Amagi Goodness

The Gamebits of Amagi Games continues to fill up with all sorts of gamey goodness. Mr. Kornelsen has two new additions. Strain is a mechanic for handling character transformation. It's less about leveling-up and the like, and more about lateral moves:

The swordmaster, hand hacked off, apprentices himself to a Magus. The princess, having shunned the court, takes up archery, and begins to lose her polished manner in exchange for lethal skill.

I can see some use for this sort of thing in my Moldvay/Cook/LL hack, but I'd rather just let these sorts of things arise organically out of play.

However, I adore games with lots of complex scheming and machinations going on in the background. Keeping all those plots running requires levels of organization that I'm rarely up to. So Long Knives is great for me. Not only has Mr. Kornelsen detailed a quick and easy way to record and access information on the political maneuverings within a campaign, he's also included a fillable, saveable PDF form to help out! I haven't had a chance to really play with it yet, but it looks perfect for my needs.

Old School and New: the Aesthetics of Layout

Gallons of digital ink are being spilled all over the grognardy intrawebs today about “old school” art and the place of such aesthetics in new products. It started with James Maliszewski’s review of Matthew Finch’s The Pod-Caverns of the Sinister Shroom. That led Noisms to wax a touch ranty on the knee-jerk reactions against innovation he sees as a toxin that limits the appeal and growth of old-school gaming. Matthew Finch responded in the comments of this response by Mr. Maliszewski with a wonderful exegesis on the art of the original publications of Dungeons & Dragons. I especially appreciate Mr. Finch’s insight into “the moment of decision” versus “the moment of action”.

Tastes, of course, can differ (just see Mr. Maliszewski’s comment about Elmore’s art being “soulless” in that last link, an opinion that will receive no support in this blog). One man’s art is another man’s birdcage lining. And I certainly will not advance the notion that the succession of RPG rules, from the early ‘70s to now, intrinsically follow any sort evolution or natural progression from worse to better. Reactions to a set of RPG rules are as subjective as reactions to a style of illustration, just as they are as much influenced by what the observer is looking for as by what is actually there.

Page layout, however, has undeniably advanced in real and important ways in the nearly forty years RPGs have been with us. This is due in part to technology, which gives just about anyone reading this blog tools for layout and composition that would have been the envy of the folks who put together the original little brown books of D&D. In addition, the science of ergonomics, which deals with how people read and learn as much as it does adjusting your chair to avoid carpal tunnel syndrome, has given the graphic designer additional tools for arranging text to make it easier to read and use. If there’s one place where aping the styles of the past is foolish, it’s in layout and design. Gygax, Moldvay, and the rest did the best they could, but their tools were not up to the standards of even the most casual weekend-publisher today. So, inspired by the comments on old-school aesthetics and the impending Worldwide Adventure Writing Month, here are some simple layout and design techniques to help people get more out of the adventures you write.

Taste the Rainbow
One thing those old modules lacked was color. The interiors were entirely black-and-white. On one hand, this is can be a strength. Printing these old modules from PDFs and the like doesn’t eat through an entire color cartridge. Also, too many designers just go crazy with color. While I appreciated the aged notebook feel of the 3e core books, they were also horribly busy. All that clutter exhausts the eye and makes it harder to find what you’re looking for. If you’re going to use color, remember that less is often more.

What is color good for? Transitions, for one. I’m loathe to use my own blog as an example, only because it badly needs a facelift, but this is one area where the pre-packaged layout works fairly well. Notice how each blog entry’s title is green? As you scroll down through my most recent posts, these titles are easy to find, because nothing else looks like them. You can scroll so quickly your eye doesn’t have time to actually read the words, but you’ll still know when you’ve reached the end of a post and the beginning of another by the flash of green.

You can also use color to draw the eye to important text that’s buried in the middle of a paragraph. You probably already have experience doing this. Most of us in school used highlighters to mark up our textbooks and class notes. The bright colors of the highlighter draw the eye immediately to those sections of particular note, so you don’t have to scan up and down the page, hunting for what you’re looking for. Keeping that experience in mind, have you ever found yourself hunting through the vast, grey tracks inside a module, holding up the game while you search for information? I have, and the usual culprit is stat blocks. I love the tiny stat blocks of old school games, but they very easily blend in to the rest of the paragraph they usually inhabit. Adjusting the color only slightly, adding a bit red for instance, can make them pop out more, so you don’t hold up the game while you try to find the hell hound’s THAC0.

