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 PRE ORDER HERE AND GET A COPY OF THE FINAL RULES NOW! Release is estimated June 2013. (Read about the delay here) moths posted:It's essentially an unfucked 3e that borrows the class balance, good math, and fun combat from 4e, while simultaneously incorporating cool story elements from the smaller indie games nobody ever runs. 13TH AGE is a D20 Dungeons & Dragons game. This means D&D dwarfs, dark elves, and dragons in medieval magical fantasy with heroes and quests and dungeons. It also means classes, spells, initiative, attributes, and skills. It's killing goblins and kobolds and ogres and rats of unusual sizes. But this isn't 5th edition. 13th Age isn't published by Wizards, or even by Paizo. 13th Age is not a retroclone or 4e's Pathfinder or Pathfinder 2.0 or anything like that.  Custom dice not needed to play this game because this also isn't Fantasy Flight The game has been described as Tweet and Heinsoo's house rules. These people are kind of a big deal. Jonathan Tweet was designing during 3e and 4e's release and has a hilariously awful webpage. He also designed Ars Magica and Over the Edge. Doc Hawkins posted:Tweet also made Everway, the OG Narrativist Karma-Resolution system. He's kinda a big deal. Rob Heinsoo was lead on 4e and one of the driving forces to pull D&D kicking and screaming from its nostalgic but outdated mechanics. He apparently fought hard to tone down caster supremacy, so he's pretty much a hero. He's a cool, funny guy too. Here's a cool, funny video Mikan posted. Rob is talking about the design philosophy behind 4th Edition. (Try to) ignore the very bald, awkward host. Tweet is known for an easy, informal style in his rules (that apparently doesn't grate on people like Luke Crane can) and Heinsoo has designed basically the most coherent, transparent D&D edition ever. Both have designed games explicitly not D&D, and both have clearly played other designers' games. All this has people really quite excited because  early concept art 13th Age built up a bunch of internet goodwill by 1) being a pretty good game, 2) doing a playtest that listened to the results, on its 6th revision as of Jan 2013, and 3) actively participating in online communities. waderocket will be happy to tell you how much 13th Age publicity has changed his life personally and profoundly. poo poo you want to know about 13th Age  the cover Icons The current forces of the world. The Archmage, the Priestess, the Elf Queen, the etc. Each Icon has a seat of power, goals, ambitions, armies. All player characters start with relationships with one or more Icons. As you gain experience, your relationships with the Icons also change. The world of 13th Age is in much flux, and leveraging your relationships will help you guide the world's direction. Icons' power and influence and beingness in the world depends on the kind of game the players and GM want to run. Are the Icons the figureheads of huge bureaucracies like Eberron, set piece NPCs like Forgotten Realms, something in between or wholly different? 13th Age steps aside and doesn't force the issue. Also advice on alternate versions or creating entirely new Icons. Escalation Die This is a single six sided die that exists on the table. As you play through rounds of combat, you increase the facing die by one. The escalation die generally increases your chance to hit, enables some actions, and is also impacted by some actions. This dramatically speeds up combat, and is fun to link into other mechanics for giant set piece encounters or to push players from room to room without catching their breath. One Unique Thing Each player character has One Unique Thing. It is some aspect or bit of history about the character that is truly unique in the world. It generally doesn't confer a mathematical bonus, though there are guidelines to balance it if it does. One Unique Things may be Always Knows the Value of Things, or Jumps Higher Than Anyone, or Believes Self to Be Reincarnated Dragon, etc. One Unique Things will significantly contribute to the feel of the game you're wanting to play. Backgrounds Gone are the endless lists of skill focus: -loving, or trying to figure out the difference between athletics and swimming. 13th Age eschews boring skills and instead allows players to pick their own backgrounds and dump points into them. These really flesh out the character. Now to bend bars, you use your professional circus freak in a past life background and add a strength modifier. gently caress interesting, what races and classes are there? Barbarian, Bard, Cleric, Fighter, Paladin, Ranger, Rogue, Sorcerer, Wizard. You'll have to pick up the game to see the races because I fundamentally disagree that blood and heritage should determine ability. Each class has unique mechanics that give each a very different feel. Fighters select maneuvers based on how they rolled their to-hits. Rogues build momentum as they kill. Barbarians kick into rages. More when you buy now! Other Interesting Bits Feats As you play and gain experience, you select various feats that add abilities to your character. There are a handful of general feats