Recently, the topic of random vs. point buy ability score generation has come up again. A large segment of the D&D is really enamored with it, but I find the sorts of over-optimized and/or repetitive character builds point buy often engenders to be antithetical to my playstyle.

That said, I do agree that it really sucks to be the guy who rolled crappy in a party of players who rolled well.

Though there are a couple of methods I came up with to deal with this, here's one I came up with that I have stuck with for a while because it's great for Play-by-Posts as well as for making pregens for gamedays/conventions.

This was originally posted here, but there are a few updates that introduce some tweaks I have been using lately.

Note that this was intended for use in D&D 3.5, D20 Modern, and Spycraft 2.0. I have no idea how suited this is for D&D 4e; use at your own risk.

Psion's D20 System Game Card Generation Method

1) Get a deck of standard playing cards. Take the 4-9 cards of two suits out of the deck. This should give you 12 cards, 2 of each numbered 4-9.

2) Shuffle the 12 cards. Deal them out in pairs. Flip them over and total the pairs. This gives you 6 numbers that can range from 8 to 18.

(If you are happy with this, just allocate these scores to the 6 stats at the player's discretion. I, however, was shooting for a slightly higher average to match the assumptions of Spycraft 2.0 and D20 Mars, and I wanted to avoid 8's, so I added this step.)

3) Sort the pairs from highest to lowest. Add 1 to the 2nd, 4th, and 6th highest numbers. Allocate statistics to ability scores to taste.

Note:
In Spycraft, to compensate for the fact that some players have more odd scores than others, I allow players to subtract 1 from two odd scores in exchange for 1 bonus feat, similar to Spycraft's Modular campaign quality.

In D20 Mars, you get more frequent attribute boosts than in standard D20 games, so odd scores are less of a "sunk cost."

Example:

The cards are shuffled and dealt, resulting in these pairs...

6, 5 ( = 11)
9, 4 ( = 13)
7, 7 ( = 14)
5, 9 ( = 14)
6, 4 ( = 10)
8, 8 ( = 16)

The scores are ordered, and 1 is added to the 2nd, 4th, and 6th highest
16
14 + 1 = 15
14
13 + 1 = 14
11
10 + 1 = 11

Resulting in
16
15
14
14
11
11

"But I want to be able to pick my stats!"

Okay, these sorts of players are still out there. So here's an option I provided: instead of shuffling to get pairs of cards, allocate them to taste. However, you have these additional restrictions (to make things more fair to the randomizers):
1) You may not deal yourself an 18 or 2 17's.
2) You don't get the 3 "kicker points" from step 3 above.

Comments on method

Having been using this for a bit, I have observed a few properties that differ here from random dice rolling.

Obviously, by intent, the spread between PC power is much less than random, but unlike point-buy, you don't see pattern builds and a flurry of ugly fighters and you don't see the big point cost hit for higher stats.

While dealing the cards to make scores, it's psychologically a different experience than rolling. If you roll a crappy score using a dice method, there's the definite feeling that you have been set back, because you can't expect the rest of your scores to make up for it. When using the card method, you deal out some low cards, you know a good score is coming, because those cards are out of the deck.

The main randomization between characters is that some characters will have higher peak stats than others. But that's okay by me. I find forcing a spate of hyper-optimized characters is detrimental to character variety. By giving the player a higher score, you force them to consider credible sidelines. This sort of adds some variety to character design.

UPDATE: Excel Tool

Irda Ranger has put up a quick excel tool to generate characters using this method. Check it out in this post in the original:
http://www.enworld.org/forum/d-d-3rd...ml#post4483802

Psion

To me, character death is an important part of an RPG. I find the all too common stance that a GM should never kill a PC unless the players approves to be rather unsatisfying. To me, a game without the token risk of loss lacks a certain feeling of tension and excitement that exists in games for which these risks are present.

But, there are some pretty fair reasons to be annoyed by character death if you are a player. Beyond attachment to your character and what you might feel as an unsatisfying end, many games (D&D 3.x perhaps chief among them) gives the player a lasting penalty for a PC death.

To this end, some of you may be familiar with my "No Death Penalty" ideas that became part of my XP-less advancement and action point rules. Another variant that I like that helps get buy-in from the players is the "death flag" rule from Ryan Stoughton's Raising the Stakes D20 Hack.

