Thoughts on the Pre-Modern Mindset

I recently finished reading Juval Noah Harari's Sapiens. Yeah, it's a decade old by now. I'm behind the times. I may finally get around to watching Black Mirror or Star Trek: Enterprise now that I'm done with the book. 

I received the book a few years back from a friend who was leaving Korea. He dumped a bunch of books on me. This one intrigued me, since a libertarian friend of mine had sworn up and down that the book was total garbage. I was curious about what the book might have said that would make him hate it so much, especially since I'd mentally lumped it into the "Oprah-lectual" category with books like anything by Malcolm Gladwell or Thomas Friedman. The sort of book that's a best-seller because it's just smart enough to make the uneducated in a particular field feel educated about that field after reading it, but it's really actually fairly superficial. People who've read it pretend they're experts on the subject at cocktail parties. That sort of book.

Wow, I sound like such a book snob, reading that over again. Well, so be it. I'm not too particular about the fiction I read. B-class dreck, if it's entertaining, is fine with me. But I read way too much serious academic writing for work to be impressed by these pop-academic works. 

Well, Sapiens was interesting, after all. I have some quibbles. Harari seems suitably cautious with some of his pre-historic claims early in the book, but presents other claims about pre-history as dead certain. That makes me wary of his historic claims as well. But overall, it gave me not so much better insight into humanity as a whole, but some ideas that might translate to better gaming. So that's a win. 

The final third or so of the book, if you haven't read it, makes a big argument that the Scientific Revolution, Capitalism, and Imperialism are intricately linked and without all three happening in Europe around 500 years ago, the world would have just kept chugging along Medieval style until now. The reason is that people before that time, or in other areas of the world around that time and for some time after, were convinced that there was nothing new to be learned about the world. The Ancients had had it all figured out (or it had been handed to people by gods in ancient times) and so there was no need to be curious. No need to innovate. And even if people had been curious, without capitalism to fund it and imperialism to support capitalism, the science never would have caught on. 

I'm a bit dubious of that claim. But I'm not a historian, so I'll not try to argue the point. 

I will focus on that mindset Harari presents for the Pre-Modern. 

There's no need to innovate, we already do things in the best way possible. We (as a society) already know all there is worth knowing.

Obviously, that isn't true. Technology did advance over the centuries. People did learn new things. People did go out and explore beyond the horizon. Sure, the pace was slow, compared to the Renaissance through Industrial Revolution, and glacial compared to the rate of change these days. But there still were people who were curious, and who figured new things out. 

But the vast majority of people were still pretty complacent. Really, the vast majority still are today. That's why you get people at school board meetings or elected officials saying things like "I didn't have to learn all this new-fangled gobbledy-gook when I was a kid. Readin', writin', and 'rythmatic is all the kids need to learn today."

So how does this relate to D&D (and other medieval-style fantasy games)? 

First, I think it would argue against the idea of "magic as technology" seen in settings like Eberron. As post-moderns, we might like to think that trains and telephones and the like would inevitably be developed by industrious mages. But if we consider the pre-modern mindset as laid out by Harari (assuming it's true), that likely wouldn't happen. 

Most wizards and clerics would be hoarding their magical powers, leveraging the rarity of them for their own benefit. Making magi-tech that benefits all in society, or assuming that there are hundreds of low level craft-mages making society chug along, would weaken the power of the mighty wizards and patriarchs/matriarchs. 

Besides, those clerics have access to commune with the Powers that Be. Surely, if non-spell imbued religious leaders in our own history could make the real-world populace believe that all the insights of the Heavens had already been laid out in a book, clerics with actual spells and actual access to the words of the gods would foster that mindset even more strongly. 

So even more so than in our own history, a fantasy setting's populace should be pretty set with the idea that society had its peak back in some fabled Golden Age, and it's all down hill from here. There's no progress worth working for, as we're already at or past the peak. We know all the spells that are worth knowing. We have all the weapons and armor we'll ever need.

Second, it would help set the PCs as "adventurers" even further apart from society. What's over that hill? What's down in that dungeon? What's across the sea? What would happen if we overthrow the tyrannical dragon that plagues our town? Most people think it's a bad idea to even consider it. But not those pesky adventurers. And their meddling is going to bring us a whole lot of trouble down on everyone else.

It would just make things a lot more interesting, I think, if the "spirit of adventure" wasn't lauded in the society of the D&D world. 

Third, though, is the effect that those adventurers have on the society, which logically would go against the above. Following Harari's argument, it was the invention of the concept of 'capital' as a loan leveraged against the future profitability of a venture, rather than loans leveraged on established wealth, that led to the development of modern society/scientific revolution/imperialistic expansion. 

Before that became a thing, the wealth of a society was relatively static. 

Adventurers going out and bringing back the long lost wealth is going to disrupt that. 

Now sure, we've all seen the advice given to explain pricing in the various D&D editions as "boom town" pricing based on the influx of wealth from the megadungeon. And yes, some DMs do depict the disruption to society caused by the influx of wealth from adventuring. But in my experience, this is the exception not the norm. 

Adventuring brings surplus wealth to the society, and it's surplus wealth (or the expectation of future surplus wealth, according to Harari) that allows for science to develop, but also creates the need for imperial expansionism of the European imperialist tradition, rather than those of earlier empires like Alexander or Genghis Khan. 

Adventurers (and by this I mean specifically the player characters) are likely to be the impetus for all of this revolutionary change in the game world. They're going out and conquering new territory, plundering the wealth of the conquered areas, and through inventiveness and application of their resources, creating new spells and magic items, eventually becoming rulers of territories, and possibly setting up the magical industrial revolution -- or trying to, at least. 

Society as a whole, especially if it's even more fanatical about the concept of "all that the world needs to know is known and was passed down from the Golden Age/the gods," is going to be dead set about stopping this from happening. 

Religious groups and powerful wizards don't want their mystique shattered. Kings and nobles don't want their authority challenged. Wealthy landowners or merchants don't want their wealth devalued. And John Q. Serf doesn't want to deal with cognitive dissonance. All levels of society are going to be against a group of upstart adventurers trying to "make the world a better place" if they do go about trying to revolutionize things. 

And if the players just go along with things the way they are, using their wealth simply to increase their own power/prestige, but not change the world, there will still be conflict over that, but it wouldn't turn the world into the magi-tech world of Eberron.

Again, this is just from my limited gaming experience, but it seems like most campaigns never really touch on the political and social implications of adventuring. And this is most likely because of the mindset of the players and DMs being post-modern. We've all grown up with stories of plucky businessmen who founded simple businesses that became multinational corporations. Explorer/conquerors like Columbus, Magellan, Cook. Inventors and scientists as kooky geniuses creating marvelous gadgets and uncovering the mysteries of the universe. That's all normal to us. 

And so, we make all that seem normal to the NPCs of our game worlds. But there's probably a lot more interesting game to be made if we stop giving post-modern world views to our NPCs, and start giving them pre-modern ones instead.