available to all characters, and a handful of racial feats. The meat of the feat system is in the class sections, where feats beef up your low level abilities. The Barbarian's rage becomes more frequent, lightening bolts add effects, sneak attack applies to more conditions, etc. Magical Weapons Truly magical weapons come with a bit of personality. A particularly brutal weapon may make the wielder more partial to red meat. Most of the time, this doesn't affect you. Just a nagging tug in the back of the mind. Equip too many magical items, and these impulses become impossible to resist. Endless fun! Stat blocks! In true houserule form, all the unnecessary bullshit of traditional stat blocks never make it over. Monster stat blocks are a quick rundown of defenses and HP and an action or two. No list of ability scores that don't matter, no long spell lists for casting characters. Very easy to run, very easy to roll your own (guidelines are provided for building your own monsters, too). Why is this OP updated? A Mysterious PM posted:Hey! I'm talking with a 4e fan who took your first (and by now ancient) post on the 13th Age thread as gospel, and is publicly accusing me of a bait-and-switch because the game turned out not to match this part of the description: This is hilarious, so lets all take a moment and laugh at lessthanpleased who takes year old posts about elfgame rumors super seriously instead of directing his considerable anger at understanding how internet forums work.  Tweet being inscrutable Minions Minions are called mooks and work a bit different than 4e minions. Each minion has a HP value, but HP is combined into a single pool that is tracked. Damage is dealt to the group as a whole, and one minion is removed each time a multiple of the individual HP is reached. This means an attack may remove 2 or 3 minions. Or enough damage to kill 1 and a half minions, so 1 is removed and the next will be that much easier to kill. FYI, this is exactly how the new Star Wars RPG handles their minions. It's super intuitive to run and awesome when you have to figure out how your ranger's arrow killed 4 dirty little kobolds. Theatre of the MIND Distances in 13th Age are measured more abstractly than the strict 5'x5' grid of 3e and 4e. Distances are measured relative to each character in combat. A PC and monster may be engaged: bases touching and in the midst of melee. Or a PC may be near a monster: not engaged, but could be with one move. Or far away: two or more moves to reach the monster. Everything is still done on a map, though strictly speaking the map is more optional than 3e or 4e's reliance on a map. Anyway, these measurements greatly speed up combat, and also the hardcore push/pull tactics of 4e will not be there. It is a sacrifice, but 20 minute combats are worth it. 13 True Ways is a kickstarted expansion to 13th Age. Lots of new art and monsters and detailed descriptions of locations and other things. I Am Enjoying This Playtest It turns out this thread was the only place to get information on the game around 9 months ago because the first copy of the playtest document had a swiss cheese NDA and so we talked all about the mechanics in detail and a link to this thread hit higher on google than Pelgrane's page. So we all got a new NDA that said we could only say we were enjoying/not enjoying the playtest. Help us celebrate this hilarious gently caress up by repeating an awesome meme like at least once per page. Why You Should Why You Should Buy 5 Copies of This Book: If you love or are stuck with playing D&D, 13th Age will make your life soooooo much better. Even if you can't get your group to convert fully, there are a ton of ideas and subsystems here that will instantly make life easier. Replace your skills with backgrounds. Add a One Unique Thing to each character. Get ambitious and try the abstracted distances! Along these lines, it is also stupid easy to convert old D&D content into 13th Age. I've run basic, 3e and 4e games within 13th Age and nothing felt forced. Why You Shouldn't Buy This Game, 3.0 - 3.75 edition The game explicitly says you cannot be a poo poo farmer unless you are the best poo poo farmer in the world. There are minions. Your precious skill lists are gone. Martial characters get a bunch of maneuvers and other abilities that if you squint real hard look like your spellcaster's spells. It does not use your million splat books. Does not reward system mastery. Why You Shouldn't Buy This Game, 4th edition Your tactical combat is simplified -- no more grid. 9 point alignment is back and you have to ignore it all over again. There are simple, beginner classes that do not have many options and they happen to be the martial characters. Your 30 levels have been reduced to 10. Doesn't yet have the online tools that made 4e so easy to play and run. You will not get caught up on your taxes while waiting for your turn to come around. Why You Shouldn't Buy This Game, Indie edition Does not kill ability scores. Classic monsters are there, but without really unique or ironic takes. More complex characters also get more background points RAW. It is still possible to be an rear end in a top hat GM and follow the rules. Does not explicitly reward engagement with the game, intra party conflict, or character development. Is still D20 D&D. Resources! 