Deep Dive: Skills (2024)

Rather than get bogged down in the dice mechanics and such, I want to break down what skills are actually included in TNP, and what they should be used for.
One thing I should add is that the general advice I would give if a specific skill doesn't accurately describe an action, fall back to the closest skillset first, and then fall back on attributes 2nd; for these purposes:

• Strength is generally meant to use the arms and/or upper body
  
• Agility is generally meant to use the legs
• Dexterity is generally meant to use the hands/fingers
• Intelligence is how knowledgeable you are about things
• Charisma is how knowledgeable you are about people

(P.S. this is why there isn't a distinct Swim skill: so that you can use whatever attribute you see fit, for that.)

Brawl (Athletics or Strength) is your general purpose skill for grapple, shove, trip, etc.
Climb (Athletics or Strength) is pretty straightforward; in the rules it is one of the methods of gaining high ground provided by "infrastructure." The other method is Jump (Athletics or Agility)
Break Objects (Infiltration or Strength) is meant as the equivalent to "Bend Bars/Lift Gates" from earlier versions of D&D, but in combat is meant specifically to destroy infrastructure that may be providing cover and/or high ground (at the DM's discretion.)
Acrobatics (Athletics or Agility) is meant to cover skills/actions likes Balance, Escape (Artist), or Tumble (i.e. moving without provoking opportunity attacks) as well as landing on your feet when falling, and doing a kip up.

Intimidation (Communication or Strength) probably needs no explanation, but under certain circumstances in combat it can be used to get enemies to surrender (which is mechanically just as good as being at 0 HP) in order to make this option appealing, but also potentially to speed up combat.
Decipher Script (Communication or Intelligence) is meant to be used when reading text that is written in a language foreign to you, or to crack coded messages; likewise Linguistics (Communication or Intelligence) is mean for speaking other languages and understanding the spoken word, in other languages; the general assumption is that your character would use this for languages they aren't fluent with.
Persuasion (Communication or Charisma) is sort of the opposite of Intimidation; you try to get people to go along with your line of argumentation through general positive reinforcement and the force of your personality (rather than threats.)

Lockpicking (Infiltration or Dexterity) does what it says on the tin; for more complex mechanical devices or traps, you may need to use Disable Device (Infiltration or Intelligence)
Similarly, the Forgery skill (Infiltration or Intelligence) is about creating false documents of a sufficiently convincing quality -- oddly enough, this is something I would class as a "social" skill, because it effectively is used to interact favourably with people, rather than with 'things.'
In that same vein, Disguise (Infiltration or Charisma) involves both creating and using a convincing disguise, and giving an effective portrayal of the person you are impersonating; Bluff (Subtlety or Charisma) is more about telling a convincing boast or recounting of events, that are untrue. You may very well need to make such checks while using a disguise, but you can make them under other circumstances as well.
Sleight of Hand (Subtlety or Dexterity) involves pick-pocketing or otherwise snatching items without arousing suspicion, but can also be used for planting contraband or incriminating items onto other people without them noticing.
Stealth (Subtlety or Agility) is your general 'hide' and/or 'move silently' skill.

Rounding out the list are the Detection skills.
Search (Detection or Dexterity) is meant to be used for finding things by your sense of touch, especially your fingers; the example I always think of is trying to quickly find the right coin or key, in a stuck drawer -- where you can fit your hand in, but can't actually see the contents.
Investigation and Perception (Detection or Intelligence) are lumped together here, largely because there is no 'Wisdom' attribute in TNP, but also because they seem to often be used interchangeably in 5e. Perception from 4e onwards has been the combination of 3.5's 'Listen' and 'Spot' skills; Investigation... well, it isn't quite 'Appraise' or 'Search'... but it seems to be "solve puzzles/riddles through brain power rather than sensory input."
Insight (Detection or Charisma) is your lie-detector and/or 'Sense Motive' skill -- pretty standard.