What to do at High Level

Recently, I've been focused on the high level game. Expect that to continue for a while, as it's an area I've not blogged about extensively. And judging by the numbers of views for some of these posts, it's a topic people are interested in reading about. 

My last post was a reaction to the YouTube channel The DM's Lair. The video was listing 10 things that make high level (5E) D&D hard to run as a DM. I responded with my thoughts on those points, as they were things that can easily be avoided with a few old school style game ideas, or are things that are just unavoidable in general with RPGs played with high powered characters. 

Today, I'd like to post a very incomplete list of things that your character might get up to at high levels that could alleviate many of those headaches for the DM. And these ideas are system neutral (although some editions have better rules to support these sorts of things in play than others). Feel free to list more ideas down in the comments.

The main thing to keep in mind as a player of a high level PC in D&D is that YOU need to set goals for your character. Discuss them with the DM, so the DM can prepare content that allows you to attempt these things (remember, you're not guaranteed success, but you should at least be able to try). This in and of itself should solve a lot of the problems mentioned in the video. If you set goals for your PC, then dungeons and monsters are simply obstacles on the path to that goal, and it's not necessary to worry about "bypassing" an encounter or five with spells, magic items, or abilities. 

Things that High Level* PCs Can Do Besides Kill Monsters & Take Their Stuff:

1. Build a Stronghold. A castle, a tower, dungeon, a temple, a hideout... Somewhere to keep your stuff protected, and from where you can start to influence the world around you. 

2. Lead a band of men. An army, a mercenary company, a barbarian horde, a retinue of woodland beings, a guild of assassins and thieves, a brotherhood of knights militant/warrior monks...

3. Research and create new spells. Fill the gaps in your magical repertoire. Surprise rival mages in duels. 

4. Create magic items. Never did find that one item you wanted? Make it yourself. Or commission it if you're not a spellcaster. 

5. Get knighted, receive a barony, or acquire some other title of nobility. 

6. Get elected mayor, senator, or guild master. 

7. Command a pirate ship or merchant vessel. 

8. Build a fleet of pirate ships or merchant vessels. 

9. Start a martial arts dojo, weapon academy, or school of combat.

10. Intimidate all the monsters in a dungeon into your service and rule with an iron fist.

11. Become the leader of your demi-human clan. 

12. Build an army and conquer some land.

13. Compete in tournaments against knights and nobles. 

14. Go on a quest for a fabled magic item or artifact.

15. Seek out and destroy an evil magic item or artifact.

16. Explore the realm at the bottom of the sea. 

17. Seek out a gate to another plane of existence. Explore, trade, or conquer what's beyond it.

18. Claim, purchase, or conquer a private island.

19. Found a town. Is it a trade town, farming town, pirate haven? Up to you!

20. Construct your own dungeon under your stronghold. 

21. Subdue a dragon. It's your new mount or guard dog now!

22. Circumnavigate the globe; or if your campaign world is a flat earth, sail over the edge!

23. Found a dynasty. 

24. Overthrow the corrupt ruler of the kingdom and take the throne.

25. Seek out the secrets of how to live forever, or to become a lich. 

26. Take on an apprentice or successor (sidekick) and teach them all you know. 

27. Become a legendary craftsperson or artist. 

28. Fund caravans or trading vessels. 

29. Negotiate a peace treaty between warring kingdoms. Enforce the peace if necessary. 

30. Lead a crusade against a horde of monsters or an evil overlord.

31. Start a cult. Maybe summon a demon or Great Old One for fun.

32. Construct (or conquer) a floating cloud castle. 

33. Retire to a small cabin in the woods, or a cave in the mountains, or a hovel in the slums. Become the local boogeyman, wise man/woman, or the crazy cat lady (except with blink dogs or something). Keep coming out of retirement for "one last job."

34. Build a spy network. Sell your information to the highest bidder, or work at the behest of your land-holding companion. 

35. Build a flying ship, dirigible, space ship (spelljammer or otherwise), underwater boat, etc.

36. Seek out the mystic secrets that would allow you to transform yourself permanently into a dragon.

37. Capture monsters for a circus, menagerie, or zoo (or a wizard's research). 

38. Travel the land dueling every high level member of your class you can find to see if you're the best.

39. Set up a magic item shop (especially fun if the DM doesn't normally allow them). 

40. Learn how to time travel, and explore other eras instead of other lands.

41. Fund an insurrection to topple the monarchy and replace it with a democracy.

42. Seek out the hand of a prince or princess to marry.

43. Convince the greatest poet or bard in the land to immortalize you in verse. 

44. Seek to become an Immortal or god. 

45. Heal the blight, lift the curse, or otherwise remedy a problem troubling the land.

46. Become a necromancer, with a horde of undead subjects at your command.

47. Seek out the best armorers and weapon-smiths to equip your army with only the finest arms.

48. Teach students to become members of your class. 

49. Close a planar gate or dimensional portal to stop a threat from coming through.

50. Die, then adventure in the underworld! Or challenge Death to a game to get resurrected.

*or potentially Mid Level, and conceivably in some instances Low Level PCs!

Weirdos of a Galaxy Far, Far Away

 I call my Star Wars d6 campaign "Misadventures in Huttspace" and I think it's a fairly apt title. The PCs are (for now) avoiding joining the Rebellion and just tooling around the Outer Rim and taking odd jobs from various entities, many of them criminal. It's a bit like the A-Team in Space. It's set about a year or so after the destruction of the first Death Star.

Here are the current characters in the campaign: 

WTF Mandalorian (aka Din Kenoby, aka Limeorian, aka Gordon Ramsay): This is my 14 year old's character. He's a human Mandalorian warrior (Bounty Hunter template), and his main goal has been to prove himself in battle and earn more beskar for his armor. My son can't quite decide on a name for him, so he keeps changing his code name every few sessions. There have been a few more code names, but this will give you a selection of them. 

Bulldog: This is my 7 year old's character. He's a bulldog-man Jedi (Minor Jedi template). His main goals are shopping for more stuff! He has used his ill-gotten gains to purchase speeder bikes, droids, painting supplies, computers, and whatever he likes, basically. My son is always asking if various random things are available for sale, and how much they cost. He's definitely having fun, even if the Jedi Council (were they still a thing) would not approve. 

SIMON SBD-4: This is Jeremy's main PC. He's a sentient and heavily modified super battle droid (custom droid build) and pretty much only optimized for combat. He does have a couple of non-combat accessories (climbing claws, enhanced visual sensors) but his main function is laying down the hurt with a light repeating blaster built into his arm.

Junivia: This is Jeff's PC. She's a young human Jedi (Young Jedi template) who is seeking to master the ways of the Force, and maybe find a bit of love on the side. Again, if the Jedi Council hadn't been slaughtered years before, they would not approve. But without them around, the remaining Jedi are on their own! 

Nito: This is Denis' character. He's a human rascal and smuggler (Smuggler template). At the start, his ship had been impounded by the Imperials, but after a few adventures they managed to steal it back. Now he's trying to scrounge up enough cash to make improvements to the ship. He's also the team's tech guy.

