Let's Talk: About My Relationship With Dungeons and Dragons

So… It’s been a wild year for D&D, hasn’t it? I’m sure that if you’re reading this, you’ve heard about the Wizards of the Coast Open Game License stuff that’s gone down over the last week or so. It’s been wild to read. Honestly, I didn’t know that the OGL 1.0a was still being used for much beyond Pathfinder. However, I shouldn’t be surprised that it was used for the 5e stuff.

Anyway, let’s move on to the topic at hand, my relationship with D&D or really how long I’ve been playing it and not playing it and what I’m doing now. Let’s go.

I first started playing D&D in middle school with the one friend I really had back in 1996 or so. Back in these days, it was AD&D 2^nd edition. The old black books, if you’re familiar. I continued to play into high school and then beyond high school, still using AD&D. I had a DM who had developed at really in depth setting over the years he had been playing and had made home rules and such over the years. This isn’t exactly unheard of in the D&D community from the very start. Soon after the introduction of the original D&D game, it seems like people started changing the rules to make sense for what they wanted to. And they also began to develop their own settings, usually based on their own adventures and ideas. And there’s not much a company can do about this. They sell you rules and you can do whatever you want with them. I’m pretty sure that the video game modding community shares something in common with the mindset of those who created their own D&D settings. I’d like to point out that a guy named Ed Greenwood started making a setting that would later be known as Forgotten Realms, which was later acquired by TSR, the company that originally produced D&D.

It’s fair to say that playing that old edition of D&D captivated me and awaken my imagination, as well as the possibility of telling my own stories. However, AD&D 2^nd edition was not easy for me to understand the rules. My brain and math do not get along and THAC0 is the bane of my existence. There’s going to be two reactions to that acronym; either you’re going to have flashbacks or look at me with a dumb look on your face. If you didn’t have flashbacks, count your lucky stars. While I wasn’t great at understanding the rules, I did fully embrace playing pretend.

And then WotC bought TSR and we got D&D 3^rd edition. And it was good. It was a system I could really wrap my head around and gave me the tools to start running my own games. During this period, I was playing in two different games, one in AD&D rules and another in 3^rd edition. It was a good time for my gaming life. I also began to discover other games. Things like Cyberpunk 2020, Rifts, Deadlands, Vampire, Hunter, the Star Wars D6 edition, and GURPS, although I only really played GURPS here and there before 3^rd edition came out and maybe twice afterwards.

With the release of 3^rd edition, we got the original OGL, and it caused a revolution in the gaming industry. As you saw, I listed a bunch of different games, each with different systems. Aside from a few of them (looking at you, Palladium), the companies quickly picked up the OGL and used it to convert their settings and systems to the D20 system, as 3^rd edition became known. Soon after, or around the same time, smaller companies started to release books with unique and interesting content that could be included in your D&D games, or taking your D&D games into wildly different campaign settings. Not just the official ones that were being either slowly updated to the system, but ones that were totally original. There were books that gave you new gear, new monsters, new character classes, new foes, new rules, and the like. These would vary between smaller soft bound books that had a few dozen pages to hard bound books with several hundred pages.

There were also fans making RPGs of some of their favorite media into D20 system games, because the rules were easy and readily available. For me, it was a great time, as I could pull things from a bunch of different books to make my own settings and throw players for a loop.

This was also the era where I played the most D&D in my life. At one point, I was in two weekly games; one in AD&D 2^nd edition and another in 3^rd (later converted to 3.5) and I had a lot of fun. It was really the Good Old Days for my gaming life. I also tried to run some games here and there, but I did have a lot to learn.

Another thing that came from the D20 system was D20 Modern, which I’ve discussed elsewhere, but I always liked the idea of it more than actually playing it. It just never worked out, really. Which is a shame in my opinion.