Find Yourself in a Drop Box
The folks doing RPG design these days love drop boxes. They’re a wonderful way to include a little bit of extra info that doesn’t really fit into the main flow of the text. They can be used for parenthetical comments, to remind the GM of special cases or situations, or as a way of offering additional options or details. There are a couple of things to keep in mind when using a drop box. First, they should be short. If you’re writing more than a handful of sentences, or more than a single paragraph in your drop box, this information probably needs to find a way into the main body of your text. Second, you really want to make sure they stand out from the rest of the document. The folks at Paizo (who are some of the best in the business right now in terms of layout) make their drop boxes stand out by use of both colors (background and text within the box) and changing the font they use inside the box. The first thing in the drop box should be its title, which ought to remind the harried GM what’s in the box. “Oh, that’s right, these goblins might ally with the PCs against the ogres in area 3. I’ll just scan this drop box real quick to remind myself of the details, just in case…”

Drop boxes are also a great way for you, the designer, to speak directly to the GMs running your adventure. You can explain why your adventure is designed the way it is, suggest ways the adventure can be adjusted in response to what the PCs do, and share amusing anecdotes of what happened when you play-tested the module. Imagine how differently the history of RPGs might have gone if Gygax had been able to use a drop box to explain that the inhabitants of the keep on the borderlands didn’t have names in the module so that each individual DM could better tailor them to fit into the preferred genre or milieu.

Wisdom of the Ancients
There are some things that I loved in those old modules I don’t see much in the new ones. I loved the handouts, for instance. These were rare, but worked really well when they were used. For instance, the infamous Tomb of Horrors and Expedition to the Barrier Peaks both included numerous black-and-white illustrations of places and things the PCs might encounter. Some second-edition AD&D adventures took things even further, giving the DM maps and letters to hand to the players as these things were discovered by the PCs. Ptolus did this as well, with all sorts of handouts like official writs and menus from different restaurants.

If you’re a weekend-publisher, any art you include is likely to represent your greatest expense in publishing. That being the case, get the most bang for your buck by making that art directly useful to the GMs running your modules. I love the way Paizo gives us portraits of important PCs in their adventures, but since those portraits are often buried in the middle of the adventure, it’s difficult to share them with the players. Make it easy for GMs to show their players a sketch of the villain’s throne room, or the rickety bridge over the bottomless gorge. And please, ditch the traditional illustration of a group of heroes facing off against a monster on the cover. Not only does that picture serve little purpose in the middle of the game, but it might even spoil details best discovered during play. If you must include cover art, make it useful. Displaying the entrance to the dungeon, for instance, would be a great use of cover art.

There’s a lot more that could be said on this topic, such as the interactions between serif and sans serif fonts, the placement of elements to break up blocks of text and encourage the flow of reading, and the arrangement of tables for easy use. But right now I’ve got to go whack Mr. Maliszewski upside the head with a clue-by-four. Soulless indeed…

Stupid Random Encounter Table Tricks

Ktrey of d4 Caltrops has decided to prove that there are inspirations for cool houserules lurking on every page of the Rules Cyclopedia. Honestly, I know I don't need or want that many houserules, but that doesn't mean it isn't fun to look.

In the first of what promises to be a running series, Ktrey starts with the City Encounters subtable on page 98.

Here's a fun house-rule he offers up that would work great in urban or investigation-heavy campaigns of the sort I prefer to run:

Characters start the game with d4+Charaisma Bonus Contacts. Either randomly roll (my personal favorite) or choose some “contacts” from Subtable: 11. City Encounters. These “contacts” are people that your character knows and who are automatically considered “friendly” for the purposes of NPC Reactions. Remember that Armorsmith in the sample adventure from the Mentzer Basic Player’s Handbook who let your character trade his chain for plate? These NPCs are people have known your character long enough to do you the odd favor or two, and likewise if they needed help from you, you’d be hard pressed to refuse.

I'm not sure I'll use it in my Moldvay/Cook/LL hack (I'm tempted to allow players to invent such contacts as needed based upon their backgrounds), but it's the sort of thing that would fit very well into most of my D&D campaigns.

