Mad Brew Labs

Well the Con of Cons (for tabel top RPG gamers that is) is only two friggin’ weeks away! I’m pretty stoked, even if the guys, BH2 and MM, and me are only going to be playing 4e. I got my badge and event tickets about a month ago and placed them in a safe place. Somewhere the two-year old larva wouldn’t find them and turn it them into confetti. In a place I will most likely forget by the day GenCon arrives; finding myself ransacking the house in search of them.

Even though I have been gaming in some form or fashion for over two decades, I never went to GenCon until it chose the Indiana Convention Center as its venue. This might be because my mom was never really thrilled about D&D (or the heavy metal…), lack of finances, being an invert, and my honorable service with the Corps. But when it finally came to my home state of Indiana, and being less than an hour away, I couldn’t resist the urge.

GenCon was my first gaming Con experience, and it is still rich with memories. I’ll remember it as the death of the original World of Darkness and the birth of 3.5 edition D&D. The death of the WoD was quite an event as they handed out 500 shirts to gamers that attended their Time of Judgment press conference. If you were 21 or older and had one of those shirts, you scored free entry into their party in the ArtsGarden suspended over the streets of downtown Indy. Did I mention that the party had an open bar?  Oh yeah, Will knows what I am talking about!

I missed the next one because of college related stuff, but I have attended every one since. I was there for the 4th Edition D&D announcement and discussions with the designers. And the last Living Greyhawk adventures to be run by the RPGA at GenCon.

What sucks is that now only two other members of my group are going this year. The rest (of the 7 base member group) have decided that GenCon sucks… What!?! Blasphemy I say! I think they are disappointed because the several years they attended we never pre-registered for events, and thus spent a lot of time trolling the vendor booths. Which seems to have less and less booth babes every year! Who dropped the ball there? My goal for next year is to get at least two more to go with us.

Well, this year we did it right. We coordinated our schedules, picked our events and back up events in case they sold out, and pre-registered as soon as the RPGA events cut loose. Which, by the way, was delayed long enough to have me secretly hoping I would be able to get the other two guys to sign up for other games like Mutants & Masterminds, Warmachine, or World of Darkness.

Our con schedule is friggin packed with gaming. If the games were to last the entire scheduled times (which they won’t) we would only have two breaks between 0800 and 2400 (thats 8 a.m. and midnight for you non 24 hour clock readers). They would be a one hour and a two hour break. And the special module is scheduled to 3 in the morning!

So in preperation, I have done the following:

• mapped the fastest routes, and back up routes, to and from the Convention Center to my house
• bought a 40 c.i. roller cooler (here’s to me, Mr. roller cooler roller)
• made a grocery list for next week to put in said cooler
• made a packing list for game supplies
• scoped out the best (and hopefully overlooked by out of staters) parking

Here is to hoping GenCon and Living Realms changes my opinion of 4e!

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Below is an excerpt of how Echelon will handle races. While plenty of playtesting remains on making sure the races are balanced throughout the tiers, this is pretty much how they should work. The decision hasn’t been made on whether all the attributes happen at once, or spread out through XPRs. The idea to enable players to select a number of attributes at tiers or XPRs is on the design table as well.

Race and Languages

All characters know how to speak Common. An aasimar, dragonborn, dwarf, eladrin, elf, gnome, half-elf, half-orc, halfling, or tiefling also speaks a racial language, as appropriate. A character who has an Intelligence bonus at 1st level speaks other languages as well, one extra language per point of Intelligence bonus as a starting character. Power related languages: characters that purchase ranks in certain Powers can choose a few languages as bonus languages even if they’re not on the lists found in the race descriptions. These power related languages are as follows:

Divine: Abyssal, Celestial, and Infernal.
Sorcery: The language related to chosen bloodline.
Wizarding: Draconic.
Wyld: Sylvan

Favored Powers

Races gravitate towards Powers that come naturally to them. Dwarves are excellent smiths and crafters, so naturally they have an affinity for Artifice. Halflings have developed the knack to blend in with their surroundings for protection, so they have an inclination for the Covert arts. A race can purchase favored Powers at a reduced cost. A new rank for a favored Power costs its rank less in Experience Points.

Small Characters

A Small character gets a +1 size bonus to Armor Class, a +1 size bonus on attack rolls, and a +4 size bonus on Hide checks. A Small character’s carrying capacity is three-quarters of that of a Medium character. A Small character generally moves about two-thirds as fast as a Medium character. A Small character must use smaller weapons than a Medium character.

Dwarves

Listening to: Crowbar – Odd Fellows Rest - Planars Collide

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I discovered this gem of information thanks to mxyzplk on Geek Related, so be sure to pay him a visit if you are reading this post!

Monday, July 28th, Randy Buehler, VP of Digital Gaming at Wizards of the Coast announced in a Gleemax post that WotC has officially pulled the plug on the half-assed social network for gamers called Gleemax. Gleemax will close sometime in September (no solid date yet).