Now, we need to move on to the end of this era for not only D&D but my time with it. You see, Wizards was acquired by Hasbro and when things like this happen, there’s always changes. Now, this is just my opinion, but I think that the corporate masters at Hasbro saw all the money D&D was giving away with the OGL and wanted to bring it back to their coffers. And thus D&D 4^th edition was born. And no one I played with at the time was really excited or wanted it. Sure, 3.5 had several problems, but we’d already invested a lot of money into the system, not to mention time and effort. A lot of people who played or ran the games had worked out what books to allow, what sort of worlds they wanted to be in, and had bought several Wizard’s products, as well as third party ones. And now we had to give it all up for a new edition? No thanks.

In hindsight, I find it interesting how we had done with this edition that our 2^nd edition AD&D DM had done when 3^rd had come out. As I mentioned, I was in those two games with two different editions. Well, there were two reasons why we stayed with the old system. The first was that we were in the middle of a major campaign that had been going on for years at that point, using a setting the DM had worked on for decades, with a ton of homebrewed rules, classes, and races. Converting that to 3^rd would take a lot of time. There was also the issue of the DM not really wanting to learn a new system, even if it was easier. People are creatures of habit and a fair amount of us hate change to varying degrees. We don’t want to update what we’re familiar with just because it’s popular. However, a fair amount of the group I was in were getting familiar with the newer edition and helped the old DM update his stuff. Shortly after 3.5 was dropped, that campaign switched over to 3.5.

 When it comes to 4^th edition, my friends went through the same thing. They had resisted playing 4^th for several years, having some major issues with the mechanics. But then someone bought the core books and then they wanted to try it and one thing led to another and they were soon playing 4^th regularly. Meanwhile, my life had changed and I no longer had time to play D&D or really hang out with them, so I never got into it. What little I did know about 4^th edition, I really didn’t like. I feel like as Wizards attempted to streamline and condense the rules, classes, abilities, and tried to incorporate the accessibility of things like how they were done in MMORPGs, they lost the uniqueness of the classes and the game itself. I’m no longer angry or bitter about what happened but I do just feel… Sad about the whole thing. D&D was an important part of my life and then it faded away.

However, out of that, I began to explore more and more different and unique games, as did some of my friends. While most of them continued to play D&D, we would try other things besides GURPS here and there. I was able to run some Deadlands, a very brief game of Hunter, I played BESM with some other friends, and played a variety of systems with super heroes. While I didn’t jump on the Pathfinder train like a lot of people did, I respect it. I’ve only briefly played it, many years after playing D&D, but I liked how familiar it felt without the baggage. It was a good time.

Before moving on to 5^th edition, by the time it had come out, I was done with D&D. I think I’ve commented a few times how much I dislike the fantasy genre these days. You have to remember that when I was playing in two different D&D games, this was also the same time that the LotR movies came out, which caused a massive explosion of fantasy books and other D&D settings. It was peak market saturation. Those same friends also played Diablo and World of Warcraft, while I didn’t. A lot of the books I read at the time were fantasy, but all of them. The genre was hard to avoid but it was also starting to become more bland and boring. I felt like there wasn’t really anything interesting going on with it for me. I did develop a few campaign settings in my spare time for D&D during this period, when I wasn’t playing or running anything, but they were all unique or tried to be in places that my group and I hadn’t really played in before. While we were on a sailing ship for part of a campaign, it was mostly to get us from point A to point B, without much of a chance to explore how that would go. So, one of my game ideas was for a fantasy version of Pirates of the Caribbean, but more about pirate nations and politics. Another one featured an Elven kingdom that had been slowly fallen from power, due to the expansion of humans and Dwarves, before being pushed to the brink of destruction by a long war against orc hordes. This kingdom, with a new, very evil prince that ascended to the throne, would lead his people into a fantasy version of Facism and a war of reclaiming his peoples’ land. Another idea I had was for a world with several racially divided kingdoms having just ended a massive war having to deal with a bright and strong orc mercenary returning to the scattered orc hordes and start making them into a proper kingdom from what he learned while fighting in the war. Think of something like an Oricsh Genghis Khan. And those were the kinds of ideas I had. Spinning ideas out of things I’d like to see, subverting the expectations of the players, as they wouldn’t expect most of this stuff.

