokinetic archer, for example).
; )

Aw, Jeez...

[sorry...contracted a bit of a cough and my wife made me sleep today; this should have been up in the morning]

So, as I spent some time going through the Palladium hand-to-hand combat tables the other day in anticipation of re-working them to function a little better. Unfortunately, I found that...despite Palladium's well-established reputation for cut-n-paste rules text...there was no universality to the tables. Yes, each system I checked (and I compared all three editions of Heroes Unlimited, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1st ed.), and Ninjas & Superspies) included the standard four HTH systems (basic, expert, martial arts, and assassin), but each edition tweaks the individual entries on the table.

What a cluster.

I don't say that simply due to irritation with my inability to come up with a stable operating baseline for streamlining the system. I say that because it's a goddamn cluster for anyone who plays in the Palladium multiverse and who has bridged the gap between editions and systems, which (I suspect) is one of the main draws to keeping fans of this rot. I mean, what the actual f***?!  Consider:

• Characters created/advanced in one system will have their combat stats (kind of a big deal in these games) out-of-whack for any other system (or edition!) they're 'ported into.
• NPC write-ups in various games and supplements...who knows which system/edition is being used to generate their stat blocks and whether or not they're even correct for the specific system/edition they're supposed to represent.
• When actually sitting down to play a session, folks are going to need to decide which particular system/edition is the actual one that's going to stand as the house rules of the game...never mind "taking the show on the road" (bringing characters in from other campaigns, allowing characters to migrate, convention play, etc.).

'Oh, JB! You're just pissing and moaning again! Who cares whether a roll with punch bonus if off by +1 or +2? Who cares if one character's write-up gives her a critical strike on a 17+ and this other character needs to roll a 19+ despite having the same level and HTH style? Who cares if there's an extra melee attack gained or lost or if a character's kick attack does 1D6 or 1D8 damage? Isn't all your bitching and moaning just nit-picking?'

Hey, pal, how about I just write some fucking random numbers down for my own character's (or my NPC's) stat block without even looking at the rulebook? What? You object? I mean, it's just all arbitrary, subjective yada-yadda, right? Let's not nit-pick rules...just throw 'em out the window, yeah? I mean, it's all just about having fun, after all, so why stress about getting stuff right?

Riiiight.

Folks, rules matter. They're not the end-all-be-all of RPGs, but they still matter. There are games that have too few, there are games that have too many, and there are individuals who have subjective tastes on where exactly the poles are for those two extremes. Regardless, though, rules still matter. It's why we are playing a game rather than just sitting around telling stories or "playing pretend" without the benefit of textual instructions.

Anyway...fact of the matter is I never actually noticed this about the Palladium systems. I (like many others I'm sure) simply assumed all the HTH tables were simple cut-n-paste jobs, just like the experience section or the alignment section or the SDC/HP section or all the other stuff that IS simply copied from one rulebook to another. They're not...which unfortunately makes my idea a little tough to execute.

Or perhaps it makes it easier...since now I know I just need to scrap the whole HTH concept and come up with something different so as to make the game work in a nice, logical, streamlined fashion.

All right...cough medicine is starting to kick in. Will post something other than Palladium thoughts tomorrow (if I have a chance).

Streamlining Palladium Combat

There are three levels of "informed opinion" when it comes to Palladium's combat system (and here I'm writing about the multiversal system found in such games as Rifts, 2nd Edition Heroes Unlimited,  Nightbane, etc.):

- Folks who've been played through the evolution of the game (a bit more than three decades worth)
- Folks who've come "late to the game" (circa 1990 or later)
- Folks who haven't played but know the system solely by reputation or cursory reading

[I suppose the latter category might include folks who listen to podcasts and such, though I've found few of those on the 'net, and many of those are already...mmm...100% "by the book"]

Here's the thing to understand: Palladium combat has never been all that different from old edition D&D with A) added complexity, and B) active defense. Wrap your head around those two things and its not that hard to get a handle on it...nor deconstruct the system. Complexity isn't all that big a deal...crunch (what some might call clunkiness) is largely a matter of taste. Furthermore, the evolution of the game....development of, say, robot piloting and missiles (Robotech), supernatural strength and knock-backs (Rifts), MDC (Robotech/Rifts), vehicle combat (HU Revised), etc....has necessitated the addition of complexity over the years the system has been around.