13th Age official site Rob Heinsoo plays elfgames with a goon PAX demo adventure by Heinsoo Pelgrane Press's resource page One Page Dungeon Contest a great resource for the lazy GM. 13th Age Wiki (from Kenderama) The Reliquary, a kickstarted Bestiary by ASH LAW. Met 1300% of goal so now is much more than a quick bestiary. Nightfall, a totally not Ravenloft expansion by goon-owned Fun Tyrant (thanks Kenderama) Thoughtcrimegames is a site that has a lot of 13th Age material by lurker Quinn Murphy and goon Ryven Cedrylle, including monsters, excellent skill challenge rules, and an upcoming setting. 4e Assassin in 13th Age brought to you by Ryven and -Fish-. (thanks -Fish-) 13th Age Homebrews A blog. New but going strong at least in December 2012. Persuasions of the 13th Kind How to convert 4e to 13th Age. The design is unreadable, but the game design's pretty good. (thanks lessthanpleased) PM me if you'd like to see other SA resources here. fosborb fucked around with this message at 02:54 on Mar 14, 2013 |
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Mar 20, 2012 17:52
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ImpactVector posted:I saw something in the 5e thread about alignment still mattering for paladins. Can I still play a chaotic good Paladin of the People charged with bringing down the corrupt monarchy/theocracy/ You pump points into your relationships with the major movers and shakers of the world. At level 1 it's not like they know you personally, but you may have a good relationship with their organization or perhaps a bad one. You use these relationships in play to get access to additional resources or information and to drive your goals and others' interactions and perceptions about you. Off the top of my head, I can think of three or four that would be very interested in bringing down certain corrupt organizations. But it's not like there are any restrictions on this, or that chaotic means anything out of the context of your character's motivations, perceptions and interactions within your campaign. quote:Also, is it worthwhile to play a fighter? whydirt posted:No one has said anything to the contrary, so I assume the traditional six ability scores are still in?
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Mar 20, 2012 20:29
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The bard's battlecries are pretty much the warlord. I don't think the lazylord is on the table yet, but if you want to focus on granting specific bonuses to other characters the bard's your best bet. Cleric to buff them. Paladin has a confrontation power that's pretty much a single target defendery mark for both of you. Want to dig into the fluff next. Outside of the icons, I've really just been plowing through mechanics. There's far more fluff than I would have expected in a crunchy playtest.
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Mar 20, 2012 22:19
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GaryLeeLoveBuckets posted:Unfortunately, to do the Intercept move, you have to roll a d20 and get 11+, which is a recurring theme in the playtest. It seems like a lot of extra die rolling when 4e felt like it was eliminating as many dice as it could. quote:Plus I just hate d3's
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Mar 20, 2012 22:38
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/\/\/\ edit: yeah, that makes sense. d4 probably wouldn't break things over the knee...Mikan posted:Rope Trick Thankfully, it lays out the number of battles that should take place to sufficiently deplete a party's resources and what "sacrifices" a party may make if they choose to sleep without pushing themselves. "Welp I guess the virgin princess is now a demiwarelich. But I'm sure you had a very nice bubble bath in your pocket universe."
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Mar 20, 2012 22:49
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Mikan posted:To be fair it sounds like the most comfortable pocket universe Well poo poo now I can only see wizards as Ulillillia.
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Mar 20, 2012 22:53
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moths posted:I'm of two minds about this thread existing. On the one hand, they seemed to want insulated readings / rulings to gauge feedback. On the other hand, gently caress this is awesome I want to share every part of it with everybody. Same. I don't want to get into too much Defense of the Thread, but I posted because: playtest feedback will be categorically different from SA chat, hashing out rules on a message board with a larger community is actually a part of how I engage in social gaming now, and the 5e playtest caught them off guard but I still want to hype this game in juxtaposition to what 5e appears to offer. That last point comes off a bit arrogant, but the nda leaves this thread open, there seems to be light online and official presence so far, and it deserves to have some prerelease hype drat it.