Levi Kornelsen gave me some more arrows for my quiver in this battle to keep death a meaningful part of the game in his Amagi Games column:

It might be a little premature for me to speculate on how I might hammer this into d20, as some ideas I have hinge on an idea I have for putting Spirit of the Century/FATE's Aspects into D20. But a few thoughts:

• A dying character can distribute action points to remaining characters
• There might be special action point uses for legacies.

Psion

As some of you may have noticed, some ram-men escapees have been masquerading as tieflings in the 4e D&D books. Just as a gentle reminder, Tony DiTerlizzi sketched up a new tiefling pic to remind us what they really look like.

http://diterlizzi.com/blog/2008/06/0...es-of-my-past/

Thanks to Rip and ROE for the link!

Psion

As I am looking at the possibility of starting a PbP after GenCon, I thought I'd gather together some of my disparate house rules. One of the most telling ones that I have taken a shine too is my XP-free advancement rules. These rules started life as my "no death penalty" and "simplified advancement" rules, but took major cues from PirateCat's XP-less gaming rules. The main goals/implications of these rules are:

• Simplify advancement (eliminate need to calculate and track XP)
• Eliminate level spread in the party. The entire party is at the same level and nobody ever gets left behind.
• Take the sting out of PC death; bringing in a new character just as viable as having the character raised.

The Advancement and Action Point rules are as follows:

Character Advancement and Levels

Players don't track experience in this variant. The DM tracks level by the means of "encounter points" (which include both combat and non-combat challenges). The encounter points are not tracked for each character; there is a single encounter point allotment that applies to the whole group. When enough eps are received to advance, the whole group will level simultaneously.

Any effect that would drain XP or cause permanent level loss is applied to essence points instead (see below). If no essence points are available, the character has a negative level (using all the standard rules for such) that persists until the character pays off the "essence debt".

Note that XP costs can also be paid by the use of power components or "levin". This is the favored method for many NPCs. See Green Ronin's Advanced GMs Guide for details on acquiring and using Levin.

Tracking Encounter Points

The DM sets a "per level" encounter point rate; the standard is assumed to be 25 eps/level. The DM rewards the party 1-4 encounter points per meaningful encounter or goal. 2 points is considered a normal encounter, on the order of facing a creature with CR=party level. 1 point should be allowed for simple encounters or challenges without great risk or effort (but nothing so trivial as a single skill check unless the consequences were severe). 3 points is a difficult encounter (for combat challenges, CR > APL+2), and 4 points for climactic encounters. The 4 point award should be rare.

Keep in mind that EPs can be rewarded with no creature threat involved at all; all sorts of noncombat tasks can be tracked with this system.

Action Points

PCs have action points in 3 categories: Fortune, Essence, and Karma. All types of action points operate as described in Unearthed Arcana (summarized here) except as noted below:

Psion

Modern²⁰ is a game of modern action by RPGObjects. As RPGObjects' bread and butter has been D20 Modern, it should come as little surprise that this product covers similar ground as D20 Modern and shares many of the same assumptions. It's essentially Charles Rice answer to what ails D20 Modern.

A First Look

Modern²⁰ is a 108 page PDF priced at $10, currently available at RPGnow and PRGOjects' web store. The document has a full color front and back cover and color interior art; two more pages are the open game license.

Modern²⁰ does not carry the D20 logo or compatibility statements, but does use the open game license.

The book is illustrated by Anthony Cournoyer; the style is cartoony for my tastes, but similar to that of of Kalman Andrasofszky, whose art for Wizards of the Coast defines D20 Modern products.

The PDF makes good use of bookmarks, with a convenient and intuitive hierarchy. The layout is attractive and readable. The only section that I thought could be laid out better was the sample NPC section, which had frequent breaks in the middle of stat blocks.

A Deeper Look

RPG Objects is one of the best 3rd party publishers for D20 modern, with great titles such as the “Blood” line of supplements and Darwin's World. As such, it should be interesting to see how they treat the topic of a refined competitor to the game that has been their bread & butter.

As Modern²⁰ is a complete, stand-alone game, it will need to come up with its own take on how to handle ability scores. The system uses the classic 6 D20 abilities.

