What prompted your thoughts on changing Dense v. Heavy? I actually don't see that as a problem in the sense that, while a Dense environment may give you less room to wield your weapon, your weapon is going to plow through those obstructions and wreak havoc (which is sort of the whole point of a heavy weapon, right?).

As for "Medium" weapons, why not give them a bonus in Neutral Arenas? It didn't seem to me that during play most Arenas were Neutral. If anything the opposite was true. So giving an average weapon a bonus in a Neutral Arena isn't really overpowering because most Arenas aren't Neutral.

I see the "Move" train as basically a non-problem in a game like this. It is completely in the control of the GM to make such situations as interesting as he likes. This maybe deserves its own thread so I'll save my thoughts for that.

As for the "4e-isms", I think they are partly there because it's a fairly useful way of organizing and balancing those advantages. If you want to be sure that you steer clear of any 4e-ness then maybe you could go with Constant (which is somewhat different than At Will anyway), Per Arena and Event.

Event powers would recharge basically whenever the GM says so OR after you Rest, whichever comes first (if you wanted to change the icon for it, how about an asterisk since that can denote a special event and it also looks a little like the sun coming up). So you could have a situation where the PC's encounter a powerful Angel and they demand an oath from the party to fulfill some quest. If the PC's agree to do so then this Event recharges their Event powers because the GM knows that they'll probably need those powers to handle the BBEG who is part of the quest.

Per Arena is strictly more powerful than Per Encounter so those powers bear taking a closer look. Just a glance at the Thief's Backstab, it seems a bit overpowered to let them do it once in every Arena. And once per Arena Prayers of the Hurt by the Cleric means that it'll be harder to beat up the PC's. It's hard to say though because there were certainly times in the GenCon games where most of the fighting happened in one Arena because that's where the bad guys were concentrated or that's where the BBEG was. Also, doing the whole "I'm hurt, so Cleric, let's go next door into this other Arena so you can heal me some more..." is going to require a crapload of actions to pull off. Both PC's have to sacrifice two additional actions to Move to the adjacent Arena and then back again after the healing is done. It takes the Cleric three rounds to pull that off. So maybe that's going to be less of a problem than it first appears. It's likely to stand out most in a running fight that keeps moving to new Arenas all by itself.

I think I'm missing stuff because I wasn't present for some convos, but I'll jump in here.

What if you gave Medium weapons +1 in all circumstances not covered in other weapon types. This makes them better in many circumstances, but not by as much as specialized weaponry is better in its own milieu. This will provide an incentive to use normal weapons, but players will *feel* the difference when their preferred weapon comes into play.

Also, I don't like Daily powers because they encourage sleeping between combats. There's really no way to get around the mindset they engender, even if certain groups or players are able to play around that fact. Encounter powers are awesome, daily powers not so much.

If you want classes to have a more "uber" power, perhaps you could give each class a power they can activate by using an Awesome Point. Some players will choose to use their AP's to power great combat abilities, while others will not be inclined to do so. It is a way to give players choice while not tying awesome powers to the rest cycle.

Just some preliminary thoughts...

Wil

TooMuchTimeOnMyHands said:

Make an Oath: Should a dwarf be limited to making a single oath per day? I guess you lose the old school feel if you start trying to limit player options like that, but I was just thinking about someone that said "My axe will never stop swinging" every combat and how lame that might be. Or it might be awesome, not having playtested it. :D

I'm definitely going to be relooking at the 4e-isms with regards to at-wills/encounters/dailies, and I think the "daily" combat powers are pretty limiting. I suspect we're switching things to a looser system like at-wills/per-arenas/till-the-next-time-you-take-5 kinda thing.

As to someone exploiting the rules with boring redundancies, well, we can't stop unimaginative players from being unimaginative, I hardly think we need to worry about tweaking the rules to avoid enabling that.

As follow up to what I posted in the Actual Play thread, I thought I'd mention that I think it needs to be addressed how you handle combat when somebody doesn't have a weapon. It should maybe include improvised weapons too, although that might be easily handled by the GM assign any improvised weapon a category. i.e. Throwing beer mugs is Ranged, smacking somebody with a ladder is a Reach weapon, etc.

All right, I'm back from vacation! More or less decompressing for a day or two but I'm eager to start tweaking the current Playtest with the notes and suggestions from the GenCon games. I kind of hate deadlining myself but my hope is to get the next revision finished by the first week of October for those that want to run this for the DC Gameday.

