Design Origins -- Part 1: The Original Slate

Since the design process of TNP pre-dates the creation of this blog, I want to go back and touch on some of the origins of the game's design choices, from its earliest iterations. The first topic I want to talk about in this series is the "original slate" and where it started from.

Most people who have come in contact with D&D 3.5 will (at some point) have come across the "tier system" for classes, someplace on the internet, or another. The main thing you'll notice when making your way down the list, is that the classes get less and less magical as you go along (i.e. the lower-numbered tiers -- being the most powerful -- are the most magical.)

Now, my personal experience with playing 3.5 was generally limited to only allowing classes from the first PHB, with maybe a few extra classes thrown in for variety. One of the main (or perhaps, better) reasons for limiting your game this way, is if you intend to play 3.5 using only its freely-available SRD content.
If we look at the tier system, and filter it such that we only include classes of Tier 3 or "lower" that appear in the PHB, we get this list:

• Bard
• Rogue
• Barbarian
• Ranger
• Fighter
• Monk
• Paladin

This was sort of the main point of influence; another piece of the puzzle was some goon offering advice along these lines:

If you want to play a balanced game of 3.5 using only the PHB classes, do this:
Don't use Wizards, use Bards.
Don't use Clerics, use Paladins.
Don't use Druids, use Rangers.
Don't use Fighters, use Barbarians.

(Side note: if this sounds like something you wrote, please let me know, because I have forgotten over the years who said it, and would like to start giving out the appropriate credit.)

There were some other pieces of advice (I think Rogues were allowed to stay, and not Monks) but the main thrust of this entire line of thinking was basically, don't use Tier 1 or Tier 2 classes that just step on the toes (in terms of niche, or design space) of other classes. (In the case of Barbarian vs. Fighter, it was more about "Barbarians actually get class features, rather than just more and more feats.")

With all of this in mind, about 3 years ago, one of the first things I ever uploaded to Google Drive was a set of house rules for 3.5; this was limited to a handful of PHB classes, with some tweaks and buffs as desired.

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Around the time the 5e PHB dropped (August of 2014, as I recall) was when I started working on TNP in earnest. I called it 'The Next Project' because as the previous game I had worked on was winding down, I kept telling people, "well, for my next project, I want to do this..."

One of the earliest mentions of TNP design that I can dig up is from the "Retrocloning 4e" thread, on August 20th, 2014. Back then, the original slate looked like this:

• Mage (d4)
• Rogue (d6)
• Ranger (d8)
• Fighter (d10)
• Barbarian (d12)

As the classes got more and more fleshed out, I noticed that the Fighter and Barbarian (as you might guess) tended to overlap too much in their skills; I eventually decided to change the Fighter to a Paladin. This gave the class a whole new bent in terms of skills, but also allowed me to add things like 'Lay on Hands' to their abilities. This would give us the original slate, as it appeared in the first playtest-ready version of the game.

Shortly thereafter, subtype options for the classes would start to appear (with the Barbarian warping into the "Warrior" as it absorbed more of the Fighter design space) and a 2nd slate of classes would inevitably start to shape up. Much like 13th Age, Monk and Druid were always sort of "first in line" for the 2nd slate, with Warlord also being popular among 4e fans. But perhaps I'll touch more on that another time (assuming I didn't cover the 2nd slate enough, when I started to finalize the classes in Beta 4.)

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One of the key design components of TNP is the use of Class Dice; I would like to touch on that in a future post in this series, which will include talking about how the original slate was... well, slated, into that paradigm.

I've been very busy this past week with other things, which is why I am writing about this topic, rather than doing an update on the writing of the new draft -- I basically haven't had time to do that, since the last post. So hopefully, the next post will have more on that, rather than being another retrospective.

Check back February 10th!

Writing the Rules (2018)

Rewriting of the "core rules" has begun in earnest, and I'm coming at it from a little bit of a different angle than I have previously.

When I was writing Beta 4, what I essentially did was start with the most central design concept, and then introduce more concepts as they became pertinent -- usually one idea dovetailing with another. For example, the idea of both a "Basic Roll" and "maximum value" needed to be introduced prior to introducing the starting HP mechanic (which uses the maximum value of your Basic Roll.)

What I'm doing this time around, is essentially writing up each idea or mechanic as its own thing; any time I think of a new one to write, it's going into a separate document. One of the reasons for doing this, is it helps me to worry less about spacing and length -- trying to cram things together so there aren't long stretches of blank space, keeping the overall doc to the fewest number of pages, etc.

As you might expect, this means that the "core rules" this time around will be a fair bit longer. Granted, the Beta 4 version topped out at a mere 14 pages in google docs; the addition of the leveling mechanics alone will push 2018 Edition past that number, but I do hope to expand on and clarify rules wherever it's needed, which will also add to the length.

