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.

Design Origins -- Part 4: The Core Mechanic

And we're back!

Today I want to talk about one of the more basic, mathematical conceits of the system, and how I eventually settled on it -- specifically, the "DC10" rule.

When you look at the basic resolution mechanics for d20 systems, it shakes out something like this:

Attack: d20 + ability modifier + proficiency bonus
Armor: 10 + ability modifier + armor bonus

My immediate thought was to strip away the extra modifiers, and just go with d20 vs. 10. This way, it keeps the math streamlined and balanced across the various classes in the game.

I also like the way that Apocalypse World has the 3 different ranges of results, based on 2d6. Similarly, TNP breaks down into miss/hit/crit, but based on the d20.

The fixed "DC10" rule also lends itself to using the Advantage/Disadvantage mechanic. Because the range of numbers does not have to be continually increased (with bigger/higher/more modifiers) to hit escalating target numbers, a mechanic like this can be used to tinker with probability more consistently and elegantly.

This also touches on one of the weird quirks of systems with increasing modifiers -- you end up with one of two outcomes: either the difficulty increases in a manner proportional to your capability increasing (thus keeping the actual math relatively flat), or; your capability increases, while the difficulty remains static (in which case... the game starts out hard and gets easier.)

If our goal is the former, then the easiest way to ensure that the math is as flat and balanced as possible, is to strip out modifiers where we can, and avoid inflating numbers -- which is ultimately what TNP ends up doing.

Another idea I borrowed from, was the 'feel' of the roll-under mechanic. Generally how this works within d20 systems, is you have your standard ability scores (generated by rolling 3d6, producing a range of 3-18.) Then, (to make a skill check, for example) you roll a d20 against the appropriate ability score, and try to "roll under" that score, in order to succeed.

What this means mechanically, is that having a higher score increases your odds of success. Most d20 systems use the conceit of "you want to roll high" thus making bonuses additive, and a little easier to wrap your head around; in a roll-under system, you actually want to subtract from your roll to increase your odds of success, thus your "bonuses" end up being negative numbers -- which is a little counter-intuitive.

But I liked the basic idea of rolling 'against' your number (in order to succeed) rather than rolling against the enemy's number. This helped to unify the mechanics of Attack/Defense/Skills within the designs; the PCs always roll, you always want to roll high, you add/reroll dice for your bonuses, etc.


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Next post should be up on August 8th, so check back then!

Classes, Now in Session (2018)

So, I didn't finish all of the classes that I wanted to, but I'll update this post with links to them here, as well as in the core rules doc (in the sidebar) as I get them finalized.

• The Druid (d4)
• The Rogue (d6)
• The Cleric (d8)
• The Occultist (d10)
• The Spellbinder (d12)

The first class I got done was the Druid; I think it still needs a few more checks (in terms of math) but I like how well it fit into the new formatting and progression systems, and overall the class is just a lot cleaner now. I'm still a little iffy on breaking the forms into upgrades, but hopefully some testing will give a sense of whether each one is useful enough to justify it.

Next up was the Occultist. It helped that Druid was already out of the way, because the two classes share a "category," and so ended up being structured fairly similarly. One major change was to no longer have Eldritch Blast and Animate Dead as "role features," instead making them part of the core class, and splitting up Banishment, to give each role a more distinctly-flavoured version. Curse was likewise broken up, with the basics of it made into the class' "starting feature."

I then moved on to the Cleric. There were a few more outdated mechanics here than in some of the other classes, and a few more tweaks that needed to be made. Cleric has always been sort of a "vertically integrated" class, but it has enough room for customization, that it can be built in a handful of different ways. I'm particularly happy with some of the changes to Bless and Divine Smite, making the class overall more built around the "double roll" mechanic.

I had a few ideas for the direction I wanted to take with the Assassin, but the Sorcerer is going to be a bigger job to tackle. In terms of the leveling, the foundations are already more or less in place, with the Ranger being part of the same "category" and already having the Sage ready, from the same slate. With the Warlock being less of a distinct class now, that could have some impacts on how Sorcerer is built.

The Spellbinder hopefully should be a quick fix; with most of the action economy stuff and combat math ironed out after the previous playtest, it will likely just be a matter of updating the 4.1 version to the new designs.

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That's all folks! This here blog is on break for summer; expect the next post on July 27th!

Why We Call Them Heroes

One of the seemingly minor changes in the latest draft of the rules, is the inclusion of the term "heroes." Today I want to talk a little bit about that.

If we look at 4th Edition D&D, this term was used to describe characters in the first "tier" of the level progression; even a level 1 character was referred to as a hero. The assumption (whether mechanical or narrative) that characters could/would/should be ineffectual or incompetent simply wasn't there. Everyone had a job to do, and your mechanics made you capable of doing it -- so your backstory had to be something that fit that level of capability. In earlier editions of D&D (which I haven't played, but have read about) Fighters, even at first level, were titled "veterans" because the assumption was that they (like other classes) would be experienced at what they do.

