I’m fairly certain that All-Star Superman is far too awesome to exist within the constraints of the universe as we know it.

Which is why it was necessary for the unspeakably dreadful All-Star “Goddamn” Batman to exist in order to balance the cosmic scales.

I was never really able to take the ENnie Awards seriously after they nominated the truly god-awful Pit of Loch-Durnan as Best Adventure in 2001: This early D20 product featured truly gorgeous cover art, but everything else about it — the interior art, the layout, the cartography, the NPCs, the “plot” — was atrocious. Imagine the opinion you’d have of a new film award that nominated Gigli for Best Picture in its first year of existence and you’d have a pretty accurate gauge for my opinion of the ENnies.

Recently, however, I’ve found myself thinking that the ENnies have probably refurbished their reputation in my eyes. It took the better part of a decade, but the stink had definitely worn off.

(You can see where this is going, right?)

The 2010 ENnie Nominees were named a couple days ago. And I’m sorry but this:

Does not deserve to be shortlisted as Best Cartography of the Year. Not even as an honorable mention. To do so is to, once again, turn the ENnies into a joke.

Allow me to be crystal clear on the nature of my complaint: There’s nothing inherently wrong with these maps. They’re clean, clear, and functional. (Quibble: The fact that the direction of north switches between the first and second maps is unnecessarily confusing and will almost certainly result in GMs having the PCs enter through the wrong door.) They aren’t bad maps. I mean, if I thought they were bad maps I’d have to look at my own maps from The Complex of Zombies and take myself out back for a good horse-whipping:

There’s nothing wrong with functional, workman-like cartography. But there’s a reason that “workman-like” and “award-winning” aren’t synonymous.

On a more positive note, the adventure this cartography is taken from — Death Frost Doom — is very good. It’s a little rough around the edges, but provides the raw material for an incredibly evocative and haunting experience. If it had been nominated as Best Adventure it wouldn’t have even made my eyebrows waggle. It probably would have even gotten a nod of satisfied approval. I recommend that everybody reading this check it out.

I think the most charitable interpretation of what happened here is that the judges for the ENnies recognized Death Frost Doom‘s general quality as an adventure and ended up looking around for a category to stick it into so that it would be “properly” acknowledged. This is slightly better than being swayed by a pretty cover wrapped around dreck, but is still pretty questionable behavior for any awards program that wants to be taken seriously. It tarnishes the credibility of the awarding body’s judgment, calling into question the value of the awards lists in judging quality, and thus obviating the entire point of an award in the first place.

Buy this. It’s good.

Werewolves suck.

I know what you’re thinking: “Justin, you’re obviously confused. Vampires suck. Werewolves bite.”

But lycanthropes seriously suck in 3rd Edition.

I’m not one of those who generally subscribes to the theory that 3rd Edition stat blocks are horrendous. (Although I did revise them to improve the usability of the actual block itself.) Prepping stat blocks usually represents only about 5% of the time that I spend prepping for a game.

But lycanthropes? I hate the little bastards.

I can generally whip out even the most complex stat blocks with templates and class levels and fancy equipment in 15 minutes or so. But I just spent more than two hours prepping the stat block for a single wererat, and I’m still pretty sure that I’ve screwed up the math somewhere. Probably a minor screw-up (the sort of thing that wouldn’t bother me in a private campaign); but since this is for a professional project it’s driving me insane.

It’s not the multiple stat blocks that bug me. I don’t actually have any problems using a lycanthrope straight out of the book. And I’ll frequently whip up multiple stat blocks for the same NPC in order to facilitate temporary effects (different equipment, rage, buffs, etc.).

The problem is that the rules for creating lycanthropes require you to create all three stat blocks sort of simultaneously while pulling information from both the base creature and the animal form. So you end up juggling five different stat blocks, and if you discover that you need to make an adjustment on any one of them you have to backtrack the change through all the other stat blocks.

On the one hand, I’m kind of looking at the rules for werewolves in 2nd Edition and 4th Edition and wondering if there’s any reason we can’t adopt that simplicity into 3rd Edition: Just give me one stat block and let me apply a simple template (“add bite attack”) when the were-creature enters hybrid form.

On the other hand, having gotten the rant out of my system, I’m beginning to suspect that the real problem isn’t necessarily the rules, but rather the organization of the rules. It seems like what the system needs is a clear order of progression:

(1) Create base creature.

(2) Apply lycanthrope template to create humanoid form.

(3) Apply hybrid template to the humanoid form create hybrid form.

(4) Apply animal form template to the humanoid form to create animal form.

And while it’s nice to have the generic “use any animal” guidelines, it would probably be easier in practice to have separate templates for each of the established types of were-creatures. Here’s a stab at what the wererat templates would look like:

WERERAT TEMPLATE
Apply this template to the base creature to create the wererat’s humanoid form. This template can be added to any humanoid or giant.