Here's a quick look at the topics the rules are covering, so far:

• Changing Your Character: rules about changing your Class/Subclass/Roles/Archetype, and what to do if you find yourself unhappy with a character, late in a campaign
• Character Customization: the basic mechanical explanations of Subclass/Role/Archetype
• Combat Skills: expanding on the previous version's text about which skills are used in combat, and their specific implementations
• Double Rolls: updates to the mechanics of Advantage/Disadvantage and double-rolling class dice (with the Trade-off mechanic written out)
• Positioning: touch-up of the positional rules, including streamlining the jargon
• Power Attack/Counter-attack: rewritten mechanics, incorporating changes to Advantage/Disadvantage and removal of Trade-offs
• Skills: cleaned up and expanded text pertaining to the skill mechanics and descriptions, going a bit deeper into Background/Knowledge/Performance skills

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One thing I'm considering changing the jargon for is the "subtype" descriptors. Essentially, an idea I had was to use Path, War Path, and Paragon Path in place of Subclass, Role, and Archetype (respectively.) After having spilled some ink on the designs, I think I want to keep Subclass, just because it relates closely to Class -- essentially, most Subclasses would be their own classes in other systems, and as such, changing your Subclass is going to work similarly to changing your class, in the mechanics.

With that sorted, the whole "path" nomenclature idea falls apart pretty quickly. Another snag that has come up, is that people unfamiliar with 5e D&D have often pointed out Archetype as a misnomer; it's a broad identifier, whereas in TNP, they serve to more-narrowly identify a character. Some have also pointed to Role as being too vague (on its face) at least until you get into reading their specific mechanics.

As such, I am considering changing Archetypes to Paragon Paths, and renaming Role to something like "Combat Role." I think at the table, if players choose to shorten those terms down to just "Path" and "Role" then that's fine. However, the rules jargon should be adequately informative in addition to being concise; Subclass does this very well, but Role and Archetype need a bit of a tune-up. I haven't settled on these changes, but both are under consideration.

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Next post should be on January 30th; as always, if you have input on any of the topics discussed here, feel free to comment below, or get ahold of me wherever you read about the blog.

What to expect from 2018

Happy new year, everyone!
For those keeping score, the blog had just over 1000 views a year ago, and now it's at just under 3000.

Today I'm going to try and touch on as many thing as I can, pertaining to what I plan to write about on the blog this year, as well as the sorts of innovations and changes that will appear in the game design itself. But before getting into any of that, I'm happy to announce that the first draft of the "starter slate" classes is all ready to go:

• The Sage (d4)
• The Fighter (d6)
• The Ranger (d8)
• The Adventurer (d10)
• The Warlord (d12)

I should point out that these classes have been written with much of the new framework in mind; it shouldn't be difficult to have the rest of the classes match up to that. Notably, since there are no "archetype-only" classes in this slate, it'll be important to make sure that those classes have enough customization options, once they are re-written.

In terms of the blog itself, of course I will be including information on changes to the designs, as they come up. In addition to that, I would also like to go back and discuss how some of the existing ideas came to be, and why those decisions were made; for example, I'd like to write about the original slate of 5 classes, the use of Class Dice, and the skill setup. In terms of scheduling, I'm hoping to stick to the plan laid out here, adhering to my "every 10th day"-ish routine, with breaks in July and December.

As I touched on in my previous post, in terms of development, I want to essentially update the classes to the 2018 Edition aesthetic, one slate at a time -- rather than doing all classes in concert with one another. What this means is that (once the core rules are likewise updated) I intend to do some playtesting with the starter set, then adjust those classes (and the core rules) as needed, then work to release another slate of classes, playtest them, and so forth in that fashion.

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For some mechanical changes (in addition to those already announced) I'm going to work at streamlining and fixing a few things:

Opportunity Attacks: Though I like the conceit of just doing auto-damage with these actions, it's not a good fit for TNP. With some classes getting "double roll and stack" on this damage, it clashes with the positional mechanics that can impose disadvantage on OAs, requiring a specific rules-exception that I don't like. Also, not having an attack roll makes it sort of a misnomer, and I haven't found an alternate piece of jargon that's to my liking. As such, OAs will now use a traditional attack roll. One potential benefit of this is that it will allow for classes to have both a basic attack and an Opportunity Attack "loadout" which may open up new design space.

Trade-offs/Double Rolls: The mechanic of Trade-offs is one that has often been classed as a misnomer, by some of the readers. As the designs have evolved, the specific use of Trade-offs has not been applied uniformly enough, in my estimation. Since things like Counter-attack and Power Attack already have design changes planned (to make them operate without using Trade-offs) I'm going to remove this piece of jargon from the rules, completely. This means that some class abilities will have to be (or have already been) completely changed or replaced. For other instances, the "double roll" terminology will be used instead. Since double rolls that are not just advantage or disadvantage are generally limited to using Class Dice (rather than d20s) you can expect to see that spelled out more explicitly, in the next draft of the rules.

Advantage/Disadvantage: I am considering a few changes to these mechanics:
1) a return to "if you have both advantage and disadvantage, roll 3 dice and use the middle result" (which appeared in earlier drafts.) I might want to have this in place, so that the design space of using both the highest roll and the lowest roll remains viable, in instances where both advantage and disadvantage would apply.
2) re-rolling the dice, in the case of disadvantage resulting in a tie; overall, I don't like to have re-rolls (particularly for play-by-post purposes.) However, the general rule of "treat one result as its maximum value on a tied double roll" functionally does nothing, with disadvantage -- I may want to change that.
Neither of these are set in stone yet, but they are both on my radar.

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That's about all for today; check back next weekend for another post!