The Next Revision (2018)

So back at the start of this year, I went over how I would be doing the new draft of the rules section by section, and eventually bringing the pieces all together. This would culminate (in April) with the "2018(a) Playtest" draft of the rules.

Since playtesting ended, most of my blog entries have been about ways in which the rules need to expand even further, so that we can give greater clarity about how the game should function, and how the mechanics should be used. This will likely take on a similar writing process; however, I first want to release a new playtest packet. (The intention always having been to do 2 or 3 drafts, throughout 2018.)

This draft already includes a few rules changes/clarifications, coming out of the playtest and other sources of feedback -- but largely, this is not what I would call a "stable" or "finalized" draft. This time around, it'll be more of a work in progress (as was largely the case in Beta 4) and I intend to be continually adding smaller changes as needed, as well as stapling on whole new sections, as they become complete.


The Next Project -- 2018(b) Playtest

Current changes: [from 2018(a) to 2018(b)]

• Included a longer explanation of the "Expertise" mechanic, hopefully reducing confusion
• Changed the "Reliable" property to only work with basic attacks that are made as a Standard Action
• Changed the rule for "Power Attack" to make its interaction with Advantage a little simpler;  removed the option to deal the higher attack roll as extra damage, to facilitate this (and also because that option was overpowered/overused)
• Made some clarifications to Advantage/Disadvantage/Expertise applying to dice which are stacked onto a d20 roll (generally, Expertise should apply, but the others should not; this may need further attention)
• Expanded on some of the core dice mechanics
• Added an example of when Advantage (from a critical success) might be applied before making a roll
• Clarified the game term "maximum value" (specifically, max on d10 is 10, rather than it being used as a 0-9 scale)
• Explanation of "Training Die" added to the core dice mechanics
• Clarified some of the mechanics around "Double Rolls" (specifically, those pertaining to treating a Basic Roll as a double roll; added explanation about the uses of the dice from a double roll being a function of the feature that is using the roll, rather than there being a general rule that is always used.)
• Changed list of classes to a table, rather than bullet-points
• Clarified the amount of HP characters have after a rest; if they began the rest with more than their maximum, then it is reset to their maximum.
• Added a rule for the off-chance that a class gets a single Power Source, 3 times
• Changed the rules for applying Advantage (from a critical success) to a skill check; this can now be used on any check (not just Untrained) but specifically only applies to the d20 roll
• Explanations for basic attacks (under the "Actions in Combat" section) were expanded a bit, as per feedback/suggestions

Changes that still need finalization:

• The "Weakened" effect will probably need to be changed, in order to make it function properly with Monster Math expressions
• Expanded rules for summoned creatures i.e. when they do or do not count as allies (work-in-progress)
• Expansion/clarification of the "Nearby" position

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If you have any feedback or suggestions, please get ahold of me however/wherever you link to the blog from.
The next post should be up on October 20th, so check back then!

Power Tools (2018)

Something that I will want to look at (as classes continue to be revised) is how damage and effects are worked into various types of attacks.

One of the important considerations with any d20 system, is that requiring more rolls essentially equates to creating more possible failure points. Particularly when dealing with trying to set up "combos" during an encounter, having to succeed at multiple rolls makes the task even trickier.

4th Edition D&D would generally have encounter powers do "damage + effect" on a hit, with daily powers typically doing both on a hit, and either the effect or half-damage on a miss. In any case, you'd only roll once to determine success or failure. In 5th Edition, generally what you see happening (particularly with Monks, "Battle Master" Fighters, and Paladins) is the requirement for both the player-character to score a hit (for damage) as well as the enemy to fail a saving throw (for effect.)

I've borrowed a little bit from 5e, by allowing any melee attacks to either be used for straightforward damage, or to attempt a "brawl" maneuver. However, I do want to try and hew a little closer to 4e when it comes to building distinct powers for each class; if setting up a cool combo is part of their shtick, then that class should be able to do it with one roll.

This is where it's sort of important to have effects and debilities be well-defined within the mechanical framework. To wit, the "push" mechanic (as defined in the rules) can easily be created using a skill check (as it is currently, with the Brawl skill) but can easily also be tacked onto a simple attack feature; in other words, by not defining every "push" as being the result of a specific type of check, we can use the mechanic elsewhere, without always requiring its own check every time.

