Yesterday I talked about how subtle mechanical shifts can have a large impact on gameplay. But if a change as small as shifting create water from being a 4th level spell to a 1st level spell can have such a large impact on how the game is played, it follows that one could deliberately create such effects with shifts in mechanics or emphasis.

Which brings us to a chapter in Legends & Labyrinths that I hope will prove to be completely subversive for modern gamers.

Chapter 10: Companions and Allies returns henchmen and hirelings to the heart of the game. It brings them back in from the cold and reverses their exile to the cruel hinterlands of gaming manuals everywhere.

It does this in three ways:

First, it gives them a place of primacy. Not just an entire chapter to themselves (instead of being squashed into a single sub-table of the Equipment chapter), but a chapter in Part I: Characters.  This is very much a declaration that your companions and allies are part of what defines your character. (Consider that the other chapters in this section are basically summed up as Character Creation, XP, Ability Scores, Races, Classes, Skills, Movement, Hit Points, and Conditions.)

Second, all characters are inherently and mechanically endowed with companions. At 1st level everybody gets a contact. At 6th level, every PC begins benefiting from the equivalent of 3E’s Leadership feat. (Dropping every character’s 1st level feat and replacing it with Leadership also helped me fix some balance issues with multiclassing in L&L.)

Third, mechanical detail. The process of attracting followers, hiring men-at-arms, and the like is not left as a complete tabula rasa. Like everything in Legends & Labyrinths, these mechanics provide a light framework for DMs to work within — but I honestly believe that such frameworks make it far more likely that certain aspects of the game world will be used.

In my old school campaign, I’ve seen that (a) having rules for hirelings front-and-center in the process of character creation and (b) making hirelings a tangible, mechanical part of defining a PC has a profound effect on how people approach the game. I’m hoping that a similar — albeit more subtle — approach in Legends & Labyrinths will have a similar effect.

WHY DOES IT MATTER?

First, and most importantly, I think it’s a viable and entertaining form of play. While there’s much to be said for the intensity of solo play focusing exclusively on a single character, there’s also a reason why The Sims was such a popular game.

Second, I think it sets the stage for a more sustainable form of high-level play. Even if the various contacts and followers a PC accumulates are not actively adventuring with them, they will be begin to enmesh the PCs into a wider web of obligations and connections. This type of widespread engagement with the game world is, in my experience, a key factor in avoiding the 15-minute adventuring day at high levels.

Third, even if the PCs aren’t actually employing hirelings, I think a little emphasis on play-with-henchmen also encourages superior encounter design. Basically, henchmen are a way of introducing mixed-level parties. And when you’re designing for a mixed-level party you can’t engage in the kind of lop-sided, mutual-assured-destruction of fetishized-balance encounter design. You have to use a larger number of more varied opponents. And those types of encounters result in better gameplay in general (mixed-level parties or not).

Fourth, hirelings and henchmen are a great way of supporting non-standard and under-sized play groups. And being able to support groups like that can be a big help when you’re trying to establish an open gaming table.

Consider this: In 1974, create water was a 4th level spell and create food was a 5th level spell. That meant you wouldn’t have magical access to a water supply until you had a 6th level cleric in the group; and you wouldn’t have magical access to food until you had a 7th level cleric. (By 7th level you’re considered a major religious leader and at 8th level you’re assumed to be founding your own churches.)

This remained true in the Basic line of the game all the way through the Rules Cyclopedia in ’91. In the Advanced line of the game, however, things shifted. In the 1st Edition PHB create water became a 1st level spell.

What does this mean? Well, it means that B4 The Lost City was a viable scenario in the Basic game, but not in the Advanced game:

Days ago your group of adventurers joined a desert caravan. Halfway across the desert, a terrible sandstorm struck, separating your party from the rest of the caravan. When the storm died down you found that you were alone. The caravan was nowhere in sight. The desert was unrecognizable, as the dunes had been blown into new patterns. You were lost.

(…)

The second day after your water ran out, you stumbled upon a number of stone blocks sticking out of a sand dune. Investigation showed that the sand covered the remains of a tall stone wall. On the other side of the stone wall was a ruined city.

The whole concept of being driven into an ancient ruin because you’re short on water pretty much ceases to be an issue. This is even more true in 3E when the already devalued create water became a 0-level orison.

But like the wings of a butterfly, the subtle shift in this single spell actually has a profound impact on gameplay.

THE WIDER EFFECT

As my old school 1974 campaign moved towards hexcrawling, my players began figuring out how to equip their characters for wilderness exploration. The hexcrawling was based around a fairly basic system (which served as the test pilot for the wilderness exploration mechanics found in Legends & Labyrinths). It’s not a mass of complexity, but it does provide a basic model for:

1. Travel Time
2. Navigation
3. Discovery

Combined with the standard systems of encumbrance and a daily requirement of food and water, the result was a fairly plausible demand for supplies (particularly if they were heading into the jungle where potable water was difficult to come by).

What they quickly discovered was that, for any journey of appreciable length, they couldn’t physically carry the necessary supplies. So they needed horses.

But horses pose a problem if you need to go spelunking. So they needed hirelings to care for the horses.