DungeonPunk as Setting

WyzardWhately has an intriguing idea for a fantasy RPG setting:

1. A World in the Grip of Monsters
Nearly ten thousand years ago, the last of the human empires fell. They could not stand against the dark forces and magic of the Deep Kings. Whole armies of conscripts were slaughtered or enslaved in the final battles, and fortresses were left without a single stone standing upon another. Now, the good races of the earth are forced into feudalistic serfdom for their inhuman masters. The Dragons, Beholders, Illithids, Liches, Devils, Titans, and other titanic forces of the world rule. Their kingdoms are administrated by their foul spawn, the goblinoids, humanoids, giants, and innumerable lesser monsters. They slay, kidnap, and steal as they will under color of "taxation." The true rulers do not care for the suffering of the people, so long as the production numbers stay high. Towns are walled, but the walls are to keep people in, not out.

2. The Deep Kings
A couple things are required to become a Deep King. One, you must have a large amount of personal force. This is generally represented by being at least a tenth level solo monster, higher than tenth if you're an elite. Normal Monster Deep Kings are practically unheard of (since any normal monster of that height and significance should probably have a template applied.)

The second requirement is that they have to go down, deep. Power radiates from out from the center of the earth. Stone tunnels collect and concentrate it. It disperses swiftly toward the surface. Getting closer to it, and living there, down under miles of rock...that's how you become truly powerful. So, you dig.

But not just straight down. A simple well-shaft isn't enough. You need it to be complicated, with lots of zig-zags, splits, chambers, and mazes. That keeps the power in. So, you build a dungeon on your way down. And you need a way to keep in touch with the surface. So, you get a lot of less powerful monsters to boss around. And they'll come easy, once the Power starts to gather inside you. It lets you lead them, lets you bend them to your will.

I'm not crazy about his gold -> magic -> residuum cycle, but it certainly makes the magic item economy in 4e D&D make a bit more sense. I do think adding a corruption mechanic would be fun. As you push deeper to face the Deep Kings, the corrupting power at the depths of the world begins to infect the PCs, slowly transforming them into the monsters they fight.

- Brian

GSL?!? We don't Need no Stinking GSL!

Here's something intriguing.

First, here's a bit from the 4e D&D GSL:

Notwithstanding the foregoing, except as otherwise provided in this License no Licensed Product (as defined below) will have a first on-sale date prior to October 1, 2008.

The added emphasis is mine.

Now, go here and scroll down to where it says "GenCon Releases (In Stores Early September)".

Yeah, interesting, huh?

Winning Friends and Influencing People... with Use Rope!

Yeah, I'll just let you ponder that for a while, huh?

Mr. Kornelson continues to impress with his Amagi Games project. His latest is on using usually non-social skills in social situations. I find this paragraph especially intriguing:

The somewhat more intense version of this idea is to dispense with standard social skills altogether, and use everything else as social skills. This isn’t as odd as it sounds. For groups that prefer to roleplay out social interactions, only resorting to the dice when there’s a factor that’s hard to play through involved, many of those skills are secondary appendages, a cruft that can be done without; the value is in acting it out, and the ‘normal’ die rolls are a factor that doesn’t actually deserve to be weighed into the equation. By restacking the social elements that are actually useful to this style into other skills, the excess can be done away with.

This is actually the way I've been running social challenges in my D&D games for years. I'll probably use similar ideas in my Moldvay/Cook/Labyrinth Lord hack.

Ignorant Wizards and Brilliant Fighters

Odyssey is our canary in the 4e mine these days:

It's also got me thinking that the wizard may now actually be the least complicated class to run. Everyone has the same power scheme, and if the wizard has a good team backing her up she has a lot less to juggle than the rest of the group. Which is weird, historically, but I may start recommending that the new players play wizards and ask the veterans to play defenders. Crazy edition.

I found that interesting when I read it last night, but today, I ran across this post over at RPG.net:

Group and I played through the first two KotS encounters last night and our "Tank" couldn't "hold aggro." What's up with that? As far as I could tell, the Pally did everything "by the book." He charged into the fray, he marked and marked and marked again.

But the freaking Kobolds just didn't care! They were all "-2 to hit? Whatever." And then they went ahead and killed the rest of the party!

I could gripe that maybe his mere +1 Charisma mod wasn't threat enough to make the damage from ignoring him worthwhile but, really, the point of the Defender isn't to actually "hold aggro", right? The point is to make it not worth the enemy's while to attack someone else. But the -2 to hit still left the rest of hte party as squishy enough targets that the Kobolds attacked us anyway.

And this was after the author, playing a wizard, had whacked most of the die-on-any-hit mooks.