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Mar 21, 2012 00:42
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Vanadium posted:Can y'all tell why it's named 13th Age yet, I'm puzzled. Part of the fluff. Civilization is in its 13th Age.
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Mar 21, 2012 00:45
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Mikan posted:Unfortunately a section by section writeup is probably totally against the rules[quote] The setting is Grade A. There are (at least at this point) very few Big Events in the fluff. It's more about setting up pieces for the players to interact with. Icons are the best example and where I think a lot of the innovation in the system rests. The problem with lots of D&D settings is that there are all these big bad rear end NPCs like the Lady of Pain and Elminster that the PCs have to try to carve out a space around. 13th Age embraces these personified plot devices and addresses the issue two ways: 1) like Eberron, the most powerful entities of the land are not powerful because of their character levels. They have vast organizations and seats of power and followers. They aren't stated out, even the evil ones, and you'd likely only meet one or two ever in your entire campaign. Instead, characters are expected to work with their agents, ally or fight with their causes, interact with their force upon the world -- not the icons personally. 2) while icons have been pulled back from the PCs' game space, they've actually been more tightly mechanically integrated. At character creation, players pump points into their relationships with the icons of the age. Relationships can range from positive to negative, weak to strong. These relationships are then used to gain information and resources as you adventure, as well as color others' perceptions of you and help guide your motivations for adventuring. And lots of plot hooks, of course. Basically, you set up and flavor Burning Wheel circles with specific major forces in the setting, which grow and change as you adventure and level. edit: VVV it helps that it actually has a working, detailed table of contents. Again, this was one hell of a polished playtest document. fosborb fucked around with this message at 14:27 on Mar 21, 2012 |
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Mar 21, 2012 14:19
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AlphaDog posted:Can you talk about unique class mechanics a bit? The rogue gets momentum, but what do other classes get? Or did I misread that and everyone gets momentum? Pelgrane Press has been posting in rpg.net a bit about the playtest and someone finally outright asked what we can talk about. I want to wait a bit to see how they respond before I distill 75 pages into bullet points. Especially because all classes aren't in the playtest doc, which means that the class mechanics probably aren't finalized and may even significantly change.
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Mar 21, 2012 17:34
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Mikan posted:I'm making pregens for my group (looks like we play tomorrow) and I'm kinda irritated with at least two of the classes for already being mechanically effective but boring. What makes it frustrating is most of the other classes allow you to select how complex you want to make them but one (maybe two) of them are just all simple all the time. All classes are still doing balanced amounts of damage at least, but yeah, the barbarian is intentionally one dimensional and I think it goes too far. Classes that simple would really benefit from a feat that allowed them to improvise the poo poo out combat. Like, "This is your stunting feat, use it to describe wicked insane stunts and gain bonuses and rad effects" is just as valid as Vance's improv power that the wizard gets. Actually, yes, I will be tacking on a stunting feat to that class. fosborb fucked around with this message at 19:30 on Mar 21, 2012 |
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Mar 21, 2012 18:54
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GaryLeeLoveBuckets posted:Actually thinking about it some more, it's not terrible with scaling damage dice. A 5th level ranger would turn his d10's into d8's and maybe get to make 2 attacks with +1 to hit to do 5d10+str mod per hit. You need to take another class feature to get the +1. Otherwise, two weapon fighting adds on average .4 damage per level per standard action, taking into account the dropped die, needing 11+ to hit, and crits. You also miss less often and can hit two targets sometimes... So the math isn't really going to say one way or the other how this works in play. It's a bump up, but is it worth the class feature? Looking forward to hearing how Mikan's game goes. I don't think I'll be able to run this for a few weeks. 
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Mar 21, 2012 21:08
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Mikan posted:It's the existence of freeform skills that makes point disparity even more irritating. Right, it feels like the perfect place to balance in-combat flexibility/utility without bolting on some FATE mechanics.
