Today's Fortunes

The quotes and dialogue that follow are from the last couple weeks, alternating between quotes from 13th Age game sessions and our section of the real world, far from the game table.

The photo above is apparently also from the real world, since it's what I found on the path from my house to my garage-studio this morning, dropped more or less where birds discard the pits after they've feasted on our plum trees.

Special Teams
It's time for CSI: Cleric Sorcerer Investigations.
      How long have you been waiting to say that?
A little while. Not long.
      Except with your autistic bard it's more like the Special Buses Unit.
The big bus . . . is just too much freedom for me.

Movement Fumble
I stepped on a dying elephant seal. And lived.

Alignment
I don't really know what position is correct.
      Snake on top.
What?
      Sssssssssssixty-nine.

1-point background
Yes, it's true. I worked as a phone sex operator for four weeks and didn't realize I was a phone sex operator. They always said just be welcoming and friendly to the people who would call in and it was called welcome wagon so I just talked with people. They called back!

Charity
Oh this is sad. Zombie dad just wanted the chance to take little Crispin fishing.
      Don't worry. It's the Make a Lich foundation for dead children.
'It's Never Too Late.'

Truth
What good is a throne if you don't take it by force?

Royal Family
Wait a minute. How does this work? Do we ALL get to be king?
      Yes. One at a time. For a very short time.
I volunteer to be the last in the succession. Just saying I'm OK with that.

Cat Stuck in Tree for One Night, but Not Two Nights (from a friend's email)
I got out my climbing harness, a helmet, and a back pack.  Up I went.....up and up until I was about 8 feet from the cat.  The tree was swaying and getting thinner and thinner.  It was starting to get dark.  I strapped myself to the tree and my presence gave the cat the encouragement to lower himself to me.  Now i am about 40 or 50 feet off the ground with a wet, scared cat clawed to the tree and it needs to get into the back pack, which is still on my back (This just maybe be the same backpack that saved us from the killer grouse!).   I am not sure how it all happened, but within about 10 minutes I was at the bottom of the tree with the cat in the bag.

Happy day of the Hatchling!

The 13th Age Bestiary is now available for pre-order and pre-publication playtesting! Like the Escalation Edition for the original 13th Age book, purchase of this Hatchling Edition of the Bestiary from the Pelgrane Press store gets you a PDF, updates whenever they're available, and then the final printed book and PDF. Unlike the Escalation Edition's many long moons, this pre-order Bestiary is already nearly finished and publishing is going to be a quick process. Simon expects to have the final book out early in 2014. 

Now that the Bestiary is on its way, I'm switching back to full work on 13 True Ways with Jonathan. One of the curious effects of the Bestiary is that it's going to change the way we approach monsters in 13 True Ways. Originally we were sticking to the just-the-facts approach of the core book, very short stat-based entries. But the Bestiary shows how we can present full entries on monsters and stick with the game's half-designed-world that leaves important decisions up to each campaign. So the monster entries in 13 True Ways are going to use the full approach from the Bestiary wherever it's warranted. 

But enough about the future. Check out the Pelgrane Press Hatchling Edition announcement page that charmingly lists the names of all the monsters in the book. You might have to buy the PDF to figure out what some of the base entries are, others will be clear. 

We've chosen not to call out which authors were principally responsible for individual entries, so I figured for this introduction blog post I'd go ahead and list one monster that made a special impression on me from each of the other authors. Let's take it in alphabetical order by designer's first name.

ASH LAW did a lot of great work in the book. His chuul entry gets the CREEPY INNOVATOR prize for adding something to an existing monster that makes a lot of sense and opens up all manner of story ideas. 

Cal Moore improved every monster as an editor, many monsters as a developer, and Kevin Kulp's whispering prophet and others as a mechanical designer. 

Ken Hite made the original monster selection and assignments. Ordinarily I'd have to credit his catastrophic (to PCs) tarrasque, but I *love* the arch tone and precise language of Ken's entry for the manticore, so sorry tarrasque, you just got beat by a manticore. 

You may have already seen Kevin Kulp's redcap's first appearance on EN World. I'm also pretty fond of the lammasu as epic tier creatures that may be a touch too overworldly for the PC's good. 

Rich Longmore didn't design any monsters but he's doing all the art and gave us the wonderful little hatchling above so hey, he gets thanked and mentioned. 

Rob Watkins wrote a psychologically insightful story for some new white dragons who are entangled with the Lich King and then did some great mechanics to back the story up. 

Rob Wieland did something elegant with the story of the lich that seems likely to get a lot of use in 13th Age games and storylines. He's also got the monster that ends with z, the zorigami, and I think they're cool enough that I broke the rules again and mentioned two of his critters. 

Ryven Cedrylle got a tough assignment, the intellect devourer, and, well, yikes. There are a couple surprising wrinkles in this one. Campaign impact entirely possible. 

Steve Townshend has a 5th level warp beast wedged within the madness of rather larger elder beasts; I love the warp beast's shifting impact on each battle and the fact that it makes sense for all sorts of warpage. 

Have fun with the Hatchling Edition and send us playtest comments as indicated in the file!