The reason behind scrapping Gleemax? Well besides it’s lukewarm reception and mediocre offerings, it is most likely because Dungeons & Dragons Insider (DDI) has fallen way behind the power curve. Nothing tangible beyond some fancy demos has arrived for this web service and e-zines Dragon and Dungeon (R.I.P. printed magazines) with a monthly subscription on par with MMOs, $14.95 a month.

Thats not all, according to this post Wizards will be refocusing their publishing arm as well. While the rest of the 2008 release schedule will continue, anything not dealing with Magic : the Gathering or Dungeons & Dragons will get the axe. This is related to novels, so the Discovery line is out in 2009 and as well as other series in the Mirrorstone imprint.

So, what exactly does Hasbro directing Wizards to focus on their cash cows imply? Hasbro is doing well financially according to this from EnWorld, an earning conference call. They only casually reference Wizards of the Coast in their meeting… making me think that perhaps D&D isn’t the shining example they’d hoped. Either that, or maybe D&D has never made enough money to mention. Only time will tell on how this development plays out.

It also begs the question on if gamers should create their own one-stop gaming site, with gaming tools…

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Here is an excerpt from EGS about how ability score ranks work:

The Echelon Gaming System inherits the six prime abilities from the 3.5 d20 SRD. These abilities are Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma. Expansions to EGS may bring additional abilities to the game, but for now we stick the basics.

Each Ability, after changes made because of race, has a rank ranging from –5 to +∞ (infinity). Table: Ability Ranks shows the modifier for each score. Each Ability partially describes your character and affects some of his or her Actions.

The rank is the number you apply to the die roll when your character tries to do something related to that Ability. You also use the rank with some numbers that aren’t die rolls. A positive rank is called a bonus, and a negative rank is called a penalty.

The ability that governs Powers depends on the individual entry: Intelligence can be used for specific styles of Wizarding; Wisdom for divine inspired gifts; or Charisma for certain sorceries. A high rank in an Ability is the prerequisite of the most impressive Powers.

Strength measures your character’s muscle and physical power. This ability is especially important for Close Combat and Might Powers because it helps characters utilizing those powers reach their fullest potential. Strength also limits the amount of equipment your character can carry.

• Melee attack rolls.
• Damage rolls when using a melee weapon or a thrown weapon (including a sling). (Exceptions: Off-hand attacks receive only one-half the character’s Strength rank, while two-handed attacks receive one and a half times the Strength rank. A Strength penalty, but not a bonus, applies to attacks made with a bow that is not a composite bow.)
• Athletics and Intimidate checks. These are the Skills that have Strength as their key Ability.
• Strength checks (for breaking down doors and the like).
• Fortitude Saving Throws. The higher of your Strength or Constitution ranks are applied to resisting poison and similar threats.

Listening to: Scar Symmetry – Pitch Black Progress – The Illusionist

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I am currently contributing to the Grand OGL Wiki (name subject to change) by stripping Open Game Content from books provided by Mongoose Publishing and placing it in the searchable online format.  This endeavor should be pretty useful once we have more content up on the live site.

Give it a spin, see if you like it, and maybe even lend a hand.  I am currently working on the Quintessential Cleric II book and hope to see it ready to go live in a couple of weeks.  It would be cool to see Echelon on there, if it is deemed worthy of inclusion once I am finished writing it.

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The Echelon Gaming System, or EGS, is a rank based d20 rules system that I have just began creating. EGS is the reason I even deigned to begin this web log. I read through the D&D core books immediately after Wizards of the Coast put them on the shelves. I was very disappointed.

I had been at the big 4dventure announcement party at GenCon ’07 when they revealed their plans to bring out a new edition. I had listened to the designers speak about how they were going to improve things: streamline combat, make races meaningful, balance classes, etc.

Honestly, I had mixed feelings. I wanted my beloved game to improve, but I had just sunk five hundred dollars in 3rd edition books, and they were talking that because of radical design changes, most of the old stuff would not be compatible. This left a knot in my stomach.

So I had to psyche myself up for the release, promising myself that the new stuff will be so good I’d give away all my 3rd edition books. Then they were released and I was pissed. Wizards had improved much of the game. I loved the consolidated skills, the tiers, and combat did seem faster paced. But they had clearly missed the mark on classes and only half delivered on their promises for meaningful races. The classes were… I don’t know how to say it, too balanced. None of them seemed to excel beyond the others in their niche. I felt like no matter my choice, I would have about the same options.

That disappointment inspired me to begin creating my own version of d20. It had begun as a fusion of what was good about 3rd and 4th edition D&D, but now I believe it has become something different, perhaps even better. Echelon does not have your typical classes, or typical levels. Players are awarded Experience each session, and can spend that experience to purchase ranks in Powers, in much the same way as White Wolf’s Storytelling dot system. There are vestiges of levels which are calculated by the total experience that has been awarded, but levels don’t drive the character. I have boiled away classes, leaving Powers (vestiges of class abilities and spells) and something called Archetypes. Races actually scale with the power of the characters, so which race you choose matters beyond character creation.

I have ranted and raved more than enough for one post, but you can look forward to sneak peaks at Echelon game mechanics and a setting I have planned for it in the future.

Listening to: Fear Factory – Obsolete – Edgecrusher

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