Cypherize

I'm really digging the new Cypher edition. I can't wait to get my hands on all the books and other goodies, but the PDF of the player guide is certainly enough to get my mind racing about the possibilities. I'm not saying that I would or should do this, but after reading that PDF, I feel as though I could convert my last two campaign settings -- Shattered Realm and the venerable Druid Cycle -- from Fifth Edition D&D to Cypher. All campaigns and settings linked by a common ruleset? And all characters, locations, and other elements recorded in a single spreadsheet? It's a tantalizing prospect...

Torchlight 3.5

As I've probably shared in the past, the Torchlight campaign setting -- originally known by the more evocative title Woden's Gallows -- was my submission to Wizards for their big contest to create a new D&D setting. (Ultimately, the winner was Eberron. How could anyone top magic robots?!) I'll call that one Torchlight 1.0. 

A few years later, I ended up using Torchlight as the setting for a couple of early 4e campaigns, one in-person and one chat-based. This world was not a great fit for 4e, however, because of the new dragonborn and tiefling PC races introduced in the PHB for that edition. Incorporating those races and their cultures into the world resulted in Torchlight 2.0, which I felt was a pretty boring place. It had lost much of its unique Anglo-Saxon flavor. I didn't use Torchlight at all in the early days of 5e, since by that time my kids were  already playing in the Shattered Realm setting. 

In 2020, when we were all spending a lot of time by ourselves for some reason, I decided to resurrect Torchlight. I did a lot of world-building, but it was not system-specific. I scrapped all the D&D 4e nonsense and got back to the setting's roots in Anglo-Saxon poems like The Battle of Maldon, The Wanderer, and, of course, Beowulf. Now I had a great setting again -- Torchlight 3.0 -- but with no real plans to use it in a campaign, primarily because it still just didn't feel right as a D&D setting.

Enter the Cypher System. That was really the (Torch)light bulb moment in which I realized that Cypher was a far better system for this world. It quickly became the default fantasy setting in my growing Front Porch Multiverse spreadsheet that brings together all the (non-Druid Cycle and non-Shattered Realm) campaigns of my gamemastering career. Recently, I felt inspired to flesh out the world even more, adding a whole new continent and hundreds of new characters and locations. It's not a revamp of what preceded it, but there are some pretty big geographical and historical changes, so I'm calling it Torchlight 3.5. I can't wait for an opportunity to bring it to life with players!

Heroes of the Borderlands

A new D&D starter set is out today!

More MM Thoughts

I'm about two-thirds of the way through the new Monster Manual. The more I read, the less I like! Here are some random observations...

• The organization is weird. All subtypes of mephit are listed under the main entry "Mephit," but most dragons, giants, and other creatures with variants are alphabetized by subtype (e.g., you find black dragons under "B", hill giants under "H", etc.).
• Lots of foes now inflict multiple damage types on a hit, with poison being the most common (huzzah for dwarf characters!). All hobgoblins, for example, now inflict poison damage on their attacks. It's rarely clear why, however, creatures are now inflicting these additional damage types. 
• Lots of creatures and NPCs now have a generic at-will attack (often a multiattack) that's identical for both melee and ranged. This approach is used for spellcasters, too, where it makes these characters seem bland and flavorless. In "classic" 5e, spellcaster stat blocks included complete spell lists, but now the design seems to drive DMs to spam these generic melee/ranged attacks rather make tactical use of the spells listed on the stat block. I guess it's easier for DMs to run encounters this way, but it feels kind of boring. There are still spells identified as once- or twice-per-day options, but no longer are there formal spell lists broken out by level. 

I'm Prone to Exaggeration

I finally got around to buying the new Monster Manual and it seems...fine, I guess. Why is it, however, that just about every monster imposes the Prone condition when it hits?

5e SRD

There's a new version of the D&D System Reference Document that corresponds to the revised version of Fifth Edition. You can download it here.

Monster Manual

Amazon says the new Monster Manual will be out on February 18. Once I have a copy, and I've read through it fully, I won't have any more excuses to put off converting the Druid Cycle world to 5.5. Let me make it clear, however, that I don't relish the thought of reviewing (and probably in many cases changing) the stat block for all 1312 named NPCs.

Phase 2 -- Stat Blocks

I now have a pretty comprehensive spreadsheet compiling the names, places, factions, etc., from non-5e D&D campaigns of today and yesteryear. These campaigns include:

• Alien 
• Cyberwars (with all of its prequels, sequels, and spinoffs)
• Dark Enigma
• Doctor Who
• Earth Commanders
• The Ladder
• The Other World
• Project Descartes
• Tales of the Ternion
• Torchlight
• The Vanguard Saga

Putting the spreadsheet together was the main objective of this phase of my project. However, in order to create a true multiverse where characters from various campaigns can cross over and interact with each other, the characters all need compatible game stats. The list above reflects a wide range of rules systems, from the Alien RPG (Alien) to TinyD6 (Dark Enigma) to 4e D&D (Torchlight). As I noted in a previous post, I've opted for the Cypher System as the common platform for the Front Porch multiverse. As such, my last step for Phase 2 is to assign a Cypher System level and stat block to all the characters in the spreadsheet. The core rulebook is a huge help, but I also picked up a copy of the Cypher System Bestiary, which looks like it will give me enough examples to balance characters from such wildly different genres.

