Okay. Nobody likes the Diplomat feat choice for humans. Can’t blame you: I’m not a huge fan, either.

So here’s your challenge, should you choose to accept it: Pick a different feat and make your case .

A few thoughts to keep in mind:

1. Try to avoid adding an extra decision point to character creation. A generic Skill Focus, for example, would require players to choose the skill to which the Skill Focus applies. The human already has one such decision (picking their Bonus Skill) and I actually thought long and hard about pre-picking that skill for them. A major design goal of character creation in L&L was to strip down the decision tree to a bare minimum.
2. Try to avoid anything that would necessitate a special entry in every human’s stat block. Taking Skill Focus as an example again, a DM not only needs to make a decision about Skill Focus for every single human NPC, but they also need to note that in their stat block. L&L also tries to minimize this “stat block clutter” in order to make NPCs and monsters easier to run on the fly.
3. It doesn’t necessarily need to be equally valuable to all classes, but it shouldn’t be completely worthless to any given class, either.
4. Similarly, it shouldn’t duplicate any feat which has been given as a class ability to one of the classes. This would either render it worthless to that class (see #3) or it would require special rules explaining what happens with humans who take that class and gain that ability (adding complexity).

Hit me up, people. Let’s make the game better.

All right. We didn’t hit our early completion deadline, but we’re still on track to hit our funding goal of $3000 by September 10th. Here’s what the next few landmarks will offer as we hit them in our 8-Bit Funding project:

$3000

All contributors will receive the exclusive one-page micro-dungeon Tomb of the Crypt Spiders as a PDF. If we hit this funding level, this will be the first official Legends & Labyrinths adventure and the only way to get a copy is to become a project funder.

Labyrinth Prowlers ($30+) will receive a signed hard copy of Tomb of the Crypt Spiders with their copy of the final Legends & Labyrinths rulebook.

Labyrinth Exemplars ($50+) will receive Mini-Adventure 1: Complex of Zombies.

Lords of the Labyrinth ($150) will receive Mini-Adventure 1: Complex of Zombies and Mini-Adventure 2: The Black Mist.

$3500

Labyrinth Prowlers ($30+) will receive Mini-Adventure 1: Complex of Zombies.

Labyrinth Exemplars ($50+) will receive both mini-adventures.

Lords of the Labyrinth ($150+) will receive both mini-adventures and a City Supplement of their choice.

$4000

Beta Warriors ($12+) will receive Mini-Adventure 1: Complex of Zombies.

Labyrinth Prowlers ($30+) will receive both mini-adventures.

Labyrinth Exemplars ($50+) will receive both mini-adventures and a City Supplement of their choice.

Lords of the Labyrinth ($150+) will receive both mini-adventures and all three City Supplements (Dweredell, Aerie, and Anyoc).

$4500

Beta Warriors ($12+) will receive both mini-adventures.

Labyrinth Prowlers ($30+) will receive both mini-adventures and a City Supplement of their choice.

Labyrinth Exemplars ($50+) will receive both mini-adventures and all three City Supplements.

Lords of the Labyrinth ($150+) will receive both mini-adventures, all three City Supplements, and Rule Supplement 1: Mounted Combat.

$5000

Rewards remain the same at this level, but all Labyrinth Prowlers (contributors of $30+) will also receive THE LABORATORY OF THE BEAST: This original adventure module will plunge the PCs into the twisted, forgotten warrens of the Necromancer King. Here, in these blighted laboratories, fell beasts and terrible war machines were born from the combined arts of magic and alchemy. Blood Worgs, Ebon Centurions, Adamantine Skeletons, Arenak Constructs. Terrible legacies which haunt these broken corridors unto the modern day.

At the current pace, I recognize that this is a long-shot. But after the $5000 mark, there’ll be additional landmarks with more original content.

Okay. You’ve read a little bit about Legends & Labyrinths. Maybe you’re a little curious. Maybe you’re skeptical that it’s worth your $12.

Fair enough.

Now: What would change your mind?

Is there a particular feature that would make it a “must buy” for you? What’s the one thing that no fantasy RPG has ever done that you’ve always wanted a fantasy RPG to do for you? Is there a section of the rulebook that you’d really like to see in a preview? Hit the comment button and lemme know.

What information on a PC’s character sheet do you, as a DM, frequently need to know?

The reason I ask is that I’m playing around with putting together an Adventure Worksheet: A little standard form that can hang out as a tablemat for quick reference.

For example:

• Who’s the slowest party member? (So that you know how fast the group moves in exploration mode.)
• What’s the standard watch rotation?
• What’s the standard marching order? (With notations for light sources.)