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Mar 21, 2012 21:35
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Megazver posted:So what's the setting like, in general non-NDA-scary terms? Jesus gently caress that's hard. Standard fantasy empire with oceans and forests and hell holes and living dungeons. At this point in development, it feels mostly designed to offer adventure seeds. Here's some cities, here's dangerous areas, here's weird areas, here's where the Icons are the most powerful. All of this could change dramatically, but right now the tone is to treat the fluff as tools and to encourage exploration of "blank space" on the map. In general, crazy magic poo poo happens up in the clouds, crazy evil stuff happens underground, and everyone mixes it up and kills each other on the land while the Icons attempt to grab more power or at least maintain the balance they have. There aren't really set events associated with the setting -- it's almost entirely descriptions of what people, entities, and organizations do. That said there are some points of history. Most of it is very brief motivations for Icons like "Icon X wants revenge for this past event" or its racial origin stories "Half elves exist because Y." Best I can say, you don't need to learn the fluff by reading a million lovely novels when you were a teenager -- a single read through will probably cover you, with rereading bits for your session and looking up specific places for inspiration.
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Mar 21, 2012 22:57
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Momentum and the escalation die are different things. Momentum is a rogue only concept (so far) that gives you access to immediate interrupts that help you avoid getting hit so long as you're stabbing dudes and avoiding damage. Escalation gives plusses to attacks each round and also unlocks some class abilities as it grows. It can also be manipulated by some enemies.
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Mar 22, 2012 05:15
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Sorry yeah, in response to whydirt.LongDarkNight posted:So the Icons are important NPCs the players can hook in to? Is this all fluff or are there mechanical bonuses? As mentioned, yes there are mechanical bonuses. But I really wouldn't call icons npcs. They're more forces within the setting. You build your relationships with them at character creation and change them as you level, but really you're talking about your relationship with their organization or minions or people sympathetic to their cause. There's a fun chart that provides guidelines for how long you need to be adventuring before an icon would even be aware of your actions, let alone your name. You might meet one once or twice in a campaign. It's like, how often are you going to meet Orcus? Only the icons aren't gods. It's more like you can distinguish yourself in the military and that will open a lot of doors in and out of the military, but you have to be pretty drat up there to know the President. Yes, big drat heroes can get to that point, but only after a long campaign of heroics.
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Mar 22, 2012 05:45
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I don't think that's currently RAW, but there's no reason not to as long as either the entire party is on the same footing with icons or there is appropriate narrative reason why you can't get resourced to the gills (in comparison to your party) when you're buddy buddy with one of the most powerful people in the universe.
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Mar 22, 2012 05:58
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Evil Mastermind posted:Uh, guys? Thanks for the heads up. I'm not going to close the thread or anything, and while I never agreed to not talk about the game before we got playtest materials, I will try to refrain from it. Though to each their own. Maybe the game is in a much earlier state than I thought, but I do wish a playtest culled from message boards was accompanied with a bit more than a single public paragraph and the names of the designers. I'll clean up the OP later today and summarize the major themes that (  ) are now pretty much public.
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Mar 22, 2012 13:21
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I am enjoying this playtest.
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Mar 22, 2012 18:37
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Yeah that's all kind of  and I'd rather not have that in here. It's pretty lovely it went online so quickly, but expected I guess. From that rpg.net thread pelgrane was caught completely off guard by the enthusiasm. Edit: to clarify, I'm okay with talking about how pelgrane hosed up by sending out a raw, editable doc file with no watermarks. I'm not okay with encouraging people to seek out the inevitable consequences of that gently caress up. fosborb fucked around with this message at 19:02 on Mar 25, 2012 |
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Mar 25, 2012 18:52
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Which makes that blurb on Pelgrane, seemingly designed to have something in it to actively piss off everyone, so loving hilarious. But seriously Fenarisk, it'd be cool to at least edit out where the gently caress to look for the leak.
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Mar 25, 2012 19:27
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gently caress you guys, some of my group reads this thread and now I need to come up with a new campaign. Also, I thought you didn't get into the playtest Fenarisk 
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Mar 25, 2012 22:48
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Yeah I wish you'd stop doing that. I thought you understood where they were coming from as a publisher, but I guess gently caress that, steal their poo poo, and tell everyone to do the same and where to get it.
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Mar 25, 2012 22:59
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Trad Games isn't behind a pay wall anymore. Google 13th Age and this thread is actually the third hit, behind two Pelgrane links.
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Mar 25, 2012 23:34
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They're stupid enough.