And once you’ve got hirelings watching the horses, it doesn’t take much imagination to start hiring men-at-arms to come into the dungeon with you.

All these hirelings, of course, need their own supplies. Which means more horses. And eventually pack horses. (The latter, particularly, once they started hitting treasures that they couldn’t easily haul back in a single load.)

After some trial and error, each group found their own equilibrium. But, in general, adventuring parties grew. And as the parties grew, the need for larger, more elaborate, and more rewarding ventures grew.

The reality of this dynamic is actually more complex than this, of course. (For example, I also believe the fact that hirelings are given a prominent place as a major feature of your character in the original rulebooks plays a large role in making them a major feature in old school play. Take those same rules and put them somewhere else in the rulebook and that gameplay doesn’t get as much attention.) But the need for supplies was, in a very real sense, the camel’s nose in the tent: Take that need away, the need for horses disappears. The need for horses disappears, the hirelings disappear.

And I’d argue it can actually be taken one step further: Take low-level hirelings away and you take away mid-level fiefdoms because you haven’t developed the skills or style of play necessary to gradually transition into those fiefdoms. The entire original “end game” of the game disappears.

THE LARGER METAPHOR

The other thing about create water as a spell is that it’s a small example of a larger phenomenon in D&D which is often overlooked.

Specifically, it’s an ability which removes gameplay.

I’ve spoken with many game designers who consider this to be a huge mistake. It was certainly a motivating factor in the design of 4th Edition. A similar motivation gives you the game world scaling of Oblivion.

But I, personally, think it’s great: As you play D&D, the game shifts. At 10th level you aren’t playing the same game you were playing at 1st level.

If we consider this narrow slice of the game, D&D basically used to say: “Okay, you start out exploring a nearby dungeon for 2 or 3 levels. Then you start exploring the wilderness and you have to really focus on how to make those explorations a success — supplies, navigation aids, clear goals, etc. We’ll do that for 3-4 levels and then, ya know what? I’m bored with that. So we’ll keep doing the explorations, but we’re going to yank out all that logistical gameplay, replace it with some magical resources, and start shifting the focus of wilderness exploration to staking out fiefdoms and clearing the countryside. We’ll do that for 3-4 levels. By that time you’ve probably transitioned pretty thoroughly into realms management, so we’ll just give you this teleport spell and we can probably just phase that ‘trekking through the wilderness’ stuff out entirely.”

(Of course, it’s not really gone because the same players are running multiple PCs. So if they’re in the mood for some hexcrawling on Tuesday night, they’ll just bring out their lower level characters to play.)

You’ll find these kinds of abilities studded throughout the game. Their impact has been dulled somewhat over the years (and removed pretty much completely from 4th Edition), but this fundamental panoply of gameplay experiences continues to be a major strength of classic D&D.

I saw Conan the Barbarian a couple nights ago. Quick thoughts:

1. It’s a much better movie than its box office.
2. In fact, I’m comfortable saying that I think it’s a better movie than the Schwarznegger version from ’82.
3. It is not, however, a great movie. It may not even be a good one. But it’s not a bad one, either. It’s a fun flick: It doesn’t insult your intelligence. The plot makes sense. The action sequences are dynamic. The script doesn’t carry much of the load, but it gets out of the way and lets the actors carry the load for making us care about the characters and the SFX guys carry the load for getting us immersed into the world.
4. The biggest failing of the movie is the conclusion. It falls very flat and concentrates a lot of problems that were scattered throughout the rest of the film.
5. It’s literally wall-to-wall action. It’s pretty much ACTION-breath-ACTION-breath-ACTION-breath-ACTION for the duration. I’d like to say that the movie would be better if it was 10 minutes longer and took a minute or two to catch its breath, but that would really only be true if they brought somebody in to punch up the dialogue.
6. Momoa is a fantastic Conan.

The film has also forced me to revise my understanding of effective fight choreography. I used to break it down into basically two parts:

First, the choreography itself. Is it exciting? Clever? Compelling? Well-paced? The whole nine yards. Plenty of films, of course, don’t clear this basic hurdle.

Second, how the choreography is filmed. Effective cinematography will focus your attention, showcasing and even improving the choreography. But this is where a lot of films have recently been falling down: They get too tight on the action. They cut too rapidly between shots. And the result is that, regardless of how effective the choreography is, you cant see it. It’s as if someone filmed a drama by pumping up the soundtrack so that you can’t hear large chunks of the dialogue while panning away from the actor’s faces. Or like watching ballet in a strobe light performed behind a wall with some random holes punched in it.

Conan the Barbarian, however, manages to achieve both of these elements and yet still frequently fail. It’s forced me to add:

Three, conveying the geography of the scene.

This may really be just a subset of how the choreography is filmed. But I was really struck in Conan by how often I was completely enthralled by the actual, specific choreography of a given fight… only to be confused by how two simultaneous fights were relating to each other; or where the fight was in relationship to the person Conan was trying to save; and so forth.

Over the weekend, sponsors received their early access copies of the Black Book Beta. It’s kind of nerve-wracking to suddenly have this project out in the open after 3 years (or 8 years, depending on how you count).