Another important consideration is action economy. If the baseline assumption (in combat) is that making a skill check uses a Standard Action, then we have a few methods by which we can make this easier, as a way to build class powers. For example, if a particular class is meant to be good at hiding, we can say, "When you make a successful basic attack, and are not in a maelstrom at the end of your turn, you can become Hidden." This effectively gives the benefit (Hidden) of a successful Stealth check, without requiring the extra roll -- again, because this is an effect that is defined outside of just being the benefit of a successful check. Alternatively, we can allow such classes to make a Stealth check as a Minor Action, or perhaps as part of a Move Action.

The final consideration within the existing framework, is the fixed "DC10 rule" coming into play. When comparing a "trained" skill check to an unmodified attack roll, the skill check is far more likely to succeed. Now some classes (or at least, specific powers) will include modifiers to attack rolls, beyond just Advantage and Expertise; this has generally been done in order to bring expected damage output up to par, without needed to inflate the number of attacks being made. So if we're building skill checks into powers (or onto other actions) then we need to be able to assume that that class will have a good chance of succeeding at that check -- meaning we need to further ensure that those classes are always trained with those skills -- and leaving no possibility of creating a "trap option" where the players unintentionally make their character ineffective.


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A bit of a rushed post today, so apologies if it's a little short and messy.
Check back October 10th for the next one!

Design Origins -- Part 5: Skills

Today I'm going to talk about the origins of the skill system in TNP, which I think is particularly important, due to the bigger role it's taking within the overall designs.


Filling in the Grid
Probably the most wide-reaching question to ask, is where did the "Core Skills grid" come from? There are a few points of influence, and (as with many things in this system) the short answer is that it's a blend of various editions of D&D, plus my own previous designs.

The actual list of skills I went with, was mostly just a blend of 3.5 and 4e -- unifying some skills where 4e did, but adding in some of the old skills it had left behind. The idea was mostly to have a slightly bigger toolbox on hand, in order to deal with non-combat situations. Professions and crafting were still left by the wayside, since there isn't any itemization or money used in TNP -- without which, those skills are largely just fluff.

After a few iterations, I would also separate what I would call "ribbon skills" (Knowledge and Performance) from the Core skills; ultimately, I never thought they were as valuable, and they never really fit into the grid (i.e. having them linked to attributes.) What made more sense, was to borrow from 4e -- by having Knowledge skills more closely linked to Power Source; Arcane classes typically got Arcana as a trained skill, Divine classes got training with Religion, etc. This also helped to give Power Sources more mechanical weight than just interacting with re-specs; generally they didn't do much in 4e, until you got deep into feats and optimization (which is a design space that I wanted this game to avoid.)


The Advent of Skillsets
As I've touched on in one or two other posts before, 4th Edition D&D had a group of class skills that were sort of ubiquitous to all "Fightman"-type classes (namely Athletics, Endurance, Heal, and Intimidate.) Similarly, the Thievery skill was limited to a very small niche of classes, and that was something I sort of wanted to preserve; there might be many classes which could be good at stealth, but deeper forms of skulduggery should still be more limited in their availability. So I was starting to lean more and more into the thought of a "skillset" really being a reflection of "what skills are iconic to this class?"

The idea of allowing classes to be built as "good at a skillset" was intended to avoid M.A.D. -- the design conceit of requiring a character to have several high ability modifiers -- in this case, to be good at their class skills (i.e. Athletics using Strength, Endurance using Constitution, Heal using Wisdom, and Intimidate using Charisma.) Essentially, the system should let you make a character that's good at all the skills in the set, without needing to be "good at" each attribute that the skills are tied to.

Another part of the thought process behind grouping skills into sets, was to allow each group to include skills for each type of encounter (combat, social, and exploration.) This would allow a character to always be able to contribute meaningfully, even if they were only good at one skillset. Ultimately, I would end up keeping skillsets aligned a bit more thematically, but I still think this goal ends up being achieved; generally, each class gets training with at least two groups of skills, which helps to cover the different encounter types.

Now, in the previous game I had worked on, there were 6 skillsets (which at various points in development were coupled and then de-coupled from attributes.)