As for the knowledge skills, they're kind of a mixed bag of knowledge/exploration skills, as well as kind of a sub-set of social skills:
Arcana (Arcane power source) is your general knowledge of magic and the occult, other planes, spellcraft, etc. As in 4e, this would be the skill check you make to 'detect magic'
History & Geography (Martial power source) is your knowledge of pertinent historical events and places of particular significance; in 3.5 this was (as you might guess) two separate skills, but I felt it was worth combining them together.
Religion (Divine or Arcane) is generally associated with monster knowledge about the undead, but could also apply to demons/devils; deities, mythology, religious traditions and ceremonies, etc.
Wilderness Survival (Primal power source) generally covers any uses of 'Survival' (including the Use Rope skill) or the Nature skill, as it pertains to things other than animals/beasts... Animal Handling (Martial or Primal) involves using, training, or communicating with animals (whether through basic verbal or visual cues, or magical/telepathic means) including using them as a mount (i.e. the Ride skill)
Dungeoneering (Arcane or Shadow) typically involves knowledge of caves and caverns, but often is about places like the Underdark, and its denizens.
Medicine (Divine or Primal) generally functions like the Medicine skill in 5e, or the Heal skill in 4e or 3.5; this would likely also cover your 'Detect Poison & Disease' spell/ritual.
Streetwise (Shadow power source) essentially functions like your 'Gather Information' skill, when dealing with the (figurative) underworld; Local (Martial or Shadow) functions similarly, but for commoners or "middle class" people and societies; Nobility & Royalty (Divine power source) is essentially the upper-class version of this sort of skill.

It's probably worth mentioning who got these as 'class skills' in 3.5:

• Local -- Bards, Rogues, Wizards
• Gather Information -- Bards, Rogues
• Nobility & Royalty -- Bards, Paladins, Wizards

• Handle Animal -- Barbarians, Druids, Fighters, Paladins, Rangers
• Ride -- Barbarians, Druids, Fighters, Paladins, Rangers
• Nature -- Bards, Druids, Rangers, Wizards
• Survival -- Barbarian, Druids, Rangers
  
• Use Rope -- Rangers, Rogues

• Heal -- Clerics, Druids, Paladins, Rangers
• Religion -- Bards, Clerics, Paladins, Wizards

• History -- Bards, Clerics, Wizards
• Geography -- Bards, Rangers, Wizards

• Arcana -- Bards, Clerics, Monks, Sorcerers, Wizards
• Dungeoneering -- Bards, Rangers, Wizards

Meanwhile in 4th Edition (sorting the PHB1 & PHB2 by power source)...

• Arcana was extended to Druid (primal), Invoker (divine), Shaman (primal), Warlock (arcane)
• Dungeoneering was extended to Rogue (martial), Sorcerer (arcane), Warden (primal)
• Heal was extended to Barbarian (primal), Bard (arcane), Fighter (martial), Shaman (primal), Sorcerer (arcane), Warden (primal), Warlord (martial)
• History was extended to Druid (primal), Invoker (divine), Paladin (divine), Shaman (primal), Warlock (arcane), Warlord (martial)
• Nature was extended to Barbarian (primal), Shaman (primal), Sorcerer (arcane), Warden (primal)
• Religion was extended to Invoker (divine), Shaman (primal), Warlock (arcane)
• Streetwise -- Bard (arcane), Fighter (martial), Rogue (martial), Wizard (arcane)
  

In TNP, classes generally lean towards one or two power sources, with a choice of another (Acrobat is the only class that sort of fits into any of the 5 power sources)

• Paladin (Divine/Martial; Arcane or Shadow)
• Cleric (Divine; Martial or Arcane)
• Druid (Primal; Arcane or Martial)
• Rogue (Shadow; Arcane, Martial, Primal)
• Warlord (Martial; Divine or Primal)
• Spellbinder (Arcane/Martial; Divine or Shadow)
• Occultist (Arcane/Shadow; Primal)
• Adventurer (Martial/Primal; Arcane or Shadow)
• Barbarian (Martial or Primal)
• Bard (Arcane/Divine; Martial or Shadow)
• Sage (Arcane/Primal; Martial or Shadow)
• Ranger (Martial/Primal; Shadow)
• Guardian (Martial/Primal; Arcane or Shadow)
• Fighter (Martial; Divine, Primal, Shadow)