Empire of the Ghouls

As a kind of farewell to "classic" Fifth Edition, I've been playing through Empire of the Ghouls (from Kobold Press) over the past few months and just finished it up last weekend. I used a solo character (beastmaster ranger) and a sidekick (prodigy spellcaster) who were slightly over-level to make up for the fact that there were only two characters (and a faithful animal companion!) in the party. I really had a blast! Empire is a full-fledged campaign, and a first-rate one at that. Highly recommended!

5.5 in Hand

Our copy of the new PHB arrived today. Nathaniel has been exploring the changes and has already identified some pretty broken character options. I foresee him wanting to switch over our existing campaigns to 5.5 sooner rather than later. Not so for poor Matthew, whose artificer has no 5.5 equivalent...

Fingers Crossed...

Wizards called it One D&D for a while, and others are calling it 5.5. Call it whatever you want, I just hope it's good. Here's the review from EN World.

D&D 2024

Over a decade ago, I invested countless hours in playtesting what would ultimately become Fifth Edition D&D. I submitted vast amounts of detailed feedback through many rounds of playtest materials. (Click the "5e" label and dive in to those earlier posts, if you dare!) The game that was published in 2014 was, in my opinion, an absolute masterpiece -- the best version of D&D in the game's long history. 

Fast-forward to the present. I wasn't terribly enthused by the prospect of the 2024 revamp of Fifth Edition, and some of what I was seeing in the Unearthed Arcana playtest PDFs was as troubling to me as anything from The Edition That Shall Not Be Named. But you know what? I watched this video and now I feel a bit better.

Races & Backgrounds

Over my lunch hour, I blitzed through the first playtest document -- rules that cover races and backgrounds, as well as feats and other content that plugs into the two aforementioned topics -- and I have some hot takes!

• In One D&D, a new character's ability score increases are determined by the character's background choice, not their race. Interesting! Class is the single most important decision in the character creation process, and players often consider only races that provide bonuses to the most important ability scores for that class. That's why we get so many dwarf clerics and elf wizards. However, is this change just going to repeat the same problem and drive players toward particular backgrounds instead of races? If you want to play a fighter, example, why wouldn't you choose the soldier background to get the +2 Strength and +1 Constitution? Maybe it's not an issue, because...
• There are simple and clear rules for creating and customizing backgrounds. I absolutely love these background rules, and I foresee so many campaign-specific options for really cool backgrounds that give players exactly what they want from a stat perspective but also fit neatly into the story. These backgrounds are also very well balanced. In classic 5e, some background benefits were way more useful than others. Now all backgrounds grant a feat. If I'm creating my own unique background, I can select the ability score improvements and the feat (among other, fluffier choices) that work best for my chosen character class and character concept. But hang on, might those background-related feats be a sign that D&D is sliding back into some bad habits?
• Any time feats come up, I get worried. Earlier editions of D&D (and Pathfinder) got bogged down in a "feat tax" that railroaded players into taking specific feats in order to keep pace with other players and (in particular for 4e) with monsters that scaled up aggressively as the players leveled up. If you didn't want that 30th-level kobold to kill you, you really needed to ensure you had every bonus you could possibly scrape together. I really liked that feats in classic 5e were optional, but that does not appear to be the case anymore with One. I'll be keeping a very close eye on feats throughout this playtest.
• What else did I notice? Well, there's a lot more use of the Inspiration mechanic. (Inspiration is so incidental to classic 5e that I feel a definition is necessary here: Inspiration is a single-use benefit that allows a player to gain advantage on a d20 roll.) In One, we'll see Inspiration pop up in all sorts of interesting places, most notably on rolls of natural 20. That's right, if you roll a 20 on any check (sorry, "test" -- I see they've upgraded to the trendier lingo), you get Inspiration!
• Although we only have rules for races and backgrounds at this point, I'm seeing a major uptick in features that you can use a number of times equal to your proficiency bonus and then require a long rest to recharge. In comparison, I see way fewer features that recharge on a short rest. For my beloved fighter, I'll be eager to see whether Action Surge and Second Wind still recharge on a short rest, or if they get revised to this proficiency-based model. 
• Last but not least, Primal magic returns! I'm suddenly having 4e flashbacks, but hey, maybe we'll end up with a One D&D shaman class?!

Druid Cycle Matrix

For years -- see this blog post from almost exactly seven years ago! -- I've wanted to create a spreadsheet to track all of my Druid Cycle campaign information, such as the names of people, places, etc. The sheer scope of the project put me off, despite having created similar spreadsheets for my Shattered Realm and Torchlight settings. The truth is that Druid Cycle is bigger than everything else put together, with threads that go as far back as 1991. That's thirty years ago, people!