The strikers have a fairly easy job, in that they just have to get into position to maximize their damage. This might mean maneuvering behind a foe, or flanking them. The "leader" classes (probably better called "support") just need to be in a position to bolster those who need it the most, which will probably keep them running between the strikers and the defenders. But the defenders are the ones who really need to exercise their tactical acumen. They need to both shield the softer members of the party (especially the wizards and warlocks) while also supporting the strikers. Granted, the battles in Keep on the Shadowfell are a defender's nightmare: completely open terrain with lots of highly mobile kobolds. The primary job of the defender is to fix the enemy, pin them in place so they can't go where the PCs don't want them to go, and making them vulnerable to the strikers' attacks. 4e kobolds just refuse to be pinned.

All the wizard has to do is stay away from enemies while bringing down the pain whenever they bunch up too much. It's a far easier task than the one faced by fighters and paladins. It might be more challenging than the warlock's job, or the archer version of the ranger, who both seem to be snipers now.

Vegetables at War!

Jennifer Shoonover's series, "The Vegetative State of Your Campaign" is currently in the middle of a series about plants in warfare. The latest article deals specifically with plants used in warfare during the Middle Ages. The primary focus is on Europe, but we get a few Asian touches as well. I love this sort of stuff:

Spears
Ash was the traditional wood for spear shafts—being light and very springy—so as to absorb the bending force applied when the spear point engaged the target armor without failing.

Axes, other handled weaponry
The favored Early Medieval wood for shafts was in Old English called 'corntreow' or 'gatetreow', this translates as cornel cherry. As this is from an english text and the cornel cherry is thought to have been a 16th C. introduction the dogwood seems more likely.

Hickory was for axe handles, a very tough wood that absorbed the shock impact forces generated in use.

She also talks about plants as aids to healing, as wards against sorcery, and their use in heraldry. She finishes with a list of ideas for incorporating some of the ideas in your campaign. I love to use this sort of stuff for color and character, such as when I describe what happens when a character uses non-magical or herb-based healing skills, or discussing the weapons and equipment of soldiers and enemies.

The One-sentence NPC Contest

The Chatty DM loves him some contests. He's teamed up with Johnn Four of Roleplaying Tips, for his latest contest:

How do you enter? Quite simple!

You need to write a One Sentence NPC, generally based on the tips provided in Johnn’s latest edition of the e-zine: Use 3 traits, include a contradiction, Make it generic but interesting.

Every NPC you submit is another chance to win, so you can play early and often with this one. And the prizes are quite sweet, including Hero Lab software, adventures, and a Senior Patron Open Design account for one of Wolfgang Baur's adventure design projects.

The contest looks like fun, but even if you decide to not enter, you should swing by anyway to check out the NPC design tip it's based on.

Sham's Take on Stats

Sham's spent a bit of time considering what the stat scores in D&D actually mean, and has come to some surprising conclusions:

Consider the odds of rolling an 18 using 3d6. It’s 1 in 216. Like me, you probably say “Wow!” when a natch 18 is rolled with 3d6 (and an equally emphatic “Ugh!” when a natch 3 is rolled). It’s almost as if the mindset in D&D is that an 18 in any ability is somehow superhuman in nature, but when we look at the chance of rolling an 18, we realize that this is hardly the case. Think of it this way; take a large body of people you have observed in real life…High School or College, or even an arena filled with fans for a concert or sporting event. Now, think of the way you might envision a D&D character with an 18 Strength, and realize that in High School, the chances are that 10 classmates had an 18 STR, in College 140 had 18 STR, and at an arena 350 fans had an 18 STR. Not so superhuman now.

He also considers save-vs-stat rolls and other such houseruling goodness. I think the idea that the stats are actually vague isn't a new one, but we don't consider all the possibilities. The classic example is Charisma. A lot of ink, digital and otherwise, has been spilled over Charisma not being a measure of physical beauty. But there's no reason why a high or low Charisma score can't be impacted by a character's physical appearance. Is your character's low Dexterity score due to being clumsy, or being nearsighted? Since Dex covers hand-eye coordination as well as balance, a low score could be due to deficiencies in either. Or both. Or even something else all together.

Anyway, it's interesting stuff to think about, especially in terms of character generation.

RedBrick Signs on the Dotted Line

RedBrick has posted a press release, claiming to be the first folks to complete the GSL authorization process:

RedBrick Limited are pleased to announce they have successfully concluded the signing and acceptance of the first Game System License for Wizards of the Coast’s DUNGEONS & DRAGONS® 4th Edition Roleplaying Game.