So if we were to, for the sake of argument, combine the 4e and 3.5 class skill lists, and try to represent them in TNP, a few examples would be:

• Paladin: Divine (Nobility & Royalty, Medicine, Religion) + Martial (Animal Handling, History & Geography)
• Cleric: Divine (Medicine, Religion) + Martial (History & Geography) + Arcane (Arcana)
• Druid: Primal (Wilderness Survival, Animal Handling, Medicine) Arcane (Arcana, Religion) + Martial (History & Geography)
• Barbarian: Martial (History & Geography, Animal Handling) + Primal (Wilderness Survival, Animal Handling, Medicine)
• Ranger: Martial (History & Geography, Animal Handling) + Primal (Wilderness Survival, Animal Handling, Medicine) + Shadow (Dungeoneering)
• Fighter: Martial (Animal Handling) + Primal (Medicine) + Shadow (Streetwise)

...

Anyways, this is getting long-winded and ramble-y. But hopefully that illustrates how skills are supposed to be used, and how I've tried to recreate the class skill lists from D&D, while coming at it from a slightly different angle. Things have been expanded a little bit where I felt it was needed, but I've tried to more or less be faithful to the "source material." With 4e including skills like History for Warlords and Paladins, it made sense to me to put that as a Martial skill, for example (even though Fighters for some reason didn't get History, but I digress.) Likewise, being able to mix Primal skills with Arcane and/or Martial skills goes a long way in making TNP classes like Druid and Guardian feel like the ones they're inspired from.

Next post is due up on September 10th, so check back then!

Taking Shape (2024)

With the onset of "D&D 2024," I've been following some of the content explaining the changes that are forthcoming. When I learned what the changes to the Monk's mechanics were, I just thought, "They gave the Rogue's Cunning Action to Monks, and slapped ki enhancements on top of each of the options." Now, those who have followed my journey through 5th Edition may have heard my opinion that Monks are too combat focused, and needed to either get some utility cantrips, or they should be made into skill experts (like Rogues or Bards.) This latest edition change just sort of cements the fact (to me) that Monk works best as a specialist Rogue; you could even give the class both Stunning Strike and Sneak Attack, but limit them to using one or the other, once per turn.

Since my designs for the "TNP sequel" are leaning towards a tighter, focused slate of classes, I think this is probably the direction that I'm going to go with Monks, insofar as they are included at all. Likewise, I don't think there will be distinct Fighter and Barbarian classes, or Ranger and Druid for that matter; there will likely be some form of subclass or possibly "talent tree" system that will gate off certain mechanics, in order to emulate such classes. I think a game like Diablo 2 (as is often the case) would sort of be the obvious inspiration for how to execute "broad classes that specialize into narrow classes" but to be honest, World of Warcraft might be a better example of this.

Now, tentatively, I've decided on how I want the attributes to function, with regards to combat. Put simply, you will be able to use STR or DEX with any weapons (d4, d8, or d12 -- melee or ranged) that you are proficient with -- but not all classes will be proficient with d12 weapons, and those that are proficient will favour STR. Likewise, caster classes will be able to use either INT or CHA as their spellcasting stat, but certain classes may use one over the other, when it comes to their actual class features. Agility (the 5th attribute) will be the initiative stat.

With that in mind, I'm thinking that attribute scores will also be used as damage modifiers for weapons (and maybe spells) but not as attack roll modifiers. I like the idea of using the "weapon die" as the attack modifier, but I think for class features and/or "teamwork" abilities, the highest d6 in the pool should be able to be used either: a) as an attack and damage bonus, in addition to the weapon die, or; b) instead of the weapon die, but allowing all bonus d6s to be used as damage. The former would lead to more-but-smaller crits, whereas the latter would lead to more-but-bigger normal hits.

