While at UK Games Expo, I got to play a session of 13th Age (kindly run for me by Peter Griffith, who you may know as @pedr).
We filmed the event, so at some point you'll be able to see a short video featuring some highlights, factoids, and brief interview pieces.
But that aside, here's how it went. Bear in mind I had never seen so much as glimpse inside 13th Age before, other than the occasional interview or promotional piece. So I didn't know what to expect. And this was a two-hour session, with one hour prep/chagen and one hour play.
What I got was D&D. In a good way. 13th Age is D&D as much as any other edition or variant is. It feels like it sits somewhere between 3rd and 4th edition in style, but less complex than either.
The first hour was character generation. Well, pre-gen modification. I chose the wizard pre-gen, which was basically a 1st level D&D wizard with ability scores and a familiar selection of spells, and had to make the following decisions:
1) One Unique Thing. I had to decide on a thing that set my character apart. I went with "has a pack of dogs" (which ended up pulling us in a sled). Chris Brind, playing the dwarf cleric, decided he had been brought up by elves. Others picked other things. We were encouraged to come up with something imaginative both we and the GM could use in game.
2) Backgrounds. We had no skills. Instead we had 8 points (I think) to spend on backgrounds A background is a self-invented, very broad skill. In each you can start with up to 5 points (so you could have 8 little ones, or one big one and a medium sized one, or what have you). Skill checks are ability checks, and if your background would help you can add its score to your check. So if you had 2 points of "raised by a cheese maker" and in a dungeon there was a block of cheese, you'd get +2 to your wisdom check to identify it. I think. We didn't actually use them much in the hour we had available, so I could be wrong.
3) Relationships with Icons. Icons are powerful NPCs in the default setting. I assume other settings have other Icons. They're not gods, but they fill a similar narrative niche, I think. Anyway, there's a little point system which I didn't fully grasp which allows you to define your relationship with one or more Icons. I decided to throw them all into an adverse relationship with the Archmage, and that my character believed that the Archmage was merely a stage magician proficient at sleight-of-hand.
So we started the adventure. Some stuff round the village led us to go to a cave and fight some orcs. Like I said, it was just an hour. The combat operated in zones - you were either engaged, at short range, or at long range (again - I think; going off memory here). You could use a move action to transition between zones. I don't know if there were additional zones - I suspected that "off in the woods to the right" might have been a zone, but I don't know. I also don't know if the rules refer to them as zones - that's just how I've seen them referred to in other games.
That all worked great. It was faster than 3E or 4E. Less tactical, more narrative. The martial characters were selecting from a small list of 4E-ish abilities; I had a spell list containing magic missile, burning hands, and the like. Plus an ability which said that if I renamed my spells and describ them differently, I'd get a small bonus (the bonus was unspecified - I think it was GM discretion). I therefore referred to my magic missiles and burning hands and acid arrows as "infallible logical arguments" and "scathing moral condemnations" and the like. Which people laughed at. Possibly out of politeness.
Throughout this combat, an "escalation dice" increased each round, granting its value as a bonus to attacks and the like. It went up by 1 each round, I think. I believe there's some other funky stuff some classes can do which trigger off it. But it's main effect is to end fights quicker - as the combat goes on, you become more likely to hit. Also, that has the effect of making his save your big guns and not blast them out in the first round (which is something I found in 4E: folks would blow their bigger powers, and then spend 45 minutes plibbing away little at-wills; here it's the opposite: you build towards a climax with that big spell or manoeuver).
My main conclusion: this is a version of D&D, written by two D&D designers. It just doesn't have the name on the cover. It's more narrative than recent versions, and less tactical - hearkens back to 1e/2e in that respect - but contains modern things like at will/daily abilities, healing surges (they were called something else though) and some modern smatterings of player narrative control. I couldn't tell you what it's like to run, or to play long-term, but I suspect I'd like it. It removes many of the 4E gamist elements; the classes feel (at first glance) different to each other; and story elements are rewarded.