Size and Type: Creature gains the “shapechanger” subtype.
Hit Dice and Hit Points: Add 1d8 hit die to the base creature.
Armor Class: +2 bonus to natural armor.

Special Qualities: alternate form, lycanthropic empathy, low-light vision, scent

Base Save Bonuses: Fort +2, Ref +2, Will +2
Abilities: Wis +2, may gain an ability score increase due to additional hit dice
Skills: +8 racial bonus on Climb and Swim checks. Gains (2 + Int modifier) skill points, treating Climb, Hide, Listen, Move Silently, Spot and Swim as class skills.
Feats: Alertness, Iron Will, Weapon Finesse

Challenge Rating: +2

WERERAT HYBRID TEMPLATE
Apply this template to the wererat’s humanoid form to create the stat block for its hybrid form.

Size and Type: Small or the size of the base creature, whichever is larger.
Armor Class: +1 bonus to natural armor (if better than the base creature’s natural armor bonus)
Attacks: Gains 2 claw attacks and 1 bite as a secondary attack (-5 penalty).

Special Attacks: curse of lycanthropy (Fort DC 15); cannot cast spells with verbal components
Special Qualities: DR 5/silver for afflicted lycanthropes; DR 10/silver for natural lycanthropes

Abilities: Dex +6, Con +2

WERERAT ANIMAL FORM TEMPLATE
Apply this template to the wererat’s humanoid form to create the stat block for its animal form.

Size and Type: Small
Speed: 40 ft., climb 20 ft.
Armor Class: +1 natural armor (if better than the base creature’s natural armor)
Attacks: Replace all attacks with a bite attack (1d4 plus disease).

Special Attacks: curse of lycanthropy (Fort DC 15); cannot cast spells with verbal, somatic, or material components
Special Qualities: DR 5/silver for afflicted lycanthropes; DR 10/silver for natural lycanthropes

Abilities: Dex +6, Con +2
Skills: Can choose to take 10 on Climb checks even if rushed or threatened. Can use their Dex modifier for Climb and Swim checks.

I think that should produce 100% rules-accurate stat blocks with less hassle.

(Pardon me for a moment while I wander away from my HTML editor…)

And the proof is in the pudding: Despite forgetting to apply the old age template to my base creature’s stats (so that I had to start over while I was half-way through the hybrid stat block) and taking extra time to design a custom magic item from scratch, it only took me half an hour to put together three wererat stat blocks for a 4th-level orc barbarian. And I’m far more confident of the result than I was of the mess I managed to generate after 2+ hours of struggle this morning.

(This, of course, is the point where one of you will point out some egregiously idiotic mistake I made in those templates and send me crying back to my drafting table.)

LYCANTHROPE WEEK
Wererats
Werewolves
Dire Werewolves

It took about forty years before Frank Miller rationalized Batman wearing a huge target on his chest. (He can’t armor his head.) But as I was watching the first episode of Naruto today, I was struck by how quickly they demonstrated the silliness of ninjas wearing big, round bullseyes in the centers of their backs.

(Particularly in a universe where shurikens are apparently the size of small Japanese cars.)

But when I stopped to think about it, I realized (in my own little Milleresque fashion), that it might not be a mistake after all: These are members of a fierce, warrior-centric culture. They’re supposed to stand bravely in the face of danger. And what’s the quickest way to make sure your soldiers never turn and run?

Put a huge target on their back.

…

What? You were expecting something profound?

Fine.

(1) When creating a fictional world, what can you include that seems deliberately odd by our modern and cultural understanding of the world? The oddity will draw the attention of your players/readers/viewers, allowing you to reveal some deeper truth about the setting. And once it has been explained, the oddity will (by its very nature) stick in the memory (along with its associated truth).

(2) I may be underestimating Masashi Kishimoto, but I’m guessing he didn’t give any more thought to the placement of that logo/bullseye than “that looks cool”. But that doesn’t mean that there isn’t value to be found in my explanation of it. Attempting to rationalize the incoherent can give rise to fresh and creative ideas.

When I’m using published modules I am almost always forced to adapt them to the cosmology of my own campaign world. For example, in my primary D&D campaign setting there is only one pantheon of gods. Trying to adapt adventures designed for the typical multi-pantheism of D&D can pose some unique challenges. But I welcome the challenge because the effort of rationalizing the incoherency between world and adventure results in a richer and deeper understanding of the world. It’s given rise to saint cults, lineages of holy artifacts, regional factionalism, heresy rituals, and more — and rather than defracting or detracting from the world, all of these elements instead become refined and concentrated.