So, for example: using a d12 weapon, with a 3d6 bonus...
a) would let you add the highest d6 to the (d20) attack roll; you could also use the d12 in place of the d20 [d12 attack bonus may have other functions]; your damage would be the 1d12 + the highest 1d6 + STR mod, and a crit would add 18 damage to that
b) would let you either add the highest d6, or use the d12 in place of the d20; your damage would be 1d12 + 3d6 + STR mod, and a crit would add 30 damage to that

In terms of the actual numbers for attributes themselves, I'm still thinking of keeping with them all starting at +1 -- which means we're assuming 1d10 for skill checks, and not 1d20. Then, your class would most likely dictate a +2 to one attribute and a +1 to another (or possibly just a +3 to one) with an additional floating +1 to be added freely wherever you'd like -- including to a stat that already gets one of your class bonuses. I think the bump from 2d6 to 3d6 math is compelling enough, but getting a 3rd stat from 1d6 to 2d6 is also worth it, if you prefer to spread your skills around a bit. If anything, I think I may revise this down to "two fixed +1s/one fixed +2, and one free-floating +1." And I think there's certainly room for mechanics that are "+X when you Y" such that the bonus is only applied to skills and not to combat uses of attributes, if desired.

I've essentially mentioned 3 classes so far, that I would intend to include. The others would obviously be some sort of Priest/Cleric/Paladin mashup, and some sort of magic-user. The question would be whether there are any other meaningful archetypes to cover, or if the subclasses of these 5 starters would cover the rest of the design space. If the assumption is that your magic-user is an amalgamation of Wizard/Warlock/Sorcerer (and perhaps the Bard fits somewhere under the priest banner, as a healing class)...? Well, at that point we've accounted for all of the design space of the core 12 PHB classes in 5th Edition D&D. But that feels like a topic that deserves its own deep-dive, at another time.

...

Next post is due up on August 31st, so check back then!

Math-o-logical (2024)

As mentioned in the previous post, TNP does not use any static modifiers. This is one of the rules which bound the system (another being that all character statistics must be derived from class dice.) Part of the reason for this is to simplify some of the math, but also to encourage "teamwork bonuses" for increasing your chance to hit, in combat.

That all being said, I feel like the flat 55% success rate just doesn't cut it; I've even heard that some D&D-alike systems have chosen to eschew attack rolls altogether. As such, one of the things I've been juggling with my future project, is having a simple attack bonus to increase the hit chance -- namely, the weapon dice mechanics, as well as the d6 pool mechanics which I've touched on in recent posts. So it's probably a good time to look at the math a little bit.

Sticking with a DC10:

• 1d20+1d4 gives us a 50% hit chance, and 17.5% crit chance
• 1d20+1d6 gives us a 50% hit chance, and 22.5% crit chance
• adding the higher of 1d4 and 1d6 to a d20 gives us a 50% hit chance, and 24.58% crit chance
• adding the highest 1d6 out of 5d6 to a d20 gives us a 50% hit chance, and 32.15% crit chance

So what does that mean, in practical terms? Well, one thing I've always talked about within the designs of TNP is that the math should have a "meaningful" chance of failure -- a number I've typically pegged between about 15%-20%, particularly for skills. If we're incorporating these sorts of bonuses into the designs of the combat math, we can see that we're rapidly approaching that threshold for failure chance; we can't really increase hit chance much higher, particularly if "teamwork bonuses" are meant to be over and above what's accounted for here.

The knock-on effect is that it brings into question the idea of using 1d10 for skill checks. Apart from the ergonomic value of using percentile d10s for an advantage mechanic, if the combat system is using d20, and is based around the assumption of a hit rate in the range of 67.5%-82.15%... then why not just go back to using d20 for skills, too? With the idea being to unify all of the dice bonuses into d6 pool mechanics, this would have the added benefit of allowing attributes to be +0 or even possibly go into negatives, while still allowing the skill math to work properly. The only big sticking point (for me) is deciding what (if anything) a critical success on a skill check should do; using a d10 vs. DC10 system neatly side-steps this consideration.

The other question is whether this scale makes more sense than the d10 skill check math:

• 1d20-1d6 = 37.5%
• 1d20+0 = 55%
• 1d20+1d6 = 72.5%
  
• 1d20+[highest 1 of 2d6] = 77.36%
• 1d20+[highest 1 of 5d6] = 82.15%

Another thing I'm considering is that while most special abilities will be keyed off of attributes (for example, a +2 DEX providing a pool of 2d6) the flat modifier for those attributes might also be used as a damage bonus, just to improve the "oomph" of basic attacks. Another use for flat modifiers might be a sort of 'mastery' mechanic, whereby a die result cannot be lower than the modifier, or could be rerolled if lower/equal to the modifier.