So let's talk about "active defense."

The basic sequence of Palladium combat works like this: attacker rolls to strike against a target number of 5 or better (8 in ranged combat, post-Rifts), using a D20. Defender than chooses a defensive action, most often a parry or dodge, and rolls a D20. If the defensive roll equals or exceeds the roll to strike, the defender avoids damage.

[the additional wrinkle of rolling with damage...basically a saving throw to resist non-lethal-types of damage (punches) for half damage...helps draw out and emulate slugfests of the superhero or martial arts genre, or (in the case of rolling with "missile strikes") the giant robot anime genre]

One melee round =
45 minutes actual play

D&D uses a passive defense for resolving attack actions in melee: the D20 roll is compared to a target number determined by a defender's "armor class." While this has the advantage of being simple and streamlined, plenty of folks have argued for a system that takes into account a defender's "combat ability" with regard to defense, hence the creation of systems like Palladium or BRP (which, while %-based, still has the strike roll followed by defense roll). D20 actually provided a system of accounting for "combat ability" that did not involve armor (or rather, de-emphasized armor) with their Saga edition of Star Wars RPG, where character level created the "defensive class" target number for attacks, and something similar can be done with Palladium.

I look to the old White Wolf World of Darkness RPGs for an idea of how to handle this. In some of WW's games (I'm thinking the original VtM and WtA, but I'm too lazy to pull the books at the moment), the system provided the option of using an "active" or "passive" version of defense. In the case of Palladium (with its D20 base), you simply provide a defensive class ("DC") of 10 + bonuses. Bonuses can come from ability scores (physical prowess), certain classes (maybe), and choice of HTH skill (the real determination of combat differential between characters, rather than class ("OCC") as it is in D&D). In a game like Heroes Unlimited, certain superpowers (super speed, extraordinary prowess, heightened senses, etc.) might factor as well.

There's really no need to have separate parry and dodge skills...the only practical difference between the two defenses is that A) parry cannot be used against bullets and energy attacks, and B) dodge uses up one of a character's melee attacks (see below) to execute. Since the bonuses for both tend to be about the same (pre-1987 this wasn't the case as the Speed attribute could add a hefty bonus to dodge in 1st edition TMNT and HU), folks almost always opt to parry unless they can't (because of the type of attack).

Now about those melee attacks: one of the defining complexities of Palladium's system is that nearly all characters receive a number of multiple actions per combat turn as determined by their level, HTH type, and character class (and don't forget the +1 if you're smart enough to take the boxing skill!). Depending on the specific game, it's not unusual for a 1st level character to have three or four actions (called "melee attacks") per round. Just like 3E (and later) D&D, Palladium uses individual initiative (uses a D20, too!) but a strict rotation to utilize those actions (so you don't get your second action till everyone's had a turn, in other words). Actions may be used up in defensive maneuvers prior to their number in the turn order (for example, when executing a dodge), but one is only allowed to execute an attack when their number comes up (unless executing a "simultaneous attack" maneuver). Initiative order does not change from round to round.

[while that may seem cut-n-dry, there are some sticky places. For example, first edition HU has a bit more info on melee attacks, describing them as actions taken in one 15 second round, everything from lacing one's shoes to disarming an explosive device; from page 124:

"Example: the hero unhooks his grappling hook from his belt (one action), throws it across the neighboring roof top (second action), tests the line to see if it's secure (3rd action), and then leaps off his building swinging down to the other (4th action) in an attempt to smash through a window in that building. To determine if he successfully hits and smashes through the window the player must roll twenty sided die to strike his target."

