Green Ronin's Dragon Age

[YourSwordIsMine]

Mana and hp are also random, including magic + constitution bonuses that don't 'keep state', as are backgrounds, and I object more to those.

Out of curiosity, why? For many many years until 4e, D&D had random HP generation as did/does other games as well. 1d6+Con for Health in Dragon Age is much better than other systems as your starting 1st level characters have 20-30 Health before the random roll+Ability. Dragon Age doesnt suffer from the 1 HP Magic-User syndrome... I think the slower Health gain adds to the darker more deadly air the game was trying to achieve.

 

[Treebore]

The ability scores are actually one of the least objectionable of the randomizers, even if it is random enough that it can invalidate someone from playing a concept and rather having to cater their concept (or not bothering) to what they rolled. Random ability scores at least spark some interesting things, even if you'd think _30 years_ would have led them to a better randomizer by now.

Mana and hp are also random, including magic + constitution bonuses that don't 'keep state', as are backgrounds, and I object more to those.

You know, I am ok with you having this problem, but every player I have ever had who worried about the attributes fitting their "concept" was because their "concept" involved 18 stats to begin with.

On top of that I am someone who doesn't even have his players roll for stats, or do point buy, I just let players assign whatever scores they want.

Thats because I don't care. If you want all 18's or if you want something lesser, it doesn't matter to me, if I want the PC to be killed, they will be killed. High attributes have never prevented it before.

So as long as your not one of those people who hide behind "character concepts" to mask munchkinism, fine. But we also know how easy it is to create other systems such as point buy, so complaining about the randomness is still fundamentally meaningless to me. Probably to Pramas too, because he knows just as well as I do any gamer who knows anything about the mechanics of character creation will have a point buy system worked out in a minute.

Or they can be like me and let a player give themselves whatever the want, they still die easy enough.

 

[bagger245]

You know, I am ok with you having this problem, but every player I have ever had who worried about the attributes fitting their "concept" was because their "concept" involved 18 stats to begin with.

On top of that I am someone who doesn't even have his players roll for stats, or do point buy, I just let players assign whatever scores they want.

Thats because I don't care. If you want all 18's or if you want something lesser, it doesn't matter to me, if I want the PC to be killed, they will be killed. High attributes have never prevented it before.

So as long as your not one of those people who hide behind "character concepts" to mask munchkinism, fine. But we also know how easy it is to create other systems such as point buy, so complaining about the randomness is still fundamentally meaningless to me. Probably to Pramas too, because he knows just as well as I do any gamer who knows anything about the mechanics of character creation will have a point buy system worked out in a minute.

Or they can be like me and let a player give themselves whatever the want, they still die easy enough.

Best post I ever read.

 

[keterys]

On top of that I am someone who doesn't even have his players roll for stats, or do point buy, I just let players assign whatever scores they want.

Which is a better system than 3d6 in order if you do want to fit a concept, though lacks some of the useful dynamic triggers of random rolling. Like the wizard with the impressive Strength or abysmal wisdom, the barbarian with the great Charisma or slapstick inducing Dexterity.

But with Dragon Age's rolling method, you can actually end up unable to satisfy really basic concepts like 'Mage' or 'Fighter' nevermind slightly more complex ones like 'Educated Swordsman' or 'Skald'.

Thats because I don't care. If you want all 18's or if you want something lesser, it doesn't matter to me, if I want the PC to be killed, they will be killed. High attributes have never prevented it before.

Wow. Not only are you assuming that people would even want all 18s, but you're highly confrontational about killing PCs. I assume you're not power tripping and are just making a point, but color me unimpressed either way.

So as long as your not one of those people who hide behind "character concepts" to mask munchkinism, fine. But we also know how easy it is to create other systems such as point buy, so complaining about the randomness is still fundamentally meaningless to me. Probably to Pramas too, because he knows just as well as I do any gamer who knows anything about the mechanics of character creation will have a point buy system worked out in a minute.