If we're sticking with the 5 attributes of TNP (Strength, Dexterity, Intelligence, Charisma, Agility) and we're assuming the d6 pool will consist of one attribute, plus any "teamwork bonuses," then it stands to reason that our attributes shouldn't really exceed 3 (working from the TNP cap of 5d6 "extra damage" as our baseline.) So how many "points" should we be able to spread, between our attributes? Assuming a minimum attribute of +1 and maximum of +3, we could use 10 points to give us an array of +3/+3/+2/+1/+1. I almost wonder if the better alternative is to start with +1 to all, and then have class/background/whatever give you a +2 to two stats (as in 4e) or +2 to one and +1 to another (as in 5e). I think it'll really come down to what "feels" like the "right" amount of points.

...

That wraps up another meandering post, for now.
Check back on August 21st for the next one.

Outlining the Mechanics of TNP (2024)

I felt this would be a useful time to sort of recap the structure of TNP's current designs, such as they are.

The general conceit is that each class is based off of one or two dice, referred to as class dice. Within those designs, each class has two subclasses, but may also have additional methods of character customization (such as roles or domains.) But what does this really mean? Which mechanics are based off of the class dice?

Each class has 3 damage expressions: melee, ranged, and opportunity damage. Each of these will be represented using the class dice for that class, and there may be some variance from one subclass to another within each class.

In addition, reserves, surge value, and your engagement capability are all functions of the maximum value of a class die. Your initiative bonus (and by extension, your maximum HP) is also determined using class dice. Reserves are a resource you use to restore HP, typically outside of combat; surge value determines the minimum amount of HP you regain from spending reserves (under taxing circumstances.) Engagement determines the number of "open" enemies which you can group into a maelstrom, keeping in mind the abstracted positioning which the combat system uses.

It should be noted that in order to balance out the math and general utility of the class dice, 2d4 and 2d6 are used for some of these expressions (damage, reserves, surge value, etc.) in addition to 1 each of the 5 class dice.

Another cornerstone of ths sytem is using class dice as an attack (and damage) bonus. Each of the 5 class dice may all be applied to any given attack, but only one may be used to modify the roll; dice not applied as an attack bonus are not wasted, however, as they can still be used for bonus damage.

That all being said, saving throws and skill checks do not use class dice for their bonuses, instead using d6 pools; this is part of the reason why future designs are going to be pivoting towards using d6 mechanics for other functions (such as attack and damage bonuses.) Also, as you might have guessed from the context above, I'm leaning towards standardizing on something like 10 reserves, and possibly doing something similar for HP.

Characters start at level 0 and progress up to level 5, with two separate progression tracks, basically mapping to your core competencies plus combat mechanics, and to non-combat skills, respectively. The idea generally has been that a campaign would consist of 54 encounters (using a standard deck of cards, with jokers, for randomization) spread across the 6 levels (4/6/8/10/12/14 encounters at the appropriate levels, ideally.)

The "core mechanic" is that of a DC10, sometimes known as TN10 (target number) whereby the player-characters succeed at an attack roll (d20), saving throw (d20), or skill check (d10) by achieving a result of 10 or higher. Most notably, the mechanic of "players always roll" means that the designs are sort of incongruous; monsters do not roll to "hit" (only to deal damage) but rather the players must roll to be "missed." Under certain circumstances, opposed skill checks (rather than vs. a DC10) may be used. Monster/enemy types are planned to consist of minions and swarms (both with varying numbers of hit dice) as well as standard, elite, solo, and "archenemy" villains.

In addition to various additive and "pooled" dice bonuses, disadvantage is used as a penalty, with advantage being used as a bonus for checks (skill checks and initiative checks, only) and "mastery" being used in lieu of rerolls; this mechanic allows a roll of 1 on any given die to instead be treated as whatever is the highest number on that die. TNP does not use static modifiers (+2, -1, etc.) of any kind in its mechanics.

