Character Respecification

I often start playing a RP game (either computer/video-based or pen(cil)/paper) expecting x,y and z from my character and the rest of the group, but often end up with a, b and c. For a number of different possible reasons, my current character may just not be as much fun to play as I thought it would be.  Or sometimes, I just like to get into the mechanics of the game and want to try different builds. In a CRPG, this often means that I restart the game, which for me, is not a problem for most of the time, because most Western CRPGs allow for multiple styles of play (evil/good; sneaky/direct etc.) and the only person put out by the restart is me. Several modern ones even allow you to respec your character during play.

Things are obviously different in a traditional pnp game. Not everybody likes it when the other members of the group chop and change their characters (note, I am not talking about rolling a new PC, because your GM is mean and killed off your previous character, again). I am quite tolerant of this type of character changing (as I also like to have the ability to change if things aren’t as fun for me or the group), but only up to a certain point – the point just before you decide that it’d be better to play a series of once-off games rather than trying to link one game across multiple sessions.

4th edition tries to get around this problem through ‘retraining’, which I don’t really like, because it involves a measure of unlearning or forgetting previous knowledge, without providing good enough reasons for this (like 3.5 XPH’s psychic reformation). Right now, I’m toying around with idea of rather allowing characters to pick multiples of x (example: feats) at level y, but only have one active at time, requiring  some sort of refocus, to swap between the options picked, much like a wizard can pick different spells for the day. Right now, I haven’t come up with something that seems that it would work well, without stepping on the wizard’s toes, and still allow for maximum mechanical flexibility and maximum character consistency.

How do you deal with this situation in your group?

Paizo’s RPG Superstar 2009

The good people of Paizo are launching the 2nd season of their RPG design competition, RPG Superstar. Round 1, open to any that would like to enter, begins on the 5th of December and requires entrants to design a wondrous item in line with the 3.5 SRD and Pathfinder RPG rules. The final winner of the competition gets to write (and get paid for) a module to be published for the Pathfinder series.

Sounds like fun, right? Yes, it does, and I may even throw in my own design. However, with every such competition, there is some legalese. In particular, I do not like this one:

“All entries in the RPG Superstar contest will become the sole property of Paizo Publishing. If published, reasonable effort will be made to credit the original author.”

Well, I’m not intending to start an information law/ethics debate on intellectual property rights, so I’ll stop complaining about it. Even if you don’t enter the competition, it will still be a great source for inspiration, whether you follow the competitors or try your own hand at design within the competition framework.

Best of luck to all entrants.

Mayors, wagons, barns and abbeys

Continuing my foray into the land of farmers, knights and thieves, today’s instalment is another Carcassonne expansion: Abbey & Mayor.  As was brought to my attention, some of these board games are available for play over the interwebs using Vassal downloadable here.  The games themselves are separate downloadable modules. The Carcassonne module can be found here.  It includes all the expansions (even some I have not mentioned yet).

minidota

Me and j have mentioned creating our own games a couple of times – and to some extent this has happened already (see the posts on Dreadnaught for example).

Now I want to introduce a game (map) that I’ve created a while back that has gone through a number of revisions and updates and is now kinda play ready. The game in question is an adaptation of DotA Allstars called miniDotA. As such it is a custom map for Warcraft III (with Frozen Throne expansion).

miniDotA's loading screen

You can find the map and try it out on the official site: www.minidota.com

miniDotA has two purposes:

• be a small simulation of the DotA Allstars game – allowing playtesting of hero ideas (and to that end an unprotected, slightly limited version of the map is available)
• be a short fun game for small groups that don’t want to play a whole game of DotA.

The map is very small in size and allows up to 3v3 play. Due to the small size the game is very intense with constant hero-on-hero action and a typical game should last between 20 and 30minutes.

The map currently features 15 heroes taken from the actual DotA Allstars map (with kind permission from IceFrog) and 7 additional custom heroes. You’ll be able to find a short description of these 7 heroes and their abilities on the main miniDotA site.

Top view of miniDotA map

A friend of mine, Jeeva, is hosting the map on a dedicated site www.minidota.com and has been promoting the current map (version 1.02b) to such an extent that on last check 900+ downloads for the map have been made. Needless to say I’m thrilled

I’m sufficiently motivated to do some additional work on the map again – and people can expect two more heroes in the next versions. Freya and Geophrey. If you’re interested, have a look at their current suggestion profile on the DotA forums. (You can use these links for Freya and Geophrey.)

