Black Flag So What's In Kobold Press' BLACK FLAG First Playtest?

Black Flag, the codename for Kobold Press' new open TTRPG, announced during the height of the recent OGL controversy as an open alternative to 5E, has put out the first playtest packet. It's 12-page document of character creation rules. So what's inside?

The introduction summarises character creation, defining 5E concepts like level, hit dice, and so on. It introduces the game as being backward-compatible with 5E.

Black Flag -- like Level Up: Advanced 5E, and Ancestry & Culture--divides the 5E concept of 'race' and 'subrace' into inherited and cultural elements. Black Flag goes with the terms Lineage and Heritage.

It goes on to present the Dwarf, Elf, and Human, along with a choice of two heritage traits for each--the heritage traits for dwarf, for example, are Fireforge and Stone. Elves get Cloud and Grove, while humans get Nomadic and Cosmopolitan. You can choose any heritage for your lineage, though. These are analogous to 5E's 'subraces', although the inherited/learned elements are separated out -- Cloud Elves are a lot like High Elves, and Grove Elves are a lot like Wood Elves, for example.

Following that are two backgrounds -- Scholar, and Soldier. They each give the usual array of proficiencies plus a 'talent'.

Magic, martial, and technical talents are essentially feats. You get a talent from your background, and can substitute an ability score increase for one.

The playtest feels to me much like a 5E written in their own words, but with 5E's 'race/subrace' structure replaced with 'lineage/heritage', the biggest thing being that the heritage (what was subrace in 5E) is cultural.

As a disclaimer, I do of course publish Level Up: Advanced 5E, which shares the exact same goal as Kobold Press' project (BTW, check out the new A5ESRD site!) It will be interesting to see how the approaches diverge; while both are backward-compatible, they already have different ways to handle what 5E calls race -- Level Up has you choose a heritage (your inherited species, basically), and any of 30+ cultures (learned stuff from where you grew up). Black Flag goes with lineage (again, your inherited species), and a choice of heritages for each lineage. And the bestselling 5E book Ancestry & Culture on DTRPG, uses those terms -- so there's plenty of options to choose your heritage/culture, lineage/heritage, or ancestry/culture!

Whatever happens, the future certainly contains a choice of open 5E alternatives!

 

[Reynard]

I don't want to buy more dice. I don't want to look up on a table what happens. I'm also not the person you asked....

You don't need a table for Genesys dice, or for Free League funky dice. You are just counting different things than having to add or subtract.

 

[Reynard]

I largely play online nowadays and don't like requiring my players -- many of whom have been new to gaming over the years and others of whom have struggled a lot financially in recent years -- spend any money. Proprietary dice typically can't work with online dice rollers.

Further, they're usually unnecessary, IMO, especially for six-sided die (which many of the funky dice tend to be). Just make them d6s with bonus decorations.

I am very focused on the at-table experience, physical or virtual, and funky dice usually means the designers are less concerned about that than I am. MCDM will do fine without my dollars, especially since I will continue to watch Colville's DM advice videos and even his eccentric takes on movies and novels.

Thanks for answering.

 

[Parmandur]

It's interesting that funky dice was your line. Do you mind expounding a little? Is it because you don't like proprietary components in general? Do you find symbol based resolution less satisfying or harder? Do you think it is gimmicky? Is there a dice mechanic that doesn't include funky dice that would inspire you to nope out just as quickly?

Note that I am not trying to argue with you or defend that choice by MCDM. I am honestly curious.

For me, it's too much added mental load compared to rolling numeric dice against a target number.

 

[Parmandur]

You don't need a table for Genesys dice, or for Free League funky dice. You are just counting different things than having to add or subtract.

It's partly because there are no tables that it's more difficult to get my head around: the results being qualitative rather than quantitatice is interesting to be sure, but not as straightforward as rolling percentages.

 

[Reynard]

For me, it's too much added mental load compared to rolling numeric dice against a target number.

Where do you stand between say additive dice pools versus counting successes dice pools versus best result dice pools versus multi-use dice pools (to hit and damage at the same time, for example)? All compared to dX+mod v TN, I mean.

 

[Minigiant]

Park of my feedback will be to say that Black Flag's lineages can be compatible with 5e races while changing the part WOTC never expanded on.

One example is Low Light Vision. KP can bring it back and give Elves back to a form of low light vision. WOTC never really did anything with darkvision and dim light is CC. So just make elves the best in dim light.

Another is playing with biological differences. Eye for Quality could be a base dwarf feature. It would emphasize that dwarfs are biologically different, either by divine blessing or just their lineage, and can see the details of earth and metal that is still. Then from there, different heritages can add to their natural traits honing it onto certain materials and situations.

Basically, I rather Kobold Press not be boring in the pursuit of compatiblilty while also not follow trends of porting all flavor and creativity into subraces heritages.

Black Flag can be 5e compatible while keeping dwarves dwarfy. Or making them more dwarfy.

 

[Reynard]

The nice thing about disassociating this stiff from "lineage" would be that it is much easier to run an all human campaign-- which is a baseline alternative that D&D really needs as a viable option.

 

[Ulorian - Agent of Chaos]

I second the "with numbers" series of books. I kept hearing raves about it and finally downloaded the free Stars Without Number book and woah, that guy does GREAT work. Like really great work.

Just downloaded it...

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Black Flag can be 5e compatible while keeping dwarves dwarfy. Or making them more dwarfy.

I have a dream that someone will make a set of 5E books that center on single-species game play. Dungeons & Dwarves, for instance (although that name would get you sued, for sure), where they just go deep on a single group, with the expectation that no one in a campaign will be anything but a dwarf or whatever, but offering enough variety within that type so that players still have a lot of fun choices.

By remaining compatible with the CC SRD, dwarf (or elf or gnome or goblin) lovers get both a standalone game experience but also hefty sourcebooks to bring back to more traditional games.

 

[JEB]

I feel this playtest suffers from the same flaw that 1D&D's does: it is asking us to "test" stuff in parts. I would much prefer if we got a single document and were told to run a campaign for 3 or 6 months and tell us what worked and what didn't (essentially the Paizo style of doing it). D&D is a complex thing and has lots of moving parts that interact in unexpected ways. We can't really test any new parts in isolation in a couple of weeks. So, like 1D&D playtest packets, this feels more like marketing than honest playtest.

I was just reflecting earlier on how the D&D Next playtests went. Not only did their packets have full character creation rules (if only up to certain levels, and only providing certain options), but they also included one or more adventures to run test games with. That makes playtesting much more convenient...