Tenkar's Tavern

Picking Apart the 5E Class Seminar - Part I - Complexity & Balance

2012-01-28T10:59:00.004-05:00

Greg: How complex or simple do you think classes should be? Bruce: I think, we think that different classes should have different levels of complexity. If you want something easier to pick up, there should be a class for that, if you want something that's a bit more challenging or has a bit more going on, you should be able to do that out the gate as well. (If my admittedly poor knowledge of

Mini Review - The Dungeon of the Rat (Tunnels & Trolls)

2012-01-27T22:58:00.001-05:00

The Dungeon of the Rat is a GM Adventure / Delve for a party of T&T players. This is in and of itself a general rarity in T&T adventures, as solos dominate the available adventure selection. This one is written by Mike Hill, a well known Tunnels & Trolls adventure writer, who has had many articles and adventures in The Hobbit Hole (The Hobbit Hole is no longer authorized by Mike and a number

Time for Part III of Picking Apart the 5e Seminar - Modules

2012-01-27T20:40:00.000-05:00

Q: How will roleplaying, combat and exploration be supported? Mike: If we support those three things, we've covered about 90% of what's important in the game. The customization comes in at the table level. DM makes choices along with the players to craft their game. (What is the other 10%, do tell) Jeremy: If a group wants more social interaction, the DM can choose the module that support

Picking Apart the 5E Seminar - Part II - Ending the THAC0 Escalation

2012-01-27T09:18:00.001-05:00

I'm going to jump ahead for now (I'll go back up the list later) to address what I think is one of the more revealing facts revealed in the seminar (formatting sucks - I'm working form my iPad - I'll try and neaten up later). ON MONSTERS AT DIFFERENT LEVELS Monte: Instead of the fighter getting a better and better attack bonus, he instead gets more options to do stuff as he goes up in level,

Picking Apart the 5E Seminar - Part I

2012-01-26T21:36:00.000-05:00

Morrus and the other fine folks at ENWorld have done a superb job of piecing together the Dungeons & Dragons 5E seminar taking place at Dungeons & Dragons Experience. What I'm going to do is pick apart certain answers / statements and try to get a fuller picture of what D&D 5E will be, or what WotC are attempting to make it be. If you want some pics of D&D 5E at "the table", check this post.

D&D 5E at DDXP

2012-01-26T19:52:00.001-05:00

I like how the character sheets are "golden". Reminds me of my AD&D days. ;) In any case, EnWorld has pretty good coverage of the D&D Experience Con that is going on through this Sunday. 5E is obviously the hot topic. A Pic of D&D 5E in Action at DDXP Originally Posted at EnWorld.org Crap! Battlemaps in 5E! Noooo!!!! Heh ;) Originally Posted at EnWorld.org So long as battle

Roll a Little Dice, Have Fun Tonight

2012-01-26T12:41:00.001-05:00

Last night I attended the Games That Can't Be Named event at the SoHo Digital Arts Gallery on Sullivan Street in NYC. It was a blast! I met some really cool gamers, had some excellent Tunnels & Trolls conversations (last thing I expected to find), saw some amazing Old School D&D art from the likes of Peter Mullen (rendered on digital screens) and got some gaming in. I wish I could talk about

Picking Thru "The Rule of Three" - Looking at Damage Types

2012-01-25T18:06:00.000-05:00

For my next trick... I'm going to take a look at the question and answer dealing with "Damage Types" and I'll be pulling out pieces and addressing them. In previous editions, different weapon types mattered. For example, slashing weapons had different qualities than bludgeoning weapons, or worked better against certain monsters. Is this an element of D&D that you would like to see returned to

Balance versus Niche Protection

2012-01-25T12:38:00.001-05:00

Do all classes need to be equally effective in combat? Here lies the issue of balance versus niche. I'll say right from the start that the answer is, in my opinion at least, somewhere between the two. 4e is well known for its balanced character classes - each is pretty balanced compared to the others in combat encounters. As Matt Finch said in a comment to my last post, what works in board

Picking Thru "The Rule of Three" - Looking at Balance

2012-01-24T19:17:00.001-05:00

WotC plans on answering 3 questions a week about the upcoming Dungeons & Dragons 5e release - and I plan on picking thru their answers. Today I want to look at the question and answer about "balance" in 5e. 4E was balanced incredibly well when compared to the other systems. In the next iteration of D&D, will balance be as important or will we see some classes being noticeably more powerful

Gnomes in 5E - Garden Gnomes or Something More Sinister

2012-01-24T09:56:00.001-05:00

Remember the marketing for the D&D 4e rules? The mocking of Gnomes and general tearing apart of all things 3.5e. Do you think WotC has learned their lesson? Will they actually be able to introduce a new edition without they themselves fanning the flames of the next edition war like they fanned the flames in the last edition war? Will gnomes be brought back as a core race, or relegated to

The Myth of THAC0 - E6'ing the OSR (First Thoughts)

2012-01-23T20:07:00.001-05:00

First things first - here is a link to the E6 rules (all 13 pages including the OGL). It a fairly quick read. Essentially, it is a series of house rules to enable you to have your 3X campaign max out at 6th level, yet still allow for character improvement. A few things to note from the OSR side of things - it uses feats. After hitting 6th level, players will spend newly earned expo on