Several methods are presented for generating scores, most emulating existing methods. The point gen methods aren't an exact duplicate of existing methods; they actually seem a bit simpler and punish you less for taking abilities above 16.

The book points out why you would want to use some methods over others, which is a nice touch. However, none of the presented methods address the sort middle ground “compromise” between random and point buy that I have come to favor.

Modern²⁰ favors a “layered” approach to character generation, even compared to D20 Modern. Where D20 Modern featured a “starting occupation” that provided additional class skills, feats, and/or wealth modifiers, Modern²⁰ provides 3 mechanical elements that modify the base class:

• Backgrounds describe the character's occupation before their time adventuring. This provides additional skills and a base wealth for the character.
• Occupation represents what you currently do for a living. The occupation provides a bonus to your wealth, but the bonus varies according to your skill bonuses. Further, as long as you are practicing this occupation, extra skills are added to your skill list. The character's feat selection is expanded by the occupation, and these feats are “improved” so long as the character remains in the profession. Finally, occupations can provide skill perks, a subsystem of feat-like abilities that provides additional skill uses or other abilities.
• The Hobby represents the simplest of the 3 “class modifiers”. The player may select any skills; the character receives 4 ranks in it.

There are no advanced/prestige classes in Modern²⁰. There are 6 base classes, but their founding philosophy is slightly different than the ability score based classes of D20 Modern. Rather, the Modern²⁰ classes are founded around the derived statistics they generate:

• The Powerhouse is the “attack” specialist.
• The Speedfreak is the defense specialist.
• The Tank is the “hit point” specialist.
• The Braniac is the “skill point” specialist.
• The Empath is the “saving throw” specialist.
• The Star is the “reputation” specialist.

The distinction between the approach of these classes and those of D20 is mild since each of the ability scores feed into one of targeted statistics, but in some cases it does make more sense than D20 Modern (the example that stands out is how strong hero characters in D20 Modern make good marksmen; the powerhouse class of Modern²⁰ is about attack bonus instead of being about strength.)

It's noteworthy that the braniac has a medium base attack bonus progression, an improvement over the smart hero which I always felt was a difficult class to play in D20 Modern.

Similar to Spycraft (and other D20 works by Kevin Wilson, like games in FFG's Horizon line) and True20, each of the classes in Modern²⁰ feature a core ability that is only received by a character taking their first level in the class.

Another shift from D20 Modern is the removal of talent trees. Much like True20, each character receives a feat at every level, selected from a class feat list or a general list, thus supplanting talent trees.

Reputation, action points, allegiances, and wealth also appear here. Allegiances see the least changes, and action points are a bit more succinct. Wealth and reputation systems see bigger changes.

The wealth system gives the character a wealth rating, but there is no rolling involved. It is still an abstract system, but the way it works is to provide a threshold beneath which the character needn't worry about tracking expenditures. Above the wealth level, purchases decrease the character's wealth (and conversely, selling valuable items increase it.) Thus, wealth still remains a system where player good behavior or GM intervention is required to avoid some unbelievable situations, but it seems like it would be less unwieldy in play.

Reputation sees more extensive changes. Instead of merely providing a skill bonus or penalty in social encounter, reputation provides resources in the form of special access, contacts, favors, and followers.

RPGObjects' variant of the disadvantage system shows up here. Similar to the one crafted in Haven D20 and RPGObjects' Modern Disadvantages, these disadvantages provide benefits to the character only if it shows up in an adventure. This version differs in that it provides action points when the disadvantage rears its ugly head rather than experience points. However, the words “experience awards” are still used in the description in some places.

In Modern²⁰, skills see many alterations. For starters, the skill list is almost totally different. Much like True20 and Spycraft 2.0, many skills that existed in D20 Modern are combined into other more comprehensive skills like academics, acrobatics, athletics, and perception.

One change that seems unique to D20 variants is the idea of a “targeted skill check”, which replaces opposed skill checks. When I first heard about this, I was a bit worried, as I think that opposed checks are a technique that D20 handles well, and shows a significant strength of the system over those of the last century. Alas, targeted skill checks are in essence the same thing as opposed skill checks with one party automatically taking 10. This stands to minimize the amount of dice rolling to resolve skill conflicts and should create more consistent results.

