D&D 5E Brainstorming TotM

[Tony Vargas]

I've got a copy of HoL and I know what you're aiming at.

"It's really, really, really, really, really, far..."

(I'm goin on memory, not sure I ever owned a copy.)

I acknowledge that many RPG designs are built on the shoulders of predecessors, transforming and adapting them to new uses. If we grant that 13A's doing the same thing, it transformed and adapted prior techniques to a D&D-style FRPG in a way that hasn't been done before.

wrecan's SARN-FU was awfully similar, and was up on the old D&D boards before 13A was even an idea.

13A did do a good job of facilitating both TotM and grid play from the ground up, which is more than we can say for any edition of D&D, nor most of it's other imitators, with or without addons like SARN-FU or Roshambo.

 

[EpicureanDM]

wrecan's SARN-FU was awfully similar, and was up on the old D&D boards before 13A was even an idea.

Do you know where I can find that? I've only found dead links.

Compare Roshambo to 13A and you tell me whether I'm off-base or not.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Do you know where I can find that? I've only found dead links.

Compare Roshambo to 13A and you tell me whether I'm off-base or not.

It might even have been preserved on this site somewhere, I know a lot of stuff was...

On the wayback machine, it's a little ugly, but:

http://web.archive.org/web/20150916182511/http://community.wizards.com/content/blog/698936
http://web.archive.org/web/20150917233320/http://community.wizards.com/content/blog/752351
http://web.archive.org/web/20150917233319/http://community.wizards.com/content/blog/764451

...and, no, in retrospect it's only generally similar, for instance, using 'knots' instead of a die roll to deal with targeting AEs...

I'm not interested enough in Roshambo, but from briefly perusing the thread about it, it does look like it used a lot of the same terminology. Like 'engage' and 'intercept.' Engage is awfully common. Intercept perhaps less so, but still quite intuitive. And like using a die to determine the number of targets affected - which is definitely familiar from somewhere else besides 13A, though now I'm not sure /where/.

IDK if wassisname intentionally ripped off 13A and doesn't want to give it credit out of ego, or if he's just afraid that the perception of 13A as a successor to 4e would de-legitimize his offering in the eyes of the target audience by association with that edition.

 

[cbwjm]

I have a friend who had a DM use a die roll to determine targets affected back in 2e so it definitely isn't a new concept and could easily be thought up independently.

 

[Tales and Chronicles]

I have a friend who had a DM use a die roll to determine targets affected back in 2e so it definitely isn't a new concept and could easily be thought up independently.

This. As for the ''movement zones'', I know many games that use the same idea in one way or another, such as Beyond the Wall, TinyDungeon, the One Ring, Dungeon World etc. Some details may vary, but its similar enough to say that what the 13th does is in no way unique.

Not to say that its not a good system; it work splendidly.

 

[Fenris-77]

"It's really, really, really, really, really, far..."

(I'm goin on memory, not sure I ever owned a copy.)

I do own a copy, and it's marvellous. For what looks like satire, it's a surprisingly robust and useful RPG. I still call the relevant section of my 5e Character sheets Equipstuff in memoriam. It's also a solid resource for GMs in the minimalist school, TotM included. Did I mention it's really funny?

 

[Azzy]

Newbs often struggle with TotM - they lose track of where they are, where the monsters are, and pretty much everything about the environment. That said, although new players will mostly struggle there's no real way past that, except to live with the growing pains. So lets not call it a barrier, but rather a challenge - gotta get those players trained. It's a lot of improvisation and micro-decision making for the DM too. Like I said though, good planning can take some of the sting out of that second part.

And, yet, my point that was that when I and all my friends were "newbs", we played TotM without any issue. I don't think that we were ultra special.

 

[Fenris-77]

All newbs? OK, fair enough, but newbs aren't generally running the kind of combat I'm talking about. When everybody is new there's no yardstick for success or failure either, not with what we're talking about here. Everyone usually has a blast, which is great, and new players shouldn't care that their combats aren't this or that. That said, I suspect that the kind of combat complexity that I'm talking about isn't a usual feature of all-newb campaigns, and even if it is, those complex environments would tend to get sanded down by the inability of the group to fully visualize and use the space. This matches up very well with my own memories of early RPG experiences. That isn't a criticism of new players of GMs either. I don't think my contention that new players and GMs fail to realize the full depth and scope of certain game features or systems should be at all controversial.

I'm not saying that TotM is bad somehow either, or that new players can't do it. If you'd read all my posts you would know I've not said that. All I said was that TotM often struggles with complex 3D battlefields, especially in the case of new players. Your lack of struggle with TotM doesn't really speak to that issue unless you were running the kind of combats I'm talking about. Were you running the kind of combats I'm describing?

 

[EpicureanDM]

This. As for the ''movement zones'', I know many games that use the same idea in one way or another, such as Beyond the Wall, TinyDungeon, the One Ring, Dungeon World etc. Some details may vary, but its similar enough to say that what the 13th does is in no way unique.

Not to say that its not a good system; it work splendidly.

I don't mean to say that every part of 13A's TotM system is unique or was never done before. 13A might have taken some ideas about TotM - some of them new and others borrowed - and arranged/designed them in a particular way to suit a D&D-style FRPG. I can't speak to how much 13A's designs explicitly relied on prior ideas. I'm not aware of a published TotM system preceding 13A that contains sufficient similarities to 13A's TotM that a case could be made that 13A is borrowing pretty heavily from it. What I can suggest, however, is that a direct comparison of Roshambo TotM and 13A TotM might indicate that a Roshambo owes a heavy debt to 13A, a debt that the presumption of independent development might not overcome. If Roshambo owes much of its design to 13A and Roshambo is being sold for money, the author should at least acknowledge publicly and in the rules' text that their work is based on someone else's.

 

[cbwjm]

Or maybe, and I know this might sound a little crazy, but what if they didn't feel the need to acknowledge them because they didn't base it on 13th age totm.