Aaron The Pedantic

Stop Pretending Harry Potter Magic Doesn't Suck Attack Cantrips are, by far, one of the most ill conceived leftovers from 4e's combat focused design. Truly, there is no real need for them in Fifth Edition. Nearly everything that could be looked at as a gap in design that necessitates these free damage tossers is addressed by some other aspect of the game. Here's why attack cantrips rustle all of my jimmies... They Belittle Mundane Attackers First thing's first. Your level1 caster doesn't expend any resources at all when they use a cantrip.  Anyone who uses ranged weaponry is suddenly at a disadvantage if they're tracking ammunition.  If you aren't tracking ammunition, there are many knockdown effects that follow, as demonstrated here:  Youtube: Why Resources Matter in D&D .  What about the melee attacker who decides to throw a weapon?  Are they expected to track THAT ammunition?  Yes?  Why?  Why is it that arrows are expected to be infinite, b...

Whew, I'm tired. I stayed up all night.  Literally.  But it was an incredibly productive night.  Anyway, you don't care about that.  I finished the rough draft of the rough draft of my new Christmas adventure, Murder 'Neath the Mistletoe.  It's a B/X style adventure inspired by LotFP's No Rest For The Wicked, my love for old Santa stories, and my fucked up desire to turn something wholesome into something twisted.  The players arrive in a tiny village with a dark secret.  Every four years, the villagers sacrifice one of their own to a coven of hags in exchange for peace and prosperity, but this year, the sacrifice survived.  Imbued with the power of the cruel hags, this Santa knock-off is coming to town to lop off some heads. This particular adventure is much more dungeon light than my usual sorts. It basically works in three phases. Phase I: Investigating the town. Phase II: Hunkering down to survive the blizzard or venturing out to seek survivor...

The Player Experience in 5E vs OSR, a Brief Comparison (Skip to next session if you want the bullet points) In Fifth Edition Dungeons & Dragons, player characters are heroes. From the very beginning, 5e PCs are well beyond the capabilities of the average populace.  They have above average ability scores, they get a full hit die + CON HP, Spellcasters start with several spells to choose from with multiple castings per day and cantrips they can use at-will. Martial classes start with benefits that put them significantly ahead of 1HD creatures, such as Fighting Styles, Second Wind, Martial Arts, etc. This also says nothing of the many skill proficiencies and expertise. This gap only increases as the game goes on. By contrast, games in the OSR tend to be far less charitable to starting characters. For a basis of comparison, we'll focus on Old School Essentials, as it's a direct retro-clone of one of the most foundational editions in the OSR, Moldvay B/X D&D from 1981.  Wha...

Now hear me out! I've spent some time thinking about this: what exactly IS Dungeons and Dragons? The disparaging remark that is often raised to voice dissent toward groups playing in a way someone doesn't like is "that's not real D&D." The rebuttal will either simply be a personal attack or a platitude somewhere along the lines of "there's no such thing as 'real D&D.'" Now, if you know my moniker, you understand that I'm a bit of a pedant. I like to use precise language with agreed upon definitions when having a debate because it's necessary for us to find our way to the truth. So let's try to define this shit. I'll put forth some definitions I've heard and I'll say my peace on them. D&D is what happens when you roleplay at a table with your friends. CoC, WoD, it's all basically D&D. Okay, this one is kind of a joke, but I've heard it said at my table before unironically. If I had to...

 THE QUESTION HATH BEEN RAISED!  The answer shall be found.  Hopefully. As anyone familiar with my blogging, my tweets, or my videos will know: I am mostly an amalgamation of a ton of incomplete thoughts.  Occasionally, those thoughts find something that makes sense, then they spit it out for others to see it and revise as needed.  Here's what I've got for magic items right now. 1. Risk vs. Reward This should be no surprise, especially to fans of old school gaming.  One of the things that really lights our fire for gaming is the desire to have to make difficult choices, and to see the ramifications of those choices.  This is the essence of role-playing (as opposed to telling a story/acting).  Here's your situation, what do you do?  Magic items have the capacity to introduce risk vs. reward in two ways.  Earning the magic item can be an exercise in risk vs. reward, and using the magic item can be an exercise in risk vs. reward. Perhaps th...

Cha'alt: Fuchsia Malaise is out!  I've got my greasy hands on the PDF and I'm going to take some time to try to give everyone an idea of what exactly this monster has.  And a monster, it is.  At 165 pages of main content and an additional 65 pages of appendices, Fuchsia Malaise gives you a hell of a lot for $15 (give or take).  Just how much quality is there in this massive quantity?  We'll see.  A few disclaimers: 1. I consider myself to be a good acquaintance of the author.  I backed the project and offered some feedback on the book during the editing process. 2. I was not given anything for doing this.  I paid for my PDF and for the hardcover. 3. The very nature of this review is going to be highly preferential.  Things that I say are something I dislike may be something that you appreciate and vice versa. 4. I'm currently running a Cha'alt game but have not (as of yet) been able to incorporate that much of Cha'alt: Fuchsia Malaise in my g...