Naturally all commentary, ideas, critique and bug reports are welcome – be it here on tenletter or elsewhere.

Gamet, one of the new heroes facing some creeps

Pax Magnifica Bellum Gloriosum

The epic game that is too epic for just one post. Click here for the previous look at Twilight Imperium.

This will look at one of the more important factors of the game: the units.  The technology tree is geared toward making your units (and production thereof) faster, more powerful and give access to the most powerful unit in the game.  A lot of time could be spent micro-managing ones fleet but ultimately the units are a means to an end, not an end in and of themselves.

CRPGs: Back to the Nineties

In my immediate geek social circle, there has always been an argument about which of the above 3 games/series is the absolute best CRPG of all time. I could never really fully participate as I only recently finished playing Fallout 2 for the first time. FO2 was a fun an addictive game and I thoroughly enjoyed it. However, it did not manage to usurp the number 1 spot in my heart: Planescape: Torment.

For me, PST beats both BG and FO for the following reasons:

• The Protagonist: I formed a deeper connection with PST’s protagonist (the Nameless One) than I did with my own creations in both BG and FO. The Nameless One’s story spoke to me more than the stories around and of the protagonists in BG and FO.
• The NPCs: In my opinion, the NPC companions of FO2 fell far behind those of BG and PST. FO2 NPCs were quite flat in comparison to those of PST and BG.
• The Plot (and subplots): I much preferred the personal stories of the Nameless One and his companions to the rather impersonal stories of the FO series. BG lands somewhere between the two for me.

And, an honourable mention:

• The System: FO wins this one. I really like how the SPECIAL system was implemented. Far better than the clunky AD&D implementations on the Infinity Engine.

So, which of the above is your favourite? Or do you know of some other gem I may have missed?

Rego ergo sum

It took a while to put together…but finally here it is:  The board game that has epic written all over it: Fanstasy Flight Games Twilight Imperium. First impressions of the game:  Epic.  It takes various mechanics from the “german” style games (Catan, Citadels) and adds a carrier full of flavour in the form of the general back story and races (each having their own back story).

Warning:  This is not a war game.  If you want a war game, go elsewhere.  This is a game of treaties, alliances and occasional backstabbing.  That said, some races do excel at blasting aliens out of their..um..space.  Building up a large force and attacking will simply not work and usually cause the attacker to lose in the long run. Strategy is the key. Though mostly large forces serve as deterrents or peace keeping forces.  Magnificent peace, glorious war.

Coming soon…

Much like Blizzard comments, todays review will be pushed out till tomorrow…for various epic reasons. And work.  Argh.

Till then, how about a few interesting comments on religion and RPing.  Will Dnd cause one to commit suicide when ones character dies?  Does casting spells in a RPG “prepare” one for dark cults (of cthulhu )? These are two examples of propaganda used by certain people (you know who you are).  Having once played DnD in a church, I can’t say that it was anything but a pretty interesting session.  Thoughts?

Study Leave

I’m currently taking a break from any serious gaming and related activities (such as blogging about gaming) whilst studying for my upcoming industry cruddy certification exam. There’ll be a bit less noise on the internets from me until the last week of November.

In other news, I’m still playing Fallout 2 (Won’t start FO3 till I’m done with 2) during my allowed study breaks. I’m enjoying the game, but it hasn’t replaced Planescape: Torment, yet (if possible), as most awesome CPRG ever, in my books. Perhaps on completion of FO2, I’ll do a lovely comparitive review of the two games.

That’s me in the corner

The topic for this month’s RPG blog carnival (that makes it carnival number 4) is religion. Quite a good topic, I believe, considering that religion is always a hot topic and that it touches on so many more simultaneous in-game and out-of-game themes and issues (in my opinion) than the previous three carnival rounds.

However, my contributions to Carnival 2 were all about religion. Now, I have to think up something new if I wish to contribute this month. Hmmm, ponder, ponder, ponder. Well, let’s see what I can come up with.

~~~

Unfortunately, I missed out on round 3, which was about superheroes. This is one aspect of the hobby in which I have almost no real experience. However, the posts throughout last month were quite inspiring. So inspiring, in fact, that I may give the superhero genre a try in the near future. Click here for round 3’s summary.