Based on the notes in the OP, here's my NEW and IMPROVED list of things I'd like to get done.

High Priority:

• Rework the combat round - I plan to look through some of the excellent suggestions (mostly from Rel and Nareau) and "tighten up" the list of combat actions (including a brief thought or two on ways to prevent the "move" train), so expect a thread about that, followed by a blog post once I've revised the combat page and the combat cards.
• Monster Generation and Running Combat page - This is just to get all the ideas out of my head and onto a page so others can run Old School Hack. A page of Arena "ideas" would be awesome too, and would be the start of the "GM Adventure Generation" stuff I have all these notes for but haven't laid out yet, though that might be more mid-level priority.
• Tweak the Talent classifications - I'm starting to wonder if Daily powers, while definitely "old school", just don't work. I'm still supportive of the excitement of climactic wad-blowing and resource expenditure but I think at the, er, end of the day (pun not really intended) having a talent you only get to use usually only once a session doesn't quite fit the class explicitness I like about OSH.

Mid-level Priority:

• Rethinking the Attributes (Yet Again!) - I'm somewhat intrigued by what Ranger Wickett and his guys went with this, and frankly I guess I'm still not satisfied with the six attributes as they are. Some as written seem solid and necessary but it's obvious to me that there needs to be clearer "polarity" for contested checking for trying to do stuff. It's been brought up that I should look at making more "balance" of attribute use for various combat actions, so I see no reason not to rethink how to do that from this side of things.
• Fix-its on the Character Sheet and other Sheets - Small stuff, like rework the hit point box slightly, make room for notes on the class Inherent as per Rel's suggestion, etc. Specify somewhere that all Weapons start at a base of 1 point of damage.
• Awesome Points and Leveling Up! - This is basically a page that outlines how the GM metes out the Awesome Point economy (and can tweak the combat by pumping and healing the bad guys) and explains leveling up for when the players have done enough Awesome Stuff.
• Loot Rules - As requested by The_Universe. I've got some notes, it'll do me good to try to lay them out.
• A better Introduction page - Every RPG, even a bunch of overdesigned playtest docs, needs an intro, if anything to give shout-outs to original designers and playtesters.

Low Priority (If this stuff never gets done no big whoop)

• Finish the Map Creation charts - The idea is that the final game comes with a bunch of charts that you can roll on (or just pick and choose) and it fills out the cool little large-hex map that you see in the Playtest Docs to create a fun and easy little sandbox to start play in.
• Adventure Goals Generator - In a way this has been a bit of an Albatross and I almost like the idea of simply leaving it up to the players to create from scratch. There's also supposed to be a fun bit where after the map gets generated all the players trade turns coming up with "rumors" that they've heard about the stuff.

Anything else you guys think really needs to be worked on?

Kirin, I'm not finding _any_ of the DM tools around the site - I can refer what the Arena types mean, but can't find any docs. Are there some, and I'm missing them?

I'd love to run a playtest with our regular group, but Sarah is one of those people who simply doesn't want to be put on the spot. How do you handle the story-gameness with a player who sits back a bit?

That said, I think this is a brilliant project and I'm proud a friend of mine is doing work of this quality.

scyldsceafing said:

Kirin, I'm not finding _any_ of the DM tools around the site - I can refer what the Arena types mean, but can't find any docs. Are there some, and I'm missing them?

No DM tools yet, although Rel's posted some monster generation tools that are basically identical (but more refined) from how I ran monsters at GC. Awesome Point economy has been explained as well, though I'm not sure whether that's in these forums or in the thread at CM.

I'm making a big push on getting all the DM stuff into the playtest package this Labor Day weekend. Dunno if I'll finish, but I'll probably post another WIP document for people to look at and critique.

Some milestones have been reached, so time for a new list!

High Priority:

• Combat Crib Sheet and Cards - These need to be updated and at least for the crib sheet I need to put in some clarifications and other details on the more fiddly parts of the combat rules. The cards need to be brought up to the level of quality of the Hex Tracker. That being said, it feels great to have the system locked down. DONE!
• Monster Generation and Running Combat page - Putting together clusters of Arenas under the same theme, with some examples, and how you'd adjudicate Attribute checks for moving around in them. The different Monster Categories and how to play them and roughly calculate a challenge level. A sampling of Monster powers "purchasable" in-combat for Awesome Points.
• Awesome Points & Leveling Up page - A look at a strong economy, and a good sense of how to mete these out, and encouraging your players to reward each other. Saying Yes, how to Encourage Awesomeness instead of defaulting to "It's not in the Rules, you can't do it". Thoughts on how people who aren't being very awesome can get points. And so on. Leveling up is important, and what you get (new talent, new attribute bonus, etc.) Thoughts on Questing to get out of the Basic Game. DONE!

