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13th Age Discussion: A Love Letter to The Best Parts of D&D
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<blockquote data-quote="Phasmus" data-source="post: 5943842" data-attributes="member: 1827"><p>Yo. I'm one of Isaac's players (the Son of a Lich). Just thought I ought to chime in here with a couple thoughts. I agree/hope that most complaints we might mention stand to be fixed before the final game is released. I'm mostly interested in the story-telling side of RPGs but the combat mechanics seemed competently designed and reasonably zippy. I especially appreciated the clear mechanical distinction between classes and the ability to choose ability sets and feats to customize the class you select.</p><p></p><p>The game has feats but they feel a little different than in D&D. The majority of the feats in the playtest applied to specific race or class features. For example, wizards have access to several feats that only effect a single spell, making that one spell extra-cool in one way or another. I wasn't sure what I thought of this idiom at first, but I've decided I like it. Instead of giving a character an ability that could apply to any other character, feats now feel more character-specific.</p><p></p><p>Backgrounds are my favorite system in the game. Writing 'Eavesdropper' or 'Perl diver' on a character sheet feels way better to me than putting a number next to listen/spot/athletics/etc. I'm a little worried about how to avoid backgrounds that are too broad (adventurer!) or narrow (turkey farmer!), but I guess that's mostly up to the player and GM to work out.</p><p></p><p>I'll let Issac cover icons in detail, but I liked the idea. To my eye they replace alignment with something more practical and give a tangible benefit to boot. I like the way they tie characters into the setting. I can see a couple potential issues that could arise depending on play style though. </p><p></p><p>If a game is entirely kick-in-the-door, or if iconic forces in your setting are numerous and complex, the relevance of icons could be diminished. On the other hand, with characters so closely tied to the setting background there is risk of White-Wolfism (An unfortunate condition where the setting, NPCs and meta-plot becomes more important than the characters and what they're doing). Both of these extremes are left to the DM to avoid. The default 13th Age setting seems to strike a good balance, with icons that are interesting and pervasive enough to come up in play on a regular basis without taking over.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Phasmus, post: 5943842, member: 1827"] Yo. I'm one of Isaac's players (the Son of a Lich). Just thought I ought to chime in here with a couple thoughts. I agree/hope that most complaints we might mention stand to be fixed before the final game is released. I'm mostly interested in the story-telling side of RPGs but the combat mechanics seemed competently designed and reasonably zippy. I especially appreciated the clear mechanical distinction between classes and the ability to choose ability sets and feats to customize the class you select. The game has feats but they feel a little different than in D&D. The majority of the feats in the playtest applied to specific race or class features. For example, wizards have access to several feats that only effect a single spell, making that one spell extra-cool in one way or another. I wasn't sure what I thought of this idiom at first, but I've decided I like it. Instead of giving a character an ability that could apply to any other character, feats now feel more character-specific. Backgrounds are my favorite system in the game. Writing 'Eavesdropper' or 'Perl diver' on a character sheet feels way better to me than putting a number next to listen/spot/athletics/etc. I'm a little worried about how to avoid backgrounds that are too broad (adventurer!) or narrow (turkey farmer!), but I guess that's mostly up to the player and GM to work out. I'll let Issac cover icons in detail, but I liked the idea. To my eye they replace alignment with something more practical and give a tangible benefit to boot. I like the way they tie characters into the setting. I can see a couple potential issues that could arise depending on play style though. If a game is entirely kick-in-the-door, or if iconic forces in your setting are numerous and complex, the relevance of icons could be diminished. On the other hand, with characters so closely tied to the setting background there is risk of White-Wolfism (An unfortunate condition where the setting, NPCs and meta-plot becomes more important than the characters and what they're doing). Both of these extremes are left to the DM to avoid. The default 13th Age setting seems to strike a good balance, with icons that are interesting and pervasive enough to come up in play on a regular basis without taking over. [/QUOTE]
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