 But now, let’s finally get around to 5^th edition D&D. I heard about it, saw it on the shelves, but pretty much ignored it until last year. I briefly played a game online with it before that but it just didn’t engage me. It wasn’t until SpellJammer was announced that I even really looked at it. In fact, I flat out told a friend of mine that I wouldn’t pick it up until SpellJammer was in my hands. While SpellJammer is disappointing (yes, there is a review I’ve been meaning to write for a while), I did buy the PHB. And I can understand why it became popular. It was easily accessible without being bland. From a purely mechanically view, it’s a solid game. But I still don’t like it or love it. At this point, I’ve bought the core books and the SpellJammer boxed set. Beyond that, I have a few other books I need/want to buy so I can include the stuff in my SpellJammer game, but that’s it. 4^th edition did a lot of damage to my favorite setting, Forgotten Realms, and the world I see in 5^th edition doesn’t make me happy. It feels far more generic and watered down to the complex and interesting world I once knew. And it pains me to look at it. Things that were great are either gone or less important. I know that a lot of people didn’t like FR because it felt “generic” in older editions, or that it was copying LotR, but I read a good number of books and I felt like the world of Toril was a living, breathing thing. Now, it feels no different than Greyhawk, which was the default setting for 3^rd and 3.5. These changes have kept me away from 5^th and make it that much harder to get into it. I will say that there are some wonderful things to see in the 5^th edition Monster Manual, and that the classes included in the PHB are nice, even the way they handle races and the variants of them are good. However, this isn’t my D&D. That doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be yours and if you enjoy playing it, more power to you. I asked around my new friends that have played D&D in the past and a fair amount of them started with 2^nd edition AD&D but really got into it when 4^th edition came out. For them, that’s their D&D and they have embraced 5^th with open arms. And I have no problem with it. I can’t drag on them for enjoying something that isn’t something I like. You’ll always remember what got you into the hobby with rose tinted glasses, and there’s nothing wrong with that. And it’s really about what you enjoy.

 When I started working on this little (massive) essay, the D&D community was roiling with the leak of the OGL 1.1 and the obvious corporate greed on display there. By the time I’ve gotten around to finishing this, a lot of that has changed. Hasbro and Wizards has got through ignoring the problem, putting their foot in their mouths, and now, finally listening to what the community has to say. However, I think the damage is done. Wizards has lost a lot of money, but they’ve also lost the respect of the community. They’ve done a lot of make D&D more inclusive and less problematic, which I fully support. I know that they’re probably doing this to expand the market share of their products, but even being driven by greed, it’s good to see. D&D means different things to different people and that’s great. For me, D&D is something I can look at fondly, but it’s no longer a part of my life, nor is it something I want to engage with. I will be playing it, but I’m not looking to get back into it fully. That time has past.

If you’re on the fence about what to do now, as I feel that many people are now wondering if they can trust Wizards from this point forward (I don’t think you can but that’s my opinion), they’ve been hearing a lot about a bunch of different games and systems. I think a lot of people are having the exact same moment I did when 4^th edition was released. You can try to hold on to what you have and ignore D&D One, or you can look into those other systems and games. I think we’re going to see something wonderful happen in the gaming community, where those who have heard about things like GURPS, Pathfinder, Call of Cthulhu, and everything else will now be giving them a try. I say, go for it. Losing D&D as my main game made me really embrace what I really wanted to play and I was able to push forward with that. I hope you can, too. And give those greedy jerks in Hasbro and Wizards corporate (the ones that said that D&D was “undermonitized”) the middle finger on the way out.

What you need is a game that you enjoy, which doesn’t have to be D&D. Good luck.

Sources Say - Ghost Archipelago: Gods of Fire

Name: Ghost Archipelago – Gods of Fire

Produced By: Osprey Games
System: Ghost Archipelago
Genre(s): Fantasy, Pirates, Tribal elements, Greek myth

Welcome back to another Sources Say and another one about a Ghost Archipelago supplement. This time, I’m reviewing Gods of Fire, the second expansion for the game and with a focus on Tribals. In the core book, tribals are one of the many enemies a Heritor and their crew might face in the Archipelago, and it’s neat to see them explored.