As you can probably gather, the system has sort of outgrown its simplistic beginnings, in order to provide a broader number of possible classes to play, while maintaining mechanical and mathematical balance between those options. This is why it has become my intention to do some sort of a followup game, which manages to strip things back down and simplify them for ease of use. It has been my intention that the current designs of TNP will be compiled and formalized before the end of this year, but no real new development is taking place on its designs; all new ideas will be part of my future project(s).

...

So, the intended schedule for this "semester" of the blog looks like this:
August: 1st/11th/21st/31st
September-November: 10th/20th/30th
December: 10th, ish (to make up for the missed post from May)

Re-iterating the Designs (2024)

The current designs for attack bonuses focus on the "class dice" with the bonus essentially being a non-stacking "typed" bonus. What this means is that while you might have one of each class dice bonus (and you can roll all of them) you only actually use one of these dice as your attack bonus -- the rest are used as a damage bonus.

The way I've decided to iterate on this idea (for whatever follows after TNP) is to instead use d6s for this bonus; only the highest d6 would be used as the attack bonus, but all of the d6s will be used as a damage bonus. With the designs pivoting towards d4/d8/d12 as the "weapon damage dice," I am also considering using this roll as a bonus to the attack roll, which can be used instead of the d6 bonus. The basic idea would be a stripped down version of the TNP class dice bonuses: the d4 would be added to the attack; the d8 would be added to a miss, and; the d12 would be used in place of the attack roll (and probably crit if both the attack roll and the d12 would 'hit'.)

Now, a while back, I was looking at potentially replacing the d20 mechanic with a 2d6+mod system. The interesting thing with this, is that it essentially required that all of the modifiers be positive, in order for the mechanic to produce suitable ranges under a DC10 paradigm. This sparked a connection in my brain, since the skill mechanic in TNP essentially has "skill rank bonuses" that likewise have to be positive -- but they're a d6 bonus, rather than a flat modifier.

Building off of this idea, and porting this latest d6 mechanic onto it, I got an entirely new idea rolling. Generally skill ranks were capped at 3, but in some cases it might be possible to get it as high as 4 or even 5 (particularly with knowledge skills.) In the ethos of "extra damage dice," TNP was likewise capping at 5d6 or 3d10, both with a maximum of 30 damage.

What if we devised a system where the skill rank bonus and the attack/damage bonus were keyed off of the same modifier?

For example, a +2 DEX attribute would let you roll 2d6 and keep the highest, as a bonus to your skill checks (1d10) using that attribute. However, a Rogue might also get a perk when using suitable weapons/attacks, where they would be granted a d6 'sneak attack' bonus based on their DEX attribute; +2 would grant 2d6, with the highest roll being added to the attack roll, and both dice being added to the damage. Barbarians could do something similar with their STR attribute while raging, as another example.

I quite like how this design ethos is shaping up. The one misgiving I have is whether weapon damage dice are a meaningful enough design space, or whether the whole thing could fire off of d6 and d20 alone; would we even need/want to keep d10 for skill checks?

I also think by breaking out of the "class dice" paradigm, it allows this kind of a system to be a lot slicker, more unified, and potentially run a lot faster. I think it would benefit from standardizing on something like 10 reserves for each class, and possibly even 10 HP per character (if enemy damage is scaled back accordingly) -- rather than necessitating that these things be extrapolated off of class dice, or a constitution score. This also allows for the possibility of unifying under d6 as being the bonus die for all rolls (attacks, saves, checks, initiative, and damage) rather than having a mix of d6, d10, and class dice, as in the current ethos; this seems like a meaningful quality-of-life improvement, especially if this can all be neatly tied back into attributes.

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Time for summer break! This blog should return by the start of August, or possibly sooner (as mentioned in the previous post.)

Collaborative Storytelling?

I don't know who needs to hear this, but I have some bad news for you:
D&D is not a collaborative storytelling game.