The Myth of THAC0 - And the Compounding of Hit Points

2012-01-23T12:34:00.001-05:00

There were a lot of really great comments on my first two Myth of THAC0 posts. A few touched on the issue of buckets of Hit Points. As bad as it was in AD&D 1e & 2e, especially with Rangers that had a CON bonus, it's gotten worse with later editions. Up until 2e, HD capped at name level (generally between 9th and 11th levels). 3e kept the dice rolling with each level gained, there was no

The Myth of THAC0 - Complications of Removal

2012-01-22T21:05:00.001-05:00

If you accept the idea that an improving THAC0 is not needed by most classes depending on the type of campaign run (especially low magic / low fantasy type settings), there is still an unforeseen complication - Strength becomes a prime stat for the middle combatant classes (clerics / rogues and the like). (The Myth of THAC0) If THAC0 will never increase for these classes (or has a slowed

The Myth of THAC0

2012-01-22T10:23:00.001-05:00

I read on another blog a few days ago (very new blog from 2012 - if you know it PLEASE let me know!) that BAB / BtH / THAC0 are all pretty much bullshit. You aren't climbing a ladder when your character's chance to hit increases, because your level appropriate adversaries see a corresponding increase in Armor Class protection. In effect, you are running up a down escalator. The first game in

Feltothraxis The Dragon Looks at Carocoa (and Dungeonmorph Dice)

2012-01-21T16:58:00.000-05:00

Yep, Feltothraxis is back and he's got some help this time. Ashley the Cat and Boo Boo the Psychic Police Bear are there for the assist. Together, they take a look at Carcosa and some Dungeonmorph Dice. Enjoy!

Mini Review - The Ruined Hamlet / Terror in the Glooming (OSR Adventure)

2012-01-21T10:20:00.000-05:00

From the guy that brought us the Companion Expansion, we get the free adventure / starter area called The Ruined Hamlet / Terror in the Glooming for levels 1-3. From what I can gather, the products being released for free at RPGNow have been sitting on the author's website for a bit previously. So if you are someone that trolls the web looking for gaming goodies, you might have already come

Friday Night Movie at the Tavern - Cowboys & Aliens

2012-01-20T21:55:00.001-05:00

The wife and I snuggled in for a movie via Amazon Direct earlier tonight. The movie of choice was Cowboys & Aliens. We had intended to see in in the theatre, but somehow it slipped us by in the rush of wedding preparations and such. Diet coke, goldfish crackers and a dachshund that wouldn't settle in were our move accessories. How was it? Surprisingly, my wife enjoyed it more then me. See

Making An OSR "Stew"

2012-01-20T11:52:00.001-05:00

I was thinking of the feasibility of running a game using / allowing the use of ALL of the OSR rules available. I know Zak has the Flailsnail Concord or some such, allowing the use of characters from different rule sets and campaigns in Constacon sessions with some conversion if necessary, but I'm thinking more like a regular, coherent campaign that allows for the use of multiple OSR RPG rules

Monster Stand Ins - A Kickstarter Project

2012-01-19T22:37:00.003-05:00

Do you remember the pictures of those funny looking yet extremely cool Dungeonmorph Dice I posted a few weeks back? Well, the same man (Joe Wetzel) behind those dice has a new project: Monster Stand-Ins. Think plastic, lay flat when not in use, color miniatures that you can tote around to your game while taking up very little space. Heck, you can even mark them up and erase them. Cool stuff.

Ever Buy a Gaming Product and Go: "What the F' Did I Waste My Money On?!?"

2012-01-19T20:55:00.001-05:00

Don't you just hate that? For me the worst was Monster Coliseum for Runequest 3 (Avalon Hill Runequest). This pile of poo was so bad I actually went back to my game store and demanded my money back. I don't remember much about it except that it was fairly expensive and totally useless, and that as a college student with a part time job I couldn't afford to squander away my hard earned

WotC to Reprint Core AD&D 1E Rulebooks

2012-01-19T15:01:00.001-05:00

You can read the article here: http://www.icv2.com/articles/news/21954.html Figure about $115 for the DMG, PH and MM. Sales will benefit the Gygax Memorial Fund. Some see this as a way for WotC to test the waters, to tell if there is money to be scraped out of the old editions. I'd rather take this at face value, a way to remember the man that got this hobby started. No OSR games will be

Im All In the Google+ Swimming Pool

2012-01-19T10:47:00.001-05:00

It took me a while, but I'm now fully embracing G+ after being not quite sure what to make of it initially. Well, that, and I remember the fate of Google Wave. Ouch! It's more certainly not Facebook. G+ actually seems to encourage conversations (Facebook seems to be much less effective at that) and by mirroring my Blogger posts on G+, I find that I have rewarding conversations on both sides

A Look at Jaws of the Six Serpents (PDQ System)

2012-01-18T20:19:00.003-05:00

This isn't going to be a true review, some I'm not titling it as such (but will tag it as one, 'cause it's close enough). I just got my softcover copy of Jaws of the Six Serpents - Silver Branch Games was offering a discount to those that had purchased the PDF copy of the game, and that certainly included me. The PDQ System (which I first came across in Questers of the Middle Realms) one of

I Get To Play In a Sandbox!

2012-01-18T14:03:00.001-05:00

I'll be playing in a new campaign starting this coming Saturday. We'll be using Google+ Hangout. Our GM has given us a quick overview of the starting area, and we even get to chose our starting location out of a handful that are detailed. Which means we are in a sandbox right from the start. Should be fun and an Old School feel. Of course, the actual rules system has yet to be nailed down.