Rewarding "Role-ing" while enjoying "Roll-ing"

Despite the experience of running D&D for over ten years, there are still simple things about the game that trip me up. This has been especially true as I adjust to running 5e. While new, shiny, and fun, some of the same types of questions pop up with every new campaign. Luckily, 5e also finally gives us some answers to help with these reoccurring issues.

One of the biggest questions digs up an age-old debate about "role-playing" vs. "roll-playing". The trouble with this dispute is that it's one of pure personal preference. On one end of the spectrum, there are those who are nearly improv thespians - those who talk in character, act in character, and believe that no roll should interfere with the social aspects of the game. On the other end are the hardcore crunchers, min/maxers, and system mastery folks who love digging deep into rules, math, and strategy.

Let's be very clear: there is nothing wrong with either of these extremes. RPGs are meant to be played exactly how the players who are playing them want them to be played. Both sides of this particular coin are not only fun, but rewarding in their own ways.

However, there can be tension when a group gets together and has varied opinions on how a game should be run. So my goal as a GM is to figure out which side people prefer, and lean in that direction using whatever rule set I'm presented with. My goal as a game designer is to figure out how to get the best of both worlds without the GM having to bend the rules (as much).

D&D 5e is an interesting case - it gives us a "charisma" stat that is more or less used for all social interaction. So when a character wants to haggle with an NPC to lower the price of an item, it technically doesn't matter what they say "in character" - they simply take the action and roll charisma to see if it worked. For those of us with less social aptitude, this is a wonderful mechanic that lets us roleplay as something we would not normally be able to. For those who are actually skilled in wordplay or bartering, it can be frustrating to have a clearly well thought-out statement be completely ignored in favor of a random die roll.

You can argue that if they were actually playing their character (let's assume with lower charisma), they wouldn't say such intelligent things. But much like it's hard not to meta-game monster information, it's hard not to try your best when interacting with NPCs. Worse, it's completely unrewarding for those who do try, which makes them try less. Eventually, all actual role-playing can be sucked right out of a game of D&D simply because of failed charisma-based rolls!

My goal as a game designer is to figure out how to get the best of both worlds without the GM having to bend the rules.

To help us solve this, 5e has given us a wonderful tool: the advantage. Advantage/disadvantage is mostly applied through character skills and abilities, but it's also supposed to be a very versatile tool for the GM to apply situational bonuses. If we use this rule, and award advantage on charisma rolls to players that role-play well, this keeps everyone happy (in theory)!

• The cruncher who plays a bard can still take an ability or feat to give them natural advantages on such rolls, without having to be actually good with their words.
• The thespian who doesn't have the best charisma, but comes up with an awesome argument or funny joke can be granted advantage on their roll. Even if they end up failing, they at least were acknowledged for their effort, and that's often all they need to keep it up.

When everyone else is happy, the GM's happy, and they did it all both without ignoring roll-play, and encouraging good role-playing.

For Hostargo, I was already planning on using advantage/disadvantage as a core mechanic. It's simply too good and too powerful not to. The trick is just explaining exactly when the GM should apply adv/dis vs. raising or lowering the difficulty of a given task...

Action Economy Magic

Work continues on the Animancer class. The next step was deciding what type of magic system to use. To do this, we need to keep in mind our main goal for the Animancer, which was to give the players a wide array of tools to use during play.

First, I decided to piggy back off of the spell and ritual idea from Dungeons & Dragons. "Spells" in this case being something you can cast immediately (most importantly during "action" scenes, such as combat), and "Rituals" being something that takes more time. Second, because of how the Animancer gathers "memory" to use magic, I decided on an action-point based economy for spells. Third, I really like the sword-and-sorcery version of rituals, where in order to cast crazy powerful magic, you need certain ingredients, such as pixie dust, the stars aligning, or blood sacrifice.

For magic in general, I don't like the idea of using up resources, like D&D. I prefer games that keep the action rocking, like Shadowrun. So for each "action" spent during the turn, an Animancer can gather memory and gain a "Spell Point" (SP). Then at any time, the animancer can release his memory and turn it into a spell, spending all SP to have some effect. The difficulty of casting the spell will be directly based on the SP gathered, but the effects-per-SP should be exponential, to balance the time spent gathering memory, and the difficulty of casting the spell.

For rituals, I went the way of D&D and said that most minor rituals can be cast in just a few minutes with only a light ingredient or two. But, I will also be including an array of more complex rituals that require much more time and ingredients. The effects of these rituals, of course, will be far greater as well.

When animancers "level up", they'll be able to choose different areas of study, which will unlock new spells that they can perform. There's no spell levels, so the players have the option of unlocking the spells they want earlier.

As always, thanks for reading, and if you have any questions, comments, or suggestions, I love hearing them!

The Land of Oriya

Creating a world doesn't always start from the beginning of time. And you don't need to create the whole world, either. For Hostargo, I've tried to create a "land" area that holds enough interesting history and locations to ground the players in the setting, while also leaving enough room for expansion and manipulation of what's already there.

I started with how I envisioned the first recordings of man, and how it would have expanded throughout time. I started making ages that matched up to roughly what you would expect the technology levels of a civilization to be as they progressed. I also don't want to bore the readers, however, so I did about a paragraph of good detail for all of the six previous ages. Then, for the "current age", I will be putting all of the information about the present day setting.

For the map area, I was able to hire a very talented artist from The Cartographer's Guild named Josiah. I worked with him over many weeks to first draft, then tweak, and finally produce the following gorgeous map:

View the full size here!

I am very excited to place Hostargo within the Land of Oriya. The name Oriya came from me digging waaay deep into the internet for unique names. I can't even find my way back to where I was, but the word I was looking at meant "The Mother of all Consciousness", which given that the source of magic in my world is "memory", I thought it was fitting.

While the main game will obviously center around the city of Hostargo, this map inspires me; it makes me want to adventure int his land to all the neat places Josiah and I created. I hope you enjoy it as well (do not copy it, please), and it will be a main feature in the final RPG book :D

Thanks for checking it out!

I'm engaged!

Another journal entry - this time with very exciting news! Yesterday I asked my long time girlfriend and hopefully lifetime partner to marry me... and she said yes!

In other news, we've already put in 20 hours into Grim Dawn. I love the occult magics and mix of fantasy & firearms. It's a very well done hack & slash RPG (diablo clone), and is the most delicious "potato chip" gaming I've had in a while. Plus, I can't think of a better person to play it with than my new fiancee!

Work on Hostargo does continue, though slowly. I'm hammering out specifics, so each little thing is generally hours of thought and consideration. It can be maddening, but the more I get to play great titles like Hard West and Grim Dawn, the more inspiration and drive I have towards working on Hostargo. That's what I tell myself anyway! Haha, until next time!