AMA: Richard Baker, author of lots of stuff!

[Rich Baker]

Beyond the edges of the Conquest of Nerath map - did you ever sketch out continental shapes for the rest of the planet?

No, I didn't. My marching orders at the beginning of the Conquest of Nerath project were to "make a Forgotten Realms Axis & Allies, but set it on a nonspecific fantasy world and make it a unique game system." Which is kind of funny, when you think about it. There was a sense on the business team at the time that branding something Forgotten Realms would actively turn off a number of core D&D fans, so they were worried about trying to make it Faerun (kind of a shame because I liked the factions in that version of the game). It was only after we finished Conquest of Nerath that the decision was made to actually tie it to the implied game setting of 4e, and make those locations explicit. That actually caused a bit of confusion in and around the Nentir Vale corner of the map, but we made it work.


Rich

 

[Rich Baker]

Hi Rich! I'm a big fan of Birthright.

What is your favourite Cerilian domain?

Mhoried. I set a book there: "The Falcon and the Wolf."


Rich

 

[Rich Baker]

A huge fan of Alternity and Birthright here:

1) Have you ever thought about coming back to Alternity?
2) What would you change/improve if you could do Alternity 2e?

Hi, Vicente --

I have thought about it. Like I said before, I was just batting around some ideas with Bill Slavicsek a few weeks ago. As far as improving or changing the game, hmm, let me see . . . I'd be inclined to tinker with the core mechanic to make rolling high good, I'd switch over to a cyclic initiative system to speed combat rounds, and I'd hammer out some good encounter-building guidelines so that a GM could more easily figure out the difference between a challenging fight and a screaming slaughter.

Hypothetically speaking, what would you want to see? Where do you think the old game would benefit from some improvements?


Rich

 

[Rich Baker]

Another big fan of Alternity here. I'm also curious what you would do for a theoretical Alternity 2e given the opportunity. What were your favourite things about Alternity? What didn't work as well as you expected?

Hi, Devilbass -- For some mechanical improvements, see the preceding post. I would also be interested in exploring some new setting ideas (mostly because things like Star*Drive and Dark*Matter belong to Wizards of the Coast, so I'd have to build new worlds of my own).

My favorite things about Alternity? Hmm . . . I did like the settings. I also liked the tech we came up with for the core game, and the ship design rules. And the basic mechanic was fun, fast, and flexible.


Rich

 

[Vicente]

Hi, Vicente --

I have thought about it. Like I said before, I was just batting around some ideas with Bill Slavicsek a few weeks ago. As far as improving or changing the game, hmm, let me see . . . I'd be inclined to tinker with the core mechanic to make rolling high good, I'd switch over to a cyclic initiative system to speed combat rounds, and I'd hammer out some good encounter-building guidelines so that a GM could more easily figure out the difference between a challenging fight and a screaming slaughter.

Hypothetically speaking, what would you want to see? Where do you think the old game would benefit from some improvements?


Rich

Hi Rich,

thanks a lot for the answer! Take this as my personal experiences/opinions, I'm sure other people differ (and A.NET has a lot of great ideas for some of these issues):

- I like that the step-difficulty with dice as modifiers and that a single roll produces different type of successes. I don't care that much if it's roll-under or over if that continues to be the case, I have become a huge fan of a single roll giving more than a binary result (like in games based on Apocalypse World).
- I never liked that Skill Points were tied to Int, it made it way too important.
- I like the races (a lot actually), but the classes reminded me a little too much of DnD in space. I like the idea of giving discounts to certain skills to specialize, but maybe they could be "narrower" instead of so open ended.
- I find character advancement very slow/uninteresting. I'm not sure what's the exact issue, if it's that raising ranks is too expensive, characters get too few skill points, skill ranks are too separated between each other... Or maybe a little of everything. This is my main problem with Alternity.
- Characters that use psionics/fx usually ended too low on other skills. I think I would collapse the skill list a little (I love how varied it is, but there may be a little too many).
- I enjoy a lot the damage/armor/health rules (although I think I'm a minority here). Maybe something to reduce a little the spiral of death as characters start getting injured would be nice.

That's what I can come up with on top of my head right now. I'll give it another thought when I get home and I can sit with the books.

Regards!
Vicente

 

[Rich Baker]

And about Birthright. Do you think AD&D 2e was a good fit for Birthright or were the setting domain mechanics constrained by the AD&D rules? Do you think any current RPG fits with Birthright domain level rules/gameplay specially well?

