13th Age Discussion: A Love Letter to The Best Parts of D&D

[Isaac Chalk]

This being said, here are a few comments on your posts, specifically (not on the game). Take them as you will, but they are meant constructively.

I always try to listen to constructive criticism. It's only polite. (If I tried to heed all the criticism I get, of course, I'd be in a rubber room.)

A proper "here's what's good, here's what's bad, this many stars out of five" review is difficult at present because the game only just left playtest and what I talk about may change dramatically by the time the game lands in three months. I can say that it's not perfect - no game, with the exception of PARANOIA, can be - but the "here's what's not perfect" list I have, I posted half of it here, and sent all of it to Pelgrane Press. If my comments were valid enough, then my complaints may not exist in short order.

Right now, what is set in stone, as stated in the playtest, is 13th Age's overall design ethos, mixing rules-light systems in combat and out of combat. It's that ethos I feel safest commenting on. I doubt that how they'll handle backgrounds or One Unique Thing will change that much, and these are concepts that excite me a great detail.

I wrote the first two posts the way I did because most of what I learnt about original posts (OPs) comes from Something Awful, where an exhaustively detailed opening post is the mark of a popular and informative thread. I'll be updating them in the days and weeks ahead as I gather up more writing on the playtest now that the NDA is lifted. Some of this will be criticism, even criticism I don't agree with.

As for my attitude towards D&D, I think the game invites comparison, by design. It's described as a love letter to D&D by its own design team. Whether or not my comparison is fair is up in the air, but I think it's a valid subject to broach. My perspective is that of a gamer who didn't come into gaming via D&D or its derivatives - my formative RPGs were Palladium (I was 12, shut up,) GURPS, Champions, Storyteller and Marvel Super Heroes. I only got into d20 during the inflation of the d20 bubble, so I don't have a lot of memories of filling in my 20 siders with crayons or poking every inch of a dungeon with a ten foot pole like I'm playing Ye Olde Minesweeper.

This might not be a perspective shared by that many people, especially on a D&D heavy site like ENWorld, but it's the only perspective I can bring, since it's all I've got. To me, D&D is a game - no more, no less. To me, D&D is a specific type of RPG, instead of RPGs being specific derivations of D&D. It's RPGs overall that are my hobby and my passion, and if an RPG comes along that interests me more than D&D, I'll play that without a moment's hesitation. 13th Age, from my experience, looks like that game.

As for Icons, I'll get into them once I'm back from the movie. (In this movie, Robert Pattinson shoots himself in the palm with a handgun. I think all movies should feature this, including the next Cars sequel.) Like I said before, the setting didn't immediately grip me - but the Icon system itself did. I'll concoct examples to illustrate points.

 

[Skyscraper]

I always try to listen to constructive criticism. It's only polite. (If I tried to heed all the criticism I get, of course, I'd be in a rubber room.)

A proper "here's what's good, here's what's bad, this many stars out of five" review is difficult at present because the game only just left playtest and what I talk about may change dramatically by the time the game lands in three months. I can say that it's not perfect - no game, with the exception of PARANOIA, can be - but the "here's what's not perfect" list I have, I posted half of it here, and sent all of it to Pelgrane Press. If my comments were valid enough, then my complaints may not exist in short order.

Right now, what is set in stone, as stated in the playtest, is 13th Age's overall design ethos, mixing rules-light systems in combat and out of combat. It's that ethos I feel safest commenting on. I doubt that how they'll handle backgrounds or One Unique Thing will change that much, and these are concepts that excite me a great detail.

I wrote the first two posts the way I did because most of what I learnt about original posts (OPs) comes from Something Awful, where an exhaustively detailed opening post is the mark of a popular and informative thread. I'll be updating them in the days and weeks ahead as I gather up more writing on the playtest now that the NDA is lifted. Some of this will be criticism, even criticism I don't agree with.

As for my attitude towards D&D, I think the game invites comparison, by design. It's described as a love letter to D&D by its own design team. Whether or not my comparison is fair is up in the air, but I think it's a valid subject to broach. My perspective is that of a gamer who didn't come into gaming via D&D or its derivatives - my formative RPGs were Palladium (I was 12, shut up,) GURPS, Champions, Storyteller and Marvel Super Heroes. I only got into d20 during the inflation of the d20 bubble, so I don't have a lot of memories of filling in my 20 siders with crayons or poking every inch of a dungeon with a ten foot pole like I'm playing Ye Olde Minesweeper.