And key PC stats like:

• Armor Class (so that you don’t need to keep asking for it every round)
• Known Languages (so that you know who understands the guttural grumblings of goblins)
• Spot/Listen/Perception checks (assuming you make them secretly)

I find the information that I can actually reference in this matter tends to vary a lot. For example, for my original 3E group I was able to jot down ACs for the PCs and significantly streamline my resolution of NPC attack rolls. But every 3E group I’ve DMed since then has featured characters who are constantly shifting their AC from encounter-to-encounter and (frequently) round-to-round, preventing me from effective cheat sheeting.

Similarly, I know several DMs who jot down Spot/Listen/Perception checks because they like to make those checks secretly. I prefer the “red herring” approach to Perception checks (in which I will periodically call for Perception checks whether there’s anything to detect or not) because it gives me an extra tool for setting pace and tone. (Properly employed you can create a sense of paranoia, false-confidence, or both. It’s also a great, non-confrontational way to refocus attention on the game if the table is getting sidetracked or chit-chatty.)

So I’m wondering what type of stuff you like to have at your fingertips as a DM. (Or would like to have.)

Let’s take a peek at the Black Book Beta character sheet for Legends & Labyrinths:

(click for PDF)

Like the rulebook itself, this is a work in progress. (I’m not particularly happy with the skill section, and there are some other sizing and spacing issues that need to be tweaked and resolved.) But this should give you some idea of what I’m aiming for.

As with many elements in Legends & Labyrinths, one of the key hurdles I had to avoid in developing this character sheet was what I came to call the “illusion of simplicity”. For example, I had a long struggle with the illusion of a character creation process so simple that you just “rolled ability scores, picked a class, and then started playing!” It’s a seductive vision, but it never actually existed. (And there was a reason it never existed.)

These “illusions of simplicity” served as siren songs. If, as a game designer, you pursue them you’ll end up handicapping your game. The idea that your life would be easier if you didn’t need to buy shoes bumps against cold, hard reality when you start talking about lopping your feet off with an axe.

In the case of this character sheet, the illusion of simplicity I struggled with was the classic sheet from the BECMI Basic Set that had indoctrinated me into roleplaying 20 years ago. Wouldn’t it be great if your character sheet didn’t have anything on it except character name, alignment, class, level, ability scores, and saving throws?

But the reality was that the BECMI sheet achieved its simplicity by not including some key forms of utility.

On the other hand, I also didn’t want (or need) the spreadsheets-of-doom which so many character sheets have become.

REFERENCE LAYERS

The solution I eventually developed was the concept of “layers”. For example, here’s the hit point section:

The iconic heart gives you a clear, pictorial reference. Collectively, these distinct graphical shapes keep the sheet from turning into a gray haze. It also gives you a large palette for keeping track of your current hit points.

The top layer contains the “most important” info. Below they you have secondary info that you’ll want to have for easy reference, but not on a frequent basis: Your max hit points. Any temporary hit points you’re currently benefiting. A place to track nonlethal damage. And a place for noting damage reduction if you’ve got it.

As a different example, here’s the saving throw section:

This is pretty basic: Once again you’ve got a distinct shape conceptually grouping these stats together. The top layer contains the total saving throw bonus (the key information you need to reference during play), while the layer below that lists the various modifiers that build that top layer stat.

What I like about the sheet is that, when you look at it, the top layer of information “pops out”. In play, it feels like you’re using a much more streamlined character sheet because of that — but you’ve also still get access to all that additional information when you need it. (And I think this will be even more true as we tweak the spacing and layout issues.)

MORE THAN JUST STATS

I also feel its important for a character sheet to contain more than just game mechanics. That’s why the right hand column is given over to description. This is broken into three types:

First, the “Symbol-or-Sketch”. This has vanished from most modern character sheets, or it gets buried somewhere on the second or third page.  But having this space on the front of the character sheet for my old school campaign has evoked all kinds of evocative doodling and drawing. (I think there’s something about having that blank space right in front of you during play that encourages players to start filling it up. If nothing else, it’s a good space for taking notes.)

Second, concrete requests for information. Height, Weight, Age, Gender, and the like. This establishes a fairly standard scaffold to start hanging your character on.

Third, an invitation to create in bold strokes. The boxes for “Distinguishing Features” and “Personality Traits” are deliberately open-ended. You can put pretty much anything you want in there (or ignore them entirely). But the idea is to lay out a few bold ideas. I find that, particularly for new roleplayers, writing down a few key words like “impetuous” or “always lying” or “loves to grin” is often the best way to jump-start a character.

Those of us who like multi-page biographies and character studies, of course, are still free to tack on as many supplementary pages as we like. But I’m a big fan of taking new players, handing them a character sheet, and letting them pour their imagination onto it. When it works — when those new players invest themselves in the role they’ve created — you can create a gamer for life overnight.

The streamlined system for character creation in Legends & Labyrinths is the first part of that process: It allows new players to take control of creating their first character (without feeling overwhelmed by endless details for which they have no context). And then, hopefully, this character sheet seals the deal by putting the non-mechanical elements of character creation front-and-center: Inviting them to start thinking of their character as more than just a collection of numbers.