Perks were mentioned previously. Perks creature special uses of skills that can only be accessed by characters with the perk in question. For example, skills with specialties (like academics, art, or crime) are handled with perks; each specialty past the first in an additional perk. Other perk skill uses include tumble under acrobatics, “cracking” under computers, and burst fire under firearms.

The combat rules are, on the surface, very similar to standard D20 combat. The biggest change is that the system uses a hit location chart. This uses a d20 roll and the damage is modified according to where the injury landed. An optional injury rule has the potential to inflict penalties on a character; determing whether and what injury applies requires that you find the difference between the attack roll and defense rating, and comparing a fortitude save to a number determine by the attack roll. Given the lengths that the author went to reduce skill rolls, it seems odd that he would accept a system like this that seems more complicated than the rolls he took out.
A final significant departure from D20 is that the system eschews the idea of experience points.

Two appendices are included: a character creation example and a list of sample NPCs similar to those that appeared in D20 Modern.

Conclusions

Modern²⁰ is a top-down redefinition of the D20 Modern game system. Several sore spots with the system are addressed, and the designer makes some interesting innovations along the way.

The character generation is perhaps the most interesting retooling of the game. It should appeal most to players who like creating characters using D20 Modern base classes; much like Grim Tales, the system does not utilize advanced or prestige classes. This could be a detriment for players who like to “subscribe” to a class concept and don't want to make a lot of decisions along the way.

The most interesting aspect of the character generation system is that it provides in-game representation of what might be considered more mundane aspects of a character's background, and even represents things like occupation changes in play. All told, I think this makes Modern²⁰ an excellent choice for “everyman hero” gaming, where the characters are realistic and well-defined.

The system does handle many of the hangups I have with the D20 Modern combat system nicely, namely nonlethal damage and firearm rules. However, while the idea of inserting a hit location system into a D20 game had promise (something I do in my own d20 house rules), I think the optional injury rule runs counter to the streamlining he tries to achieve elsewhere.

Psion

Another thing I'd like to use this blog for is to track evolving phenomena of interest as they are happening, to make a retrospective easier. In this vein, the adoption (or rejection) of the GSL is a matter of some interest to me. Now that the bickering is behind is, it should be interesting to see how publishers REALLY react to it, and "put their money where there mouth it." To that end, I have added a new "licensing" category to my blog... and this is its first entry.

I recently posted a livejournal entry that summarizes some recent events of interest here; I'll just repeat it here (it may take a few edits to get all the links back it, so stand by):


Well, it's been a while now, but most of the open ranting about Wizard's Game System License (GSL) has died down. We are now in that time where many publishers have to make that fateful decision whether or not to use the GSL.

The worst people had feared--that a company using the GSL at all can no longer sell OGL-based material at all--turned out to not be true.

Nonetheless, such a rule did apply in the case of product lines, and some planned products DID plug into a product line. For example, Necromancer Games was planning on releasing Tegel Manor, a classic Judges Guild products, as a 4e adventure. But Wilderlands was a long established product line published under the OGL, and under license with Judges Guild, which also has an arrangement with Troll Lords for C&C (also OGL) products. Indeed, NG's boxed set is a rather compelling PDF purchase, as it's such an information dense product that it really benefits from the pdf search capability. It would be a pity to see that product pulled from the PDF market. Last I had heard, NG was still considering the fate of Tegel Manor.

Apart from the issue of the poison pill, many publishers were given pause by the terms of the GSL. Lack of cure periods and broad discretionary powers on the part of WotC made some wonder if it was worth the risk to use the GSL. While these sorts terms are not unprecedented in IP licenses, many companies were expecting something out of the GSL more comparable to the D20 STL and OGL in tone. Considering that Scott Rouse indicated some sort of commitment to Open Gaming at last years Ennies, that would have been a pretty fair assumption to make.

Interesting things are happening. There is some debate on whether Goodman Games will be embracing the GSL or not. They have already started a fire sale of 3.5 OGL Dungeon Crawl Classic adventures*, and their Free RPG Day offering was a systemless setting that sounds strongly inspired by Sanctuary of Thieves' World fame. There was some talk that Goodman had entered a non-GSL agreement with WotC, and some speculation that these were really unlicensed adventures. Goodman has said little specific, other than to confess that the GSL had altered their plans and they were considering alternatives:

Yes, we're looking at options to make the 3.5 DCC's still available under 4E rules. We originally planned to convert the 3E modules via downloadable conversion documents, so you could buy DCC #1 at your local store then download the file to get the 4E stats. That unfortunately won't be feasible under the new guidelines for 4E products. But there are some other possibilities, like releasing new print versions that are overhauled to 4E. Nothing's final yet, but that's where we're leaning now.