This might not be a perspective shared by that many people, especially on a D&D heavy site like ENWorld, but it's the only perspective I can bring, since it's all I've got. To me, D&D is a game - no more, no less. To me, D&D is a specific type of RPG, instead of RPGs being specific derivations of D&D. It's RPGs overall that are my hobby and my passion, and if an RPG comes along that interests me more than D&D, I'll play that without a moment's hesitation. 13th Age, from my experience, looks like that game.

As for Icons, I'll get into them once I'm back from the movie. (In this movie, Robert Pattinson shoots himself in the palm with a handgun. I think all movies should feature this, including the next Cars sequel.) Like I said before, the setting didn't immediately grip me - but the Icon system itself did. I'll concoct examples to illustrate points.

Thanks for your reply, points noted.

 

[Phasmus]

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.

 

[Isaac Chalk]

On Icons.

The equivalent of the nine-panel alignment grid in 13th Age is the Icon Grid, with "Positive Relationship," "Conflicted Relationship," and "Negative Relationship" along the x-axis, and "Heroic Icon," "Ambiguous Icon," and "Villainous Icon" along the bottom. Depending on which panel you select on this grid, you can spend 1, 2 or 3 of your Icon Points on a relationship.

(By default certain icons fall into certain catagories, but it's a snap to slide an icon over into another catagory if you think that, say, the Diabolist gets a bad rap.)

Let's say that Baron Von Evil is a Villainous Icon, and I want my character to have a negative relationship. I would pick the "Negative Relationship with Villainous Icon" section of the grid, which tells me I can spend up to two points on this particular enmity. I can do so, and still have points left over to define a relationship elsewhere on the grid with another icon - or if Baron Von Evil is secretly my uncle, I can spend those points on an ambiguous relationship instead, putting me in a more complicated situation but potentially wresting benefits. In 13th Age, there are - appropriately - 13 icons, which allows for quite a wide matrix of alliances.

Each point put into an alliance gives me a d6 to roll. In a situation where my relationship might come up - for example, if the group needs particular insight into the tactics and practices of Baron Von Evil - I suggest an Icon roll to the GM, who says yea or nay. Then I roll. I hope that a die comes up a 6, which is an unqualified success; I will also accept 5s, which is a qualified success, in that I may attract unwanted attention or wind up owing someone a favor. If you roll both 5s and 6s, you get circumstances that are extra-advantageous AND extra-interesting. (This is where the GM smiles, rolls dice behind the screen, and does their best Tex Richman impression. "Maniacal laugh. Maniacal lauuugh.")

The Icons in the current age of 13th Age are:
- The Archmage, finest spellcaster in all the Empire, maintains extradimensional wards
- The Dragon Emperor, the head of the Empire and the most politically powerful human alive
- The Great Gold Wyrm, one of the mightiest dragons in history, who willingly sacrificed itself to seal a demonic rift - and even now, inspires its followers to take up arms against demonic menaces
- The Priestess, a sort of over-priest of the pantheon of the Gods of Light
- The Dwarf King, ruler of guess who?
- The Elf Queen, queen of all the I can't possible figure this out
- The Crusader, the tip of the Dark God's spear, who will crush the demonic menace no matter what gets in his way - nice ambiguous anti-hero
- The High Druid, who holds nature in higher regard than mortalkind - any threat to nature earns her wrath, be it demonic or mortal
- The Prince of Shadows, legendary thief, confidence man and scoundrel, if Han Solo and Tyrion Lannister had a baby who trained under John Constantine
- The Three, three of the oldest, wisest, most cunning dragons that ever lived, playing games with the lives of mortals on an unimaginable scale
- The Diabolist, demon summoning specialist who dabbles with things Mortalkind Was Not Meant To Know
- The Lich King, lord of the undead, master of the unliving, but most pointedly NOT the wielder of Frostmourne, so put the lawyers away, Blizzard
- The Orc Lord, the supreme royal chief head-smasher in charge of the orcish hordes, who - if he unifies his people - may smash entire countries under the thunder of green feet

Of course, these are easily tweaked, removed, or reversed for your favorite campaign. Nearly all fantasy universes have some "big men on campus" or related organizations. Examples might be the Red Wizards of Thay, the Sorcerer-Kings, the Church of the Silver Flame, the Dustmen, House Stark, the Ravenclaws, those muey sexist creepy people with the slave collars in Robbie Jordan's Wheel O' Time, or just about any significant collection of people who'll play a part in the campaign.