• Athletics
• Acrobatics
• Influence
• Information
• Deception
• Detection

We can see how this setup clearly influenced TNP. Eventually, Information would become Knowledge (which was then moved to the background skills.) A friend who I had showed the designs to, asked me why I had separated Athletics and Acrobatics, and eventually I decided to just put the two together; conversely, the Deception skillset covered too much space, and would later be split into Subtlety and Infiltration.

The Fifth Element
I can remember when 5th Edition D&D was still in the playtesting phases, one of the notions put forth was that of combining any skill with any ability modifier. Ultimately, I would say that's not what 5e actually implemented, but then neither did TNP; instead, I kind of pivoted slightly, to the idea of distinct skills being the intersection of an attribute, and a skillset.

For example, instead of "Deception" just being a Charisma skill, it would be a skillset; where Deception and Charisma intersected, would be skills like Bluff or Disguise. Other "Deception" skills could be found by intersecting with other attributes, such as Sleight of Hand using Dexterity, or Forgery using Intelligence.

4th Edition D&D flirts with this sort of "mixing and matching" as well, largely due to the necessity of prioritizing your combat stats above all others. This manifested itself in the idea of replacing one ability mod with another, for certain skills. The example that always came up was the feat that allowed half-orcs to use Strength (an attribute which they got a bonus to) for Intimidation, in place of Charisma.

5e allows DMs to use this as sort of a general... piece of advice (I'm not sure you could call it a rule) when appropriate. What all these workarounds solidified for me, was the simple need to get rid of "traditional" ability scores -- the kind that govern both combat, and non-combat. Instead, by using "ability scores" (Attributes) as part of the skill grid, they serve as a second method for grouping skills -- creating another vector by which classes can be distinguished from one another.


Modifiers & Math
In 4th Edition D&D, the design around skill difficulty was something I felt was a problem, and it entirely comes down to the stacking of modifiers. When the game was released, I think the intention was that having either a high ability modifier or skill training would be sufficient to be successful with a given skill (in most cases.)

The problem was that the rest of the system strongly incentivized maxing out one or two stats, and also that there was nothing preventing a high stat from being combined with skill training. When the DCs were revised later on, it was (seemingly) done so, to take into account this sort of rampant overspecialization -- with the obvious side-effect of making it so that combining a low stat with training became suboptimal (and almost pointless, if the stat was low enough.)

So the seeds for the idea of "skill training or ability modifier, but not both" had already been planted in my head. How this manifested in my designs, was by allowing bonuses to a skill to come from either its Skillset, or its Attribute, but having each bonus apply only once -- even if the character had the same bonus to both groupings.

In the earliest incarnations of TNP (with the original slate) there had been skill mechanics based off of each class die; I quickly came to the decision that I wanted a more unified system for skill resolution (particularly as I began to add more classes.) My first thought was to use d6 and/or d10 -- again, leaning on ideas from the previous game I had written; the existing skill mechanics for all 5 class dice could simply be "rounded" up or down, to fit.

I was never sure of the exact implementation I wanted, but when I went in and crunched out the probabilities, it became obvious. The d10 on its own (when added to a d20 roll) pushed the crit chance way too high, and when combined with Expertise, it nearly pushed failure completely off the table. Since the d6 roll combined with Expertise produced comparable results to an unmodified d10 (without the drastic increase in crit rate) axing the d10, and just sticking with d6, presented itself clearly as the simplest solution. I also like that this uses one of the most common dice, sort of keeping in line with the game's more tactile-based design choices.

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That's all for today! I may dig into some comparisons of the execution of skill systems a bit more, in another post.
In any case, check back on September 29th for the next update.

Character Layouts (2018)

Some of the feedback that came out of the playtesting -- really just from new people putting their eyes onto the materials -- was that I should look into making a standardized character sheet form, and that the various bits of character generation should be listed by level.

Currently, the design of the class documents is essentially:

• Skills/Starting Feature page
• Upgrade page
• Combat page

Now, there are exceptions to every rule -- "Starting Features" aren't always combat features, but (even if they are) they're always on the first page. So that could definitely be cleaned up a little bit; probably the best solution is to have those starting features which are combat features be mentioned in both places, perhaps with just a reference on the first page, and the actual mechanics on the combat page.

Ultimately what the intention is with using this formatting, is to have the classes broken down into distinct modes of play, on a page-by-page basis: when you're in non-combat scenarios, the Skills/Starting Feature page will be used; the Upgrade page will be used during leveling-up (which may or may not take place "at the table"), and; the Combat page will be used for combat encounters.