(I laugh a bit knowing that the most fragile glass window in the book is 20 SDC and the player is likely to go "splat" against it, rather than breaking it...but I digress)

How this would actually take place (assuming the character is executing such a complex maneuver in the midst of combat...the only reason to be concerned with actions/melee) is a little wonky. Does the player have to forgo defense to conserve actions while attempting this course? I'd assume so. Would successful (damaging) attacks distract the character to the point that he can't 'test the line,' (or makes an inaccurate assessment) or whatever? Probably. Probably it all comes down to a lot of GM rulings, but that's what you get with such a system]

I think I'm on record (multiple times) with my disdain for systems like this that attempt to model specific "blow-by-blow" actions in a role-playing game. Give me an abstract system that allows me add "narrative color" (making an exciting combat) based on success of attack rolls and amount of damage rolls. So what exactly is it that we stand to lose if we forgo the melee actions? Better yet, how can we try to model the same things while losing this (IMO) silly attempt to objectively quantify time and action in the subjective chaos of a combat encounter?

Well, if we eliminate the idea of "attacks per melee" completely (might as well if we've eliminated active defense from the equation and combined both parrying and dodging into a single "passive" target number), we can still give our player's some options with regard to combat maneuvers during their opponent's turn (which is really what most of those actions are being used for). For example, in addition to their one attack action per turn, each player is allowed to:

- perform an entangle move on a melee attacker
- execute a simultaneous attack while allowing the attacker to automatically hit
- take no action because the character was dodging (i.e. using her passive defense against bullets or ranged energy attacks)

But what about the character with the multiple attacks and the auto-parry who is engaged in hand-to-hand fighting who would normally make three or four strike attacks? I hear your concern, but this is a matter of balancing bonuses attack and damage rolls based on level and ability. Having the ability to make multiple attacks means having multiple opportunities to inflict damage, i.e. an IMPROVED chance to inflict MORE damage. This is a matter of re-writing the hand-to-hand tables to reflect bonuses to both (to hit and damage) at levels where extra melee attack actions would normally be gained. If I have a chance, I'll try to mock up a couple of examples for folks (in a later post).

Things like modern (firearm) combat (aimed, short burst, long burst, etc.) can likewise be streamlined to simple attack/damage adjustments based on ammo expenditure. Similarly with rocket/missile attacks.

What about robot pilot combat (and the extra attacks afforded the martial artist robot pilot), i.e. the Max Sterling Emulator gambit? Look, there's a lot of problems with using the Palladium system (or other "old school" type RPGs) to attempt to model manga-style anime. Trying to accomplish that and then reverse-grafting said model onto other Palladium systems that utilize dudes wearing mech-suits in combat (see Heroes Unlimited 2E and Rifts) is doubling-down on the clunk. Personally, I'd treat a heroic dude (or dudette) in a robot chassis as no different from any non-pilot hero, simply providing augmented stats based on the power suit being sported. I mean, this whole post is about streamlining, right?

All right, that's enough for now. Might need a follow-up post or two on the subject.

First Edition (Heroes Unlimited)

Happy Thanksgiving! Yes, I'm still alive (cue the usual apologies and excuses for dropping off the face of blog-o-sphere). In fact, I just had my 45th birthday which is...wow...so old, man. Too old to be working on re-imagining myself but, well, that's what I'm doing these days.

[it's going okay, just in case anyone is wondering]

As usual, there are plenty of thinks in my think-box that I should be emptying onto the internet, but this particular one is a beaut (short for "beauty") that I've just got to share it: 1st edition Heroes Unlimited. Wow.

But first: some quick background. I've related before that I was introduced to HU by some buddies who I met my first year in high school, namely Michael, Mike, and Ben. I don't know how they got into Paladium games, but they were longtime fans of comic books and anime (they also played Robotech) and Kevin Siembieda's comic book-based sensibilities probably appealed to them (they were all artists as well...Ben continues to persists as a starving artist-illustrator to this day).

I, on the other hand, had used TSR's Marvel Superheroes as my go-to supers RPG from 1984-1988, including both the original and "Advanced" editions. Moving to HU was more about finding a new group to play with than any especial interest in the system...despite the appeal of HU's granularity (which I've blogged about before) my actual experiences with the game were fairly mediocre. I did love (and hate) Rifts...but we're not talking about that today.

Anyway, I was able to borrow my buddies' copies of HU (and Robotech and Ninjas & Superspies, etc.), and the system seemed straightforward enough, but it wasn't exactly new to me. After all, I'd owned a copy of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles & Other Strangeness for a couple years (at least), though I hadn't done much more than make characters and run a couple encounters with my brother.