Easy Shobin: This is Justin's character. He's a Duros pilot (Brash Pilot template) and so far hasn't developed any strong motivations other than just helping out with whatever the party is deciding to do. He's fairly adept at getting the party into trouble, though. 

A few Former and Minor Characters: 

Y'lenic: This was Dean's PC and a stalwart of the game until Dean left Busan. He's a Caamasi Force adept (Alien Student of the Force) and he was mainly motivated to seek out various Force artifacts and information about the Force. He did a pretty good job of protecting the party and getting them out of trouble, but he was definitely not much for combat. 

Zylas Telsh: Dustie joined the game for a few sessions, and this was her PC, another human smuggler (Smuggler template). She didn't stick with the game long enough to really develop any goals other than making more money (Dustie isn't really into Star Wars), but she was a smooth talker and con artist in the party while she was there. 

Dyne El: This is my 14 year old's side character, for when he and his brother play alone with me. He's a Zabrak Jedi (Young Jedi template) and initially his goal was to find a kyber crystal so he could make a lightsaber. He finally found it, and made his saber (yellow blade), but we haven't played our side game since then. 

Mr. Mandalorian: This is my 7 year old's side character. Originally made for the main campaign, Mr. Mandalorian was sidelined when he made Bulldog. He's a Mandalorian pilot (Brash Pilot template) who likes to carry heavy weaponry and shoot things up when he's not flying starfighters.

Luna: This was Denis' daughter's PC for one session. She was a human space princess (Young Senatorial template), and helped with dealing with bureaucratic red tape and smooth talking people. She played in the adventure where the party liberated Nito's ship, and she was really useful for bluffing their way into the Imperial shipyards. 

Oink: This was the PC of Claytonian of the Kill it with Fire blog, who played in the first two or three sessions I ran of the campaign. He was a Gammorean bounty hunter (Bounty Hunter template) and didn't talk much. He was a bit of comic relief, but also muscle, in the party. 

Zaifr Shunt: Jeremy made this side PC for our most recent adventure on Coruscant, since a battle droid with integrated weaponry wouldn't be allowed at a high society function. He's a strange Umbaran Force User (Alien Student of the Force) with ties to the Hutt Syndicate, and I'm not sure if he'll be a one-off for that single adventure, or if he'll return in the future.

There were a few other PCs that have come and gone in the campaign. Since I run it irregularly (pretty much when I've got something prepared and need a break from running West Marches) quite a few players have come and gone.

Archetypes on my Mind

Character classes perform several functions in D&D. First of all, they provide some information to the players about what the game is about, and what sorts of characters fit in the milieu of the game. The archetypes of characters, in other words. Secondly, they provide game mechanical distinctions and roles for each player to engage in within the game world. They show players that there are trade-offs to be made in the game, as to be good at one thing necessitates being poor in some other area. Third, they facilitate easy (in theory anyway) character creation, as players don't need to micromanage every skill and ability of their PCs. This is a result of the first and second functions, but certain systems that load on carte blanche skill/feat/ability choices on top of a class system may not function this way in practice.

Game design, if we're working in that class-based paradigm, requires an understanding of these functions in order to make the game interesting mechanically as well as thematically interesting. 

In a game of near-future dystopian adventure, classes like Mercenary, Hacker, Driver, Smuggler, Criminal, and Mechanic might make sense. Adventures would likely include fights, computer problems, lots of crime, escapes, and equipment/vehicle repair. They're the archetypes (well, some of them) of the genre. And while there are other archetypes in the fiction we might use as inspiration, something like a tattoo artist or rave DJ doesn't really provide much to work within the likely game mechanics of the system (assuming it's adventure based, rather than social role play based). Your mercenary may well be a rave DJ by night, but that's just extra color, not necessarily something that needs its own character class. 

And no, I'm not about to try and steal JB's thunder by releasing a cyberpunk game while he's taking a break for Lent. Just using that as an example of potential classes in a non-medieval fantasy type game. 

And so, we get to D&D. It has some archetypes from source fiction, of course, but also some that have just sort of become D&Disms over the years. 

OD&D's LBBs had Fighter, Cleric, Magic-User as its archetypes. Well, also the Elf (Fighter and/or Magic-User), Dwarf (Fighter plus dungeoneering skills) and Halfling (Fighter plus a bit of wilderness skill).

But then supplements and later editions added in more archetypes. Thieves and Paladins, Druids and Assassins, Monks, Rangers, Bards, Psionic dudes, Illusionists, Barbarians, Cavaliers, Acrobats, Samurai, Shukenja, Sohei, Kensei, Ninja, Wu Jen, Knights of Solamnia, another simpler Bard, specialist Priests and Mages, Sorcerers, Warlords, Warlocks, Artificers, and on and on and on!

And of course, multiclassing and dual classing rules allow for mixes of the archetypes. 

Most of you know all this already, but I wanted to get it down because what follows stems from this. 

What exactly are the appropriate archetypes for a game to feel like D&D? Is it the bare minimum from OD&D of Cleric/Fighter/Magic-User? Is it those three plus the Thief? Is it Fighter/Thief/Magic-User as a few people have suggested? Just Fighters and Magic-Users, all the rest is fluff?

Or do we need a bit more to get the D&D feel? This is where I wonder what classes are in D&D simply because they're expected to be in D&D. Paladins and Rangers and Druids, for example. Obviously, we can have D&D without them. I grew up mostly playing BECMI, which only allowed druids and paladins/avengers once characters got to 9th level (if you played by the book), and the closest thing to a ranger was the Halfling class with its bonus to ranged attacks and 1-9/d10 ability to hide in the wilderness. 

There's something about the AD&D class set-ups, whether it's 1E with the Assassin and Illusionist, or 2E with its simple Bard class, that just feels right to me, even though most of my early years I played without. And of course for younger players who started with WotC editions, a game without Barbarians and Sorcerers as standard might feel a bit strange. Does the "savage warrior" archetype need to be there, either for fidelity to the source material (i.e. Conan), or because it fulfills a needed game mechanical slot (combat plus wilderness skill)? Or is "savage" just something descriptive to tack on to the Fighter, like a Mercenary rave DJ in my cyberpunk example above?

So, I'd like to run a little informal poll here. In the comments, please tell me: 

1. What are the bare minimum archetypes needed for D&D in your opinion?

2. What are the archetypes that give you the "D&D feel" and should be included beyond the bare minimum, if any? 

3. What archetypes, if any, break that "D&D feel" for you?

Role Playing, Metagaming, and Differing Opinions

Interesting video on metagaming. I recommend that you skip the first 45 seconds of cheesy acting and just get to the topic.

First up, Luke gives his definition of role playing. It seems to me that he puts a lot of emphasis on the amateur thespian aspect of role playing. That's fine. Good to know where he's coming from. I tend to disagree. That is one way of role playing. But besides getting into the head of a fictional personage, role playing can also simply be acting out the assigned functional role within the adventuring party (by race/class chosen). He mentions the stereotypes (barbarians smash, rogues stab...shouldn't this be sneak?, wizards cast fireball), but to me his tone seems a bit dismissive of this functional level of role playing.