The first chapter is a forward from the creator, talking about what the book contains, which is pretty standard for these books. As we’re going to review these chapters, that’s all I’m going to say about this part.

 The second chapter is all about those Tribals. This chapter delves into the tribes and how isolated they can be. There’s also some new rules for them, allowing players to make their own tribes, with a series of beneficial traits and negative traits. Tribes can only have two benefits, but as many negatives as a player wants. Once these are settled, there’s rules for using Tribals as enemies run by a GM, with a host of new Tribal members to use, as well as rules for building “crews” of them. With that done, there’s some sample tribes you can use, if you so choose. I really like these additions, as I’ve started using goblins as my Tribals, because I have a fair amount of them. I tried using them as Dricheans but that was a little too confusing for my friend Jay, but I really do think they’ll work better for Tribals. And since one of the traits Tribes can get is Pygmie, it’s perfect for them. Better yet, it’s a negative trait, which means I can give them two beneficial ones in exchange for it.

Moving on to the third chapter, the one with the new Specialist Crewmen. The first one is a “Bowman” which a bit of a joke as it’s about bows, not bows. I mean, a ship’s bow, not a bow for shooting. But, at the same time, it’s also about bows you shoot with. In a later chapter, they introduce a swivelbow you can put on small boats and this crewman is an expert at using them. That was far too many words for that weak of a pun. The next crewman is something of a bow (as in the one with arrows) sniper, getting a special ability to aim before shooting. Following this, we have a “swordmater” but they’re really a duelist. Perfect for crews that a light on crew but also if you have a model with a rapier. Now, we have the first new Tribal crewmen, the Totem Warrior. They can make a Will roll to gain a bonus of their choice for the rest of the game. The next Tribal crewman we have is the Tribal Darter, who uses a blowgun. While an interesting idea, I don’t know how useful they would be, given the poor damage modifier and range on a blowgun, even if it is poisoned, especially as one of the most expensive crewmen so far. After that, we have the Tribal Guide, who gives you the chance to move them and another model after deployment but before rolling initiative. The last crewman we get is the Vanguard, and one of the more interesting crew options. They’re 75gc, wear heavy armor and carry a shield, and use a hand weapon and throwing spear (I’ll talk about that when we get to the chapter). They could be a good alternative for Freebooters and Men-At-Arms, being priced between them, but with heavy armor, but their stats are divided between ranged and melee. It’s a tough call to make, as the spear isn’t as useful as a bow, much less a crossbow, but that 75gc cost is very tempting. I might try them out as see how they do.

 The fourth chapter is the new weapons, all two of them. I don’t know why this is a separate chapter, as this could have easily been added to the end of the last one. The two weapons are both ranged and you can’t take them as normal equipment. Again, why is this its own chapter? The blowgun, as I mentioned, is poisoned but has a -4 damage modifier and a shorter range than a bow. With that low of a chance of being able to poison a model besides a standard crewmen, I don’t think the model that carries it (see above) is really worth it. The other weapon we get is the Throwing Spear, which is a slightly better Throwing Knife, but is one time use. If it wasn’t unavailable for my Heritor, I would totally use it in place of Throwing Knives, or even bows, even if it’s one time use. I suppose I’ll have to start making that exception…

Moving on to the fifth chapter, we have new rules for small boats. Not going to lie, this is half the reason why I picked up this book. These rules include rules for capsizing your boats. I like how it’s realistic but I don’t feel the need to use it. Then again, if I get in some more games with small boats, maybe I’ll want to use them. Speaking of things I want to use, this chapter also gives us the option of canoes. They’re not as big as small boats, but that kind of works, given how you’re probably not going to fill up your boats anyway. I think the idea of the canoes is great and wish they had been in the original book. The final thing is the Swivelbow weapon. It’s 200 gc PER BOAT and are overpowered crossbows. I don’t know if I’d ever use them, as they also impose a penalty to hit, even if they do a lot of damage. Then again, there is the Kraken to think about… Of course, they work better if you have Bowmen, but that’s another 50gc per guy, and those are Specialist Crewmen.