James Flowers, RedBrick’s Managing Director, said "This is an exciting opportunity for us. We have been looking forward to working with Wizards of the Coast for some time. Now that Wizards have accepted RedBrick’s application for a Game System License, we can move forward with our plans for publishing DUNGEONS & DRAGONS® 4th Edition compatible products. Once details of our forthcoming product releases have been finalized, we will make a separate announcement."

This is a surprise, honestly. RedBrick are best known as the caretakers of other peoples' IP. They currently keep in print and publish supplements for FASA's Earthdawn, Holistic's amazing Fading Suns, and Biohazard's Blue Planet. Could they be talking about a 4e version of one of those games? Possibly, but it seems more likely they're thinking about completely unrelated projects. Blue Planet is a through-and-through sci-fi game. The sci might be a bit soft, but it would certainly be better served working under the as-yet-promised GSL for non-fantasy projects. Ditto for Fading Suns, though it does have some fantasy elements. So the most likely target in their current stable would be Earthdawn, and I'm not certain there's a market for a 4e version of that game. The 3e version, as I recall, didn't do all that well.

So I'm guessing that RedBrick is hoping to start a new line of products to support 4e. They're well positioned to do this, already having the resources in place to create and distribute professional-quality dead-tree and electronic books. They also already have access to some professional-level writers and designers. A new 4e line of sourcebooks and adventures would be an additional revenue stream for the company. In addition, without any OGL products in their catalog, the "poison pill" provisions of the GSL are not an issue for them.

So that gives us RedBrick as a confirmed GSL publisher, and Necromancer Games as an all-but official GSL publisher. I'll be surprised if Goodman Games doesn't also announce that they're signing on to the GSL as well.

"I only do one-die-four..."

"...that's why I'm always the first to die."

(Via d4 Caltrops.)

Amagi Games Has Gone Live

... and I had no idea something like this was happening.

What is Amagi Games? It appears to be the new online home of game-explorer ('cause that's what he really is, a guy who is exploring and expireminting and just having a grand old time with games) Levi Kornelsen. Mr. Kornelsen and I have this tradition of not understanding one another at times, and talking in circles around each other. This, I think, stems from the fact that we both think faster than we talk/type. That said, I have a lot of respect for him, and the sort of things he does for gaming. And that went up a few notches as I poked around Amagi Games.

What's so special about the site?

THE TEXT OF AMAGI GAMES IS PUBLIC DOMAIN
What does that mean? It means that everyone has the right to use the material in any way they like. Period. No credits are required, you don’t need to ask, you don’t need to follow a license. These things belong to everyone. You could mirror almost everything on the site (there are pieces of not-public art here and there), share it, publish it for free or for money, splice it into a game you’re working on, whatever you like (and so can Amagi). You could make a brand-new plug-in with the Amagi name on it, and release it as if it came from here. It’s free, all the way. Free as in air.

Is Mr. Kornelsen crazy? Maybe. Or maybe, crazy like a fox:

For quite some time, webcomics have been giving away the products of their imaginations. There are no (or, at least, very few) concerns with people sharing the material; you never hear about people “stealing a subscription” or “committing webcomic piracy”, because those ideas don’t make any sense.

Their business model is already totally in tune with online environment; they sell advertising, printed books, and the like, instead of the easily-shared digital information. So, why couldn’t a tabletop roleplaying game designer, tinkerer, article-writer, do that?

A few have, but don’t think of themselves as game companies. Why not? And, if the ideas are being given away… Why not really give them away? Not just the ideas, but all of it; let people use the text however they like, let go of copyright anywhere that it’s possible to do it. Free and full gifting of ideas means that others can take something written, and show you something entirely new that it’s good for.

Now, it may not be a solid route. It may be an insane, stupid, implosive idea; certainly, it’s not the right way to go for everyone, or for every project. But, even so, it’s awesome. And someone should totally give it a try, and find out if it could work…

Honestly, to me, this could be the single most exciting thing to happen in the RPG blogosphere this year. I'll certainly be keeping an eye on it. And you should check out some of the stuff that's already up there. Temptation Dice, for instance, looks like a very cool mechanic, and one I may be adding to my games.

And special thanks to the Gnome Rodeo for pointing this page out.

"WHAT... is the air-speed velocity of an unladen swallow?"

