Jonathan Tweet talks "13th Age"

waderockett · May 19, 2012

Morrus said:
Yes.

(Well, at least "an" open game license; I'm assuming that means the open gaming license).

At the moment it means an open game license. What will be open and what won't be is still in the works.

Also, hello all! I'm with the 13th Age team. I co-manage @13thAge on Twitter and +13th Age on Google Plus, and give whatever help I can to bloggers and podcasters who are talking about the game. PR stuff.

I also work for Kobold Quarterly/Open Design, so you might know me from there.

Gundark · May 19, 2012

A Hurdle? Not the word I would have chosen.

There isn't the demand for 13th Age like there was for Pathfinder

Morrus · May 19, 2012

I'm merging this with the existing 13th Age news thread. One big thread is more useulf to folks than multiple itty bitty threads!

Kzach · May 19, 2012

With 13th Age, Rob and I have the distinct pleasure of writing for gamers like us: GMs and players who like to make up cool stuff. Fifth edition, like First through Fourth, will be expected to normalize the game experience. That way, a player can take their official D&D character to any official D&D game and play it. Thirteenth Age, on the other hand, is designed to inspire GMs and players to customize their campaigns and characters. Your “wood elf ranger” with the elaborate back story might not fit in the campaign next door, if the GM or players there have defined elves or rangers differently.

I can't help but feel... put down by this. I almost feel insulted by it as if they're saying I'm not imaginative or creative if I like playing 4e or if I'm excited by the prospect of 5e. There just seems to be an underlying current of "this is the RIGHT way to play D&D" to this that irks me.

Walker N. Waistz · May 19, 2012

Kzach said:
I can't help but feel... put down by this. I almost feel insulted by it as if they're saying I'm not imaginative or creative if I like playing 4e or if I'm excited by the prospect of 5e. There just seems to be an underlying current of "this is the RIGHT way to play D&D" to this that irks me.

I don't see it that way at all. It simply sounds like they're talking about design goals. It seems to me that members of the design teams for both 3rd & 4th editions are competent to talk about those game's design goals with authority, and state that theirs differ *for this particular game*.

Any time decisions are made in a game-- wrong or right-- they leave space for games with different design goals. To oversimplify an example, it is similar to how D&D focused (rightly, obviously) on PCs killing monsters, creating an opening for a game where PCs are the monsters-- which was Vampire: the Masquerade.

Given the number of weird, niche games both these designers have been involved in (Over the Edge! Feng Shui!), before and after their work for WotC, it seems clear that they are not using this game to lecture the world on wrongbadfun. This seems more like a love-letter to a specific era and a specific style of play. This is almost certainly not the last entire RPG either one of these two is going to design, and I highly doubt either one things this is "the one RPG that gets it right."

Matrix Sorcica · May 19, 2012

Matrix Sorcica said:
This thread on rpg.net goes into detail about the game and is well worth a read.

I really recommend anyone wanting to know more about the game to read the linked thread, where a poster does a read-through of the playtest document. Good stuff.

mkill · May 19, 2012

Said rpg.net poster is also an enworld regular...

13th Age is great for a certain D&D playstyle, which happens to be the way I like to run my games. It's old school if your old school is "make

up as we go along". I wouldn't call it "storygamey" - "campaign-focused" is a better word.
It definitely doesn't try to be everything to everyone. I recommend to give it a shot. Even if you don't adopt it, it has many interesting ideas that can be stolen for your favorite D&D edition / derivate.

Transformer · May 19, 2012

I am genuinely interested in seeing this game, but I'm not really convinced yet.

For example, in the FAQ the interviewer asks what makes Icons different from a traditional deities framework, and then Tweet takes 3 long paragraphs to explain that basically, yeah, it's like a traditional deities framework. Various civilizations are (abstractly-speaking) rules by different Icons, and do geopolitical things in those Icons' names, but you can't actually fight the Icons and you don't really meet them, and some Icons don't like each other so their people tend to fight each other. You can use words like "dynamic tension" all you like; it doesn't make what you're saying anything more than "the followers of this ~~god~~ Icon are generally the enemies of that ~~god~~ Icon, so you can count on them not to get along."