Anyway, then we get his definition of metagaming. Using any knowledge the player has instead of knowledge that the character has available.

I have no quibbles with this definition. However, it makes metagaming impossible to avoid. Unless the DM and players have sat down and discussed for hours in minute detail every experience the character has had, every story they've ever heard, etc. how can we really know what the character knows aside from the limited information given by the DM when setting scenes?

Yes, there are ways to roll the dice to see what a character knows. But is the player or the DM tracking the results of each of these rolls? Some may. Most don't, in my experience. So it will be inevitable that a player will need to use some knowledge that they possess that their character doesn't from time to time.

Around the 3:19 mark, he starts talking about Perception checks to find a secret door. If the player rolls it, and rolls low, the player knows there could still be a secret door there. Asking another character to check is a form of metagaming, because if you had rolled high and failed, you'd be confident that you don't need another PC to check as well. [Relevant to the yet unfinished discussion on secret or open die rolls.]

At 6:40, he begins his discussion of whether metagaming is good or bad. First he gives the extreme views: any metagaming at all completely ruins the game, or meh, metagame away.

After saying metagaming everything is fine if the DM/group is good with that, it violates the concept of role playing. Here, I'll disagree. From what I've read, Gygax and Arneson didn't really care one way or the other how "in character" the players were in their original Blackmoor and Greyhawk campaigns. And clever thinking by the player was something to be rewarded. I could be interpreting what I read wrong, but the amateur thespianism that Luke seems to believe is the heart and soul of role playing was not part of the hobby in the beginning. So when he claims that metagaming is not the way the game was intended to be played, I think he's off. A certain level of metagaming is expected.

Now, Luke goes on to say that he does think some metagaming is acceptable (around the 8:45 mark). And funnily enough, I think he's got it backwards here, too. He says that players knowing that encounters are balanced for them is a good thing, because otherwise they'll run in fear of unknowns. My West Marches group has been a lot more cautious since they met a wight that killed one PC and drained another before they took it down. And in my opinion, this has enhanced the game for them. They need to approach encounters carefully, see what they can learn, and flee if necessary. And they're not completely afraid of everything. Recently, groups have charged in to an intellect devourer lair in one session, and stuck around to defeat an aboleth after they learned it wasn't just a trio of nixies in the river. It hasn't made them afraid, it's made them cautious, which is a good thing.

At 9:25 we get his next acceptable form of metagaming, which is letting PCs adventure together when they probably shouldn't. Like the paladin and assassin in the same group. Now, AD&D didn't allow this to happen. By the book, the paladin would refuse to join the group unless the assassin was left behind. Modern games ease up on the restrictions, meaning this form of metagaming is only necessary in these editions. I'll actually agree with Luke on this point, though. I never did like the overly restrictive AD&D alignment interaction rules. If an assassin's talents are useful, and a paladin's talents are useful, why not have them team up? Their interactions about how to approach the adventure will hopefully liven things up rather than be a drag.

Next point -- why not form a large party? Why not hire hirelings and retainers to help increase the party size? And all I think is, that's smart play, and not at all metagaming. The fact that there is strength in numbers is something any character in any sort of world should realize. And in old school play, it's just what's expected.

From around the 10:50 point, he gives his solution to the metagaming problem. First, pick your battles. Solid advice. Even if we disagree about what is good metagaming and what is bad metagaming, knowing when to stop it and when to let it slide is good advice. Because, as I said above, it's nearly impossible to avoid metagaming by the strictest definition because it's impossible for us to know everything that our character knows.

We also agree that we need to remember that this is a game. And while he thinks "having fun" is paramount, I think a big part of the fun of D&D is figuring out a challenge presented in an encounter. And often that involves a clever idea which is a form of metagaming. This could be assessing a tactical situation in combat, or finding a non-standard use of a spell or magic item, or whatever. It's highly likely that the player is considering the situation as a whole in these instances, not through the lens of their character's in-game knowledge and intelligence.


Finally, I like his proposed solution to the metagaming problem. No matter where you fall on the "metagaming is bad" spectrum, having a conversation with the players and letting them try to justify the metagaming is a good idea. And since it's just a game, letting the player have the final decision about whether to metagame or not is probably a good thing, too.

Jokichi the Vagabond - Chanbara Character Profiles

I've been thinking of interesting ways to promote Chanbara besides just spamming everyone's G+/Facebook feeds with links to the game. No one wants that, and I don't like doing it. So, I'm going to post some of the characters that appeared in the play testing of the game over the next few weeks. Hopefully, seeing the interesting characters that people played in the games I ran will drum up some interest in the game.

First up is Jokichi the Vagabond. Jokichi was played by Justin, who ran the awesome Vaults of Ur campaign that I posted about many years ago (I played Thidrek the Sleestak). In my first round of playtests, Justin came up with a great character so I want to highlight him first.

Jokichi the Vagabond
Class: Bushi/Abarenbo level 1
Social Status: Eta
Allegiances: (undefined)*

Str 15 (+1)
Int 12 (+0)
Wis 11 (+0)
Dex 14 (+1)
Con 13 (+1)
Cha 9 (+0)

AC 14  HP 11
TD 14  BAB +2
PD 12  SP 22
Combat Dice: 4 (d6)
Encumbrance: 1.5/11
Speed: 120(40)

Saving Throws
Wood 12
Water 13
Metal 14
Fire 15
Earth 16

Background Skills: High Sport, Low Sport, Rural Craft, Crime

Special Abilities:
Show of Strength: Spend 1 combat die to increase Str score to 18 (+3) for 10 minutes

Gear:
Katana (hit +3, damage 2d4+1/1d10+1)
Partial Light Armor (AC +2)

As you can see, Jokichi was of Eta social status which Justin was happy to play up, and didn't get upset when NPCs treated him like garbage. Due to a lucky roll, though, the daimyo's niece was fond of him and there were hints of a "doomed romance" plot started that never got off the ground because Justin wasn't able to play the entire playtest campaign. Too bad, it seemed like it would have been a lot of fun.

Possibly because of the poor treatment he had at the hands of his employers, when the party went after a group of pirates, Jokichi tried to sign up. None of the players were sure if Justin was just doing it as a ruse or if he really intended for Jokichi to become a pirate. As GM, I was willing to let the campaign become one of nautical plunder if the players wanted to. In the end, though, the players managed to defeat the pirates (with Jokichi's eventual help), and continued on to serve their daimyo.

Since Justin couldn't continue playing, we decided that the authorities put the blame for the mission's blunders (they stopped the pirate leaders, but the ship and its cargo got away) on Jokichi's head, and he was confined to quarters. That way, if Justin had returned, we could roll out Jokichi again by saying he'd served his term of punishment.

He was a trouble maker of the first order, and the early playtest games were really lively because of the chaos Jokichi brought to the staid lives of the more honorable characters.


*Since I was trying to playtest the exploration, combat, and magic rules in the live game, I didn't worry about allegiances. In my play-by-post game, I did, and I'll provide some of those characters and their allegiances in future posts.