Via Robert Fisher comes a link to "Making Better Puzzles", an article by Stephen Granade on, erm, well, better-puzzle making. Brass Lantern is primarily aimed at computer games, but a lot of the principles carry over to pen-and-paper RPGs.

Up to Our Eyeballs in Elves

There's been a bit of musing on elves in the past few days. Noisms isn't a big fan of the pointy-eared buggers:

But! I've been doing some thinking. It seems unfair to dismiss the race if I'm not prepared to do my bit to make them interesting. I like Elves in Birthright and Dark Sun, after all; maybe all I need is a fresh perspective.

Reading his comments over at RPG.net, I was tempted to track down the "101 Days of Rules Cyclopedia" thread that included a new, more "elfy" list of spells for elves. However, David did one better by reproducing the entire list over at The RPG Corner. Following that, he gives us spell lists for his Rules Cyclopedia conversions of some Uresian classes.

Free RPG Day Eve

Tomorrow, June 21st, is Free RPG Day. In anticipation, Massawyrm of Ain't It Cool News has posted quick reviews of six of the offerings.

Myself, I'm most interested in Green Ronin's A Song of Ice & Fire Quickplay.

Mongoose OGC to go Wiki?

Mongoose has chosen to share their open gaming content, not to bury it:

We produced a great deal of OGC under D20. Most of these books are now out of print, with just PDF copies available - by the end of the year these will disappear too, as it is not realistic for us to remove D20 licensing off every product we produced over the years. Just too many!

However, it seems a shame to have all this material simply disappear, so. . .

If there is any interest, we would be prepared to make the vast majority of our D20-based content available freely. In the past, there has been talk about an OGC Wiki of sorts, and I think we can kick such a project off in a sizeable way.

If a volunteer (or volunteers - you might have to be some sort of maniac to go through all this material solo!) were to come forward and create a suitable web site, we would happily supply electronic versions of our D20 lines for translation of OGC to such a web site. We would be very free with the material permissable, allowing you to effectively cut and paste large chunks of 'fluff' text alongside the OGC.

This would include all the Quintessentials, Slayer's Guides, Encyclopaedias, Ultimates - potentially, even some Babylon 5 material, if someone is prepared to remove all the licensed text (no Conan though, as that is still current!)

All we ask is that the project is taken seriously and that there is maybe a link or two to us from the site

If other publishers are interested in such a project, we would gladly welcome work alongside them - this could end up being a seriously large site!

So, any interest? If someone wanted to build the Mother of All OGC sites, we can give you a serious head start. Might even be able to provide you with web space and some rather large bandwidth.

Random Background Checks

Alexis is a grognard. An angry one. Ok, maybe just slightly cranky. He's also got some neat ideas at his blog, The Tao of D&D. Recently, Alexis has posted how he tackled the use of skills in 1e AD&D. Like me, he's used a variation on the life path. However, instead of letting his player's choose, he has it determined randomly. In addition, many of the possible backgrounds supply special bonuses and dictate how much money your character starts the game with.

He's got some other interesting posts as well, like this one about pro-active players.

We Have GSL!

At long last, WotC has published the GSL for D&D 4e. As advertised, the SRD does not contain the information you need to play the game, so, unlike the SRDs of 3.0 and 3.5, you cannot use the 4e's SRD as a PHB-lite.

A brief overview of the documents can be found at Dragon Avenue.

UPDATE: Phil Reed, of Ronin Arts and SJ Games has made his opinion clear:

After reading the license five times my reaction is: Hell, no.

I cannot see myself ever using this license. This license is very, very bad for anyone except WotC.

UPDATE 2: Wolfgang Baur is also not impressed:

And at first glance, the GSL is absolutely terrible for Kobold Quarterly. I'm not sure it will matter much for Open Design, as the Wrath of the River King will be in a separate product line.

I was hoping for better. Bah.

UPDATE 3 (expect a lot of these, and thanks to the Chatty DM for the link): Eric Mona (scroll down) of Paizo doesn't seem too thrilled either:

DudeMonkey wrote:

WotC is basically saying that they can yank the rug out from under you any time they want with this license. Is that how it reads to everyone else?


Yes, that's my take.

DudeMonkey wrote:

I don't think I would publish under this license if I was in this industry, professionally speaking.


That's my take, too.

UPDATE 4: Chatty is all over this like white on rice. In the comments of his post, he's linked to where Clark Peterson of Necromancer Games has been discussing this issue over at ENWorld:

Still digesting.