(And this can flow both ways: For example, the conflict between the Imperial Church and the Reformist Churches in my campaign world frequently allow me to re-purpose church-vs-church material from published scenarios. But this will also frequently enrich individual adventures by introducing avenues of friction and tension which would otherwise be atypical.)

The real world is made up of diverse and often contradictory viewpoints, cultural traditions, and personal opinions. By injecting and adapting material created by others, some degree of that balance between the coherent and the incoherent which can be found in the real world is brought into the game world.

Frank Pearce, executive producer of Starcraft II and co-founder of Blizzard, told Videogamer.com:

“The best approach from our perspective is to make sure that you’ve got a full-featured platform that people want to play on, where their friends are, where the community is.

“That’s a battle that we have a chance in. If you start talking about DRM and different technologies to try to manage it, it’s really a losing battle for us, because the community is always so much larger, and the number of people out there that want to try to counteract that technology, whether it’s because they want to pirate the game or just because it’s a curiosity for them, is much larger than our development teams.

“We need our development teams focused on content and cool features, not anti-piracy technology.”

This statement makes perfect sense.

First, the only people DRM actually hurts are legitimate customers. The pirates, after all, strip the DRM off the games and no longer have to deal with any of its hassles.

Second, even if a foolproof system of DRM were to be created (and Ubisoft may be coming close by treating single player games as if they were multiplayer games), the nature of DRM is deeply inimical to the rights of common citizens. You have a right to the fair use of copyrighted material you buy, and DRM strips you of those rights.

Third, Pearce’s assessment is correct: The best way to encourage people to be legitimate customers instead of pirates is to (a) make them want to be your customer and (b) offer a superior product. DRM gets in the way of both goals.

So Frank Pearce is absolutely right: DRM is a losing battle.

From the same article:

Starcraft II, due out on July 27, requires a one-off activation and a registered Battle.net account.

Online activation?

That’s what DRM is.

In fact, it’s exactly the sort of onerous DRM system which is inherently unethical.

It suffers from the same problem as all activation-based DRM: If Blizzard goes out of business or decides to shut down their activation servers, the installation DVD becomes a worthless coaster.

My current car is a Saturn Ion. GM recently shut down their Saturn divison. Imagine if my car needed to call up the (now defunct) Saturn Activation Servers every time I put the key in the ignition. Would any sane person tolerate that?

Ah, but Blizzard’s system is so much more reasonable, right? My Ion only needs to contact the Saturn Activation Server once and it’ll work forever… until my battery dies (or, in the cast of Starcraft 2, I need to reinstall the software). I replace the battery only to discover that the activation servers are gone and — ta-da! — my car is worthless.

And here we see the long con of DRM:

One of the first big efforts to push out activation-based DRM was the DIVX disc format: Buy a DIVX disc for cold hard cash. Then, whenever you want to watch it, pay another $4. And the disc would only play if your DIVX player was plugged into a phone line and connected with the DIVX activation servers.

Fortunately, people weren’t stupid: They flocked to the DVD format. Even though the discs were more expensive, people were willing to pay more in order to be able to control their own access to and use of their privately owned movie libraries. Even after DIVX abandoned its re-activation fees (while still offering cheaper discs), people stuck with the DRM-free DVD standard. And everyone who was stupid enough to buy DIVX was punished (as all supporters of DRM formats are inevitably punished): The DIVX servers were shut down in 2001 and all of those movies people had bought turned into coasters.

But now DRM is beginning to see wider and wider acceptance, particularly in the gaming market. And one of the reasons can be seen in Frank Pearce’s bald-faced lie: The game publishers have been pushing ever more onerous versions of DRM. They’re trying to see just how far they can go before public becomes completely outraged, and then they’ll pull back.

But they don’t actually pull back all the way: They just pull back a bit. And everyone cheers because Blizzard says DRM is a waste of time and they won’t have any DRM on Starcraft II… despite the fact they still have DRM on Starcraft II.

That’s the long con.

The game publishers are treating us all like lobsters and they’re trying to boil us alive by slowly raising the temperature of the pot.

And make no mistake. If you’re sucker enough to fall for it, you will boil alive. Because even if the corporations stick around, they aren’t going to keep the servers active: Everyone who bought DRM-laden songs from MSN Music got screwed in 2008 when Microsoft shut down the servers.

I own a vast library of media: Thousands of books, CDs, movies, and computer games line the walls of my home. And the majority of them were published by companies that no longer exist. Which means that if those products required an activation server for me to use them, they would be useless to me. (Not to mention all the other books, albums, movies, and games which were produced by companies who would no longer be supporting the activation servers for them.)

So as much as I’d like to play Starcraft II, I won’t be. And I encourage you to do the same. Because if you’re willing to support the publishing companies in taking away your own rights, you’ll have no one to blame but yourself when you get screwed.