Rose City ComicCon September 21-22

This Saturday and Sunday I'll be a guest at the Rose City ComicCon at the Oregon Convention Center in Portland.

I lived in Portland for 12 years so it will be a bit of a homecoming.

This time I'll be running two hour 13th Age demos and a Shadowrun: Crossfire demo near the Rainy Day Games Booth. Paul Peterson will also be there, he's going to be running Smash Up! demo and a Smash Up! tournament and a Guillotine demo. Sign up for these events will be at the Rainy Day Games booth, and the following link takes you to the calendar of events and a map.

There should be a good amount of time for just-talking. But I think the event timing means there's no way I'm getting into the Smash Up! tournament.

Heart of Gold: a 13 True Ways update

Smilin' Sammy G, as he is known to his friends, was the first of the characters created by fans who supported the 13 True Ways Kickstarter. Sammy comes to us from Alex Paciga, who created a legendary bard with a truly sunny disposition and depths which will make him *interesting* to be around. 

This painting of Sammy is by Lee Moyer, of course (http://leemoyer.wordpress.com/), who conceived of character portraits as the style for the new book's chapter openings. Sammy G's portrait is presently slated for Chapter 5, the grab-bag chapter that I presently refer to as either Gamemaster's Grimoire orOlde Schoole. The hidden depths I referred to earlier make Sammy a natural fit for this chapter, but I don't want to say too much so that Alex's creation can receive his full ovation in print. 

So when is that going to happen, you ask? Hopefully Q1 of 2014. There are two things that could push us into Q2: me butting heads with the developer over character class issues or Jonathan and I getting all labor-of-love and working harder to match the standard set by the core book. If we take that longer path, we'll approach 13 True Ways as we did the Escalation Edition for the core book: we'll send backers and pre-order customers a usable early draft that will keep getting better as it trundles toward the finish line. Otherwise, there's something to be said for happy surprises, and we'll only share the bits that need playtesting.

We've indulged in some periods of 13 True Ways silence while I was working on the core book and the Bestiary. We're now returning to once-a-week updates on 13 True Ways. These updates will soon include other mechanical bits. People have sent us all kinds of good feedback on the monk at13thAgePlaytest@gmail.com, and we'll be asking for your help with other aspects of 13 True Ways.

GenCon: You can't spell rock-n-roll without O-R-C

The publication of 13th Age made my GenCon hugely enjoyable. Instead of gradually growing tired and hoarse, I started the show tired (after staying up until 4 am playing Shadowrun: Crossfire the night I arrived, I confess) and gained energy through the rest of the convention, despite sleeping not-so-much.

I think it was Rachel Kahn at the Pelgrane booth who worried that I might be functioning as some type of energy vampire. Which could have been true, but only in a happy-extrovert non-zero-sum good-for-everyone manner. I enjoyed great conversations with fans about 13th Age, a series of wonderful interviews that I expect will be trickling out soon, and challenging/thoughtful GM huddles with the people running 13th Age OP games.

And then there were the two-hour 13th Age demos. I never got away from the Pelgrane booth to see the sessions that were being run as part of our OP, but Steve Dempsey and I ran two-hour demos at the booth, eventually aided by Dave Thompson when the demand for demos grew beyond what we could handle.

The two-hour demo format hands people 2nd level pre-gen characters with ability scores, feats, powers and spells chosen. What's left is the fun stuff: one unique thing, backgrounds, icon relationships. The first hour introduces the players to 13th Age and gets everyone creating their uniques and backgrounds, a process that sometimes starts slow but almost always acquires hilarious or dramatic momentum as people see how they can make up things they are going to enjoy. You can find a version of the demo at http://www.pelgranepress.com/?p=8764 if you're interested in using it for a one-shot or pick-up game. (I'm also using the format as a low committment way to play with friends who aren't serious gamers [yet] but want to try an rpg session to see how they like it.)

I give everyone at the table freedom to come up with a character that amuses them. Then I ask enough questions to help the character amuse me. After character creation, it's the GM's job to pause, take stock of the PCs, and quickly figure out a path they might share. The remaining hour of the demo sandwiches combat roll-playing between roleplaying  at the beginning and end. Sessions vary hugely in emotional tone but they all show how a campaign can be built around the interests and icon relationships of the PCs as well as the GM's plans.

Many of the uniques from last year's GenCon made it into the final text of 13th Age. This years games were just as good. I'm going to write them up one-at-a-time, focusing on player creativity and GM tips.

I didn't write down the names of the three players in the Thursday group. The first guy said that his drow sorcerer was actually the spirit of a former sacrifice that had taken over the drow magician who'd bungled this diabolic act. He wanted something impressive for his soul and we settled on a minotaur; lots of roleplaying bravado possible there.

The second unique belonged to Iggy the half-orc barbarian, whose true name was Ignatius and had never really wanted to be a barbarian, he was an athlete and a scholar with highly advanced education who'd been called back to the family business (barbaric tribal warfare) to represent the family's proud martial heritage that couldn't be advanced by mere book-learning.

The third PC was a gnome bard. Frankie the gnome bard. He had invented rock.