FLAILSNAILS Cheaters!

This post is a bit tongue in cheek, as I realize it doesn't matter, but it's something that came up when I was running my Under the Hillfort Ruins game a couple weeks back (and I'm just getting to blog about it now).

In my game the other night, Jeremy was looking for a character he had already rolled up to play, and grabbed one he had used in Justin's Vaults of Ur game. Dean also had used a character he has used a few times before in different game systems, most memorably to me in Justin's "Panoply Sector" Stars Without Number game. The thing is, in other games both of these PCs had died.

Now, don't get me wrong. I was running a play test. I didn't really care where the PCs had been used before, or if they were "still alive" or not. For a play test, it just isn't an issue. But during the course of play, Jeremy mentioned that his fighter, Danyael, should level up because he already had 1000xp from Ur. I reminded him that Danyael had died in Ur (partially my fault, Thidrek ran away rather than risking paralyzation at the hands of ghouls after Danyael and another PC had gone down). So does the character still get to keep its XP for use in other games after death in one campaign?

It made me think about the whole FLAILSNAILS conventions a bit. I'd considered in the past the fact that anyone could show up to a game with a character at level X, with magic items A, B and C, and who's to know if that PC actually earned that or not? Of course, the FLAILSNAILS Conventions give the DM power to nerf anything egregious in any way they wish (all ability scores are 18 and you have a Staff of Wizardry at level 2? Well, you're suffering from a curse in this realm, and you find the staff is nonfunctional at the moment).

Now, I'm not arguing that there should be a FLAILSNAILS police or anything, but shouldn't what happens to a character actually matter? Even if it's just taking your favorite character to another game as a one-shot, if good things happen you wouldn't ret-con them into not happening. Why should we ignore the bad just because we can?  Is that cheating to just pretend your character didn't die, or didn't lose their best magic sword to a rust monster, or whatever?

Is this cheating? Should it be discouraged?

Or is it a case of "What happens in Greyhawk stays in Greyhawk"?

Slow progress is better than no progress

I've got spell lists for my three Maho-tsukai sub-classes, Onmyoji, Soryo and Yamabushi done (may switch a name here or there for color, but the list of spells is done), and descriptions of the spells for Onmyoji and Soryo are complete. Just the Yamabushi spells left to go.

I also have listed out Background Skills. Each class/profile gets a skill or two automatically, and then a number to select from a list determined by your character's social status. Kuge (nobility) don't have the same sort of background skills as Noumin (peasant farmers) after all.

Skills will work on a modification of the Turn Undead mechanic, or more or less like any sort of action in Presidents of the Apocalypse. Roll two dice (usually 2d6) and try to beat a 7, 9 or 11 (sometimes 5 for very easy things, sometimes 13 or even 15 for very hard things) depending on how hard the GM thinks it will be.

Shinobi special skills work the same way, although they start out with some skills at only 2d4, some at 2d6, and some at 2d8. The dice they roll also improve with level. And their special bonus dice (a replacement mechanic for Flying Swordsmen stunt dice) can be used to improve these rolls.

I've come to really like the "roll 2dX" mechanic, as it gives a nice weighted spread. Extreme successes are uncommon, but extreme failures are also uncommon. It's less swingy than d% or d20. Characters will hopefully seem fairly competent when it comes to skill use in Chanbara.

Still need to decide what to do about "unskilled" checks. A few background skills, like Astronomy/Geomancy, are the sort of thing you just can't do without training. But Fishing? Sure, anyone can fish, just not like a pro. I figure most of the time, the Background skills will not even need rolling. But when they do, and someone tries to do something that should be covered by a skill they don't have, what's the best way to do it?

Lowering the dice is one way. If Background skills are normally rolled on 2d6, then have the unskilled PCs roll on 2d4. That works, but then does that mean Shinobi with a 2d4 in a special Ninpo skill are untrained at it? Or just with minimal training? I can live with that, but some players might object. We'll see. I definitely don't want skills to be exclusive for the most part.

Also, I'm wondering if I should allow Ability Scores to affect Background Skills. The concern is that it would lead to stat inflation a la 3E/Pathfinder. My gut tells me to just stress the Background Skills are just that, the character's background. Now, you're an adventurer, not a poet or blacksmith or inspector. If someone needs something smithed, and your PC has that background, they can do it. Done, move on to the adventuring! It's only if the Hannya Queen demands an intricate cast iron puzzle be crafted or she will devour the village's children that it might be worth making a check to see if you can make one good enough for the snake-hag. [But even then, the players are still more likely to try and kick her butt rather than appease her, aren't they?]

A trippy idea

This is an odd train of thougth post, and I'll try to keep it brief.  If you don't like odd train of thougth posts with little to no game mechanics support, feel free to stop reading now.

Scrolling through my blog list, I see this picture:

It's the cover picture used for the Pits and Perils game (I don't have it yet), reviewed by Brendan at Necropraxis.  This post here has nothing to do with Pits and Perils, but the picture is important.

In old tales, in particular some of the Arthurian tales usually included with the Mabinogion, sometimes the heroes really are larger than life.  Yes, the heroic characters are literally LARGER than everyone else.  I don't have my Penguin edition handy because I'm at work, but I remember one story where Arthur appears some time in the future and remarks on just how small the knights have become compared to his time.  View it as a "things were better in all ways during the Golden Age" sort of mindset.

What if, in games like D&D, this were also literally true?  Why do adventuring types like the PCs gain experience points and get more powerful?  Hardier in combat and better able to dish out damage?  At higher levels, able to go toe-to-toe with dragons and giants?  Could it be because they're just plain different from everyone else physically? 

"Rolf the Mighty stood 10' tall if he stood an inch!"

I'm not proposing any sort of game mechanics changes related to this concept.  It would all be "fluff" but it could be evocative fluff for the right sort of "mystical, mythical, fairytale" sort of game environment.  And my mismatched scale collection of minis would sorta make sense finally.

Is it OK to be arbitrary?

Working on Chanbara again today, and I'm almost done with the revisions to the actual game-play parts.  I decided to do this part first this time, to better build the classes and special abilities.  Last time, I did the classes first and then tried to match game play rules to the classes.  It's going much faster this time, partly because I only need to rewrite or tweak sections of the previous version, rather than construct it whole cloth.

And I'm now at the part about rewards.  The game will allow standard D&D style play, where you go fight monsters and bring back loot.  It's a good way to run a fun game, so Chanbara supports it.  But since this is a Japanese fantasy game of samurai and ninja, I want the game to do more than that.

I mentioned a while back that I was re-inspired to do more than just D&D in funny hats with this by some posts by Tedankhamen.  I want to reward players for behaving in genre appropriate ways, but without needing to go into pages and pages of blather about Confucian societies, Bushido, etc.  Because really, I'm not an expert on that stuff, so it would be blather.  Maybe better blather than someone who's only experienced Japan through anime, but blather nonetheless.