Many decades later, I picked up a copy of the 2nd edition of Heroes Unlimited and, somewhat surprisingly found myself disappointed with it. Not because of the failure to overhaul the system, nor because of the recycled art, nor even the substantial bloat on display (understandable in light of the rules additions that have occurred over the years of Paladium publications). No, mainly I was irritated that despite the increased page count (352 pages compared to the prior edition's 248 pages), the new HU failed to contain the sample adventure scenarios I'd enjoyed running for new players as a way of introducing the game. A few years later (circa 2012) I would purchase a copy of Heroes Unlimited Revised...the game I had owned and played as a teen...mainly to have access to these adventures.

Both of these are available as PDFs on DriveThruRPG, by the way. But there's an even earlier version of Heroes Unlimited that's not available for sale...the original, un-Revised version, which I've been trying to track down for the last year or so. I was intrigued, you see, by the snippets in the Revised edition's introduction that described the "original" version; the version that had started selling in 1984 and (three years later) was one of the few supers RPGs really "cornering" the market. This month, I finally decided to pull the trigger on a $13 eBay copy. It only arrived in my mailbox a couple days ago.

Wow.

At 155 pages, the original Heroes Unlimited is only two-thirds the age count of the 1987 Revised edition...and yet, in many ways it's a superior product. The layout is different...different from the cut-n-paste jobs of your usual Paladium product. Combat procedures come after character creation (including class write-ups). Insanity rules are at the end of the book...like an appendix or optional section...instead of being right up front. There's an index...how many Paladium products have an index?!

Sure there's some weirdness...character classes (i.e. "power types") aren't listed in alphabetical order, for example. And while I understand aliens being listed last (because they borrow powers from the types that come before them), why should robotics be listed first? And all the equipment being listed in the hardware character's section makes some sense, I suppose, but I prefer it in a "neutral" section of the book (since other characters use equipment, duh).

Still, there's an index (this fact cannot be overstated). And there are other thing the game gets very right. Siembieda's notes and explanations make more sense in this particular layout. Reasons...valid, insightful reasons, are provided for the use of random generation in chargen, and other aspects of the game, including the "one superpower per character" system. Have folks seen The Incredibles? There was a time when the majority of comic characters had but a single superpower (like the original X-Men) rather than a suite of superpowers (like Wolverine). But a "single power" can include a host of benefits (for example, "underwater abilities" or "stretching")...and HU does this, in its original format.

The power creep is extremely apparent when one compares the various editions. A physical training character in HU Revised has the ability to do a "power punch" for extra damage (though doing so uses one of the character's multiple attacks). In HU 2E the character actually possesses superhuman strength, doing incredible damage even with normal punches and throwing around cars and such. In the original HU? The physical training character simply benefits from having a few extra physical skills (like hockey!) to help increase his/her ability scores...nothing superhuman about it.

Batman in this edition of HU would simply be a  rich dude with a bunch of skills and a high level of experience...no genius with preternatural wit and vast repository of knowledge; no special ability to anticipate a foe's weakness or next move. You can do Batman with this game, but he'd be a very human vigilante. I find that I like this a lot.

Notice: no "Revised" on the title page.

Here, too, are Siembieda's notes on building characters using the notorious Paladium skill sets. Longtime players of Paladium games know which physical skills to take to gain bonuses to abilities, SDC, and combat (everyone takes "boxing," for example, because it gives an extra melee attack, in addition to its other bonuses). It's a twink-player's dream...and yet, Mr. Siembieda lays out this is the exact correct path to take: of course, crime-fighting heroes are going to study as many physical skills as possible, in order to boost their abilities! It goes hand-in-hand with the random dicing of attributes: not everyone is born with a fantastic set of genetic traits. Heroes are made, not born, and the smart hero will pursue rigorous courses to improve their body/shape before embarking on a career as a vigilante. Makes perfect sense!