The sixth chapter is the first of a few campaigns in the book. This first campaign is three scenarios, but they’re different than you’d expect. Before you start the campaign, you have to figure out who is going to control a force of Tribals. That’s because one player will be playing the Tribals for two of the three scenarios, while the other player gets beaten to hell and back. What happens is that the player who plays the Tribals gets to make a pretty beefy force, while the other player plays their normal crew, but doesn’t get to heal between scenarios. Then, in the third scenario, the other player’s regular crew pops up, fresh and ready. So, yeah. All in all, it sounds like a neat little campaign, especially since it ends with a flooding temple and a bunch of aquatic monsters that get unleashed. I think it might work better if you did it co-op, with two crews fighting the Tribals, and then taking on a fresh Heritor crew in the end. However, I could see it being run as is, if one player has a much higher level than the other, with the higher level one being the one suffers through the first two scenarios.

Moving on the seventh chapter, we have another campaign, but it’s only two scenarios this time around. Instead of fighting against Tribals, you get to have some join your force, and you’re fighting cathaka this time around. Those are buzzard-men, just so you know. The first scenario is going up a rocky road to the gate leading to the city they’re taken over, with the second one being a fight on the tops of the buildings of the city. It’s a short one, and sounds really dangerous in the second one, but also seems like it might be fun.

 The eight chapter is another campaign, but this time it’s four scenarios long, and two of them should be played twice. This one involves a volcanic island and a not quite Crystal Pool. The scenarios have players trading off between playing their regular crews and playing the Tribal forces, and one of them lets the Tribal player take a cyclops! Of the three campaigns in this book, I think this one is the best. I wish they hadn’t made the other scenarios in the book so set and just made it easier to play them as normal scenarios, and then had this campaign as the only one. Anyway.

Chapter nine is the mandatory treasure chapter, with all the cool new toys you MIGHT get to play with, assuming you roll well. There’s some really good stuff in this one, with a regenerating ring, a golden skull that gives you a chance to take over the undead, and some weapons that give you a boost to your swimming rolls. The items they have in here aren’t really specific to the book or seem to be unbalanced. For the most part, they’re nice little bonuses to have, if your Warden has the right spells, and some things that can help in the right situation.

The final and tenth chapter is the bestiary. We finally get giant rats in the Archipelago, took long enough. There’s a little bit for every monster type, including some new dinosaurs, as well as some new intelligent races, like the cyclops and buzzard men I mentioned earlier. If you were paying attention, you might have noticed that I mention a kraken. Yeah. That’s here too and it is wild. I’m actually surprised that there wasn’t a scenario that involved it. Anyway. The kraken has several limbs that act independently, and can even move on land to represent their reach, and then you get the head that pops up. This thing should be the only creature you face in a scenario, it’s that intense. In fact, I might even make up a scenario myself. Who wants calamari?

If you’ve been playing Ghost Archipelago already, this book would be good to add to your collection, as it really expands how Tribals work, gives you some neat treasure, and has some interesting monsters to fight. It’s worth it.

Horror Show: USX - Modern Day Heroes

 

Ever heard the phrase “having is not as good as wanting”? Well, I recently had an experience with this.

You see, some time ago, I stumbled across some minis for a game called “USX: Modern Day Heroes” that looked kind of cool, when I was looking for more stuff for Zona Alfa and a few other things. After I bought some, I thought it wouldn’t hurt to have another minis game, right? And this one has robots, magic, Mythos monsters, and zombies, even vehicles, so what’s not to like? Well… It would help if the damn thing was complete! In short, I feel like I got ripped off.

I’m not kidding. All this book gives you is rules. Which is great and all but without stats for any of the models in the line. And the game uses square 30mm bases, which is more common with fantasy or historical games, because of the old “rank and flank” style of games. There’s one other modern game that I’ve encountered that uses square bases, and I know the reason this game uses them is because they have a fantasy and historical games that use the same system as this game. 