During recruitment for the playtest, I made the suggestion (which I was taken up on, by most of the players) to add a copy of the Core Skills grid to their "character sheet." Particularly in electronic format, it's easy enough to take the class documents, and make your specific character by simply deleting any "toggle options" that were not selected. Even then, having a separate reference (outlining a character's Training and/or Expertise with skills) was found to be really helpful, and will probably constitute the backbone of any standardized character sheet, going forward.

I think if the "Combat page" aesthetic remains mostly intact, it will be worthwhile to add a listing of the Combat Skills to it as well, allowing a space for the players to mark off any Training or Expertise they may have with those skills, on that page. Really, it's kind of a no-brainer.

It will probably make sense to have extra space on both the "Skills page" and the "Combat page" to allow upgrades to be written in. Most upgrades tend to provide additional features for one of these sections or the other; the "Upgrade page" itself could be used as more of a bingo-card, for keeping track of which upgrades have been taken -- and it could also serve as a natural place to keep track of XP, as well.

I could go so far as to even split "Subclass" classes up a bit, as far as this formatting is concerned. It might make sense for the Sage, for example, to have its two subclasses use the same "Upgrade page" while having separate skill pages and combat pages, for both the Wizard and the Monk. This would kind of lay bare that some of these subtypes (within the same class) have more differences than similarities, but I think it might be a worthwhile change, for ease of use and for simplicity's sake. Breaking things up this way might also help some of the more lengthy class descriptions -- ones that spill onto a 2nd combat page -- to get back down to the one-page benchmark.

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Next post is planned to be an "origins" post, talking about the basis of the skill system.

Check back for that on September 19th.

Balancing Act (2018)

One of the distinctive features of The Next Project is the lack of a magic subsystem, and I wanted to touch on that a bit, today.

When we look at editions of D&D that use the "3.x" style of spellcasting, what becomes immediately apparent is that the classes are split into "haves" and "have nots." Ultimately, spellcasting classes are interacting with an extra layer of design -- they gain additional resource management, but also have much greater breadth of abilities.

So what do spells typically end up doing, in practicality? In short, you use them for both combat and non-combat, and generally what you're doing with them is spending limited resources to exceed baseline expectations. You can make an area attack to deal more damage than a single weapon swing, to more targets, or you can use it to overcome an obstacle -- whether that be in social encounters or in exploration. You can cast Knock to open a locked door, or cast Charm Person to get past the guard, or sway the regent, or whathaveyou. Generally when you're targeting a creature, there is a save involved, but a lot of times spells "just work" -- you're spending a limited resource, so the game doesn't make you roll.

Now, that being said, you still (as a spellcaster) have the option to not use these resources; you can swing your weapon all day, and you can try and use skill checks to get past non-combat encounters. This was sort of a problem I ran into with the Backgrounds in 5th Edition; they're a great starting point for giving characters declarative power, but everyone gets them. Spellcasters are still operating in a completely different design space than non-casters, while at the same time overlapping everything that the non-casters can do.

What I wanted to do with this game, is to even that all out: classes have their unique features for combat, and non-combat is handled using skills. That's it. We don't need magic as another layer of design that just duplicates things that are already covered; instead, it's used as a method of applying theme or flavour, to how a particular class handles combat or uses skills. We also don't want to be trying to balance off combat and non-combat utility against one another -- a classic "apples and oranges" analogy -- which is why the combat and non-combat aspects of characters are siloed off from one another, and why resource management is kept very minimal, in the game's overall designs.

This also avoids the pitfalls of having the spellcasting classes be the most versatile, powerful, and influential -- a feat which I think was one of 4th Editions greatest successes. As I've said before, the focus on teamwork meant that classes had to be designed to contribute meaningfully, and on about an even par with one another. What this allows the player to do, is to pick the class that most closely approximates the character that they have in mind, learn the ins and outs of that class, and just play -- secure in the knowledge that they haven't made a false choice, will under-perform, and feel like dead weight, bringing the rest of the party down. Balancing classes is important for enabling players to enjoy the game, by helping them to fully realize their character concepts.