Then there's the adventure. Did you catch the whiff of nostalgia earlier when I talked about the starter scenario in HU Revised? Okay, it's pretty dumb. The "Crime Masters" (a trio of super-crooks) have kidnapped a bunch of civilians in an adventure aptly titled The Mall of Terror. All things considered, it's pretty silly: they want $3 million or they'll blow up the mall (and the hostages), and it's up to the players to do something. The scenario is all of three pages, including the villain write-ups and illustrations (which consume most of the space).

Welp, in the original first edition HU the Crime Masters are also present, but the adventure scenario has changed completely. It is called Betrayal and comprises ten pages plus a three-page comic that acts as a "prelude" to the adventure. It's no mindless slugfest in a mall or shoot-up in a stuffer shack; instead there's complex machinations, multiple factions (including an organized crime syndicate, a police force faced with internal strife, the general public and PR complications of a "licensing" super-types, plus the Crime Masters), multiple "missions" (a jewel theft/heist, an elaborate ambush, and a potential hideout siege scenario), as well as numerous NPC personalities (not just villains to punch) all of whom have their own backstory and motivations PLUS the seeds to grow a long-term campaign.  It's pretty darn cool and utterly missing from later editions.
                                 
Look, I realize I'm foaming a bit at the mouth here. Original Heroes Unlimited is not a perfect game, nor even one I'd be willing to play without modification (there were good reasons for revising some parts of HU). But it's far more complete and far less cringe-worthy than most Paladium games. And the style in which it's written and laid out is just so much more methodical and logical and coherent than later Siembieda games. For me, it adds another piece of evidence to the thought that has been recurring in my brain lately: 2nd (and later) editions of games are mainly...if not only...of use to people who are already familiar with the first edition. Most first edition RPGs I've come across are simply better...in terms of design, focus, and coherence...than their descendant games. I'm sure there are outliers, but I just think it's very difficult to re-write a game without incorporating a bunch of conceits and assumptions inherited from its original format...which limits the accessibility of second (and later) revisions to the new player/reader.

Anyhoo, I'd certainly judge that to be the case with regard to Heroes Unlimited. There are so many interesting tidbits to it, I'd really like to do a "deep dive," multi-post series exploring its various pieces and moving parts. Don't know if that'll happen any time soon (it's the holiday season, which means lots of traveling for Yours Truly), but I think it would be fun to look at...perhaps post notes on how I'd clean up the messier bits.

[despite the fact such a series would be, I suppose, an "unauthorized derivative work" of Palladium's copyrighted material, my reading of copyright law is that it would still fall under the "fair use" doctrine...thus shielding me from potential litigation (something that, previously, has always made me hesitant to do serious analysis of Palladium books here at Ye Old Blog)]

All right, that's enough blather for now. Hope everyone's having a happy one!

[yes, I know Thanksgiving was yesterday...I only got around to finishing my post this morning]

Another Thursday, Another Cup o Coffee

Plenty of musings the last couple weeks (as well as one near-finished post about *mumble*mumble* paladins sitting on the draft board), leading me to my usual predicament: too much to say and little hope of putting together a coherent blog post.

But as I'm at the Baranof, fairly coffee'd up, and out of blogs and sports news to read (I mean, do I really care the Mariners have picked up a player for their godawful bullpen? They've only been above .500 once this season!), I might as well write something. Writing something is better than writing nothing. In fact, it's a LOT better: I almost always feel better after doing so.

Like I'm getting something accomplished or something.

Watching Ye Old Television the other day (late at night) I was struck again by the thought of how many gaming geeks must have fallen into the business of producing, scripting, and directing business.  Caught a bit of some Transformers sequel (don't ask me which. I watched the first one in the theater when it came out years ago and have since tapped out), and could not help but think THIS is what Siembieda is trying to convey with the whole S.D.C. versus M.D.C. thing. THIS is Rifts (or Robotech or whatever): giant alien un-killable monsters that snap their fingers and inflict huge amounts of property damage. Clearly the creators of this series used to play Palladium around the cafeteria table in high school, same as me and my old buddies.