 Anyway. It does have rules. And those rules are… Okay, I guess? But they’re not exactly user friendly. There’s a mix of letters, numbers, and other symbols like &, #, @, etc and you have to compare things on a chart. For example, if you have a melee combat, you would compare Melee Attack Class and the Defense Class (which would be letters) to see how well you’re going to do in a fight. And you do the same for ranged weapons. It’s a bit insane, as you could have just used numbers, as it makes more sense to more people. At least, I would think so. I wonder if they were worried about getting sued by GW or something? I mean, yeah, that’s always a concern in this space but this is a bit of unnecessary nonsense. Moving on. When you compare the numbers between the attacker and defender, you get a multiplier for the damage dice of the weapon you’re using (between ½ and 2, but mostly 1) and then what number you score the hits on when you roll the dice (between 4+ and 6+), and then roll the dice from your weapon and see how many hits you scored. This is needlessly complex. It gets even worse when they start getting into autofire weapons, as you can make multiple attacks, but you drop one dice as you make further attacks. This can mean that you’re rolling upwards of 20 dice for a single attack, if you get really lucky. Because everything is d6 based, of course. 

 It gets worse, as they have a morale system. There’s going to be a longer post about this, but I really do not like morale systems in skirmish level games. I don’t have a problem with it in larger, army sized games, and there’s all kinds of tactical levels to those games. While the system is designed to go up to true “wargaming” scale, with that good ol’ Rank and Flank stuff, you shouldn’t have it be a core element of the smaller level game. It would be fine if it was confined to using horror, as the Cthulhu Mythos has fear and horror as a core element, but it’s not. There’s also a magic system, such as it is, which also calls for morale checks, but there’s no reason to make it sure a core element.

One of the major problems with RAFM continuing to sell this game is that the game requires you have the model’s character card. And, of course, there’s another problem here, because you can’t find the cards anymore. They don’t sell them with the models, even in the boxed sets, and the links on their website are long dead. So, they’re selling a poorly designed game that you can’t even play! There are a few sample cards in the back of the book, but not nearly enough to break it down to figure out how much things should cost. Oh, and that’s another thing, the point costs. A zombie costs 950 points. A minor grunt costs 1,470 points. That’s insane. That means that a small game would probably have a points limit of 10k or so. Another factor in selling cards for the minis is that you’re going run into a really cool mini that has crap stats. And you won’t know that until you buy the mini, as the stats aren’t in the book.

 Sure, the PDF on their website is only $5, but it’s a literal waste of five bucks. Assuming you get it, which I have a story about. I saw a physical copy for $12 on eBay, down from the full sale price of $20. As I’d bought a lot of the minis, I thought I would pick it up. But I thought I might buy the PDF of it first. So, I go to the RAFM website and find out that they do have PDFs of the game. I order it, but I did it without making an account, so I made the account and I still don’t have my PDF. I’ve thought about sending an email but it’s not worth it. So you, before I bought the PDF, I ended up buying that physical copy… And after reading it, I decided it wasn’t worth it to waste my time for a game I couldn’t even play, much less ask for a refund.

There’s just so much wrong here. There’s so much missing, even weapon templates, and there’s no support for it online. It’s garage. It’s incomplete. Even if this an expansion, as it’s technically “Universal Soldier EXTREME” as their system of games is called Universal Soldier, it doesn’t say that it requires the other books. You shouldn’t be selling this if it isn’t ready to play from the start, unless you say that you need other things, too. A hot mess doesn’t even begin to describe it, I swear. It really sucks because under these broken things and missing content, there’s almost a really interesting and unique game just waiting to come out. The latest edition of the this game is from 2008, plenty of time to cook up a fix, or even release the stuff you need online. It’s just frustrating.

However, with all of my complaining and anger, I do want to say that RAFM’s models are great and you should totally buy those if you want them. Just save your money and don’t buy this game.