The real problem is more general: Tweet emphasized over and over again that the point of the system is to get tailored to each particular group, in mechanics as well as setting. But how, exactly, does the system encourage that? Does it just leave out crucial setting details and tell me to "make this part up"? Because that's not helpful and it's not encouraging customization; it's just being incomplete. I can play 4e or Pathfinder and just replace anything I don't really like. What's more, it sounds like this Icon system is pretty hard-wired into the 13th Age setting. Well, that's not more customization, that's less. If my group thinks the deities in 4e are stupid, I can ignore them easily. But it sounds like if my group thinks these Icons are stupid, it would throw off a lot of what 13th Age has to offer if we threw them out. Who's encouraging more customization now?

Anyway, a system designed by these two designers will (at least) be very good, and a system 100% committed to gridless combat sounds good. I'm just not convinced, from this interview, that the system's gonna be any more implicitly customizable than any other system.

pauljathome · May 19, 2012

Transformer said:
For example, in the FAQ the interviewer asks what makes Icons different from a traditional deities framework, and then Tweet takes 3 long paragraphs to explain that basically, yeah, it's like a traditional deities framework. .

The ICONS are definitely different from the traditional deities framework. They all represent actual individuals who live in the world, they all represent actual organizations that live in the world all of them being allied with and in conflict with others.

One certainly COULD create a traditional deities framework with similar features but most campaigns are NOT so structured. The big difference is that the 10 ICONS represent the most powerful active forces and organizations in the world. So, a campaign world where world spanning religions with clear agendas were far and away the most powerful AND active agents would be similar. Never played in that campaign.

AbdulAlhazred · May 19, 2012

Walker N. Waistz said:
I don't see it that way at all. It simply sounds like they're talking about design goals. It seems to me that members of the design teams for both 3rd & 4th editions are competent to talk about those game's design goals with authority, and state that theirs differ *for this particular game*.

Any time decisions are made in a game-- wrong or right-- they leave space for games with different design goals. To oversimplify an example, it is similar to how D&D focused (rightly, obviously) on PCs killing monsters, creating an opening for a game where PCs are the monsters-- which was Vampire: the Masquerade.

Given the number of weird, niche games both these designers have been involved in (Over the Edge! Feng Shui!), before and after their work for WotC, it seems clear that they are not using this game to lecture the world on wrongbadfun. This seems more like a love-letter to a specific era and a specific style of play. This is almost certainly not the last entire RPG either one of these two is going to design, and I highly doubt either one things this is "the one RPG that gets it right."

Quite true. Guess I can't XP you again, lol.

Remember guys, this is a niche game. It is small press and while Rob and Jonathan are pretty well-known RPG designers it isn't like this game is going to be all over the place and one you're going to feel like you almost have to relate to, like say 5e might. Take a look at it, decide for yourselves what you think of this game's particular mix of elements, and play it or not based on your own tastes, or at least decide if some of the ideas presented are interesting enough to snag and use in some other context.

My own experience with it is that they've managed to package together some pretty classic elements with some other things in a way that is somewhat unique. It isn't a ground-breaking game but it has its own sensibilities and puts a bit of a twist on some old ideas. It certainly isn't the game I would design, nor the game I have been thinking I'd want, but there's stuff in here to think about and it certainly can be fun to play. I'm also pretty sure that you will be able to rework it in various ways if you want. Icons for instance could be easily left out, or transformed into a more general relationship framework. You could certainly play out combat on a grid or with minis and a map and a ruler if you wanted, etc.

Anyway, I'll be interested to see how it turns out. I'm sure the game will be solid. It may not become a lot of people's goto FRPG, but at the very least it is worth looking at as an example of and experiment in combining RPG elements in a fairly original way.