It's called "a love letter to D&D", but I feel that it (like Pathfinder) is D&D.
We filmed the event, so at some point you'll be able to see a short video featuring some highlights, factoids, and brief interview pieces.
But that aside, here's how it went. Bear in mind I had never seen so much as glimpse inside 13th Age before, other than the occasional interview or promotional piece. So I didn't know what to expect. And this was a two-hour session, with one hour prep/chagen and one hour play.
What I got was D&D. In a good way. 13th Age is D&D as much as any other edition or variant is. It feels like it sits somewhere between 3rd and 4th edition in style, but less complex than either.
The first hour was character generation. Well, pre-gen modification. I chose the wizard pre-gen, which was basically a 1st level D&D wizard with ability scores and a familiar selection of spells, and had to make the following decisions:
1) One Unique Thing. I had to decide on a thing that set my character apart. I went with "has a pack of dogs" (which ended up pulling us in a sled). Chris Brind, playing the dwarf cleric, decided he had been brought up by elves. Others picked other things. We were encouraged to come up with something imaginative both we and the GM could use in game.
2) Backgrounds. We had no skills. Instead we had 8 points (I think) to spend on backgrounds A background is a self-invented, very broad skill. In each you can start with up to 5 points (so you could have 8 little ones, or one big one and a medium sized one, or what have you). Skill checks are ability checks, and if your background would help you can add its score to your check. So if you had 2 points of "raised by a cheese maker" and in a dungeon there was a block of cheese, you'd get +2 to your wisdom check to identify it. I think. We didn't actually use them much in the hour we had available, so I could be wrong.
3) Relationships with Icons. Icons are powerful NPCs in the default setting. I assume other settings have other Icons. They're not gods, but they fill a similar narrative niche, I think. Anyway, there's a little point system which I didn't fully grasp which allows you to define your relationship with one or more Icons. I decided to throw them all into an adverse relationship with the Archmage, and that my character believed that the Archmage was merely a stage magician proficient at sleight-of-hand.
So we started the adventure. Some stuff round the village led us to go to a cave and fight some orcs. Like I said, it was just an hour. The combat operated in zones - you were either engaged, at short range, or at long range (again - I think; going off memory here). You could use a move action to transition between zones. I don't know if there were additional zones - I suspected that "off in the woods to the right" might have been a zone, but I don't know. I also don't know if the rules refer to them as zones - that's just how I've seen them referred to in other games.
That all worked great. It was faster than 3E or 4E. Less tactical, more narrative. The martial characters were selecting from a small list of 4E-ish abilities; I had a spell list containing magic missile, burning hands, and the like. Plus an ability which said that if I renamed my spells and describ them differently, I'd get a small bonus (the bonus was unspecified - I think it was GM discretion). I therefore referred to my magic missiles and burning hands and acid arrows as "infallible logical arguments" and "scathing moral condemnations" and the like. Which people laughed at. Possibly out of politeness.
Throughout this combat, an "escalation dice" increased each round, granting its value as a bonus to attacks and the like. It went up by 1 each round, I think. I believe there's some other funky stuff some classes can do which trigger off it. But it's main effect is to end fights quicker - as the combat goes on, you become more likely to hit. Also, that has the effect of making his save your big guns and not blast them out in the first round (which is something I found in 4E: folks would blow their bigger powers, and then spend 45 minutes plibbing away little at-wills; here it's the opposite: you build towards a climax with that big spell or manoeuver).
My main conclusion: this is a version of D&D, written by two D&D designers. It just doesn't have the name on the cover. It's more narrative than recent versions, and less tactical - hearkens back to 1e/2e in that respect - but contains modern things like at will/daily abilities, healing surges (they were called something else though) and some modern smatterings of player narrative control. I couldn't tell you what it's like to run, or to play long-term, but I suspect I'd like it. It removes many of the 4E gamist elements; the classes feel (at first glance) different to each other; and story elements are rewarded.
It's called "a love letter to D&D", but I feel that it (like Pathfinder) is D&D.