As I said - I could run it with heavy houseruling. But if that's the case it's already fundamentally failed my hopes of being a good intro RPG for me to run.

And, again, stat generation is hardly the only random element.

Or they can be like me and let a player give themselves whatever the want, they still die easy enough.

Which is still a house rule. And not necessarily a great one for people new to the hobby or one good for maintaining some semblance of parity amongst party members.

As one example of random-ness - let's say you want to start with a character who knows something of first aid. The Cunning (Healing) focus requires a random roll on a background only available to certain Mages. So... just don't want a character to know about first aid, as a general rule.

As for my objections to hp and mana. Yes, some older games did random hp. I didn't like it then either. And random spell points were even less common. The entire setup fosters mistakes (forgetting to roll hp this level, rolling it extra, adding incorrectly) and encourages cheating. And with stat changes to Constitution and Magic not applying retroactively to hp/mana, that increases the chance of problem. Two 10th level characters with a 6 Con who rolled the same numbers for health might still have a difference of 15 health based on when they increased their Con.

There are a bunch of cool things in it, but clearly I missed the memo where we were getting an early 80s style RPG. I really like a lot of Green Ronin's work, new and old, and was very enthusiastic after reading the initial press release and message from Pramas, but said enthusiasm took a big hit on encountering the actual product.

That said, if you miss a lot of those aspects of OD&D (and aren't willing to just play it), then it might work out well for you.

And maybe the second set will contain the tweaks to the system I want to make it worth my while.

 

[keterys]

Since apparently I wasn't too clear earlier, I did like some stuff
I really like the core mechanic of 3d6, doubles trigger stunts, and the dragon die for level of success or stunt. I dislike that when you need an exceptional result (for example, a 14+ on the dice) your chance of succeeding with a high dragon die is very high, while on easy tasks (5+ on the dice) your chance of succeeding by a large margin is much lower. Because you need a high number to succeed at all in the first place and could succeed even on a 1 on the dragon die in the latter case. This is unintuitive. I also wish that degrees of _failure_ had been addressed in a similar method. Either way, the concept works well at normal difficulties and is cool narratively. As long as bonus disparity / DC numbers are contained, 3d6 has a nice curve but the dragon die and stunts make it much more interesting. Great!

I like the method of generating stunts - I just think there are too many stunt choices by default, especially for new players, and some of them are just bad. Like disarm is a 2 point stunt, so on 1/3 of hits you'll roll doubles and on more than 5/6 of those (because some of your 1s get eaten by misses) you'll be able to disarm. Knocking people around a few yards is great though.

I like the skill system of basing on stat then just getting +2 to stuff you're focused on. Elegant.

There are a few quite interesting nuggets here and there. Like when dying, you can't take any action except talk. Great - people can still RP while dying!

 

[WanderingMonster]

I pre-ordered and have looked over the PDFs. I love the CRPG history. The world is rich and puts enough twists on the standard fantasy tropes to make it seem fresh. It seemed to me that the background for Thedas was a labor of love.

With that, I would recommend the P&P game as a partner to the CRPG. I think you get a better sense of what Dragon Age is about by playing the electronic version.

 

[Destil]

Out of curiosity, why? For many many years until 4e, D&D had random HP generation as did/does other games as well. 1d6+Con for Health in Dragon Age is much better than other systems as your starting 1st level characters have 20-30 Health before the random roll+Ability. Dragon Age doesnt suffer from the 1 HP Magic-User syndrome... I think the slower Health gain adds to the darker more deadly air the game was trying to achieve.

Because, unlike rolling for stats, there's no depth. There's nothing interesting fighter having 16 HP vs 12. There's plenty of interesting things about a fighter with 7 Int vs. one with 16 (and other things may make up for it). Rolling for health/mana is just an annoying 'possibly screw the player' mechanic, to the point where I've never played a game of D&D without some sort of reroll rule for bad hit dice rolls.