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Mar 26, 2012 00:29
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Mikan posted:It's a matter of degree though - I'd place 13th Age (as it stands, at this very early point) below 4e and below WFRP. I'd still place it way, way above 95% of the RPG market. D&D 4e has had 4 years of post launch revision and support, a million supplements and published adventures, best in class online tools, like 10 active threads just on SA with detailed advice, ideas and aids, and a bunch of perfect world actual play videos and podcasts with cool people like Robot Chicken writers and professional DMs and unlimited prop budgets to emulate and inspire. 13th Age is a 200 page word doc alpha test with no art, no tools, broken rules and missing sections, typos and design artifacts that could be from past revisions or maybe they just aren't developed yet. Yes, 4e is better than 13th Age at this point. What's amazing is how close they are.
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Mar 26, 2012 16:42
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Honestly, I have no idea what you're talking about. Some are a bit bland and could use some tweaking in the fluff, but really bad for really obvious reasons? I mean, there's nothing like the Lady of Pain in here.
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Mar 26, 2012 18:39
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The 13th Age rpg.net thread has 7,000 views. This thread has 12,000. You know, if we want to start measuring things. Updated the OP by the way. Not really new information, but the lack of logo and all around formatting was really bugging me.
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Mar 27, 2012 21:21
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I am enjoying this apt analogy.
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Mar 28, 2012 01:38
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I had a big post written up about how players only mechanically engage D&D games through discrete, predefined actions and how that hinders flexible, long term and strategic mechanics (along with being the source of everything wrong with D&D along the way) but it's really not necessary. 13th Age has a fantastic design space already carved out for adventure tension: the Icons. This space isn't actually designed yet -- right now Icons have little use outside of resource checks and general RP and campaign hooks -- but whatever. All you need to do is have players come up with why the Icons (or their organizations) care about the current adventure, and then slot in consequences for success and failure as the adventure progresses based on the strength and type of relationships players have with those Icons. It allows players to set the stakes for the current adventure, ties long term decisions to player-focused mechanical effects, and allows predictable but nonbinary compromises when the adventure is resolved.
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Mar 28, 2012 22:12
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Laphroaig posted:Setting the stakes works best with some form of over-arcing Adventure Goal, I feel. You can call it a quest or whatever. Right now, 13th Age is set up "For Experienced DMs only". Basically, discrete mechanics to handle what is traditionally a DM call might fly in the face of that. I think they have flexibility with calling it an optional rule however. Its definitely worth suggesting a formed system. Okay! More formed system ahoy! There's a standard sheet of paper out in the middle of the table. It's divided into rows and columns, like so  Down the left hand side is a column of the Icons, with a couple of spaces at the bottom of the page for your own. Across the top are the PCs; a column for each. In each cell of the grid, the PC's relationship with the row's Icon is recorded. +3 for positive strong, x1 for weak complicated, etc. Similar to the PCs, there is also a party column. PC relationships are combined (through a system that needs to be designed!) into an overall party relationship. On the right hand side of the paper is a column for Icon goals. The table cooperatively comes up with why the Icons care about this particular adventure. This also needs design work. Perhaps you write goals for all of the Icons. Or perhaps the relationship needs a certain strength threshold for an Icon['s organization] to care about it, but you also have a limited number of goals you can write in for other Icons to attempt to establish relationships. Each goal cell has a space for a d6, set to a number based on the party's overall relationship with the Icon. Strong or medium positive = 1, Weak complicated = 4, strong or medium negative = 6, etc. As players help or hinder the Icons' interests through the course of the adventure, the d6 for that Icon moves up or down. In general, the party is shooting for switching the dice value of positive and negative goals, and maintaining balance on complicated relationships. A strong negative relationship starts at 6 at the top of the adventure; PCs work to get it down to 1 by the end. At the end of the adventure (and throughout), the dice describe to what extent the Icons accomplished their interests in the adventure: 6 Yes, And 5 Yes 4 Yes, But 3 No, But 2 No 1 No, And Quest rewards are based on the final results and how close they match your PC's relationship with the Icon. If you have a strong negative relationship with an Icon and the adventure ends on a 1, you get what you want plus something extra. Complicated relationships are players' strongest signals to hook into their characters; Yes, Buts... and No, Buts... results add additional complications to the relationship to explore. There are also columns for adventures. The adventures' results have the weighting of a PC in the party's overall reputation. If the party has a complicated relationship with an Icon, but consistently has adventures that unambiguously help the Icon, the Icon may change their perception of the party. Consistent results of one type increase the strength of that type of relationship. So PC reputation determines the d6 value at the start of the adventure, while personal reputation determines what you want the d6 to be at the end of the adventure. If PCs are uniformly all positive with an Icon, they should all be questing with the same goal. However, they also have to work harder because the dice will be further away from their goal at the start. If PCs have mixed relationships with Icons, the dice will start closer to PCs' goals, but they will be acting at odds to each other to get the end result they want. And to wrap it back around to the 15 minute adventuring day. That's a clear point against the Icon's positive interests in the adventure and a point for an Icon's negative interests.