At its roots, the mechanics of D&D are that of a wargame, in most respects; the more I watch of The Players Aid, the more convinced I am of this. What this means is that it comes from an ethos of there being some amount of balance between the opposing sides, but that ultimately there are winners and there are losers. This is something which is sorted out by the rules of combat and the rolls of the dice. To wit, whether or not your character lives or dies at the end of a combat has nothing to do with what is "narratively" or "thematically" appropriate; the sport of D&D combat is the only determining factor in your survival.

Now, I've heard of RPGs where characters only die when they "want" to (such as when it is narratively appropriate, a meaningful sacrifice is being made, etc.) But I don't even need to go that far; I can point to something as simple and mechanically D&D-like as Knights of the Old Republic to give an example of the PCs basically never dying. One could similarly point to the Mass Effect franchise as an example of party members only dying when it is narratively "earned."

D&D doesn't do this at all. And I'm not even necessarily saying that it should. What I am saying is that unless a system mechanically supports character death as being narratively driven... it won't be. So, if you're expecting D&D to be a game where you build grand narratives with your party members, then at best you're likely going to have to fudge things in order to make it so.

I guess this is all to say that, you can reduce the lethality of a D&D-like game, in order to improve the longevity and consistency of a party, so that collaborative storytelling can take root... but you do so at the risk of losing any sense of stakes, or at least create the necessity of coming up with better, more meaningful stakes than just "live or die [and respawn with Jimmmmm, the Fighter, at the next town.]"

I also think that in pursuit of accessibility and simplicity, D&D fails at being a sport -- and collaborative storytelling suffers as a consequence of that. When combats seem abritrary and unfair, death seems cheap and meaningless (and don't get me started on traps). I really think in a lot of ways, that D&D has lost its direction, because it has no identity; it can't decide what it does or does not want to be, because it wants to be everything to everyone -- and fails.

And this is why I've always felt that the focus on mechanics is so important, when it comes to TNP. The combat in the game may feel more like a pro-wrestling match than an actual fight, or even a team sport -- but it should ultimately be challenging and fun, and punctuate some of the drama. The DM shouldn't have to feel like they need to pull punches in a fight, for the sake of the narrative (nor should they feel like they need to punish in-character or IRL actions with things that happen in combat.) This is why I think that the idea of a "collaborative storytelling" RPG is sort of... aspirational? Because the mechanics just have to work, if you want to have any of that other stuff just work, too.

I've never looked at systems that are purely narrative and really felt like I was playing a "game" when I did it; if anything, it felt like a "choose your own adventure" where you inevitably have very bad things happen to you (with little or no agency over them) because that's what's deemed to be "dramatic" or "interesting" or what drives the story forward: failures, shortcomings, debts, etc. It always feels weird, and unheroic. And frankly, I come to TTRPGs from the Diablo 2 paradigm, of basically being a huge badass; playing as a shitfarming peasant just isn't want motivates me, in the RPG space -- never has, and possibly never will.

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Anyway, I guess that's a topic that's been on my mind, as I play through my 5e campaigns, in what clearly is the twilight of this edition. I hope some of you are at least able to gain something from my occasional rambling post, such as this one.

Next post should be up sometime after the 25th but before the end of June; I may do one post near the end of July as well, but we'll see.

Filling in the Grid: Roster Construction (2024)

A topic that came up in the TNP Discord recently (piggybacking off of the last blog post) was how to determine the roster construction in an RPG. In my previous designs, there were effectively 6 "classes," built off of a chassis of picking whether you were a (martial) warrior or a (spell) caster, crossed with whether you used light, medium, or heavy "armaments" (effectively, armor, in a damage-reduction role.) This mapped pretty closely to the vanilla World of Warcraft classes, but was actually built off of the classes I had sketched out for a presumptive (at the time) Diablo 2 follow-up; Mage, Warlock, and Cleric being the light, medium, and heavy casters (respectively) with Rogue, Hunter(? I think?), and Knight being the warrior classes.

4th Edition D&D started off with a similar ethos to where TNP is now, so let me explain that a bit. 4e was essentially trying to take the pre-existing D&D classes, and map them onto what I refer to as "the intersection of a role and a power source." So for example, Clerics (being a holy healing class, generally) were given the 'Leader' role and the 'Divine' power source.