Giri, or duty/obligation, was easy.  I'd figured that one out before Ted penned his pieces.  PCs have allegiances to their feudal lord, high abbot, jonin ninja, sensei, family, comrades in arms, peasant association, etc.  The norms of a Confucian culture expect one to respect these bonds.  In game terms, the simple way to do that is to award gold for XP, but ONLY for gold donated to one of the (NPC) groups a character is allied with.  Of course, story awards can also be given for performing some duty or quest, but the fastest advancement comes from giving up your hard earned loot to advance the goals of the group in which you are a member.

Ninjou, or humane/compassionate acts, is harder.  As a GM, you can't railroad your players into behaving that way.  At least, not if you want the campaign to go anywhere.  So there needs to be some system to recognize and reward such acts.  But again, assuming the average person who buys Chanbara* and plays it won't have a strong grasp on Japanese culture and genre traditions, it's going to be hard for them to figure out what constitutes an act of "ninjou" and what doesn't.  And how to reward it?

At first, I thought about an Action Point or Story Point mechanic as a reward.  But I don't think having meta-game mulligans will add anything to play.  So that leaves us with XP awards and in-game rewards.  In-game rewards should of course be possible, but then they are also possible for acts in line with Giri as well as acts that aren't in line with either giri or ninjou.  So there's no point in trying to codify them.  The XP rewards, though, are trickier.

In adventures I write and publish, I could always include examples of how an encounter could be resolved to earn a "ninjou" reward.  But that doesn't really help the GM making his or her own adventures a lot.  I could do a bunch of research and blather on for pages and pages in a (probably vain) attempt to get the reader to understand a foreign cultural concept - but I won't.

Instead, what I'm thinking of now is something like this.  Acts of "ninjou" will have a set reward level, something like 5% or 10% of the XP needed to reach the next level.  I'll give a brief example of the idea of what acts of ninjou are like (similar to Ted's post linked above).  During play, any player may elect ANOTHER player's actions as deserving of a "ninjou" award.  Arbitrarily.  All other players and the GM must agree that the action was in-line with their understanding of the concept.  If they agree, the player earns the bonus XP for their character.  Again, arbitrary.  And while it means that some groups will misunderstand the concept and award things that a Japanese person might feel doesn't qualify, I think it won't matter.  It will be as rare or as common as the group wants, and will hopefully get players thinking of ways to RP their character so as to earn the award.

And groups that just want to loot ruins full of bakemono and rokuro-kubi can ignore it and have fun hacking and slashing through their adventures with nothing lost from the game-play.

Best of both worlds, I think.



*yes, I'm going to have it for sale, which means a PDF and a PoD version since so many people asked me for print versions of Flying Swordsmen.

Crowd Source My Rogue's Gallery!

In order for me to more effectively run more Star Frontiers games for the Busan Gamers this summer, I'm gonna need a list of interesting criminals to inhabit the planet of Outer Reach. 

Want to help?  You don't even really need to have the Star Frontiers rules (although if you want to actually stat up your criminal, feel free to save me some time).  What I'm looking for are just some interesting, colorful characters that I can use as targets for bounty hunting missions, foils, street contacts, and the like.

So if you've got an idea for an outer space bad guy, let me know in the comments here or on G+.  And I'm looking for a wide range of criminals, from pickpockets and hoverbus molesters all the way up to serial killers and criminal masterminds.

And here's a sample format:

Name:
Race*:
Wanted for:
Current Bounty:
Personality Quirk(s):
[Optional] Star Frontiers Alpha Dawn stats:


*The Star Frontiers races I'm using are just the Alpha Dawn set [Human, Dralasite, Vrusk, Yazirian, Sathar], but if you really want to use something from Zebulon's Guide or some wacky Star Wars alien or whatever, feel free.

Thidrek Revealed!

Jeremy/Oxide did a pic of Thidrek the Sleestak, my character in Justin's Vaults of Ur game.

I like the blurry finish, and the sorta "caught unexpected" look on Thidrek's face. 

You can check out more of Oxide's character art at his blog (link above).

Fighting with Style!

One thing I really like about Wuxia and the World of Martial Arts concepts is the fact that most martial artists have a "Style" or nom-de-guerre.  Outlaws of the Marsh is full of them, for example:

The Timely Rain
Sagacious Lu, the Tattooed Monk
Nine Dragons Shi Jin
Li Kui, the Black Whirlwind

There was even that fight scene in the inn in Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon where they sorta made fun of the concept.

So I slapped together a little random generator to come up with them quickly.  Unfortunately, I can foresee people seeing the title and thinking it's for martial arts styles, like "Drunken Crane Taekwondo" or the like.  Well, it's not for that, and if some people don't like it oh well.

This is more or less an "all the dice" generator.  If you pick up a d4, d6, d8, d10, d12 and d20 and roll them all at once, you can get a result.  Only if the d6 comes up a "4" will you need to roll a second d10 and d20.  I haven't calculated all the possible permutations only using the words on the list, but considering that one could easily substitute a synonym or similar category word for any result (and the "Titles" section is deliberately open-ended), and the same result could be connected in different ways, you can get a gob of names for your martial artist. 

Some results, of course, may not work so well.  If you don't want your PC to be called "Duke Invulnerable Meat" and can't come up with a good modification of that ("Invulnerable Lord of Bacon"?) you can always roll again or just look through the lists and use them for inspiration to come up with something on your own!

Download it here!

Ug, not again!

We've got our next Pathfinder session tomorrow. I finally got around to completing my backup PC this afternoon while my son and I watched sumo and played with toy dragons. All I had left to do was buy equipment, so it didn't take that long.

But now, despite all the fun I'm having playing Elwood the Paladin, this new backup (made only in case Elwood doesn't make it in the big coming dust-up) is looking really fun, too. And Jeremy's got the same itch, judging from his posts about his backup PC on Facebook.

Back when we played Classic D&D, this feeling would hit us too. We'd get some idea, or read some book, or watch some movie, and want to make a PC from that inspiration. And then we would. All of us had a large 'stable' of PCs, and living in really rural Illinois, whenever we would play there's a good chance it would just be the DM and one player, so we'd run a small squad of PCs (even the DM would bring a few along). So having plenty to choose from was never an issue. But then with the more episodic nature of those old games, it didn't matter. We'd almost always leave the dungeon at the end of the session, so if a different lineup went in next time, there were no problems.

But these days, when a player gets that itch to play a new character, not only does the character building process take longer with the newer editions, there's also the more 'literary' (to use a kind word) plot lines of modules or DM created adventures. That makes it a lot harder to work new PCs into things.

What's usually called "Gamer ADD" is mostly referring to game masters getting the itch to start new campaigns or run different rule systems, but it's a problem for players, too. Someone (sorry, can't remember exactly who, and can't find the link) was pointing out the other day that they read about LOTS of people starting Pathfinder Adventure Paths, but never reads about anyone finishing them.

Have we gotten that bad, both as players and as DMs, that we can't stick with something to the end? Granted, high level d20 play is a pain in the ass, but still, I think it's the fact that both players and GMs have ALL THESE OPTIONS staring them in the face that it's hard to avoid a "grass is greener" feeling when considering them.