(From here).

To me, even the idea of new "overhauled print versions" sounds questionable under the GSL.

Some publishers have pushed forwards with plans to publish 4e compatible products without a license, leaning on traditional Copyright and Trademark caveats and disclaimers. Adamant Entertainment has announced the Venture 4th line of Adventures and Tiles usable with D&D 4e.

The latest joiner in the "GSL? Feh!" department is Kenzer & Company, who has stated that their new Kingdoms of Kalamar 4e will not be under any licensing arrangement with Wizards of the Coast.

So, thus far, we are seeing existing publishers engaged in a mix of sticking with 3.5 SRD OGL-based derivatives (Pathfinder, True20, etc.), going systemless (Freeport), and now, a return to "unofficial" products as we saw in the 2e era (Adamant's Venture 4th, Kenzer's Kingdoms of Kalamar.) Some, like Necromancer Games, are forging on with their plans to embrace the GSL.

As a final note, there are publishers previously uninvolved in the OGL movement that are taking a chance on the GSL. RedBrick, current licensor of the Earthdawn license has announce plans for Earthdawn for 4e.

* - It's worth noting that as these are D20 STL products, they either have to remove branding or stop selling them by the end of the year anyways, but plans to transition to the GSL would be a reason to do this sooner rather than later.

Psion

In the course of game discussion and criticism, I've seen many valid critiques batted off with a refrain to the tune of "that's a player problem, not a game problem." The problem I see with that is you need players to play, but games are many. Though there are certainly unreasonable players, they do not occur with the regularity that people who bank on the "blame the player" defense seem to think.

As promised, this blog (or this section of it) will be a collection point for bits of gaming philosophy. Here's a discussion I captured about how I came to this conclusion, captured from an ancient thread here:

(In response to a poster blaming players for a game problem):


I'm not insulted (though I must say, if it were my players you were referring to, it might have been) so much as I think it's a totally bogus cop-out when it comes to defending a game.

Let me tell you a story. The title of this story is "Why Psion Doesn't Run Hero".

Psion loves Hero. Psion thinks that Hero is a way cool game. In some ways, he thinks it out-cools D&D. Why? Because it lets him craft anything and have rigorous mechanical support for it that he much prefers to ad hoccing everything.

But back in college, Psion had a group. There were many players in this group, but one of particular interest. We'll call him Rob. Because, well, that's his name.

Psion is running a rip-roaring game of hero, but find that Rob routinely avoids running characters that use magic. I soon discover that Rob does not use magic because he doesn't grok the power system. Well, Rob's a college student, so he should understand the basic math that goes into making a Hero character right?

I thought so, but it occurs to me that whether or not he's capable, that's work to him. It occurs to me that gaming being a leisure activity, it's not my place to make him do things he doesn't like. And by running hero, I was limiting his options.

It was that moment that pushed me away from hero and back towards D&D. Yeah, it's not as flexible as Hero, or many other systems. But IME, most people grok D&D, and can play any character type they care to play if they can play at all.

Later, I got into verbal fencing with GURPS fans, who in answering my charges that IME GURPS players too easily build characters with scads of half point skills it was my "player's fault."

Such arguments firmed up my philosophy that it is not the job of the players to support the game, but vice versa. If your players don't enjoy a game, that is not a slight to the players. You can't obligate the players to fit the game, much less judge them.

I could easily slam rules light players for their lack of mathematical ability, but given my experience with Rob, I tried to avoid going that route because I consider it the "low road". It's not the player's job to fit the game. It's the game's job to support the players.

So, I'll own that if D&D accounting is not too your liking, you should probably play something with less accounting, or (at the very least) make efforts to minimize it. But by the same token, if the lack of robustness is limiting the actions your players consider, I'd say that is on the game, not on the players.

It is easier to change the game you are playing, or to change rules of a game, than it is to change people. Games are dispensable.