Mid-level Priority:

• Landscape-izing the Weapons & Arenas and the Armor & Healing sheets - These just need to be re-laid out lengthwise for consistency's sake. Also a few things on them need to be clarified. DONE!
• Treasure & Magic Loot - A sample of basic Magic Items, and how to create your own. What to do with earned gold. How reputation (and Scars) will effect your player's world.
• Rethinking the Attributes (Yet Again!) - This is still something I think is worth looking at. I just feel like we're at a point where the Attribute system is "good enough" but isn't necessarily perfect. This is something I keep waffling back and forth on changing.
• Sandbox Generation - The hex-outward method of playground creation, working the visible threat and the invisible threat. Playing with diversions. Some fun Adventure Creation tables. The importance of the Tavern.

Low Priority (If this stuff never gets done no big whoop)

• A sample map setting and a basic Adventure Idea.
• An Example of Play, maybe one page on creating a character and one page on a combat being run; great way to encourage the "flavor" of Old School Hack play.

I can't help but feel that we're getting really close to a solid, 24-page playtest book, and all the exciting announcing that that entails. I'm super jazzed about how far the game has come, and I can't wait to sit back and start thinking about the Heroic-level game, and coming up with the next chunk of Talents and ways to make the game "broader".
Thoughts?

Hypersmurf said:

kiznit said:

Thoughts on how people who aren't being very awesome can get points.

Be awesomer.

-Hyp.

Well, yeah!

So I realized today that I was missing a page to be created.

Nowhere in my rule map did I have a place where I explained, you know, making Attribute checks. I guess that since that's kind of important to the game, I'm throwing together a "Going Adventuring Page".

This has thrown off my anticipated goal of a succinct 24-page bundle. Damn it.

Definitely let me know if any of the game revisions force you to (gulp) move your bookmarks.

kiznit said:

Definitely let me know if any of the game revisions force you to (gulp) move your bookmarks.

I'll absolutely let you know when you fire me as a customer.

I can pretty much guarantee that you'll have them. I've got a short list of "people to send the final review copy to have them look it over before releasing", and you're now on it.

I'd like to run OSH next week for my group, Kiz. I've pieced together a few DM side things from the forums here and at CM, but I can't find a list of arena types and their effects.

I'm psyched. This thing is right in my wheelhouse, and I haven't been this ready to blow my players' minds in a long time.

In Old School Hack, the Senator is probably a Goblin, too. They're sneaky with that "Oh, I couldn't possibly do anything bad!" puppy eyes talent.

-Hyp.

I think posting it on the forums is the way to go. There could easily be some blind spots for those of us who have played it a fair amount already.

kiznit said:

Rel said:

I think posting it on the forums is the way to go. There could easily be some blind spots for those of us who have played it a fair amount already.

Well, it's a review copy... version point 999 or whatever, so not something I want to "officially" post just quite yet (though if it ends up being the final copy through sudden hand-throwing-up or whatever I'd be satisfied); I want Liz to look it over (if she has the time) and you guys as well just to make sure there aren't any grievous errors or just totally confusing bits, which is actually pretty likely.

Any chance of getting your latest copy now, so that I can print out a copy for my Monday game (I only have access to a printer for the next 4 hours)?

nerfherder said:

Any chance of getting your latest copy now, so that I can print out a copy for my Monday game (I only have access to a printer for the next 4 hours)?

Aw crap, sorry I missed my window.

I'm at work, too. I'll try and post a working copy on my lunch break in about 3 hours.

Aw shoot, I'm really busy at work, and won't make it home.

Regardless, I'm pretty sure I'll be posting the review copy late tonight or early tomorrow morning. Just have some layout work to finish and some tweaks on the Magic Items stuff and the Combat Cards.

Alright, the game is going through the editing process, so time for a new list.

