E is for E6

I hadn't mentioned this particular love of mine before, but here it is, all laid out - E6 is a "version" of D&D 3.5, that changes the scale more than anything.

Regular D&D assumes that you start at level 1, and work your way up to level 20 and beyond - and, due to some shaky design, some classes start being a lot more powerful than others.

In E6, you have just six levels to make your name. In game terms, this means you're still mortal - no Genesis and private demi-planes and Wishing Genies to give you three more Wishes, etc. You're a guy who is phenomenal with a sword, compared to the man on the street, or who can throw a fireball that can wreck your house - but neither can kill a city. Well, not in one round, at least. But they are still heroes, legends amongst normal men.

After those six levels, your characters can still advance - through purchasing feats. One for every 5000XP above 6th level is the recommended rate, and the creator even encourages GMs to create feats that allow players to circumvent the level limits slightly - a feat to learn a handful of 4th-level spells, or to gain access to a class feature just outside the player's reach.
It also means that bad guys are a challenge from level one right up to the level cap - when a well-placed dagger can kill you at any level, you can't afford to be Great Cleave-ing your way through hordes of goblins, safe in the knowledge that your 30+AC will protect you. You can also use far more recognisable enemies - even Kobolds can pose a threat to unprepared 6th-Level characters. Orcs, Ogres, even Hobgoblins and Drow all scale well from low-level to the end, and Dragons remain top-tier combatants - anything above a CR10 Young Dragon is a major military-level threat, that a group of adventurers should not be facing unless it's with a hundred well-armed men at their back. And even then...

It helps keep magic items magical as well - a +1 sword is nothing to be sniffed at, when +3 items can't be crafted (unless it's by someone with god-like smithing skills), and true Gods would need to intervene to make a +5 weapon like a Holy Avenger. That's not something you roll up on a treasure table - that's a campaign goal. Masterwork gear becomes way more important, instead of just a platform for enchantments - it really does represent the best of the best, as it's nearly as good as magic weapons. Shit must be good. Plus, it encourages players to take more "flavourful" choices (like Wonderous Items) when they're spending their loot (as all the "best gear" is too high-requirement to be made).
With six levels, you also avoid the ridiculous splat bloat of 3.5 - no more "My character is a multiclass Cleric/Sorcerer/Fighter/Rainbow Servant/Tainted Scholar/Mystic Theurge/Eldritch Knight, watch him tear reality asunder with this combination of class features!". You get the main stuff that defines a class at 1st level, after all (like a spell book and funny hat, or Sneak Attack, or Rage), and everything after that is just gravy.

Classes become a lot more balanced - at 6th level, the Wizard is able to throw out a little bit more in the way of damage-dealing spells, and the Fighter is killing everything that doesn't have damage resistance. There's no monsters that require spells alone to kill, nothing that can throw Save-or-Suck spells at you with any great reliability, and the Fighter won't need to start blowing all his money on magical weapons to "keep up" with casters who will be leaving him in the dust with just a handful of utility spells (or replacing him outright with Summon Monster).

Yes, I know - it probably sounds vaguely similar to my love of Microlite20's stripping back of 3.5 D&D. But, M20 lacks depth - it's easy and fun, yes, and I'm sure you could end up running a full campaign with it, but it can feel somewhat "samey". Whereas, E6 has all the crunch of 3.5, with far fewer of the problems - like high-level play, people shooting for certain power-builds, the whole "Caster Supremacy" thing, whatever. It takes the best bit of D&D, the "gritty" low-level stuff, up to the heroic level, and makes it the game - excising the superheroic bullshit of later levels (or, indeed, the God-like levels for Clerics, Druids, and Wizards).

It's awesome. I thoroughly recommend it.

BONUS: D is for DRAGONS

'Cause you can't talk about DUNGEONS without DRAGONS, baby!

And this girl is the Queen of them all. Fuck that Platinum Dragon bitch, he ain't shit compared to the five-headed Avatar of Destruction that is Tiamat.

This is PURE EVIL, kids, learn its smell.

Seriously, though - Dragons are another aspect of the game that's older than the game itself. Legends about dragons have popped up throughout most cultures at some point - they're a powerful symbol of the mythic, the arcane, and of course, the treasure trove.

The Hobbit was once again the kick-starting point of the Dragon's Hoard in modern fantasy - a magpie-like drive to collect gold, gems and other shiny things, for a variety of reasons (in The Hobbit, it was Smaug's sheer avarice - in other settings, it can be as "fuel" for breath weapons, or a literal compulsion and attraction towards the shiny), but there's always a few common themes: gold, and lots of it; magical trinkets and what-nots; the hoard doubling as the Dragon's quarters; and a secure location, a lair or dungeon vault.

Which makes raiding a dragon's hoard the perfect fantasy encounter! You have a well-defended dungeon, controlled by a mastermind, guarded by a great and powerful beast, filled to the brim with riches and rewards worth risking your life for!

D is for DUNGEONS!

Go big, or go home.

Pretty much the cornerstone of our hobby, man.

The first RPGs sprung from wargaming sessions which were conducted on a much smaller scale, using indoor environments to allow for a much more claustrophobic experience, similar to other fantasy literature where caves and lairs were far more commonplace (the archetypal dungeon is still Lord of the Rings' Khazad-Dum, the Mines of Moria, the ancient Dwarfhold where great evil lurks...).

By now, though, the term "dungeon" has been expanded to mean any restricted area of exploration - you can have dungeons underground, or through the streets of ruined cities, or a particularly dense chunk of forest, or an underwater kelp forest, or the lair of some great Evil, or a particular path through the Underworld, or an old crypt/catacomb, or a warehouse filled with storage containers, or a derelict space ship, or...

