A delicate situation!
As I may have mentioned, I am in the process of developing my own pen-and-paper roleplaying game. The design philosophy I am operating under is fairly simple: I want character creation to be as fast and straightforward as possible, and for a character's stats (both selected and rolled) to assist (or at least, not obstruct) the roleplaying of a character.
The major portions of the changes I am making relate to talents which D&D3 handled via Skills and Feats. Specifically, I've combined spell advancement, attack bonus advancement, and abilities resembling D&D3 combat feats into a single sphere tree, while placing D&D3-style skill and non-combat feats into a second sphere tree. Each characters one point for each tree at each levelup, with a few bonuses at first level.
The result should be a much less complex character sheet, and a much quicker-building character. The only thing I haven't managed to streamline is stat checks - these worked well in D&D1/2, but were unwieldly; they worked badly in D&D3, but the mechanic was consistent. In D&D3 the problem is primarily that you only benefit from a stat increase at odd scores. There isn't really an elegant solution for this (other than moving to a ten-point stat model, which is (more or less) functionally what true20 is doing, and I don't really like the flavour of that.
I ran a game a few years ago. At the time, I didn't really have good luck with finding groups - and so for whatever reason, the horrible problems my houserules inevitably caused didn't become apparent very quickly. In this case, I'd made two completely ludicrous rulings - well, three - and had as a result ruined absolutely everything.
The rules were:
1) Stat bonuses accumulated on a 1-for-1 basis. Ergo, a score of 11 yielded a bonus of +1; a score of 15 yelded +5.
2) Wizards could cast spells of equal level to their caster level
3) MULTICLASS FIGHTER/WIZARDS HAD SPELL PROGRESSION AS PER A NON-MULTICLASS WIZARD
Of course, my friends knew better - to quote a friend (whose name I've entirely forgotten, sorry guy.) who was much wiser than I - "Dude, a multiclass wizard should never get WISH. Let alone at 9th level." Oh, anonymous guy - how wise you were.
There was also the time I ran a game featuring a friend of mine and... myself. That's right, a pure DMPC - not even relevant to the story. And the other guy just stood by while I rearranged the rules to suit myself and gave my character all the good loot.
And then I miscalculated an encounter. How I managed to so badly, I'll never know - but there it was. Our two third-level characters, mine tweaked to the hilt - versus six sixth-level militiamen.
I rolled their attacks. Owned, each hit a kill.
"I think we get a saving throw," I said lamely. My friend - clearly hating me, the game, and everything I'd ever said or done - shrugged. "Okay."
Saves were rolled (what is that, anyway? save vs. HORRIBLE DUNGEON MASTER?)
(save versus sword?)
-And we failed, rolling a two and a three.
There was a long pause. "Okay," I said. "I guess... we'll play again tomorrow night."
"Sure," said my friend. We would speak again maybe twice after that day.
The moral of the story? Don't DMPC. Don't change the rules unless you know what you're doing, and never for the extreme benefit of once class or god forbid a single character. Don't assume you know best.
Don't play D&D with people you want to keep as friends if you suck.
But maybe most important is this: I was a bad DM before I was a good DM. And I was a bad player before I was a good player. What's interesting to note is that i could never play the game well until I'd totally fudged running it, which is kind of odd if you think about it.
Oh, wow. I'm pretty glad that I've improved. On that note, here's a little more recap of my last (completed!) campaign:
The road to Prutila was long, and Navy's health was failing with every hour. The kobold Gribby rode through the wilderness as the cart traveled onward, gathering bonethistle springs with which to cure the ghoulish fever. At length, the group arrived in the city - Navarri's live preserved by the sticky, rotten-smelling ointment.
Once the priests of Prutila had restored the elf's health, Gribby invited them all to dinner - where they discussed their next move. It was decided that they would ride to the ciry of Remlas, to consult the Grand Vizier - for he was among the greatest of all the wizards, and it was assumed that he could discern what to do with Eschaltar's skull.
Friendship, of a sort, bloomed between Navy and Morgain - that he had saved her life made a number of their incompatibilities less dire, and so it was that they came to tolerate one-another, making the road to Kelfast much more tolerable and the conversation less fraught with peril.
On arrival, they met with the elf Demetria - who, through no fault of her own, was likewise hired by the kobold for her magical acumen. Later that evening, the group drank together at a bar while Gribby arranged an audience with the Vizier - where a local man approached Morgain, revealing to her compatriots that she had at some point worked as a prostitute and demanding use of her services. The elf Navarri stepped to her defense, eventually killing the man in a back-alley knife-fight.
Upon his return, Gribby quickly escorted the party elsewhere within the city in a bid to avoid punishment for the crime.