Psion

This is something that came up during recent postings that I've uttered in the past. I figured I'd capture it here in posterity.

A lot of people invoke game balance at the drop of hat as the root point of some assertion or another in a number of the numerous gaming arguments that spring up. But I have noticed that very often, when people invoke the term game balance, the speaker and the listener seem to have different things in mind.

To that end, at some point in my hazy messageboard babbling past, I was given to wonder, what is game balance? How do I know if I have it? What does it give me?

This might have many interpretations, but for my purposes I narrowed it down to 3 major goals:

Psion's Three Goals of Game Balance:

1. Play balance - this sort of balance allows the players to all contribute meaningfully to success of the party's goal. When this sort of balance is realized, the players feel or should feel* empowered in bringing about success in the game.
2. Option balance - this sort of balance strives to keep options available to players sufficiently viable that all options that are intended for regular use in the game by a PC remain viable choice for players. This is perhaps the hardest sort of balance to achieve, especially for games with a high degree of distinction between the way options are implemented.
3. Challenge balance - this sort of balance ensures that the GM can challenge the players easily without causing undesirable outcomes. If a player must kill one party member to challenge another unless the GM takes very special precautions, then perhaps that sort of balance isn't being served.

Caveats:

1. Balance is situational: Unless every session is identically patterned after one uniform model, it is impractical to predict whether a given sort of balance will be achieved with a great degree of precision. In one campaign, a rogue may be useless. In others, a rogue will be the star. Though its practical to ask that a GM and game designer present scenarios in a consistent fashion, minor variations will reasonably occur. We, as players, should accept that.
2. Balance comes with a cost: Balancing elements of a rules set will have implications on the way that the rules set plays, how scenarios should be presented (notice the inexorable tie to caveat #1?), and even playability of the game. As such, minor balance discrepancies should be well considered before a game designer or GM acts to correct them.

* - I say should feel because it has become exceedingly obvious to me that some players just cannot be pleased. They will perceive any benefit another player has as excessive, and any benefit they have as insufficient. I really didn't understand this mindset until I had children.

Psion

(Images from Claudio Pozas' Art Gallery, hosted here on ENWorld!)

Okay, let's talk about gnomes, perpetual whipping boys of the D&D core races.

I like gnomes. I consider their omission from the core race set of 4e unfortunate. To me, they are a mystical race without the Tolkien-baggage of elves. Which is cool, I like elves, but it's nice to get away from that.

But in a way, the gnome as it exists in the minds of D&D players is largely a result of its history. It's easy to see how the negative attitudes around it arose, and how the degenerative cycle of perception carried on.

Gnomes would become cemented in my list of defining D&D characteristics in AD&D first edition. Their specialty with illusion built an image of them that was distinct from elves and halflings.

The gnome, however, did not appear as a core race in the Basic/Expert game series; this was where the trouble began for our poor little heroes. It's not that hard to understand this decision. Each race was a class in BX,and the designers were probably looking for a short race list (also excluding the half-races), so just went with the Lord of the Rings races. Which went some ways to cement the parity between LotR races and those perceived as the "real" core D&D races.

Dragonlance showed up during the tenure of 1e. Gnomes featured prominently in Dragonlance. There, they received a new coat of paint as "Tinker Gnomes". This added an image of gnomes as mechanistic masters, one that persisted beyond Krynn. However, in the fiction of Dragonlance, this isn't the only image influx they received. Tinker gnome inventions had a tendency to explode and otherwise cause chaos. This added an image of chaos and incompetence to gnomes, which doubtlessly impacted the way they were played in games.

Half-orcs would disappear from 2e, but gnomes were spared. The expansion of specialists from one school to all 8 made gnome's specialty seem all the more limited in scope by comparison.

Further, 2e was a time of great innovation in D&D settings. Gnomes were not core options in Dark Sun or Planescape (though in the latter case, they weren't alone).

When 3e arrived, gnomes were in a similar condition to the state they started 2e in. However, the old multiclassing rules were supplanted with the concept of a favored class. Now anyone could take or combine any class, but multiclassing was more efficient with your favored class. As gnomes had the dubious distinction of having a single wizard specialty--illusionist--as a favored class, that made their options more limited than other races.