I don't think 2e was a bad fit for Birthright. The domain rules were a pretty independent module, and they could have been bolted on to almost any RPG. (In fact, the Pathfinder guys did that for their Kingmaker adventure path -- in spirit if not in mechanics, anyway.) If there is any place where the fit was not so great, I would say it was in the notion of level-based characters in general. It's weird to assume that the king is a 10th-level fighter when he really should be the guy *least* likely to gain experience by stabbing goblins. But that was the core conceit of the Birthright setting: What would a world look like if being a king really meant that you were different and special and better, and not just a jackass with a pedigree?

So, if you really want good "sim value" on being a ruler, I think I'd look at some level-less systems and start there.


Rich

 

[Rich Baker]

Hi Richard,

Big fan and a collector/owner of a lot of your work. Namely Dark Sun 4E, Birthright, Alternity, Conquest of Nerath, and various D&D 3rd Edition products.

Just a couple questions for you:

1. What was your inspiration for the Star*Drive campaign setting for Alternity?

2. I loved the changes you made to Dark Sun 4E (despite not liking the 4E rules). They seemed very logical and nothing felt forced. My question therefore is, if you could re-write the Pristm Pentad storyline in this new Dark Sun world, what changes would you make to it?

3. Conquest of Nerath was a recent purchase of mine, and one that I actually justified by both the well written board game rules, fancy pieces as well as the liking the background information presented in Dragon and Dungeon magazine on the Nerath "points of light" setting. Are there any "editing room floor" bits of information you could share on the Nerath setting (even ones tied to just the board game) that didn't quite make the cut to production?

4. Birthright is an amazing game but I think it has suffered a long time without any kind of update or new articles/products. Would it ever be considered for a new product, something akin to Ed Greenwood Presents the Forgotten Realms? I would buy that in hardcover in a heartbeat.

Hi, Superchunk --

Good questions! Let me see what I can do with those . . .

1. As I noted earlier, Star*Drive was really part of Bill Slavicsek's original Alternity pitch to TSR management. I did add some bits just by being part of the team--for example, StarMech came into existence because I wanted a generic corporation for a playtest adventure, and then to my surprise it became a star nation when other team members picked it up and ran with it.

2. The biggest problem with the Prism Pentad IMO is that it "solved" the setting in a lot of ways. Half the sorcerer-kings die, too many of the mysteries solved, etc., etc. (er, spoiler alert). There are two basic ways to manage a world: episodic and epic. In an episodic world you try to tell stories that keep the world much the same as it was when it was introduced. Star Trek is episodic, ditto Forgotten Realms (at its best). In an epic world you tell the biggest story of the world and let the story change the world--Lord of the Rings, Dragonlance, and many other stories. Prism Pentad was an epic for a world that felt like it might have worked better with an episodic story. That said, the books are great and Troy did a great job, I just wish he hadn't been so thorough.

3. None that I can think of, sorry. I think pretty much all the pieces I wrote for it were published.

4. Sure, I've thought about that. It's a little tricky because Wizards of the Coast owns the copyright to most of the world. I haven't looked at how Ed tackled his Forgotten Realms book, but I am assuming the first thing I would need to do is create a brand new Cerilia-like world of my own to serve as the setting.


Rich

 

[Rich Baker]

Just want to say thanks for Phandelver. Its the best thing Wizards has produced for 5e, AFAIC. Id love to see similar products from Sasquatch (small, handful of level, sandboxy things).

Enjoyed your FR work and love what I have seen of Thule as well

Thanks, Jeff! Kind of you to say so.

You know, the idea of just publishing a nice sandboxy adventure along the lines of Phandelver never crossed my mind. I've been looking at things like Primeval Thule adventures, but your idea definitely has merit. I'm going to think on that for a bit!


Rich

 

[Rich Baker]

I second that, I would buy a hardcover Birthright, actually 2, one for the shelf, one for play. I have all the older stuff but it feels like it just got chopped off right when it was getting good. I REALLY hope Wizards considers this, I mean look how popular Game of Thrones is right now.

As you say, that's up to Wizards of the Coast. I'd be happy to help them do it if they decided to!


Rich

 

[NiClerigo]

Rich, thanks for being here. My question is about Aduria in Birthright: can you give us an overview of it? Ed Stark said that it was like an exotic South America without the Aztec or Mayan influences; and all I find are fan creations. I'd love to know more about it. Thanks!