But the whole point of having a Black Book Beta was to throw the dragnet out there and start getting wider feedback on the game. And I welcome the discussion! Use the comment thread here to discuss your thoughts. Tell me the good. Tell me the bad. Tell me whatever you’re thinking.

To get us started: Heromedel posted his First Impressions over on Heromeblog.

If you end up posting some thoughts elsewhere, comment here and leave us a link.

FACEBOOK FANPAGE: Legends & Labyrinths now has a Facebook page. Right now we’re just spinning things up to speed over there, but take a peek and thumbs-up us to your friends.

THE NEXT LANDMARKS: If we hit $3000 by the end of the month, all Labyrinth Prowlers (sponsors of $30 and up) will receive PDF copies of Mini-Adventure 1: Complex of Zombies and Mini-Adventure 2: The Black Mist when the funding project ends. If you’re currently just a Registered Adventurer or a Beta Warrior and like what you see, you can always upgrade your perk level by simply paying the difference at 8-Bit.

As we hit additional landmarks, there’ll be more bonus content for Beta Warriors and Labyrinth Prowlers alike! Spread the word!

And thanks for your support!

In large part, Legends & Labyrinths replaces the complicated variety of the 3rd Edition’s combat maneuvers and special attacks with a streamlined stunt system. But how much tactical interest are we sacrificing with those combat maneuvers? And is the stunt system just replacing one form of complexity for another?

SIMPLE STUNTS

The process of resolving a stunt is simple:

1. Define the effect of the stunt (which determines the DC).
2. Perform the stunt by making the appropriate action check.
3. If successful, the target of the stunt may attempt a stunt save to negate its effect.

What makes the stunt system simple is specifically that the DCs are hard-coded. It turns it into a substantive part of the combat system instead of the “beg the GM for a nice DC” negotiation that many stunt systems boil down to.

What makes the stunt system work is a divided workload: On the one hand, we use an action check to determine whether or not the character successfully leverages whatever skill/ability they’re using to perform the stunt. (This encourages — but doesn’t mandate — characters to perform stunts within their areas of expertise.) On the other hand, we allow the target to make a saving throw to negate the effect. (This prevents high-level characters from being just as easy to pratfall as a low-level character.) By dividing this workload, we avoid the problem similar systems have had in which the DC calculation become difficult-to-balance calculus: Add up all your stunt factors, then divide by the performer’s HD before multiplying by the target’s HD, then modify according to difficulty factors before blah blah blah…

STUNT VERSATILITY

But does the result offer the same tactical versatility as the detailed special attacks offered by 3rd Edition?

Well, let’s talk about that.

(Note that the base DC for all stunts is DC 5.)

Aid Another: The stunt DC is +5 per +1 bonus. (A +2 bonus requires a DC 15 check instead of DC 10, but the mechanic is open-ended. The simplicity of +5 per +1 playtested much better than work-arounds which attempted to maintain the DC 10 = +2.)

Bull Rush: Forced movement +1 DC per 1 ft. So if you wanted to push someone 10 ft. over a cliff, it’s a DC 15 stunt check.

Charge: We left basic charges in the game as an optional rule. (Surprise rounds are hamstrung without them.) But there are quite a few ways to use movement to apply a bonus to your attack roll using the stunt system.

Disarm: Forcing an opponent to drop an item is a DC 15 stunt.

Feint: There’s not specifically a way to deny your opponent his Dex bonus to AC, but you can use a Bluff stunt to apply a penalty to his AC.

Grapple: L&L includes a simplified grapple system. Instead of being a complete departure from the rest of the combat rules, L&L’s grapple rules just modify them using a single, simple mechanic that’s easy to remember. In play it’s surprisingly not that different from the advanced grapple rules of 3E, but you won’t have to keep flipping the book open every time somebody tries to grab a monster.

Overrun: This one, I’ll admit, is missing functionality. We briefly playtested including “helpless” in the stunt system, but it was badly busted. The closest you’ll get is just using a forced movement stunt to shove them out of the way as you continue moving.

Trip: Prone is a +10 DC stunt.

So, from a tactical standpoint, we’ve found that the stunt system effectively replaces most of the existing combat maneuvers.

“Okay,” you say. “That’s all well and good. But all you’ve done is duplicate functionality the game already has using a slightly different system. Big deal.”

But, of course, the stunt system can do much more than that. And you can actually do any of these actions using any action check (assuming you can explain how the action check will provide the desired result). For example, you can trip people by making a melee attack roll… but you could also shoot them in the leg (ranged attack roll) or aim a cone of cold spell to create a sheet of ice under their feet (Spellcraft check) or throw them down (grapple check) or force them to leap aside by threatening to run them down (Ride check) or yank their feet out from under them with a lasso (Use Rope check) or anything else you’d care to imagine.

So we basically hoover up all the existing functionality of the 3rd Edition maneuvers into a simple superstructure that’s both (a) simpler than the functionality it’s replacing and (b) capable of adding much more functionality to the game.

CLIMB INTO YOUR LABYRINTH AND FORGE YOUR LEGEND TODAY!