Watching the new Game of Thrones season kick-off I was again struck by the thought of how much it looks like someone's old school D&D campaign, just bashed together with house rules and shoot-from-the-hip historic analogues thrown in. How does an assassin use their disguise ability? Like this: some magical latex mask that you can whip out of your pocket at the drop of a hat (I went back and reread my old PHB and DMG and could find nothing that would contradict the way a "faceless man's" ability is portrayed in the show). Who needs fake beards and padded clothes? Not these guys.

[there is quite a bit more in the books on the manufacture of poisons, but nothing that would preclude the kinds of mass assassination...with as little explanation...as what we see in GoT]

Same holds true for the undead (someone likes their wights!), or rangers, or...well, you get the point. Game of Thrones the show (I haven't read more than a couple of the novels) feels a lot like an OD&D campaign run by some curmudgeonly Old Schooler who said, "We're going to get rid of humanoids and just cannibal hill people," and "We're really going to dial back on the availability of magic in the game" while still retaining out-and-out gonzo elements.

[actually, reminds me a bit of Gus over at Dungeon of Signs]

You still have your plate-armor wearing dudes in a world without gunpowder. You still have your magic weapons ("Valerian steel"). You still have "raise dead" though on a much smaller (and darker) scale. Heck, you still have dragons...but these are much more of the Chainmail type (and used in the same way) than the latter-day McCaffery-color-based creatures.

Anyway...

What other bits of gaming geekery did I spot on the screen recently? Hmm...something, but it's escaping me at the moment. I know I see all sorts of moments in the superhero genre that seems to have been influenced by gaming...but then, as superhero games have been influenced by the comic book genre, it's possible that I'm just confusing the origin of the tropes.

One show that inspired gaming (rather than the other way around) was the old Robotech TV-series (translated and re-branded from an even older Japanese series. Well, three series, but whatever...). The kids and I finally finished watching the first season of that (the "Macross saga") on Netflix last week. It was still a lot of fun (I haven't seen it in decades), and even Minmei's music, while grating, was bearable. Of course, my children are now singing her songs all the time...

Still lurking in some bargain bins...

Of course, we had to go out and look for a copy of Palladium's old Robotech RPG so that we could play. And fortunately we were able to pick up a used copy for $10. Man, I haven't played or run that game for...well, for decades. I had a trio of gaming buddies in high school (Michael, Mike, and Ben) who LOVED anime and comics and we're huge Robotech players...they were my introduction to the game (as well as Heroes Unlimited), and I had a chance to borrow their books and play it with them on one or two occasions.

Funny enough, now owning my own copy, it's pretty much what I remember: a mess of a game which uses the Palladium system in a manner that makes it really, really difficult to capture the feel or themes of the show. Not even via the combat system (which is Palladium's emphasis). *sigh*

[I'll have to write more about my high school gaming sometime. Those guys introduced me to the extended Palladium catalogue...I'd only ever played TMNT prior...and I introduced them to Stormbringer, BattleTech, and Vampire the Masquerade. This was during the twilight years of TSR and we NEVER played "those games." At least not together...]

Diego REALLY wanted to play Robotech (of course), but just running the chargen is So Damn Boring And Slow (all those useless skills...) that we quickly gave up and decided to write our own, streamlined game. I've got a couple-three pages of notes for the thing so far, and if I can get my kid to draw some robot pictures maybe I'll publish it as an e-book or something. I'm pretty happy with what I've got so far, but I'd still like to work in various Robotech-isms to make the game something other than a map-less war-game. We'll see, we'll see...fortunately, it's a pretty lightweight project so I might be able to bang it out in a week or so (Ha! I've said that before!) if I can find some time between the playdates and summertime chores (yard sale this Saturday...).

Let's see what else have I been up to...? A lot of game-related, post-apocalyptic stuff (infer what you will). But that's a subject for another post (waaaaaay too long). Oh, I met someone who's known and worked with Mike Mearls and we had an interesting conversation about him (nothing bad). Picked up a new RPG that has perhaps the coolest presentation ever...hoping to run that one in August (when my family is out-o-town). What else, what else...

Eh. That's enough for now. I need to finish this coffee and make a run to the post-office. For those who bothered to read my ramblings, thank you! It feels good to get some of this clutter out of my noggin (perhaps my next post will meander less).