Now, the problem with flattening the power curve, is that it is possible for classes to either look (on paper) or feel (in actual play) very similar to one another. This is where I think the design of TNP has the potential to execute better than some of its predecessors, because of class dice. In order for parity to be maintained, a party of 5 characters -- all operating off of different dice -- necessitates each class having unique and different mechanics. Admittedly, this requires a lot of number-crunching by the designer (me) in order to ensure each class can contribute equally. But overall, I think it's a meaningful goal to have, and one that helps guide much of the design process.


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This sort of touches on one of the snags that have hit the class designs a bit. Trying to emulate D&D-style fantasy classes can mean dealing with some classes that have too much design space, and others that have too little. In most cases with this project, I've had an easier time of reigning in bloated classes, than in expanding classes that are a bit too narrow in focus. The one that always comes to mind in this regard is the Acrobat, and I'm hoping I can find a satisfactory solution for this class, as well as others.

In the near future, I'm hoping I can crank out a minor revision of the current playtest rules, but I also want to finish up a few more classes -- and make some of the needed changes to the new class format and leveling systems.


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Next post should be on September 9th, so check back then!

Money, Power, Respect (2018)

A little while ago, I did a very mechanical comparison between TNP and D&D's 4th and 5th Editions. Today I want to talk about things in a little bit less-specific manner, and touch on some of the building blocks of characters.

If we look at your typical D&D edition, there are a few ways you can customize a character:

1. Ability Scores and Skills: though generally your class goes a long way to proscribing which skills and ability scores you can potentially be good at, there is generally a little bit of wiggle room within that framework.
2. Feats: little perks that can (in theory) be useful for any character, and are lumped into one big pool to draw from.
3. Spells/Powers: things that give you specific actions, either within combat or outside of it.
4. Magic Items: actually pretty similar to spells and powers, but are not constrained by class (making them similar to feats.)
5. Multi-classing/Dual-classing/Hybrid: combining two or more classes together, to get perks from both.

As we can see from these descriptions, a few of these building blocks overlap one another, somewhat. We can break these things down into essentially two broad descriptors: things which come from your class, and things that don't. Ultimately, what I wanted to do with TNP was to eliminate the customization that comes from outside of your class.

I can remember looking at 4th Edition D&D, just seeing Cleave as a power that Fighters could take (rather than a feat, as it had been in 3.5) and I really liked that simple change. I also liked how so much of the game that (as a player) you could really figure out by simply having an understanding of your class, and the powers you got from it.

When Essentials came around for 4th Edition, it sort of "missed the target, but hit the tree," for me. Where I felt 4th Edition needed simplification and streamlining, was in the areas of both feats and magic items (things from outside of your class) rather than with powers (things from within your class.) The fact that the former design spaces (which were meant to be the most universal) were the ones that became the most bloated, served to make the game more and more inaccessible as its lifespan went on.

Magic Items tended to be the big offender in this regard, in my view. They essentially duplicated the design space that I felt should have been owned entirely by classes. It also served as a crutch for weak or poorly-designed classes; I can remember playing as a Scout, and basically needing to incorporate specific magic items into my build (for basic survivability, in combat) because the class itself failed to provide those tools.

You also end up with less uniqueness to classes, once customization starts to homogenize things too much. The standard "Charge kit" for 4th Edition could be basically built onto the chassis of any class, creating an effective (if boring) playstyle around feats and items, rather than being built through your class and its powers.

Really, this all just boils down to my personal preference, and my experience. My introduction to RPGs was with Diablo 2, and I was immediately captivated by the whole "skill tree" setup for classes. Once magic items which granted cross-class skills were introduced (and the game's true focus on merely farming items became apparent) I was no longer interested. I much preferred the idea that your character was a function of your class, and how you chose to build your character within that class.

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So how does money figure into all this?

Well, in short, it'll tie into something I mentioned in my previous post; the need for skills to be bigger and more fleshed-out, within the designs.

Money (particularly in the last few editions of D&D, as well as 13th Age) has sort of waned in importance -- the games simply don't give you enough to do with it, or don't properly account for the amount of gold you tend to end up with. (I've even heard it suggested that in 13th Age, money could be used as a "temporary background" as a way of simplifying the whole process of using money.)

The way I look at it, is that money is just yet another thing that comes from outside of your class, which is used to define what your character can do -- so get rid of it.