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Mar 29, 2012 15:49
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Thanks, I knew I cribbed it but couldn't remember where.
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Mar 29, 2012 19:54
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We play for the first time this week, and the first character was just put together. It's a nontraditional mix of class and race but options are flexible enough to accommodate it without gimping math. I'm curious if min maxing combat will have non combat consequences. We're spoiled by slick online tools but on the other hand almost everyone in the group has DMd before. I don't expect to need do much in the way of player aids. I'm very excited to see how the system handles combat speed and skill checks. Also I expect it will be very difficult not to drift the rules, especially in the design spaces that aren't completely put together. fosborb fucked around with this message at 14:35 on Apr 2, 2012 |
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Apr 2, 2012 14:33
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Finally getting to run the system tonight. This was in the email sent to the players earlier this week: Conan in a USPS uniform Sam Spade with magic Indiana "Orc Slayer" Jones
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Apr 5, 2012 18:11
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4 players, 3.5 hours. We did 2 combats, a skill challenge, an investigative sequence, lots of rp, and character creation. And we weren't even that focused. This system loving flies. Edit: also I haven't dm'd in like a year and I sort of forced a dm-may-I moment in battle. Posting this publicly in my penance.
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Apr 6, 2012 05:21
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moths posted:Are we supposed to be giving feedback on a session-by-session basis or do they just want that survey at the end of the month? Guidance on this is a little sketchy. There are questions like "how many sessions did you play?" -- they aren't expecting you to fill out a complete questionnaire for every session you play. That said, there are definitely questions that could use specific examples from particular sessions to help explain the table's experience, and you could always attach your blow-by-blow account in the catch all question. During breaks everyone wanted to talk about how to houserule 4e to emulate some of 13th Age's ideas. Also, at one point one of the players said, "Is it my turn already? That's really loving me up." Very cool. The NDA is killing me because I think we have a great adventuring premise that's really lending itself to the playtest's format, but that's absolutely something that would narrow the spectrum of input they'd receive so
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Apr 6, 2012 15:41
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GrandpaPants posted:I don't know if you're allowed to answer this, but are these just character traits that your players came up with or are they actually mechanical Character Traits from whatever this background system is? Both.
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Apr 6, 2012 16:05
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Also, backgrounds are free form descriptions attached to your character that add points on top of your ability score mod when you do skill checks. They give you a bit of RP guidance and lots of flexibility. You might be able to justify your background of "Went to arcane college" for every single ability score you test, for example, but the important part is distinguishing how a background in arcane college differs from real world arcane experience. It gives a ton of flavor while tying character elements into tangible mechanical benefits.
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Apr 6, 2012 18:12
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poo poo is finally coming out in official channels! Tweet and Heinsoo held a panel at Norwescon. The game is going to be published in August. A press release! quote:Although they can’t yet share details about 13th Age with others, playtesters have been enthusiastic about it on online message forums. quote:Players of 13th Age take the roles of fortune-seeking adventurers in a world where powerful individuals called Icons pursue goals that may preserve an ancient empire that teeters on the brink of chaos, or destroy it. When players create their characters, they decide which Icons their adventurers ally with, and which ones they oppose. These relationships, along with a personal history and a unique trait chosen during character creation, help define an adventurer’s place in the world of 13th Age and lay the groundwork for epic stories that emerge through play. Pelgrane's site says that now they've actually talked publicly about the game, a lot more information should be coming. There's also a @13thAge twitter account but that isn't showing anything new yet beyond the posted press release. Also, motherfucking art! 
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Apr 11, 2012 15:37
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@MonteJCook My friends @JonathanMTweet and @robheinsoo are working together on a cool sounding game. Can't wait to check it out! http://t.co/aoQv4NhQ I am enjoying this playtest.
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Apr 11, 2012 17:56
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