Yes, Elwood is an awesome character, but Hogan the Red may be cooler! Still, I'll do my best tomorrow to keep Elwood alive, even if that means Hogan never ever gets to see the light of play.

We have met the enemy, and he is us.

Yesterday, we had our third session of Brian's Pathfinder game.

To recap, I'm playing Elwood, a Human Paladin.  Jeremy's playing Oxide the Warforged Fighter.  Greg's playing Plato the Half-Elf Rogue.  Robbie's playing Toki the Human Sorcerer.  Jesse rolled up a new PC, Zesser, a Half-Orc Alchemist.  Marc is vacationing back in Spain, so his Dwarf Cleric sat this session out.

We're going through Paizo's "Age of Wyrms" adventure path.  Spoilers await.

So last session, we ended it right after the necromancer Filch surrendered to us.  We manacled him (luckily I'd bought a few pairs!) and interrogated him.  He was a slimy, crafty bugger who evaded as much as possible.  Just as you'd expect.  And we had a quandary.  Cullen the Half-Orc brute wanted Filch's eyes as proof that we'd defeated him.  Well, Plato and Elwood had a problem.  The other two (Zesser hadn't made his appearance yet) were all for ripping his eyes out to take back.  For some reason, though, since he'd surrendered to me, it was assumed that Filch was MY prisoner, so I had final say.  After dragging as much info out of him as I thought we were gonna get, I gave him an ultimatum.  We take him back to town and dispose of him as we like, or we set him free as he desired - but minus his eyes.  He chose to go back to town.

We bundled up all the loot we could gather, the dead bodies (the family of the ghost we'd promised to help and Tagolad the Alchemist - remembered his name this time, now that he's gone!), and marched our captured wizard back to town.

When we got there, Plato was begged to head off to the Imporium by a messenger boy, and off he went to meet his lady.  Turns out the wizard of the rival adventuring party discovered some evil book and then turned on his former colleagues, killing the fighter and severely wounding the elf chick (not sure what class she is...).  She was dying and only trusted him, being a fellow outsider.  He then spent most of the rest of the evening searching for the town's doctor to save her (which he did, and she told him she was leaving for Greyhawk City in the morning, never to return, and he should find her there if he ever got out of the stinking pit of Diamond Lake).  She should have known better.  The turncoat wizard's name was Kelek. 

I've GOT this action figure!  If I'd known the NPC's name, maybe I could have prevented that bloodshed...

The rest of us took the necromancer to Cullen, and when he tried to shake us down I luckily managed to use Diplomacy to get him to let us leave after just turning over the necromancer.  After a brief interlude of Toki the weakling sorcerer trying to muscle his way past the butler of Alistan the Sage (our employer), we turned in for the night.  In the morning we got a bit of help from Alistan, met our new Alchemist Zesser, and then set out to bury the bodies in the graveyard and proceed to the Whispering Cairn.

This time, we managed to explore the remainder of the cairn, fought one more battle (Plato got taken down to negatives, but I was right by him to heal him up), and found some interesting artifacts - two of them were evil.  Oxide had one of the evil artifacts, and I'm not sure if there was an influence from that (notes from the DM were passed), or if it was just the alcohol Jeremy was drinking, but from about this point in Oxide was getting really nasty and bloodthirsty.

We were all getting a bit suspicious of Alistan the Sage, however.  He kept the necromancer's spellbook, and got snippy about paying us when we brought back the obviously powerful artifacts from the Cairn.  Oxide went so far as to attack, but luckily the priestess of Wee Jas (yeah, my Paladin's not hanging out with the correct circles, but luckily Brian's being really cool with my cowboy Pally's code of ethics) who was still in the room used Hold Person on him.  I got the baby owlbear out of his pack (remember that?) and Plato took out the evil artifact and tossed it to Alistan, who took pains NOT to catch it!

Anyway, Ruby Sorceress of Wee Jas has undead trouble, possibly related to the mine troubles, and what do you know, they think we need the necromancer as he's a specialist about undead.  Now, Cullen's had him for a full 24 hours.  He may very well be dead.  But we get a few healing potions to ease our suffering, then head back to the Feral Dog. 

This time, I'm thinking we're definitely going to throw down with Cullen and his boys, so I suggest we get the half-ogre bouncer out first, since he's upstairs, and get him out of the way.  I bluff him (yes, my Paladin lied to sucker him into an ambush - I am planning to spend some time in prayer and contemplation once the undead threat is stemmed) outside, where Zesser used his poisoned greataxe (he's a melee alchemist) to paralyze him.  We tied him up and drug him into an alley, then Oxide decided to just slay him.  He got initiative, so before we could stop him, bam!, short sword in the head.  Half-ogre dead, we proceed back inside to face Cullen...

And that's the cliffhanger ending for this session.

We had a lot of in-character bickering and tension, which was really really cool, actually.  And very little combat.  The fight with the half-ogre barely counts.  We're having a good time in this game, and we've all really come into our characters.  Even Jesse was really into his new PC, who was the apprentice of his first PC.  It's a shame that Brian's leaving at the end of February.  We've only got a couple more sessions to see how this all plays out.

Paladin, yes, that's a Paladin

We'll be playing our next session of Brian's Pathfinder game next Sunday.  At the end of the last session, there were a few questions by the other players about how I was playing my Paladin. 

Specifically, when we were given our offer of employment by the sage, in a brothel, the sage mentioned that he had paid for the room for the night, and any of us that wished could stay.  My PC was the only one who did.  Of course, while he was enjoying himself, he also used the opportunity to gather information from the lovely ladies there.

What can I say, I'm modeling his personality on Elwood Blues and Johnny Cash, and he's a Paladin of Myrlund, who is a fantasy Cowboy.  It seemed to be an action perfectly in character, and Brian agreed with my logic. 

Now, this is not a post to get into the inherent morality or ethicality of prostitution.  What it is a post about is to show that one can be a Paladin without being a stick-in-the-mud, or an overzealous moron.  The last thing I want to do in a game is play Lawful Stupid and ruin everyone else's fun by forcing them to play along to some overly restrictive moral code.

Anyway, here's a good post I found today about how Paladins should really be played, found via the Hitting Dirtside blog.

How to play my Paladin

No, this is not about how YOU should play YOUR Paladin.  This is just some thoughts about how I'm gonna play my Paladin in Brian's PF game starting this Sunday.

When I rolled him up, I was thinking (as I mentioned before) I'd play him mostly like Elwood Blues.  Pretty much unfazed by things blowing up around him and whatnot, but dedicated to his "mission from God."  And his moral view would be sort of a Johnny Cash apocalyptic.  He's had a vision of the End Times coming, and that's what made him choose the path of a Paladin.

And last night, I was looking through the Greyhawk deities, since the game will be set there.  And among the Lawful Good ones was Murlynd, Don Kaye's old character turned into a hero-deity by Gygax after Kaye died. 

I'll be imagining the Murlynd that gives visions to my Paladin something like this.