 

[Isaac Chalk]

I heard that the game's rules for weapons and armour were dreadfully...light...

If that's the case, I think I'll give it a miss...

Short answer, yes, they are.

Long answer, the game delineates weapon in broad strokes - a weapon falls into the d4-d6-d8-d10-so-forth category, with penalties for swinging around a weapon that's outside of your weight division. In the end, this prevents long discussions about what polearm is the best polearm and allows for some customization on the character's end. One fighter might love hoisting a warhammer that does d8 damage; the other a scimitar; both do 1d8/level plus stat bonus (depending on the level, double stat bonus perhaps) on a swing.

(This means that at higher levels, damage dice rolls sound like cluster bombs. If this is not your thang, I won't judge, and the game has several averaging methods for people who don't like the feel of nigh-on a dozen d8s landing.)

Armor is similarly broad, falling into Light and Heavy with no further breakdowns. So your barbarian can wear anything from practical boiled leather to fuzzy Conan diaper, while your paladin doesn't have to work out the precise differences between half-plate, full plate, articulated plate, and mithril plate. Some people will honestly hate the tradeoff in wide varieties of armor, and that's fine. But personally, I like the excision of the Fantasy Sharper Image catalog subgame, which triggered a lot of pointless arguments and left me dressing my characters in ways that didn't fit my mental image.

 

[Alphastream]

This was a pretty fun game. Our group playtested for both playtest windows and we had a great time. The game has a great capacity for imaginative open play, but at the same time has a lot of fun crunch - I really enjoyed making a 7th level PC, and I took a lot of time doing so (though I didn't have to).

We played through Temple of Elemental Evil and we had a great time. The rules for making monsters are pretty simple, and our DM was running a great game on the fly. We played gridless, though we easily could have used a grid. Overall, it was really strong.

Were there issues? Of course. We did our best to identify them clearly and provide context for our comments. Despite our group having a wide variety of interests, most of us will be buying the game, which I think speaks to the game's likely appeal.

Not enough can be said about the iconics. The cover price may just be worth the iconics alone... steal that and bring it into any campaign!

 

[Doug McCrae]

Sounds good. I really like how so many people seem to be doing new things with D&D these days, like Old School Hack, Lamentations of the Flame Princess, and DCC rpg.

Several class abilities are unlocked by the die - your fighter, for example, may start cleaving through entire squads of enemies once he's got their number

I like this a lot. It could lead to being gamed, with the PCs fighting very defensively for the first few rounds, but that's no bad thing if the opposition also escalate, and reflects the 'caginess' at the start of real life fights.

 

[gamerdad39]

I joined in on the 2nd round of playtesting for 13th Age and basically believe I have found the game I will be running from here on out.

Let me give some perspective to that statement. I've been playing RPG's now for about 24 years. I started with the D&D red box set that I got in trade from a friend at school who really didn't know what to do with it. To be honest at the time I didn't really know what the heck to do with it either, but something in it caught my eye. So began a small game with a couple of other friends as we worked to figure this stuff out. By default I ran the game because the set was mine and when we sat down I had learned the most about it. So began my 24 year adventure, which still continues.

I "learned" how to play D&D and RPG's with only the books as guidance. So generally we made up a lot of stuff, didn't focus too much on mechanics and just had a great time. Some games were focused and well planned out, others were extremely free form and we played and let the story develop around us based on the PC's actions and my general direction. We never let the rules get in the way of what we wanted to do and we all loved playing that way.

Eventually we upgraded to 2nd Edition but kept the same mindset in playing our games. Yes there were more rules and we used them but never allowed ourselves to get bogged down by them. It was still a very free form and very storied game. We (yes both the PC's and I) put the characters through hell and back and had a wonderful time doing it. My players were inventive and always looked for interesting ways to handle any given situation. The way the rules were presented I felt like I could easily handle those situations regardless if there was something covering it in the book.