That brought the whole scene together. The former-minotaur, Stig, was the screaming drow vocalist, a fury born of diabolism and nature. Iggy was the drummer. Frankie ran the show, lead lute, the creator. The plot turned out to be a bit of an ambush created by treachery. The PCs thought they were on the trail of some killer drums that were being used by orcs to kill guardsmen at a frontier fort. The orcs had some warning of the group's arrival thanks to a treacherous guardsman (Emperor 5, good for me). And the orcs didn't believe that Frankie had created rock. They wanted their music back.

Highlights included the fact that the players started referring to Frankie as 'Gnome Elvis.' I kept asking for the names or melodies of metal songs to accompany spells and character actions but they kept feeding the table what could charitably be called easy-listening, so when the PCs steadily rolled 1's and 2's for their attacks we had an obvious magical rationale. The PCs didn't focus their attacks so the orcs all stayed above staggered too long for comfort, the orcs' improved critical hit range kept coming into play and we eventually got to start testing the death save rules. Things were looking so bad that I explained the 'flee-and-take-a-campaign-loss' rules. If the PCs had fled, everyone would have known they were impostors: "We'd be Milli Vanilli," said Frankie's player. But they stuck together. There was a moment when I thought that one of Frankie's spell names was so metal that I gave him a chance of breaking the orc's drumstick, it just felt right for there to be a chance. I said that if I rolled a 1 or a 2, since the orc was going to try and attack, that it would be pretty bad for me. So of course that was the moment when luck broke for the PCs. They fought through that grim moment when Iggy was down, chased down the last orc, and shone a rainbow in the dark... just in time to look like heroes in front of the Imperial Squad who'd been brought in with a floating icon relation 6 with the Emperor (in case I needed to provide an explanation for the characters fleeing...).

The orc drummer art accompanying this post is another great illo by Rich Longmore from the upcoming 13th Age Bestiary. The real stats for the drummer/screamer would have been over a second level group's capacity to deal, but I riffed a bit on his abilities. Wherever Iggy the academic barbarian is now, he's playing these drums.

Dwarven Delve

Half of my Wednesday night 13^th Age gaming table is running a Kickstarter for their company’s new Dwarven Delve game for iOS, Android, PC, and Mac.

It’s an underground exploration and combat archeology action game. The dungeon layout is a bit like the mechanics of the Pipe Dream game, you reconfigure the dungeon on the fly, opening up new passages to fat loot and monsters you want to fight *right now* while trying to reroute the real-time charges of monsters you don’t want to have to tangle with. Along the way you develop the abilities of your six dwarven adventurers and dip into a forgotten history that touches on the archetypal tragedy of the dwarves: always digging just a bit too deep for their own good.

Given that the core of the Tinkerhouse team is in my gaming group, I might end up helping with the game if they do really well with the Kickstarter, but my potential self-interest is a lot smaller than my hope for my friends.

In case you’re wondering, the half of our 13^th Age table involved in Tinkerhouse is…

… the elf monk who shapes wood and has now turned out to be directly descended from the bloodline of the original Elf King’s royal architects

… the dwarf bard who reads the unique thrum of objects he drums upon and is now learning the battle hymns of an alternate world in which dwarves rule the Empire

… the elf rogue who knows that the Prince of Shadows is not who he claims to be and has now, probably not coincidentally, been taken over by his own shadow, not that the other PCs knew that until this moment

They do good play and they do good work. 

High Icon Relations, Low Comedy

Cal Moore has been doing a bang-up job of editing 13^th Age and helping to develop and edit the Bestiary. He’s also running a 13^th Age campaign and he sent over a report on a recent game that I thought was worth sharing. Note the cunning use of successful icon relations rolls to provide a flashback that saved the PCs from exposure. Though I suppose they did suffer from ogre-exposure.

Cal’s note….

By the way, tonight's game was good. Party's businessman ranger convinced the others to spend 3200 gp to buy 40 barrels of liquor (rum, dwarven whisky, and shroom juice "room juice.") Packed it on a small ship and traveled to the Port town on river emerging from the High Druid's main forest area. Then proceeded to piss off the owner of the Sapphire, the main town tavern/whore house (based on the Gem from Deadwood), who totally lowballed an offer to them. They spent most of the rest of the time trying to sell the 40 casks in small chunks to the few other tavern owners in town, plus the Imperial praefect (who took a cask of shroom juice for free as his due). They were still about 800gp in the hole when they went off to look into an orc warband who is using extortion on the wood elf settlements upriver to take what they want. While sneaking up on the camp and hiding by a small cliff just below it, an ogre comes to the edge to take a piss and looks down (Stealth Dex rolls, each PC gets a 5 or under, oh oh). The sorcerer uses his 5 and 6 Elf Queen rolls [[icon relationship checks at the start of the session]] to flashback to when a bard back in town gave him a magic gem for a one-time illusion, which he uses to make them look like rocks in the cliff. So the ogre doesn't notice them to the point that he pisses all over them down below. End of session! :) Next week, the sneak attack (and laundry).

Why I love 13th Age. My PCs have never willingly been pissed on before and seen it as a success.