 

[Grimstaff]

This is *extremely* shallow, but I was immediately turned off by the layout and presentation of the the Dragon Age previews, which look and feel almost exactly like most products of the "Great d20 Glut". An example here.

I know, don't judge a book by its cover and all that, but my knee-jerk response to the same-old, same-old look of the product was that there probably wasn't anything particularly new and exciting in the game itself.

Again, I realize I'm being shallow, and I'll doubtless take a more open-minded look at the system later on after my ire has receded. I like Pramas's professed desire to make a "red box" game for the 21st century, so here's hoping for the best...

 

[ExploderWizard]

I read the character creation part of the pdf and rolled up a few characters. I don't mind randomly determining things. That part that was slightly annoying were the false choices that were presented as a result of a combination of other choices and randomization.

For example, I rolled a set of stats and chose to play a dwarven rogue. The rogue class features a choice of 3 specializations but due to a combination of stats, race, and randomly rolled benefits only 1 option was available to my character. It isn't good design to present such a false set of choices. Suboptimal is a different animal. I can deal with there being only 1 really "good" option. Bad options are still options.

I still want to see the actual mechanics in play. The system looks fairly simple and easy to learn for a newbie and that is a strong plus.

 

[Treebore]

Which is a better system than 3d6 in order if you do want to fit a concept, though lacks some of the useful dynamic triggers of random rolling. Like the wizard with the impressive Strength or abysmal wisdom, the barbarian with the great Charisma or slapstick inducing Dexterity.

But with Dragon Age's rolling method, you can actually end up unable to satisfy really basic concepts like 'Mage' or 'Fighter' nevermind slightly more complex ones like 'Educated Swordsman' or 'Skald'.

Wow. Not only are you assuming that people would even want all 18s, but you're highly confrontational about killing PCs. I assume you're not power tripping and are just making a point, but color me unimpressed either way.

As I said - I could run it with heavy houseruling. But if that's the case it's already fundamentally failed my hopes of being a good intro RPG for me to run.

And, again, stat generation is hardly the only random element.

Which is still a house rule. And not necessarily a great one for people new to the hobby or one good for maintaining some semblance of parity amongst party members.

As one example of random-ness - let's say you want to start with a character who knows something of first aid. The Cunning (Healing) focus requires a random roll on a background only available to certain Mages. So... just don't want a character to know about first aid, as a general rule.

As for my objections to hp and mana. Yes, some older games did random hp. I didn't like it then either. And random spell points were even less common. The entire setup fosters mistakes (forgetting to roll hp this level, rolling it extra, adding incorrectly) and encourages cheating. And with stat changes to Constitution and Magic not applying retroactively to hp/mana, that increases the chance of problem. Two 10th level characters with a 6 Con who rolled the same numbers for health might still have a difference of 15 health based on when they increased their Con.

There are a bunch of cool things in it, but clearly I missed the memo where we were getting an early 80s style RPG. I really like a lot of Green Ronin's work, new and old, and was very enthusiastic after reading the initial press release and message from Pramas, but said enthusiasm took a big hit on encountering the actual product.

That said, if you miss a lot of those aspects of OD&D (and aren't willing to just play it), then it might work out well for you.

And maybe the second set will contain the tweaks to the system I want to make it worth my while.

People always want 18's, to suggest otherwise is disingenuous. I am sure there are exceptions, but the vast majority of people are narcissistic to some degree, the only thing to determine is the degree.

Plus unlike others around here, as the DM I am here to kill your PC, as fairly as I can. IF you think a DM is not, then why play a game where you know your PC cannot be killed? Every single person I play with wants to know I will kill their PC, so I have promised them I will, and I have.

Are you suggesting players can't handle having their PC's killed? Mine handle it just fine, and most have handled it just fine for 2 to 3+ years.

Heck, I even kill my own kids PC's. It seems to teach them there are consequences to stupid behavior.