  Why, Aaron, what an overly clickbait title you have, right? Reaction rolls.  If you've come across this blog, the likelihood that you know not only what reaction rolls are but also exactly how to use them is staggeringly high.  For the sake of everyone else, this is the idea. If you're unsure how a creature is going to react to the player characters, you roll two six-sided dice.  The higher the result of the roll, the more favorable they are to helping the player characters.  It uses a bell curve, so typically 7-9 is your fairly neutral average.  This is the chart from back in the early days. It may not be a surprise to anyone, but I don't use this chart exactly as it's written.  While I see the purpose of multiple rolls, I favor a single one, and I use it more than just for monsters. 2-5 Extreme hostility 6-7 Somewhat hostile 8-9 Neutral 10-11 Favorable 12 Helpful One may ask, "but Aaron!  This is completely random!  Why can't we consider ...

DISCLAIMER: ALL OF THIS RAMBLING IS SPEAKING WITH THE ASSUMPTION THAT YOU ARE PLAYING IN A SETTING THAT IS EITHER HUMANOCENTRIC OR VERY MIXED.  IF YOUR SETTING HAS ANOTHER RACE THAT'S THE MOST COMMON, SUBSTITUTE THAT FOR WHAT I'M SAYING HERE. I think there are a few reasons why people ultimately decide that they wish to play a nonhuman. 1. It sounds cool. 2. It looks cool. 3. It makes me better at something. #2, I don't really give a shit about.  There's nothing to really opine on.  You like how it looks? Awesome, go for it. Numbers 1 and 3 are where the real meat and potatoes are. It sounds cool, sure.  Why does it sound cool?  Is it because the lore surrounding the race is intriguing?  Perhaps there's a compelling history surrounding this race that strikes you as being fertile ground for a neat backstory?   Unless there are actual implications in the game world that come with being the race that you've chosen, this is little more than set dress...

I've had a campaign going on for a few months now.  The simplest way to explain it is to just say "I'm using these books." Let's break this down. The World The world is, in its simplest form, Cha'alt.  Straight out of the book, though I've added races from Hubris for some extra flavor.  I'll extol the virtues of ALL of these products at the end of my diatribe, but let's just focus on what Cha'alt has to offer.  Cha'alt is a gonzo desert setting that is post-apocalyptic.  Imagine if you took Mad Max, but the entire reason the world ended was actually because the Elder Gods at the edge of the galaxy were pissed off that humans were enjoying themselves with YouTube instead of going to Cthulhu Sunday School.  A war between civilization and the Elder Gods commenced, leaving the entire world a smoldering waste in the wake.  However, remnants of the high technology world still survive.  Environments with these pleasantries are as sacred as they ar...

Today, I had a player leave my game. For the first time I can recall, I had a player leave because he didn't like the system.  But was the system really the problem? I don't think so. He was a 5e player, incredibly excited about the idea of Lion & Dragon. He said he was excited about medieval role-playing, that he felt as though D&D didn't really scratch that particular itch for historical accuracy. I briefed him on how this would be VERY low magic and very grounded in medieval realism.  I welcomed him aboard with open arms. Problem is, he brought his presuppositions from 5e with him in spite of my warnings . I should have seen the writing on the wall after he argued with me about the possibility of a 6 INT Cleric in a game where a 6 is only a -1 and a Cleric is really a Templar Knight with miracles.  He got me very pissed off (an incredible feat) and I was tempted to ask him to leave then and there, but I deescalated and we were cool. I should have kn...

PLAYTEST MATERIAL One of the more lamentable things I have faced in some moments when playing Dungeons & Dragons is the realization that magic is such a particular craft.  This was more understandable in early D&D, when Vancian Magic was king.  A wizard would spend hours memorizing this very particular spell that has a very particular effect when the spell is finally triggered. Experiencing Dungeon Crawl Classics and other systems in which "spell checks" must be made with varying levels of results was an eye opening experience.  Ever since, I have fallen in love with "risky magic."  Recently, I've wondered: what if we made this a process that was less based on tables with predetermined results, and more on some simple principles that govern magic? Malleable Magic is an attempt to use these governing principles to make magic a rules-light and highly intuitive process.  It makes it so that players can innovate, manipulating magical energy to se...