Of course I dabbled in other systems but always found my way back to D&D. There were certainly other compelling systems out there but I just felt at home on my original stomping grounds and enjoy the game more than most others. I dove into 3rd edition D&D and enjoyed it as much as 2nd, though the mechanics did become a little more involved. My more recent group still allowed that "outside the box" feel to the game and we had a great time.

Now I'm about to get into an area that is touchy for a lot of people. Let me state that the following is my opinion. I have enough of a history with D&D and playing RPG's to come to my own conclusions. I trust people with different opinions have come to them through their own experiences and feelings. I'm fine with that. I'm not here to argue my views or condemn anyone's either.

I've run 4th edition since it released. Initially I was excited and loved the system, but hadn't really seen it in play and was anxious to run it. My players were excited about it too. Some of that "new system" vibe was running strong with me and my group. The first year was pretty good. We were getting adjusted to the system and the significant changes that were made. Uncommon to my gaming history I also got a good stretch were I was on the other side of the table as a player, and that is where my good will for the system started to break down.

The mechanics felt like they became paramount in the game. Combat was a full on mini's game and while there was some fun and enjoyment on the tactics side of things, it felt like our imaginations took a back seat. I stepped back a bit and really started looking at the system and realized I didn't like what I saw. It's not that I couldn't do the things that we did before, it's just not as comfortable to do things outside of the mechanics. Round after round of power use became stagnant and boring. The "roles" concepts and character classes seemed to be the same when they were broken down. Any class that fell into the same "role" as others felt the same aside from the fluff surrounding the powers. It just lacked the feel of the play I enjoy.

Another area I found difficult was creating my game. Before I would come up with the story and work the rules around my game. It seemed now I needed to take the rules into account when creating my story. Perhaps some of this is my fault. Either way, it just didn't work for me.

So then Next was announced and at this point I was excited and somewhat hesitant at the same time. I did not really want to invest another considerable amount of money on a new system and based on the conclusions I came to on 4th I wasn't sure I trusted where the game was going. Overall though I like the design discussions that I've seen and it looks like they are returning to a direction I've liked in the past. But my eyes were wandering and I caught a message board post about 13th Age and signed up for the playtest.

I've run four sessions in the second round of the playtest. While running the game I found that the "feel" of the game that was missing for me in 4th was back with a vengeance. My group and I played for 6+ hours in each of those sessions, at least one of them went 8 hours. We haven't played that long in years. We were all so taken up with the free form nature of the game that it just flowed right for us.

Issac has already covered a lot of ground about the differences between the systems. All I want to comment on here is that 13th Age is the game for my game group. We loved it. Yes there are some areas where I felt it wasn't perfect and I outlined those in my feedback to the playtest. Spellcasters felt a little odd to us. While non spellcasters maintained parity with each other spellcasters seemed to fall behind on even levels, then would bounce back to parity on odd levels. It didn't feel completely right. Rangers seemed a bit odd as well. At first level you have pretty much picked everything your Ranger could do. Things like attack, hit points and damage increase level to level, but all the features were pretty much defined in level 1.

Those were just a couple of things, but nothing overwhelming really stood out to me as a negative or something that I couldn't adjust given some more time. I know this will not be the game for everyone. I can see why someone who loves 4th edition would be put off by this system. 13th Age suits my gaming style more than D&D at this point and I love it. I cannot wait to have the full book in hand and really dive in.

I know this was a long rant and my first post. I just haven't had anyone outside of my gaming group to chat with this about and felt I should give a little background to my statements. I can respond with some more detail regarding 13th Age itself if desired.

 

[Isaac Chalk]

Now available to pre-order.

However, PDF downloads are not yet enabled, so if you're pre-ordering for that, you may wish to hold off for a while yet.

 

[Agamon]

I follow Tweet on G+, so I've been following along with his development blog, but not too closely, as I was thinking, "No, not another game, I already am very interested in too many new games..."

But then he posted art for the map. That caught my attention big time, that is some fantastic art! And the info Isaac posted here is now making me salivate. Argh...too many games, not enough play time.

Might need to get the book and incorporate what I can into whatever we decide to play...