Another thing that was made expressly clear in 4e, was that player-characters (heroes) should not be evil or chaotic; 4th Edition simplified the "nine alignments" down to five, and (at least in the first PHB) said that PCs should only fall under three of those: unaligned, good, or lawful-good. The purpose of this was to encourage teamwork; the focus on roles and party balance meant that cooperative play was essential, and character backgrounds needed to reinforce that mechanical paradigm.

Now, as an aside, from my playing days in 3.5, one of the big takeaways that I got from looking into alignment a bit more, was that evil characters still understand and appreciate loyalty. Once you're a part of a team, there should be cohesion -- even if some of its members are "dirty" or "scummy" -- and everyone should be working towards the same goal: the big picture.

We can see all of these influences in The Next Project; it's not even really mechanically possible for PCs to attack one another. Simple things like class dice give a framework for how your team should be composed, and that everyone has a part to play, together.

Now, some of the classes in TNP have a darker, more evil bent to them -- Assassin, Blackguard, Necromancer, etc. Things such as the Shadow power source, however, should tell us about what drives or inspires these darker characters -- not be an indicator of their unreliability.


But here's what I think is possibly the most important point:

The characters we create are a heightened, stylized ideal -- a fictional conceit that we admire, from whatever media we consume. They're the brawny protagonist in an action movie, they're the cold anti-hero in a western, they're the swaggering scoundrel in a space opera. They are fantastic, and so they exist in a fantasy world. There is always something about them that we look up to (and that we hope our fellow party members and players might look up to, as well) because they are always, in some small way, a reflection of ourselves and our imagination.

We root for them to succeed, we watch them grow and change, and we fill in their past as they move forward through their adventures. We carry them over -- across editions, campaigns, settings, parties, playgroups -- and each time we do, our characters (all of them) become more and more refined. They become more real, they become more human.



So, why do we call them heroes?

Because they're our heroes.

Playtest! (2018)

A new playtest has been unveiled! So if you're a forums goon, check out the recruitment thread here; the roster filled up fast, so expect the gameplay thread to be linked soon.

Based on early feedback, I'm going to look into hammering out a unified character sheet for players to use. In the past, generally people would either just post their abilities in shorthand, or else save a copy of the class document, and simply cross out or delete any options they did not select for their character. Going forward, I'm going to try and have a form, at least to keep track of things like skill training/expertise, with some open space for Combat Features (and the like.)

I'm also going to probably rearrange the class sheets a little bit, so that Combat Features (which are generally all automatic) come immediately after Starting Features, and are then followed by 1st Level features, and then "Gaining Additional Levels." Archetype Features will most likely be at the very end, and possibly Roles, too.

Since we very quickly got to 7 applications, it kind of made me wish that I had more classes prepared by now. On the other hand, this will help test out more of the different subclasses and archetypes, so these classes will get a more thorough inspection.


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That being said, I do want to try and have the next "playtest slate" of classes ready before the summer break. I've been trying to balance off some of the class utility (in terms of skills) as well as making a point of including at least one class from each of the three main slates, and a relative balance in terms of "category" distribution.

 Here are the classes I've settled on:

• Druid (d4) [Roles]
• Rogue (d6) [Subclasses]
• Cleric (d8) [Subclasses + Specialist Classes]
• Occultist (d10) [Roles]
• Spellbinder (d12) [Specialist Classes]

As the d4 and d6 mechanics have evolved and been sharpened, some ideas for how to better execute on the Druid and Rogue have come along; I look forward to implementing those in the near future. In particular, I think the mechanic of doubling damage on a crit (currently showcased on the Fighter's two-weapon style) is something that'll fit well with the Assassin subclass.

The advent of "Starting Features" gives a design space where I think the distinctive Subclass Features from the "4.1 Cleric" can be slotted in. The Mystic class has been renamed "Occultist" but otherwise remains mostly the same -- aside from a few ideas I have for additional mechanics. I'm also looking at implementing a unique little subsystem for d10 classes.

The Spellbinder is a class that has a lot of fluff to draw from for inspiration; both of its subtypes are interesting of their own accord, but the base class itself has kind of taken on its own personality as I've written it (specifically, being a captivating and confounding sort of character.) It's hard to do much math-wise for the d12 classes, so I think they will have to rely on design spaces other than damage mechanics, to make them interesting in combat. Warlord already has the "enabling" niche mostly cornered; Spellbinder seems like it would logically lean towards debilities and status effects, so expect them to sport more of those in the next draft.

This slate does sort of lean towards the more magical side, with the current playtest slate being more "martial" overall. The classes on this 2nd slate have also seen a fair bit of playtesting already (compared to most other classes) whereas the entire slate for this playtest saw no testing during "Beta 4." Overall, the third playtest slate will be more of a balance between the two, in both of these regards.

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Check back June 16th for the next update!