Oh, By The Way: print copies of my B/X Companion are about 60-70% sold. If you've been wanting to order a copy, I wouldn't wait too long...not sure when I'll get around to doing another print run.

Re-Tooling Combat (for FUN!)

Another "thought exercise;" AKA Putting Off The Taxes.

Part of the problem with addressing a single element of RPG combat (like the form and function of armor mechanics) is that you're messing with a complex system that's elements have been designed to work in tandem. At best, it's a "patch" that (often) causes other problems to raise their head, not the least of which might be an impact on that all important playability (making a system clunkier in play, reducing the overall "fun level"). At worse, a change in a single element might cause the whole system to fall apart, and/or wreck playability to a point where it's more fun to not play (or play something different).

"Ooo, how melodramatic, JB." Look, folks...I'm not saying you can't tinker. But I'd guess there are other folks out there (like myself) who have tried other RPGs and simply found they disliked their mechanics for one reason or another, and have set aside a system completely because of it. In fact, I know there are, judging by the blog posts I've read around the internet of people adapting specific game settings to their own favorite system rather than use the system intended by a game's designer. Sometimes a "patch" just doesn't work...and people have different preferences when it comes to the games they play. It happens.

ANYway...when it comes to a complex game system (like combat), tinkering with important elements of said system simply to match your "world view" can have problematic consequences. To really make your system work, sometimes you've got to go for a complete rebuild...if only to ensure that all the different interconnected elements are working together.

FOR EXAMPLE: say you're using the standard D&D combat chassis. You roll a D20 and compare the result to your probability of hitting based on two parts: your character's class/level, and the defender's "armor class." Simple enough, right? But if you restructure "armor" to act as a form of damage reduction (as many game systems do), then what are you rolling against? A reduced "AC" based solely on dexterity and/or magical bonuses? As the alternate rules in Dawn of the Emperors points out, this will result in "a lot more hitting" with less damage being inflicted (at least against armored types). Perhaps this will appeal to some folks ("hey, I whiff less often!"), but it feels like it would simply draw out a fairly simple (often uninteresting) combat system.

There are other alternatives: Saga Star Wars bases a target's AC (I think it might be called "defensive class") on the defender's level of experience (higher level characters are harder to hit), and something like that might be adapted. Games where combat rolls are unopposed skill checks (like Chaosium's base system) only tracks the attacker's proficiency ("If I roll under 75% I hit, and then your armor reduces damage!"), but doesn't account for the defensive ability of the opponent except as an additional system (parry skill, dodge skill) made to resist. Palladium kind of splits the difference: melee rolls use a D20 and any roll over 5 "hits" (yay!), but then needs to exceed a defender's defensive roll (parry/dodge) IF the defender chooses to do so, and THEN perhaps another roll to reduce damage (roll with blow), before finding out how armor reduces damage (which is dependent on the initial roll and the armor's Armor Rating and Structural Damage Capacity).

Palladium system's are over on the extreme side of granularity in combat (though I'd argue against them modeling any type of "reality") but they're certainly not the MOST granular. That distinction belongs to The Riddle of Steel, whose system I won't bother to detail here, as it's system mastery requirements are a bit outside the pay range of myself and most of the dudes I play with.

Instead, let's just stick with D&D for the moment. What's nice about D&D (for me) is it's ABSTRACT nature. In a ten second round, my mind's eye imagines two combatants attacking back and forth and the success of their attacks can all be boiled down to a couple D20 rolls. Still, though, there are aspects that bug me: should a 1st level cleric really have the same chance to damage a 3rd level fighter, given that they're both wearing plate-&-mail and they're weapons do D6 damage? Should a wizard really be wicked in a knife fight? I had the chance to watch a midnight showing of The Revenant last Friday (need to write about THAT), and the whole climactic battle I'm thinking, who the hell thought it was a good idea to make the dagger the go-to weapon of a spindly academic?

SO (just to keep going with the thought exercise), if we take armor out of the equation, and we decide we want to leave combat abstract (unlike the multiple maneuver monstrosity of TROS), how can we determine if a character's attack is successful? Well, just looking at man-to-man...er, human-to-human combat for the moment, let's consider perhaps the concept that (given both individuals are aware of each other and fight-worthy) the chance of inflicting mortal injury comes down to your own combat ability in relation to your opponent. In other words, if you're a better fighter than your opponent, you'll have an easier time, and if not, you'll have a harder time.