Further, and perhaps more telling, all race-class limits were lifted. Gnomes and elves were no longer the only "demihumans" that could use magic. Halflings and dwarves had that option open to them too. Without mechanical reinforcement, the different races blurred when it came to their perceived roles. If you wanted a diminuative wizard, you could play a halfling just as easy. Though it's unfortunate that many players can't see past the game mechanics aspects of defining racial charateristics, that's the way it is, and soon gnomes were "just another short race" alongside the more familiar LotR refugees that are halflings.

3.5 was probably where the worst niggling injury to the gnome's image as a playable race happened. Someone at WotC probably came to the good observation that it wasn't a good idea to have the gnome have a specialist as a favored class when elves had the wizards class as a favored class. But they chose the bard as an alternate. This is probably for the worse, because the bard is commonly regarded as only being a viable character in a party if you already have your "basic four" filled, and futher, I've always thought the bard was conceptually too limited. Artificer or beguiler would have both been much better choices, but those came later.

Eberron made what was the best boost to the gnome image in a long time. In Eberron, gnomes have an image of savvy knowledge brokers that are not to be trifled with. While conceptually compelling, it came too late and again, those who pay little attention to setting (or Eberron, for that matter) don't see this image boost.

The final straw, as I see it, comes from outside the hobby. Numerous Travelocity commercials showed their trademark garden gnome commercial, cementing the image of the garden gnome statue as the definitive gnome. Of course, online poster created echoes of this little character in avatars and joke threads, cementing the image of gnomes as silly.

When the decision came forth that the first 4e PHB would exclude the gnome, we should really not have been too surprised. But Wizards wen't out of their way to mock gnomes, just to make sure nobody took them seriously.

So, to those that love gnomes, on this 4th of July, let us light one off for our little buddies this evening (well, assuming you are a USA'n, otherwise devise your own dedication to the little fellow.)

As a final dedication, I'll tip my hat to Claudio Pozas, who not only brought us the cool image of a gnome psion in the adventure Of Sound Mind, but also put out some great images of the gnome (which adorn this blog) that showed us how cool the little guy can be.

-Psi

Psion

What's a blog for, anyways? Isn't it just a messageboard by any other name?

Well, yes and no. People post, people respond, but unlike misused threads, I never lose old blog posts in the morass. They are always here for me to recount and point to.

To that end, one thing I intend to use the blog for is to keep little nuggets of wisdom that I might otherwise lose in the morass.

I just dug up such an old post. It's about alignment. Alignment is one of those things I am pretty settled about, but lots of other folks rue. I don't require alignment in all games, but I consider it a fundamental functional aspect of D&D (and, I might mention, one that I think the 4e designers were wrong to screw around with so much.)

There's lots to say about alignment, but I stumbled upon an old post on TheRPGsite that summizes without getting into too much detail why I think it's an important tool. To wit:

I think if you understand it and trust the GM to apply all related judgement calls, it works just fine. The "understanding" bit is an effort slightly hamstrung by some bad definitions, though at least as of 3e, most of the bad definitions are in the class text, not the alignment text.

I think several arguments levelled against it (some here) are BS:

• "There's no room for moral relativism" - Just because someone understands the cosmic realism that exists in the game does not mean that they have access to this knowledge. And what tells to this end exist are rather coarse. Sure, you can detect if a creature is "evil", but does that mean you know the right way out of a moral conundrum? Similarly, people who are not good alignment do not believe they are "wrong" and would not necessarily think that a character who is good alignment is "good" per their viewpoint.
• "There no shades of gray" - /me points to the NEUTRAL alignment axis.
• "Alignment forces you to do X" - wrong. We left that crap behind with 2e. Alignment is evaluative, not compulsory. If your character has CG on their sheet, but consistently behave CN, then change it to CN. There is no XP penalty for changing alignments.
• (Retort to above) "But I can't play class X and be alignment Y". Where this is true and inappropriate, the problem would be class design, not alignment. That said, in many cases, it is appropriate because tangible moral reality is part of the metasetting. Paladins and clerics SHOULD lose power, for example, for deviating from a path of purity in the sight of their deity.

I don't want alignment in all games. But I do believe that for the sort of setting D&D typically represents, where Good and Evil are tangible concepts, and our behaviors are significant to the ebb and flow of the cosmos, IT FREAKIN' FITS.

Psion