Wow! By this point, the party's about fourth level and we'd been playing a solid five months. And not long after this, we began running a second game - as for a number of reasons, parts of the group necessary to continue the primary game were unavailable. But that will come next time, I suspect!
And here's some more art, just 'cause.
The major portions of the changes I am making relate to talents which D&D3 handled via Skills and Feats. Specifically, I've combined spell advancement, attack bonus advancement, and abilities resembling D&D3 combat feats into a single sphere tree, while placing D&D3-style skill and non-combat feats into a second sphere tree. Each characters one point for each tree at each levelup, with a few bonuses at first level.
The result should be a much less complex character sheet, and a much quicker-building character. The only thing I haven't managed to streamline is stat checks - these worked well in D&D1/2, but were unwieldly; they worked badly in D&D3, but the mechanic was consistent. In D&D3 the problem is primarily that you only benefit from a stat increase at odd scores. There isn't really an elegant solution for this (other than moving to a ten-point stat model, which is (more or less) functionally what true20 is doing, and I don't really like the flavour of that.
I ran a game a few years ago. At the time, I didn't really have good luck with finding groups - and so for whatever reason, the horrible problems my houserules inevitably caused didn't become apparent very quickly. In this case, I'd made two completely ludicrous rulings - well, three - and had as a result ruined absolutely everything.
The rules were:
1) Stat bonuses accumulated on a 1-for-1 basis. Ergo, a score of 11 yielded a bonus of +1; a score of 15 yelded +5.
2) Wizards could cast spells of equal level to their caster level
3) MULTICLASS FIGHTER/WIZARDS HAD SPELL PROGRESSION AS PER A NON-MULTICLASS WIZARD
Of course, my friends knew better - to quote a friend (whose name I've entirely forgotten, sorry guy.) who was much wiser than I - "Dude, a multiclass wizard should never get WISH. Let alone at 9th level." Oh, anonymous guy - how wise you were.
There was also the time I ran a game featuring a friend of mine and... myself. That's right, a pure DMPC - not even relevant to the story. And the other guy just stood by while I rearranged the rules to suit myself and gave my character all the good loot.
And then I miscalculated an encounter. How I managed to so badly, I'll never know - but there it was. Our two third-level characters, mine tweaked to the hilt - versus six sixth-level militiamen.
I rolled their attacks. Owned, each hit a kill.
"I think we get a saving throw," I said lamely. My friend - clearly hating me, the game, and everything I'd ever said or done - shrugged. "Okay."
Saves were rolled (what is that, anyway? save vs. HORRIBLE DUNGEON MASTER?)
(save versus sword?)
-And we failed, rolling a two and a three.
There was a long pause. "Okay," I said. "I guess... we'll play again tomorrow night."
"Sure," said my friend. We would speak again maybe twice after that day.
The moral of the story? Don't DMPC. Don't change the rules unless you know what you're doing, and never for the extreme benefit of once class or god forbid a single character. Don't assume you know best.
Don't play D&D with people you want to keep as friends if you suck.
But maybe most important is this: I was a bad DM before I was a good DM. And I was a bad player before I was a good player. What's interesting to note is that i could never play the game well until I'd totally fudged running it, which is kind of odd if you think about it.
Oh, wow. I'm pretty glad that I've improved. On that note, here's a little more recap of my last (completed!) campaign:
The road to Prutila was long, and Navy's health was failing with every hour. The kobold Gribby rode through the wilderness as the cart traveled onward, gathering bonethistle springs with which to cure the ghoulish fever. At length, the group arrived in the city - Navarri's live preserved by the sticky, rotten-smelling ointment.
Once the priests of Prutila had restored the elf's health, Gribby invited them all to dinner - where they discussed their next move. It was decided that they would ride to the ciry of Remlas, to consult the Grand Vizier - for he was among the greatest of all the wizards, and it was assumed that he could discern what to do with Eschaltar's skull.
Friendship, of a sort, bloomed between Navy and Morgain - that he had saved her life made a number of their incompatibilities less dire, and so it was that they came to tolerate one-another, making the road to Kelfast much more tolerable and the conversation less fraught with peril.
On arrival, they met with the elf Demetria - who, through no fault of her own, was likewise hired by the kobold for her magical acumen. Later that evening, the group drank together at a bar while Gribby arranged an audience with the Vizier - where a local man approached Morgain, revealing to her compatriots that she had at some point worked as a prostitute and demanding use of her services. The elf Navarri stepped to her defense, eventually killing the man in a back-alley knife-fight.
Upon his return, Gribby quickly escorted the party elsewhere within the city in a bid to avoid punishment for the crime.
Wow! By this point, the party's about fourth level and we'd been playing a solid five months. And not long after this, we began running a second game - as for a number of reasons, parts of the group necessary to continue the primary game were unavailable. But that will come next time, I suspect!
And here's some more art, just 'cause.