Weapons? Armor? Those are all functions of the core mechanics now.

Why not take it a step further?

We aren't gonna be buying magic items, clearly. So what does that leave (in the typical D&D play-experience) to spend money on? Equipment and services.

Potions? We have Reserves to cover our healing, and keep the mechanical structure unified.

Lockpicks? Battering Ram? We have skills that cover this design space; just make a check, and narrate it however you want. Whether or not 'Jimm, the Fighter' brought the right tool for the job when he goes to break down a door, is just an exercise in needless bookkeeping. It also makes the inanimate object more crucial to success than the character, which flies in the face of what we want to achieve.

Want to rent a room? Buy a wagon? Get a few horses?

Make it into a roll, using your social skills. If you rolled bad? Then it looks like you're a little short on coin today -- so tell us a story of where all your money ended up, last night.

If the DM wants to make it a little harder on you, then not being able to sleep with a roof over your head (or a wagon full of supplies) might end up costing you a Reserve.
Not being able to get horses to cover ground faster might mean the doomsday clock moves a bit closer to midnight.

In every case, the money isn't the important thing -- it's what happens in the fiction.

All this, coupled with the existing guidelines for skills, should help us figure out how money can be handled in the abstract. "You couldn't possibly have enough money to bribe the king," the DM says, adding, "don't even bother rolling."

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Next post is due August 28th, so check back then!

Crunch Time (2018)

As was kind of expected, playtesting showed that the game isn't fully ready to be released "into the wild."

Since the game's non-combat aspect leans entirely onto the skills, it will be important going forward to have this facet of the game a lot more thoroughly defined. The mechanics of each skill, the basic assumptions of what happens outside of combat, as well as who commands the flow of the action (and when) will need to be codified. I think it will also be important to define when and how to fall back on Attributes, Skillsets, and Power Sources, i.e. when there may not be a specific skill that covers a certain type of action.

The "monster workshop" guidelines will need more testing; there were some flaws with the theorycraft behind solo monsters, and I can only assume that the same will be true of the other new monster types. Likewise, the rules for summoned creatures need to be expanded upon -- specifically, when they should or should not be treated as "allies." Mechanically, the Ranger's animal companion needs to be reworked, since it can potentially soak a lot of damage, with no real penalty or drawback if it's killed; it can simply be 'recast' on your next turn.

Another thing that was shown to be troublesome was various passive and defensive buffs. Boosts to defense rolls can be disproportionately powerful, since a character can potentially make several of them in a round. Whereas bonuses to attacks are generally limited to Basic Attacks, which (among most classes) happen only once, on their turn. The need to balance off these different types of benefits was reflected in the updated Cleric class, which I wrote during the course of playtesting. Always-on buffs will need to have their effectiveness scaled, to match their projected frequency, or simply have that frequency adjusted to match their potency.

A few of the more basic concepts of the game need to be defined -- "Death and Dying" (so to speak) being one of them. I mentioned previously that Reserves are meant to function as out-of-combat HP top-ups, but the mechanical ability to use them needs to be cleared up a bit. Can you spend Reserves at the end of combat, if you are "dropped"? Does initiative immediately end when all enemies are defeated, or should you finish out the round (potentially letting support characters get more healing in)? These kinds of things need to be explained in the text. "Expertise" (I feel) also needs to be straightforwardly called out as simply a piece of mechanics jargon, or it needs to be renamed (because it continues to cause mental logjams with new readers/players.)

Last (for now) is the fact that I need to finish writing the remaining classes, which also means needing to crunch their damage numbers, and make sure everything balances. The class features all need to be reformatted, and the slate/category upgrades need to be instituted across all classes. The "Performance" progression needs to be ironed out and finalized; some classes being able to gain it as an option at 1st level, but with no actual benefit until 2nd level is something that needs to be fixed. "Subclass only" and "Archetype only" classes will need to have unique and interesting upgrades available to them.

Once the classes are set, they will all need to be tested, re-tested, and re-balanced; if the playtesting has shown anything, it's that things are never as close to completion as they seem, and that the devil is in the details. For the game to reach a finished state, there will need to be a lot of bug-squashing; I'm hoping I can find faster ways to identify problematic, vague, or breakable mechanics, going forward.


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Keeping with the blog schedule, the next post should be up on August 18th, so check back then.