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D&D Older Editions
4e-like game (title TBD)
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<blockquote data-quote="Composer99" data-source="post: 9230850" data-attributes="member: 7030042"><p>My employment has cycles of activity - low activity in the summer, picking up to a peak just before Christmas, then relatively busy through the spring after a holiday break. So things have been a bit slow. Also, since the sort of niche this game was occupying as it was conceived over the summer is being filled by the MCDM game (even if the MCDM game isn't a 4e-like), I'm also doing some rethinking on how to pivot to a slightly different niche.</p><p></p><p>Anyway, I want to share a couple of thoughts about the game's niche, the assumed/default setting, and some ideas about one of the classes.</p><p></p><p><strong>The Niche</strong></p><p>4e is a game of heroic fantasy, and I think that's still an important staple of any 4e-like. But I do think I want to go for a bit of a darker feel. Maybe not so much with mechanics, but with the setting and tone. So what is the game about? I would say it's:</p><ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Heroic but Dark Fantasy</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Detailed Tactical Combat</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Exploring an Ancient World</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Adventure Around Every Corner</li> </ul><p></p><p><em>Heroic but Dark Fantasy</em></p><p>The player characters are points of light in a world threatened by baleful and malevolent cosmic forces. The world can't count on scads of high-level NPCs to keep the peace (as in the Forgotten Realms) or benevolent gods: it needs heroes to rise up from ordinary folk. These heroes and their deeds might not banish evil forever, but they can keep it at bay for another day, week, year - as long as they keep on fighting the good fight.</p><p></p><p>I've been playing a lot of Darkest Dungeon and its sequel lately (which has also been eating up a lot of time I could be spending on this project), and what I'm sort of envisioning is a tone that's a little bit lighter than what you get in those games. Something akin to pulp Cthulhu Mythos gameplay in a high-fantasy setting, as it were, where, <em>yes</em>, you <em>can</em> banish the eldritch monstrosities with <s>a Tommy gun</s> sword and spell.</p><p></p><p>Instead of cosmic horror, where everything the heroes do is ultimately insignificant and meaningless, what I'm going for is the idea that, yes, the evils that beset the world are eternal, and will ever return to threaten the world anew, but they <em>can</em> be beaten back as long as there are those with the will to fight them.</p><p></p><p><em>Detailed Tactical Combat</em></p><p>Detailed tactical combat is <em>de rigeur</em> for a 4e-like, to my mind. For detailed tactical combat to work, you need things like positioning to matter, using teamwork, off-turn actions, and varying conditions to keep engagement, and players having solid viable tactical options.</p><p></p><p>One thing I would like to switch up from classic 4e is that classic 4e still has attritional power usage at the encounter level. What I mean by that is over the course of an encounter, you'll usually use up your encounter powers, and maybe a daily or two (depending on the difficulty), and then fall back on at will powers. What I would like to do is have recovery of the resources needed to fuel more potent abilities, so you're using powers that are about equivalent to an encounter or daily for one or two rounds, then alternating between at-will and more potent abilities over subsequent rounds.</p><p></p><p><em>Exploring an Ancient World</em></p><p>The game world should be dotted with the ruins of antique and antediluvian civilisations, full of secrets to explore and evils to vanquish. The game isn't focused on dungeon crawling and wilderness "hex"-ploration, as such, but I do see them as an important part of play.</p><p></p><p><em>Adventure Around Every Corner</em></p><p>The player characters don't have to look to far to find adventure, though! They can find cults in the cities and villages of the land, whether demon-cults spreading among the nobles, or a cult to some old god demanding sacrifices in a village (like that one episode in the first season of Supernatural), or horrors creeping up from the deep places of the world (be they subterranean or aquatic).</p><p></p><p>The idea is that the game and the setting should support regularly going out and finding heroic adventures to embark on; during these adventures you explore the world and discover its secrets - secrets you might be able to use to make it a safer place, if only for a time.</p><p></p><p><strong>The Setting</strong></p><p>The game's niche already has a few things to say about the setting.</p><p></p><p>One thing I would like to have in the setting is that I'd like it to have more of an explicitly Moorcock-esque vibe as regards cosmic powers acting in the world. I like the Law vs. Chaos vibe where on the one hand, both are <em>good</em> for the world in small measures, and <em>terrible</em> in excess. They both bring something to the table in small doses that make the mortal world habitable, but at their extremes (which Lawful or Chaotic cosmic entities invariably seem to want!) they make the cosmos inhospitable to mortal life.</p><p></p><p>So then you have the alignment of Balance betwixt them. Of course, this "neutral" alignment is not necessarily benevolent! The general idea is that the player characters are the ones stepping up to be heroes because you can't count the benevolence of gods or other cosmic entities.</p><p></p><p>That is, alignments are explicitly that - alignment, allegiance, affiliation. Your alignment isn't about your morality, it's about where you come down in the great cosmic conflict between Law and Chaos - although even Lawful or Chaotic mortal heroes will find themselves at odds with cosmic powers of the same alignment, for the reasons discussed above.