(As I've probably said before, power sources didn't matter much, until you get into bolting specific feat perks onto your powers; generally power sources informed what your default trained skill would be, as well as your class skills -- this being more or less what got carried over to TNP, mechanically.)

So, with the first PHB, 4e introduced 3 power sources: martial, arcane, and divine. Since the book contained 8 classes, the intention was to (more or less) have 2 classes for each of the 4 roles; famously, this didn't work out because the "martial controller" was nowhere to be found in the designs (until the Hunter subclass, in Essentials.) But the formula for how to "fill in the grid" in 4e was already taking shape; PHB2 added the Avenger (striker) and Invoker (controller) classes to fill out the divine power source, which already included the Cleric (leader) and the Paladin (defender) from the first PHB.

The 2nd PHB also codified Druid away from being a "divine" spellcaster, making the 'Primal' power source its own thing, for really the first time in D&D. The design was kind of kludgy (owed mostly to the fact that Druid is kind of a hybrid, "do everything" class insofar as it's roots in 3.x editions of D&D) so pinning Druid down into the controller role felt sort of forced; to wit, the Essentials and post-Essentials versions of the Druid took the class into completely different directions and roles.

TNP essentially came at its roster construction from the same place as 4e: taking what came before it, and trying to fit it into a defined framework -- namely, class dice. With the earliest iterations of TNP, every class was based off of a single die (either d4, d6, d8, d10, or d12) meaning that a "slate" necessarily needed to have at least 5 classes (whereas every power source in 4e ostensibly should aim to have 4 classes, one for each role.) TNP pretty quickly expanded from one slate into two, and as soon as the 2nd slate was finalized, it began spilling into a 3rd. This is how we got to the current roster of 15 classes.

With the decision to implement a 2nd class die (instead of having just one, for every class) TNP would have had to either expand to a 4th slate, or contract down to just two slates -- in order to keep the class die utilization "balanced." Instead, one slate was kept as single-die classes, while the other two were used to make up all of the 10 combinations of class dice. Similar to 4e trying to fit Druid into a single role within the Primal power source, TNP ended up with "class categories" to try and fit classes into a 'role' within their slate -- which would then make for mechanics/progression that could be mimicked on classes within the same category, on other slates. For what it's worth, I think this works very well on the 'Skill Expert' and 'Jack of All Trades' categories, but is a little shakier for the others.

So why do I bring this up?
Well, it's beginning to seem more and more likely/obvious that there will be an "after TNP" game, in my design future. That said, I think it is worthwhile to ponder, what sort of constraints or framework should be used when deciding what classes to include or exclude from the designs.

TNP has 15 classes, and with subclass mechanics taken into consideration, it tries really hard to at least cover the design space of (if not necessarily faithfully reproduce or "pay homage" to) the 40-odd classes/subclasses presented across the span of 4th Edition (the Psionic classes being the notable absence, in TNP.) Compare that to 5th Edition, where they've started with 12 classes, and more or less just built onto those (adding the Artificer and Blood Hunter, later on) mostly with things that are recognizably prestige classes from 3.5, or (arguably, such as the sprinkling in of Warlord mechanics onto the Fighter class) inspired by 4e.

You can even go back to something as seminal as Final Fantasy 1, to get a sense that 6 classes is kind of the bare minimum; compare that with the "core 4" in D&D of Cleric, Fighter, Rogue, Wizard, and the 5e version of "essentials" making Bard the de-facto 5th class. (You could make a case that this maps to "one class for each ability score [excluding CON].") TNP, by its nature, necessitates 5 classes being the minimum -- although if the framework is shifted from class dice to anything else, this could quickly change.

The question I'm posing to myself is, how many classes would I want, in a follow-up to TNP?
I definitely (if I haven't made it clear in my last few posts on the subject) want to make something smaller in scale, so a straight reproduction/port of the TNP roster is probably off the table. Based on everything we've gone over in this post, 5 seems like the absolute minimum, with 12 probably being the ceiling; ultimately the framework (or "grid") will likely determine what the right fit is.

...

Scheduling is a bit jumbly lately, but I would expect the next post to be between June 15th-19th, with the 3rd post this month coming after the 24th. Stay tuned!