You get the idea. A dungeon can find its way into nearly any game (my Rogue Trader game has had a few dungeon crawls, mainly on abandoned Space Hulks), as it provides a good encounter - a restricted area, filled with traps, combat, puzzles, and mysteries to be solved. They make for a plot and hook all in one - PCs are the kinds of people who know that dungeon = treasure, and cool stuff. If there's a dungeon, they're going into it. No need to lure them there with hints to greater horrors, over-arcing plots, etc. - it's like a mountain, it's been put there to be climbed. Or delved, as the case may be.

For a while, I moved away from dungeons, decrying them as "immature" and "a poor man's way out" - if you couldn't make a good, compelling story without resorting to a dungeon, you weren't doing it right.

Then, I found out - I was just rotten at running dungeons. And, I'd been running them straight from pre-written adventures, and man, that's just wrong.

I had my little realisation as to how much fun you could have with a dungeon way back when I was running a one-on-one game for my then-girlfriend (the third post I ever made on this here blog!), when I designed a simple dungeon for my introductory adventure. I sat and planned all the wee bits out, making a simple dungeon - then I added a few traps. Then a few more interesting details, and rolled on some tables, came up with a full dungeon ecosystem... I got sucked in. And I had loads of fun - and she loved it. Something so simple, that can be expanded upon to make something so complicated and devious...

I now love dungeons. I try and run a few pick-up dungeon-crawl games whenever I can, simply because they're so much fun. Even just for a one-off session, regardless of the system you're using, they're a great way to spend a few hours with friends. Or strangers. Or anyone, really.

C is for Cigarettes

Yes, I've just quit this week, and why, yes, it's MURDER.

I don't want to glamorise this filthy habit, but HHHNNNNNNNNNGGGGGHHHHHH

But I wanted to talk about them in gaming terms.

Many players and DMs (myself included) tend to use smoking as a quick characterisation - someone who smokes is generally a rebel, too cool for school, and (depending on the setting) generally a bad guy. It can make a one-dimensional character have the illusion of depth (but mostly makes them smell bad). It's also an addiction that allows someone to remain fully-functioning (unlike drugs, or in some cases alcohol), and gives people an excuse to be an arsehole when they haven't had their fix (though I've met a fair few players who didn't need an excuse)...

In games with "Flaws", Addiction (Smoking) is a cheap and effective one - you don't buy a single dose, you buy a 20-deck! And they work it as "one dose a day" for most addictions, so you're fairly guaranteed (so long as you are somewhere near civilisation) to have a steady supply of your chosen vice.

This is how I Flaw: Crippling Addiction (Tobacco)

I also had plans to make them the motivation in a short one-off one-on-one Risus game to introduce a friend to gaming ("You've smoked your last cigarette. You must adventure out to the shops, to buy more. It's dangerous to go alone - take this." *offers kitchen knife*)

And, as a DM and player, I've had several in-character smoke breaks, including plotting with the sole other Elf in the party as to how we would be the ones to retrieve the McGuffin for our Queen (and then, out-of-character, how we would never let the other one live), and using it as a chance to let the players work out the terms of a deal (with one player approaching me in-character and making a better offer for her services, and the rest of the party as slaves). It can be a lot of fun, and add some vermilisitude, to smoke while gaming - just make sure you're in a smoke-friendly house (most of my gaming friends are not).

B is for Barbarians!



 

Original, and best.

 From the heady days of Unearthed Arcana, right through to 4e's Primal Power, Barbarians have seen a few changes across the years.

The first Barbarian started as an emulation of Conan the Barbarian - an aggressive, intelligent battler, who wore little armour, entered great rages, and feared magic. They were pretty much Fighters with bigger numbers (bigger hit-dice, better abilities), which was balanced by an inability to use magical gear (too superstitious). They got some flak, but were popular enough to be carried forward into the next edition.

2e had several options - from "kits" (similar to Alternate Class Features/Archetypes) to represent a wild, bestial Fighter, through to a much watered-down version of the class. I will admit little knowledge of 2e, so I'll say no more.

Most of these were carried forward to 3rd Edition (barring the Intelligence part - most Barbarians have low, low Int scores, for whatever reason *ahem*pointbuy*ahem*). It also kick-started the mechanical "Rage", giving boni and mali when the character entered a Rage, enhancing their fighting ability but leaving them more open to attack. They turned out something closer to Berserker Warriors than Conan, but hey, horses for courses and all that.

4th Edtion changed them up a bit, but in a good way - instead of just making them really generically angry, Barbarians are spirit-channellers, calling upon the power of Primal and Elemental Spirits to batter the crap out of their enemies. Very cool, very powerful mechanically, and one of the better translations into the new "Roles" system, as it's always been a pure Striker - get in fast, smash face, RAGE, repeat until one of you is dead.

I guess they make for a weird proposition - I can imagine a whole tribe of Barbarians, but can't do that with any other class. I'd even find it weird for a Fighter's Guild to have only Fighters in it, you know? Whereas Barbarian is a Class, race and social class all rolled into one!

It makes for a very good class to add to NPCs who rely on close combat, like Orcs or Bugbears - they seem appropriate Barbarians, and taking a horde of regular Orcs and making their Champion a 5th-Level Barbarian helps keep them a threat to players. With a little refluffing, however, you can class the Rage ability as a sort of "focus", for more refined enemies - a cold fury they enter when battling, to allow them to strike down a certain target as quickly as possible.

In all this time, however? I've never played a Barbarian. Not my style, to tell you the truth. So there's another resolution - next D&D game I play, I'm playing a Barbarian. A huge, burly Viking-a-like, interested only in wenching, drinking, and battle, preferably in that order.

Wish me luck.