Sound good? Well, I'm going with it anyway. Exactly what determines "combat ability" is pretty easy with respect to humans: training and experience (i.e. class and level) with fitness/athleticism (ability bonuses) playing some part, too...perhaps as a bonus or penalty. It would be a ridiculous exercise in "clunk" for me to do up tables cross-referencing every level of every class against every other level of every class, so what I need is some sort of short-hand for cross-referencing. For example, what level of experience would a cleric need to be to have the same combat ability as a 4th level fighter? 7th? 9th? In B/X a cleric of levels 5-8 have the same attack abilities of a fighter of levels 4-6, and while I may not agree with the scale of B/X, I do agree that when determining combat proficiency, there should be tiers of ability, with each tier containing a range of levels. It's not just as simple as "gain a level, earn a +1 base attack bonus."

[of course, that's my own bias when it comes to modeling. For me, there just shouldn't be much difference between a 4th level fighter and a 6th level fighter when it comes to attack ability...we tend to learn in stages and have sudden "leaps" of realization. In my experience fencing, I can easily take apart someone who has little or no experience, but would be hard-pressed against people of equal experience unless I had some advantage in athleticism (not bloody likely). Meanwhile, I might score a few touches against an opponent with a couple more years of experience, but would be hard pressed to win...and against my old instructor (only a few years older than myself) I probably wouldn't score even a point. And he wasn't even in the same league as individuals who pursue the sport on a national or international level...]

So, strike bands (as in bandwidth)...that's what I'm calling my "tiers of combat ability." Consider a range of about five bands (labeled A-E), with A being your average "normal, non-combatant trying to fight" and E being reserved for truly legendary fighters (and non-fighters being limited to D as their maximum ability). Strike bands would be cross referenced to find the target number needed for an attack to succeed, with two opponents of equal ability having a 50% of succeeding on an attack and success being adjusted upwards (and downwards) from that baseline.

It's not really a new concept...very similar to Warhammer (the war-game's) comparison of WS versus WS in melee combat to determine the number needed on a D6 (WS stands for "weapon skill" and represents hand-to-hand ability). My initial thought would be to have the percentages scale like: 95% (the maximum...for an attacker with 3+ strike bands more than the opponent), then 85%, 75%, 50% (even ability), 25%, 15%, 5% (the minimum...against a defender with 3+ strike ranks more than the attacker).

[there is a degree of diminishing returns. I would fare no better against an Olympic-level fencer than I would against my instructor (at least, back when we were both in our primes)...but I'd fare no worse, either. I mean, how do you do worse than "losing quickly and embarrassingly?"]

The neat thing about the strike band idea is that it's fairly easy to slide them up or down to account for  specific circumstances. A fighter using a shield increases her strike band by one when defending (for example). A magic weapon increases a strike band by one (when attacking). Characters using missile weapons would simply use strike band A, and then range would be considered for defense (with A, B, and C corresponding to short, medium, and long). Specialist marksmen could increase their missile strike band to B. Cover could increase range by one step (to a maximum of D).

Monsters would be assigned strike bands based on their size, speed, and general ferocity. I can see something like:

A: used for creatures who are small (kobolds) or slow (skeletons and zombies)
B: used for man-killers (orcs, tigers, etc.)
C: used for exceptionally large monsters (ogres, trolls, etc.)
D: used for incredibly fast, strong critters (dragons, bloodthirsters, tyrannosaurus rex, etc.)

You could even combine it with 5E's advantage/disadvantage mechanic. A (slow) giant might use strike band D with disadvantage, while super heroic types (vampires, wraiths) might use strike band C with advantage. Ability bonuses (for strength and dexterity) would still add to the D20 roll (yes, I'd change those percentages into D20 target numbers) rather than shifting strike bands.

Anyway...that's just one idea. I'm sure there are others. Now, I really need to get back to my taxes.

+1 Strike Band (offense AND defense)
when attacking unmounted opponents