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!

A couple days ago we had a class preview by taking a peek at the fighter. Let’s go ahead and preview the races… all of them.

(click for PDF)

Yup, that’s the entirety of Chapter 5 there.

The artwork in this chapter is by Larry Elmore, used under license. His artwork opened the doors of fantasy roleplaying to me, and I can’t think of a better way to capture the iconic images of the core races. (With that being said, I made a couple of “risky” choices in here and it’ll be interesting to see how people respond to them.)

One semi-interesting thing of note is that, in writing this chapter, I very specifically did not want to give humans primacy by placing them at the top of the chapter. Instead, I wanted them to appear in their proper place in the alphabetical order. But when I got to the actual layout, I ended up with a space at the bottom of the first page that was too small to fit dwarves into. I initially planned to fill it with some generic artwork (with the intention of possibly replacing it with a “fantasy line-up” as a commissioned piece of art). But then, when I tried to place the entry for humans later in the chapter, I either ended up with a page filled with white space or crunching a whole bunch of races up into a space that was too tiny for them.

Eventually, it just made sense to use the humans to fill that white space on the first page and embrace a consistent approach of “1 race per page”. It still leaves more white space in this chapter than anywhere else in the book, but sometimes you just have to embrace what fate is telling you.

As I mentioned in the class preview, I decided to go with a Gang of 6 character classes and then matched this with six character races: Humans, Dwarves, Elves, Half-Elves, Halflings, and Half-Orcs.

Here, too, I had seriously considered sticking with either the “classic three” (humans, dwarves, elves) or “classic four” (throwing halflings in there). But getting half-breeds into the mix, in my opinion, establishes an important “conceptual beachhead” in the pastiche fantasy-land at the heart of the game.

So… half-orcs to fill the role of “bruiser” and “outcast” that isn’t well-covered by the other races? Or half-elves, like halflings, out of respect for their Tolkienesque roots?

Eventually, I decided that including both would (a) provide some nice variety within the general type and (b) balance the game evenly with six races and six classes.

I am aware that this means only gnomes are excluded among the core D20 races and that, therefore, I run the risk of being classed among the “gnome haters”.

But that’s a risk I’m just going to have to take.

CLIMB INTO YOUR LABYRINTH AND FORGE YOUR LEGEND TODAY!

As I mentioned yesterday when we hit $1500, I’m offering a bonus incentive if the project hits $3000 by the end of the month (midnight on August 31st). If we hit that landmark, 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 as a free bonus when the project is funded!

In less than 24 hours, we’ve jumped from $1500 to $1700. With 6 days left, it’ll be a race to the finish line at that pace. But I think it’ll happen, so let’s take a peek at what you’ll get…

SECRETS OF BLOOD, MYSTERIES OF JADE…

In a laboratory of stone, the Sons of Jade labored to unlock the arcane lore of the Jade Magi of Shandrala. But their efforts were doomed, and their entire complex was drenched in the blood of their failure.

Now the secrets of the necrosis cube and the orb of primal chaos lie in halls roamed only by desiccated, undead horrors. But these are no ordinary zombies, and those who would seek to reclaim the Jade Legacy must first learn the terror of the bloodsheen…

20 pages – Sample Map

The Complex of Zombies, an adventure for four 3rd-level characters, features a full-page map of the complex; flexible plot hooks; three new magic items; and two new monsters in an exciting, fast-paced adventure easily incorporated into any campaign!

PLAGUE AND NECROMANCY…

When a city is wracked by a magical plague that cannot be cured, the PCs are trapped inside the walls by the seal of quarantine. Will they hide from the threat of death? Or stand tall against the city’s terror?

But whatever course they choose, nothing is ever as simple as it appears. Death breeds death, and before this mist-born plague has passed the entire city will be placed in a crucible of riot and fire and necromancy…

The Black Mist features…

• Full-Color Handouts
• Rules for Plague
• Diseased Undead
• Necromantic Magic Items
• New Spells
• Advanced Rules for Crowds and Mobs
• Advanced Rules for Large Fires

64 pages – Sample Handouts

The Black Mist, designed for four characters of 3rd to 5th level, can be used as an exciting adventure by itself or as the dramatic backdrop for any city-based campaign!