This dude is a frickin' fantasy COWBOY.  With six-shooters and chaps and a Stetson hat and all.

Perfect deity for my Paladin to follow. 

Even if he has been ret-conned as the 'god of magical technology.'

My first Paladin

Brian, who found out about our Busan gaming group by discovering this here blog, is gonna start up a Pathfinder game two Sundays from now.  I never got a chance to play a Paladin before, and I've had a few ideas about what could make for an interesting (and hopefully not cliche) one.

So I've rolled up a Human Paladin.  I almost went with a Half-Orc, as I've got a soft spot for the ugly ones.  But I thought about the character I really wanted to play, and decided he should be a human.  Named Elwood.  On a mission from God.  Probably with a healthy helping of Johnny Cash wisdom thrown in. 

And I'm now encountering one of the things that made me want to drop 3E in any form as a DM and return to Classic D&D.

I may well be not only the only human character in the group, but the only character with a race from the standard Tolkienesque racial lineup! 

Jeremy wants to play a warforged fighter.  Robbie wants to play a kobold sorcerer (although he did consider a halfling ninja).  Greg wants to play something called a 'stonegrunt' and while I have no idea what they are exactly, I can guess.

Now, I'm not passing any value judgements.  One of the big selling points of 3E-based games is the whole openness of any race+any class, no level limits, blah blah blah.  And veteran players like to try out things they've never done before (like myself, who's never played a paladin before, although Gwydion my old Fighter considered the option before becoming a land-holder and moving up the ranks of the nobility).

I guess it's just a different perspective.  I take a stock character type and try to breathe a unique and hopefully fun personality into that archetype.  Everyone else is trying to be unique through their 'build.' 

As a DM, it used to drive me nuts.  Players always asking to be the weirdest things they could imagine, just because they could.  As a player, I'm more mellow about it.  Sure, you're some freaky Rock-beast Fighter.  Just be sure to do something with the character to make it an interesting rock-beast Fighter, rather than just the same as if he were a Dwarf, only with different numbers on the sheet.  :)

My 4E Character

So here's my 4E character.  Thinking about a simple description and background for him has really made him "come alive" in my mind.  The character should be fun to play.  As lots of people mentioned in my last post, I need to go into the game with the mindset that it's a table top tactical minis game with RP elements.  Sorta like what I suggested could be done with HeroClix a while back.  Do that, and I hope I'll have fun with it.

Belgan Breg, Half Elf Wizard (Illusionist)
Alignment: Unaligned
Languages: Common, Elven, Primordial

Str 8
Con 15 (pb 13 +2 racial)
Dex 10
Int 18
Wis 15 (pb 13 +2 racial)
Cha 10

Init +0
Speed 6
AC 14
Fort 12
Ref 14
Will 14
Hit Points 25 (bloodied 12)
Healing Surge value 6, 8 per day

Feat: Staff Expertise
Trained Skills: Arcana, History, Dungeoneering, Diplomacy

Powers:
At Will
Ghost Sound, Light, Mage Hand, Magic Missile, Freezing Burst, Phantom Cage
Encounter
Knack for Success (racial), Illusory Obstacles, Icy Terrain
Daily
Freezing Cloud, Phantom Chasm

Special:
Low Light Vision, Dual Heritage (Human/Elf), Group Diplomacy, Apprentice Mage (Illusion, target hit takes -2 to attacks against me next round)

Description:
Tall and slender, with shoulder-length gray hair (naturally gray, mother's was silver, father's was black), beard but no mustache, bright blue eyes.

Background:
Trained as a Wizard by his Elf mother. Captured by slavers and brought to the city by them. Recovered his spellbook and escaped. Now out to seek his fortune and maybe one day get revenge on the slavers.

Dr. Half-love, or how I learned to stop worrying and love the halfling

Back when I first got the Mentzer Basic Set for my 11th birthday, I still hadn't read The Hobbit or LotR.  None of my friends had, either.  And Elmore's art really played a big part in how we viewed the Halfling.

OK, not so bad here.  The chubby Halfling is complaining to the cute Elf chick about something the Dwarf obviously did but is pretending he didn't.  But the other images of Halflings in the set are of one running from a big, shadowy monster, and of one getting put to sleep by a Magic-User (probably Bargle).

We also had all read Dungeon of Dread, the first Endless Quest book, where wimpy and cowardly Laurus the Halfling is the hero Caric's sidekick.

So we didn't have the most heroic image of Halflings in our early games.  And they tended to be used as the butt of jokes.

One summer vacation day, our library was playing the Rankin-Bass animated Hobbit in the background while they had some other activities going on.  So I saw parts of it, between checking out the books on Bigfoot or reading compilations of Garfield comics.  I don't remember much, other than it was on, and the blue elves were freaky.

After a few years, one guy I knew but didn't hang out with so much (Killingmachine spent more time with him) named Bryce had read The Hobbit and LotR, while I had gotten into the Dragonlance books (the original Chronicles trilogy was a step above quite a bit of the fantasy drivel available at the public library that I was scarfing up).  We had a debate once about the merits of the two, even though I had no idea what Tolkien was really about.  It starred Hobbits, who are Halflings, and we all knew how lame they were from D&D.

Then George Lucas came out with Willow.  It looked like a kick-ass fantasy movie, but it was called such a girly name and the main character was a Halfling.  Of course, eventually I saw it, and it was a fairly kickass movie, even though it was about a Halfling.  Madmartigan made up for that.

In high school, Killingmachine read The Hobbit in his English class.  He told me there was actually some good stuff in it, such as the Mirkwood spiders, Gollum, and Smaug.  That got me to read The Fellowship of the Ring, and it also had some good stuff in it.  Ringwraiths, barrow wights, killer trees, goblins/orcs, a Balrog, more Gollum!  Great stuff!  Maybe I'd been wrong about Bryce.  (insert Afterschool Special style lesson learned moment here).

About the same time, I rolled up a character with a 3 Int, and an 18 Dex.  He had a high enough Con, so I made him a Halfling.  Farley the Halfling.  He had amazing AC 0 - platemail plus Dex bonus, a short bow - with Dex and Halfling bonus to hit made him very accurate, and the ability to hide if need be.  Of course I played him as this happy retard who would always talk about how he once "shot deer like this" while picking off whatever targets he was against.  No matter how many orcs, trolls, dragons or vampires he helped slay, it was always that deer he was proudest of.  Dumb as a brick, but friendly and helpful (in his oft mistaken way).  I realized that the Halfling didn't suck, and could be quite fun to play.

Since then, I've played a few here and there.  They're still not my favorite Classic D&D class, or my favorite AD&D race, but I do still get an idea for a fun Halfling every now and then and have at it.  I'm currently playing one in an online RPOL game, and so far he's been pretty fun to play as well. 

Long story short, I'm really looking forward to the Peter Jackson Hobbit movies.  My son, however, wanted to watch the Rankin-Bass Hobbit with me yesterday, but about the time they got to Rivendell he got bored, ran into the bedroom, and called me to come play with the dragon toys with him.  Well, he's only 3.  He'll learn!