High Priority:

• Finish the Loot/Magic Item List - Brainstorming a nice variety of magic items that encompass all the different categories, with both completely new stuff as well as covering some of the standard tropes (but hopefully with a new twist).
• Expanding the Running Combat page - There's simply too much info and advice for the single page I've got this stuff on, so I'm expanding this section into two pages and putting a bunch of the FAQ stuff in there as well as brainstorming more monster powers and the like.
• Sandbox Generation - The hex-outward method of playground creation, working the visible threat and the invisible threat. Playing with diversions. Some fun Adventure Creation tables. The importance of the Tavern.
• "Clean Up" based on various Editor Notes - There's a lot of little stuff, rephrasing stuff, fixing typos, re-organizing a little bit of the info, pushing the font-size of a few hard-to-read parts, etc.

Low Priority

• A sample map setting - I've been wanting to include a pre-made sandbox for the game, with Mistwatch, Danger Mountain, the Badlands, the Dwarven Steppe, etc. all on there in one place for pick-up-and-players.
• Some sample Encounter Maps - The Spider Pits, the Dwarven Steppe, the Rooftops of Mistwatch, etc. These would be half-page maps with the arenas laid out and labeled.

As always, use this thread to post anything else you'd like to see fixed/changed and I'll consider it.

artikid said:

You may want to have a look at this:
http://blog.microdungeons.com/

Oh yeah, Tony Dowler is awesome, I'm a big fanboy.

See this blog post:
http://www.oldschoolhack.net/2010/08/in-which-i-engage-in-some-tony-dowler-fanboyism/

Page 19, Mognol's Flying Carpet: Lose the apostrophe in this sentence
Due to some irregularities in it's creation, it can seat either one person or three, but not two.

Also, is there going to be a page listing the special effects? They're mentioned in a few places, and I'd love to see those beefed up and spelled out.

Finally, I think the combat rules should be moved up to page 13 or so. I think I'd put them right after armor and healing, to keep all those combat-crunchy things together.

Post Basic Game Release this-is-what-I-want-to-do-next list:

Expansion Packages

• Original Red Box Hack Classes - Sanglorian's already kicking ass on converting these, I'd like to lay them out and throw together some world idea notes just in case you want to play in the mystical world of Disney Bears and quasi-Eastern mysticism.
• Arabian Classes - Mark Causey laid some real ground work on this for an adventure he was hoping to run and we started collaborating on some class sheets but I know he's going through some stuff, so this may be on hold indefinitely, though I'd like to see it finished.
• Star Frontiers Classes - There's been some scattered discussion about what this would look like, but it's slightly more involved because beyond the different classes the weapon and armor (force-field) types would require restructuring. Still, it'd be great to see the OSH system in a sci-fi setting.
• An introductory OSH adventure - I actually have no idea what this would look like since I don't want to betray the "adapt the adventure to character concepts" aspect of the game, but I definitely want to push out of the box playability of the game even further with a nice instant adventure set.

Core Game stuff

• "Deluxe Version" of the Basic Game - This would be the next version of the game that I would ultimately like to see, that would hopefully include not only the next set of tweaks/crowd-sourced errata, but possibly the sample adventure noted above, an adventure sandbox toolkit (which in truth was some of the very first OSH design work I did), more encounter advice (and possibly some Actual Play) and some nice art (including some sample encounter maps. If bound paper copies of this game are ever to exist, this would be the version I'd want.
• Playtest of the Heroic Tier - The most daunting (but also most exciting/challenging) project for me, which is trying to come up with all the advancement ideas, power scaling, and so on that I know we'd all like to see. Development of this would certainly involve running a truly full-on OSH campaign for my group and really taking the time to see what works and what doesn't, so it'll be awhile, sorry guys.

Sanglorian said:

Hi Kirin,

Have you considered leaving the Basic Game as is until you've published the Heroic and Mythic tiers, and then revisiting it after we've all learned a bit more about the system and seen its flaws? It seems to me, we won't know what tweaks are worth doing until we've strained the system by taking it all the way to level 12.

Just a thought.

That's good advice. At least until after the Heroic playtest is done, to see if any adjustments need to made.

In all honesty I have no clue what the Mythic game would look like or even if it exists in me.

If you are ever interested in collaborating on putting out a "deluxe edition" and like one or both of my first two scenarios (Road to Baffram, Tireless Archer) I'd be interested. Road to Baffram has sample encounter maps, for example.

I don't have Arabian classes necessarily, but I do have a bunch of Eastern classes, and some for a setting Matt Jackson is working on. And, my next project after the DM book (focused around a geomorph stocking system and bestiary plus treasure loadout) is "Fictive's Open Seas."

I mean, I'm content to build up content on my own blog, but if you would like to work together on some of the rulings I'm developing for further play in the "Fictive" version of the game, or other elements, let me know.