</p><p></p><p>Beyond that, I like the general idea of the Nentir Vale as an inspiration. A setting that is "post-post-apocalyptic", you might say, where the collapse is now long enough ago in the past that society is on the path of rebuilding towards new prosperity - as long as heroes and adventurers can keep evil at bay, that is.</p><p></p><p>Next post, the Berserker!</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Composer99, post: 9230850, member: 7030042"] My employment has cycles of activity - low activity in the summer, picking up to a peak just before Christmas, then relatively busy through the spring after a holiday break. So things have been a bit slow. Also, since the sort of niche this game was occupying as it was conceived over the summer is being filled by the MCDM game (even if the MCDM game isn't a 4e-like), I'm also doing some rethinking on how to pivot to a slightly different niche. Anyway, I want to share a couple of thoughts about the game's niche, the assumed/default setting, and some ideas about one of the classes. [B]The Niche[/B] 4e is a game of heroic fantasy, and I think that's still an important staple of any 4e-like. But I do think I want to go for a bit of a darker feel. Maybe not so much with mechanics, but with the setting and tone. So what is the game about? I would say it's: [LIST] [*]Heroic but Dark Fantasy [*]Detailed Tactical Combat [*]Exploring an Ancient World [*]Adventure Around Every Corner [/LIST] [I]Heroic but Dark Fantasy[/I] The player characters are points of light in a world threatened by baleful and malevolent cosmic forces. The world can't count on scads of high-level NPCs to keep the peace (as in the Forgotten Realms) or benevolent gods: it needs heroes to rise up from ordinary folk. These heroes and their deeds might not banish evil forever, but they can keep it at bay for another day, week, year - as long as they keep on fighting the good fight. I've been playing a lot of Darkest Dungeon and its sequel lately (which has also been eating up a lot of time I could be spending on this project), and what I'm sort of envisioning is a tone that's a little bit lighter than what you get in those games. Something akin to pulp Cthulhu Mythos gameplay in a high-fantasy setting, as it were, where, [I]yes[/I], you [I]can[/I] banish the eldritch monstrosities with [S]a Tommy gun[/S] sword and spell. Instead of cosmic horror, where everything the heroes do is ultimately insignificant and meaningless, what I'm going for is the idea that, yes, the evils that beset the world are eternal, and will ever return to threaten the world anew, but they [I]can[/I] be beaten back as long as there are those with the will to fight them. [I]Detailed Tactical Combat[/I] Detailed tactical combat is [I]de rigeur[/I] for a 4e-like, to my mind. For detailed tactical combat to work, you need things like positioning to matter, using teamwork, off-turn actions, and varying conditions to keep engagement, and players having solid viable tactical options. One thing I would like to switch up from classic 4e is that classic 4e still has attritional power usage at the encounter level. What I mean by that is over the course of an encounter, you'll usually use up your encounter powers, and maybe a daily or two (depending on the difficulty), and then fall back on at will powers. What I would like to do is have recovery of the resources needed to fuel more potent abilities, so you're using powers that are about equivalent to an encounter or daily for one or two rounds, then alternating between at-will and more potent abilities over subsequent rounds. [I]Exploring an Ancient World[/I] The game world should be dotted with the ruins of antique and antediluvian civilisations, full of secrets to explore and evils to vanquish. The game isn't focused on dungeon crawling and wilderness "hex"-ploration, as such, but I do see them as an important part of play. [I]Adventure Around Every Corner[/I] The player characters don't have to look to far to find adventure, though! They can find cults in the cities and villages of the land, whether demon-cults spreading among the nobles, or a cult to some old god demanding sacrifices in a village (like that one episode in the first season of Supernatural), or horrors creeping up from the deep places of the world (be they subterranean or aquatic). The idea is that the game and the setting should support regularly going out and finding heroic adventures to embark on; during these adventures you explore the world and discover its secrets - secrets you might be able to use to make it a safer place, if only for a time. [B]The Setting[/B] The game's niche already has a few things to say about the setting. One thing I would like to have in the setting is that I'd like it to have more of an explicitly Moorcock-esque vibe as regards cosmic powers acting in the world. I like the Law vs. Chaos vibe where on the one hand, both are [I]good[/I] for the world in small measures, and [I]terrible[/I] in excess. They both bring something to the table in small doses that make the mortal world habitable, but at their extremes (which Lawful or Chaotic cosmic entities invariably seem to want!) they make the cosmos inhospitable to mortal life. So then you have the alignment of Balance betwixt them. Of course, this "neutral" alignment is not necessarily benevolent! The general idea is that the player characters are the ones stepping up to be heroes because you can't count the benevolence of gods or other cosmic entities. That is, alignments are explicitly that - alignment, allegiance, affiliation. Your alignment isn't about your morality, it's about where you come down in the great cosmic conflict between Law and Chaos - although even Lawful or Chaotic mortal heroes will find themselves at odds with cosmic powers of the same alignment, for the reasons discussed above. Beyond that, I like the general idea of the Nentir Vale as an inspiration. A setting that is "post-post-apocalyptic", you might say, where the collapse is now long enough ago in the past that society is on the path of rebuilding towards new prosperity - as long as heroes and adventurers can keep evil at bay, that is. Next post, the Berserker! [/QUOTE]
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