I've been chipping away at a Druid Cycle spreadsheet for a while, and now I'm pleased to report that I've completed a first draft. As of this writing, there are 742 named characters, 67 groups, and 342 unique locations. What's next? Lots of review, for one thing. The stat blocks are a major issue for this review. Every non-immortal NPC in the character list, no matter how minor, is tied to a stat block from the Monster Manual or another D&D reference book from the current edition of the game. If he's got a name, he's got a stat block. However, I'm not entirely confident that the characters are "ranked" properly. The flat math of Fifth Edition really compresses the power curve between the least- and most-powerful characters (especially compared to the previous-edition-that-shall-not-be-named), but I still need to be able to show meaningful distinctions between the abilities of characters. I'll also need to deal with the game's most prominent characters, for whom generic stat blocks just don't work. I'll probably create full-fledged character sheets for the likes of Cyfrinach and Iskander, but that's a project for another day.

Full Circle

Matt and I have been exchanging emails about superhero RPGs, and it got me thinking about my first true RPG love, Champions. Long before the Druid Cycle world, long before the siren song of AD&D lured me into TSR's clutches, I was a dyed-in-the-wool Champions fanatic. In fact, the original Front Porch campaign -- one of only two that was actually conducted on my parents' front porch -- was Earth Commanders, which employed the delightfully fiddly Champions system to tell a tale of cosmic superheroes based (where else?) in Montreal.

Earth Commanders got me hooked on gamemastering, but my favorite Champions memory is unrelated to Front Porch stuff. Decades before taking part in the D&D Fifth Edition playtest, I was a twelve-year-old kid who somehow managed to get access to playtest materials for Champions and related HERO System products. I used to dial up a BBS (remember those?) based in Texas, and, as my parents fretted their long-distance bill with every bit that trickled through my 1200 baud modem, I downloaded drafts of HERO System books and read them with a kind of awed reverence. One day, I mustered the courage to email a fan letter to prolific game designer Aaron Allston -- a fixture on that BBS -- and he sent me a very nice note in response. (Sadly, Allston passed away a number of years ago.)

I think it's high time to share Champions with my own kids, so I've ordered a copy of the most recent edition of the game. With our Alien RPG campaign starting up again soon and our ongoing Shattered Realm stories to continue, I have no idea when we would actually play this game, but it certainly will be fun to share all my old stories with the boys.

Building a Better Box

I've said it before, and I'll say it again: Paizo does the best RPG starter sets. Although D&D hit home runs with the original Basic Set and the less renowned but still totally awesome Basic Game from Third Edition, most other starter sets have been lackluster at best. Paizo once again dunks on D&D with the Pathfinder Beginner Box for Second Edition. Like similar products for First Edition and also for Starfinder, this set is an absolute triumph of value for the gamer and a wonderful introduction to the game system. I look forward to giving it a test drive with the boys over the holidays. There's precious little chance it will displace Fifth Edition D&D as our system of choice, but it will be fun to play through the starter content and see how Pathfinder and D&D have gone in very different directions over the past decade!

D&D at Target

The new Fifth Edition starter set, Dungeons & Dragons Essentials Kit, is now available exclusively at Target for the next couple of months and then will be distributed to game stores everywhere. According to the helpful Target website, it's in stock at my local store in Carson City, so I'll head up there today over my lunch hour and pick up a copy. Reviews are extremely positive, and in addition to a new adventure authored by the incomparable Chris Perkins, the set includes rules for one-on-one play with a DM and just a single player, as well as rules for sidekick characters to help with those solo adventures as well as smaller-party play. Can't wait to take a look!

Essential Images

Click here for some images of the upcoming D&D Essentials Kit. It sure does look nice...

Essentials

Click here for some info on upcoming D&D products. One of them is the D&D Essentials Kit. I have to admit, the name brings back some unpleasant memories of Fourth Edition. Late in the run of that ill-fated edition, the D&D design team released a series of books and game aids that constituted the "Essentials" product line. The centerpiece was a pair of digest-sized Player's Handbook-style rulebooks with new builds for core character classes. Fourth Edition had already become so broken that new characters built using only the PHB were woefully underpowered compared to characters built using all of the available materials -- conveniently collated within the D&D Insider app. The Essentials builds were jacked-up so that new or casual players could bring simple but powerful characters to the table. My memory of this line is, essentially (pun intended), the last gasp of a failed experiment. I sincerely hope the new D&D Essentials Kit is a great new introductory set (akin to Paizo's Pathfinder Beginner Box and the super-cool new Starfinder Beginner Box) and not an attempt to monkey around with the beautiful Fifth Edition ruleset.

Artificer Unearthed

A new iteration of the artificer class for Fifth Edition is available for playtesting. I really can't wait to see the final version appear in an official product!