It seems far less clear than I hoped, thats for sure. It also doesnt have that "safe harbor" feel. It has that "there are lots of ways for you to screw up and then we terminate you" feel.

My initial reaction: Not as clear or friendly as I wanted. In fact, it feels like "we want you to support 4E but we dont really want you doing anything interesting or being too successful." Which smacks more of corporate fear than it does of vision.

More later.

Clark

This is also interesting:

Clearly, as I understand that existing license, there wont be a "Tome of Horrors" for 4E. I'm not losing the right to make an OGL version. Period. In fact, I am pretty sure that I will be announcing a full color Pathfinder version of the Tome of Horrors shortly. That said, I am still considering a monster book for 4E.

We'll see....

Sounds to me like they had some good headway made on a product, and then this license may torpedo it. So they'll just repurpose the assets and release under another license, once certainly to be more amicable to their needs.

UPDATE 5: James Mishler of Adventure Games Publishing also isn't getting any warm fuzzies from the GSL:

Well, after reviewing the 4E GSL, I can say pretty unequivocably that Adventure Games Publishing will *not* publish any 4E Dungeons & Dragons products. At least, not under the existing GSL, nor under any GSL that even remotely resembles the existing contract. By the terms of that contract, you essentially turn your company into a Wizards of the Coast subsidiary. Not gonna happen with AGP.

AN UPDATE OF UPDATES: The RPG Blog II has a bit list of the latest reactions to the GLS announcement, including a further update from Necromancer Games and Chris Pramas detailing a product Green Ronin won't be making.

Playing with Death and Dismemberment

Hit points are supposed to be an abstraction that model a character's defensive combat prowess, physical stamina, and will to persevere. Traditionally, however, most folks play them like they measured a character's biological structural integrity. Every roll of the d20 was a swing to hit. Every roll for damage came from a successful to-hit roll, so it represented how much physical trauma the strike caused to the body.

I want to get away from that and back to the idea that hit points are an abstraction of, yes, physical trauma, but more than that, of being worn down by your foes and mental and physical exhaustion. One of the neatest tools I've seen for doing this is the Classic D&D Injury Table over at Robert Fisher's web page.

The idea behind the table is simple: any character reduced to zero hit points, or hit after being dropped to zero, must suffer the results of a roll on the table. A character reduced to zero hit points is not necessarily out of the fight. Rolling a 2 results in no effect, while any result below 6 has the character still conscious, and able to potentially return to the fight. This makes it quite clear that the "hits" your character has taken up to this point have been mostly flesh wounds and minor strikes. But once your hit points are at zero, you're no longer able to effectively defend yourself. Every attack is potentially lethal now.

I like Mr. Fisher's table, but I'm an inveterate tweaker and just had to make one of my own. Keep in mind as you read it that only the PCs and possibly very important NPCs get to use this table. If you bring your average orc or troll to zero hit points, they simply die.

(My apologies for the difficulties with this table. For some reason HTML does wacky things when filtered through Blogger. This is my third attempt to make it easy to read. Clearly, the only workable solution is to replace the table with a picture of a proper, legible table. Grrrrr...)

2d6	RESULTS
2 or lower	instant death (decapitated or other grevious wound).
3	fatal wound (gutted, stabbed through lung, broken back, etc.) die in 1d6 turns.
4	severed limb (DM's choice or roll randomly) will die in 3d6 rounds unless tourniquet applied, wound cauterized with fire, or Cure Serious Wounds cast (CSW used for this will not restore lost hp).
5,6	broken bone (DM's choice), 2d4+9 weeks to heal.
7,8	knocked out for 2d6 rounds, unless wearing a helm. With helm, only stunned for 1 round.
9	stunned for 1 round, unless wearing helm. With helm, only knocked down.
10	knocked down.
11	no effect.
12+	a surge of adrenaline returns 1d4 hit points per every other level (1d4 at 1st and 2nd, 2d4 at 3rd and 4th, etc.) At the end of the combat, the adrenaline drains away, hit points are reduced to zero, and the PC faints for 2d6 rounds.

As you can see, a lot of this table is swiped wholesale from Mr. Fisher's table. However, I've also given some love to the lowly helmet, and I've included a "rally at the last minute" option as well. It might seem a bit too Buffy, but it fits the genre, whether you're talking Conan or King Arthur.

UPDATE: Norman Harman reports success with the Table of Death & Dismemberment, but finds it too wussy. Behold his table of Deadlier Death & Dismemberment!