mtdesing

For the first encounter (and actually first two), I was concerned about challenging the heroes but also not killing them immediately. They are level 1, which means they can only take a hit or two before dropping- and anything dealing consistently heavy damage (as in 10 or more points) is going to spell instant death, and possibly a total party wipe. I wanted to avoid that, but I also wanted to avoid having them face one giant rat so they can get a few hero points banked cheaply. The first encounter should be winnable, but challenging. This encounter has to introduce the heroes to the dungeon, provide a challenge, and set some sort of tone for what’s to follow. Flipping through monsters, dread blacktail hornets felt like a good introductory challenge. Against four heroes, 1 of these wasn’t going to be much of a threat, but a group of them may be too much. I decided to split the difference, and use the new rules for combat time and show what they can do right away.

It was also important that the actions of the heroes had a direct bearing on how easy or hard things would be right out of the gate. The hive containing the hornets is not too difficult to notice (DT 6) if they look for it, but if they barrel along, they are going to get attacked, and be in bad shape. In the end, I decided to make this encounter timed along the turn- at intervals during the countdown, new hornets emerge from the hive and join combat. This can end up being the whole group against a swarm of hornets (which would be bad), but a little planning and teamwork can allow them to take the hornets on one at a time, or (if they are smart) take out all of the little buggers at once. The hornets emerge from the hive at the rate of one every 20 segments- this allows most heroes to take two actions before another hornet joins the fray. Even with poor rolling, they shouldn’t be too overwhelmed here. However, since they are taking on multiple hornets, this becomes a normal encounter, and they get a decent chunk of hero points for destroying the hive.

Inside the hive, I decided that the honey would act as a potion, since this had a little more flavor (get it? Flavored honey?) and also allow for a skill roll (nature, alchemy or lore, so it’s pretty broad- someone should be allowed to roll) to figure it out. The PWS bonus will help the melee fighters, who will need this in the next encounter (since most combat will be done at close range).

For the second encounter, I again used this idea of a programmed encounter where creatures add during the fight. I have had this image in my head for years of a hall filled with bones where the undead rise up, piles of bones combining into skeletal fighters to take the heroes on. Originally, I thought of this as a single creature that keeps gathering bones to become larger and more powerful, but since they are only level 1, it was a bit much for them right now. Instead, the bones form into different skeletal wardens. These come at the heroes a little more quickly (at delays of 15 rather than 20 segments), but otherwise provide a similar challenge to the hornets.

The south door has a minor trap to allow someone with burglary to make a roll. Since they are level 1, the effect of the trap is a nuisance and is not meant to kill them, just to make them wish they’d successfully bypassed the trap- a penalty to MGT (something no one would want to take, but also doesn’t gimp a primary attack ability- it could affect damage, but not the ability to actually strike).

Again, I went with potions for the treasure, because the heroes are level 1. Potions of regeneration were a good fit for level 1, since these would give the heroes the ability to take on a slightly tougher foe and know that they had some built-in healing for the challenge.

Between these two challenges, I felt that the players would get a good sense of game time, would be able to develop their team work, and would earn enough hero points and some treasure to let them feel like they’ve got their feet under them going forward.

There’s something elegant and simple about going out your front door into the massive dungeon, and then going back home after you’re done. Maybe it’s too much time playing Diablo (I only played the first one), but I like the concept. The campaign I'm building for the wiki is going to be centered in the Vault of the Goblin, a massive dungeon that came over from the Barrens during the Reckoning.

The Sagewood Ark rests atop the ruins of a once-mighty winter goblin city, and its massive vault sits beneath, waiting to be explored. This setting works for me on several levels:

·    There are a number of entrances to it, meaning that you can run into things that get in and out in other ways. This explains how new things can get in there, or how they can appear from (seemingly) out of nowhere.

·    Large sections of the vault went into stasis (literally frozen) during the Great Reckoning, and are just now thawing out… the things in the dark are waking up and getting ready to rumble.

·    During the cataclysm, a lot of luggage got jostled around. Entire sections have collapsed, new passages have formed, and the basic geography of much of the vault has changed; even those who live there aren’t exactly sure how the whole thing is laid out anymore.

·    There’s no one ‘big bad’, but there are several power players who see an opportunity to take control, and this can lead to a number of factions vying for authority within. This gives the opportunity to develop houses and power struggles in the dungeon, and to ultimately create more character-centered stories, even though it’s a dungeon. Not everything down here wants to fight, and there may be opportunities for the heroes to help broker peace between factions down here and the humans of the ark. I’m also digging the idea of a faction that supports the former ruler of the place, who are looking for a way to bring him/her/it back from the dead (or beyond death at this point). Of course, more than half the residents of the vault would hate to see this happen, and will actively oppose such work. LOTS of opportunities for adventure here.

I have long loved the basic campaign setting of lonely keep in the middle of a vast wilderness, standing over a massive dungeon crawl- danger everywhere, and only a small group of humans with minimal protection stand ready to face it, hoping that adventurers will rise up to turn the tide.

While this seems a great concept (and to me it is!), it has a few problems…

·    How did the humans get here to begin with? Didn’t they have to blaze a trail through the vast wilderness to begin with? And if it’s so tough here, why don’t they blaze right back out?

·    Why would they choose to settle atop a massive dungeon complex? And once they knew about it, why wouldn’t they get the heck out of Dodge?

·    How did they survive to begin with, considering they have only minimal protection?

With Reckoning’s default setting, I managed to find an answer I was happy with to all of these questions. The starting location (Mistledawn Keep) is a huge boat- the Sagewood Ark (inspired by Noah’s Ark, of course) that carried a small community of humans and their accumulated knowledge out of the old world as it was destroyed and into this new realm. This had a real Book of Genesis feel to it that I loved, and created a reasonable explanation for why they were here- this is where the boat landed. Now, the boat is the only stronghold they have, and they can’t move it. Its magical flying powers have burned out, so now it’s just a big boat sitting on top of a plateau (that once happened to be a stronghold of winter goblins, but which was apparently destroyed during the Great Reckoning).

Voila. Humans in a small keep in the middle of a vast wild with minimal protection and a massive dungeon beneath. Sure, they could set out into the world- and abandon the only security they can be sure of. Their built-in protection is minimal (a small cadre of guards that came over from their formerly peaceful community). They can’t afford to waste these troops adventuring out- only the heroes can do that.

The other thing I like about this is that the Ark’s cargo was not animals (a la Noah) but knowledge- a knight was given a vision to build the boat, and his most notable passenger is a sage with a massive library of books. This fits the thematic/design element of flame being connected to knowledge and wisdom- and that linked to Yahalla. Yahalla ends up being primarily connected to light, flame and storm (bright, light, sky, sun), while Bael ends up connected to shadow, frost and stone (cold, dark, unfeeling, distant). Part of what Bael wants to destroy is the human spirit- a spirit that relies upon a collective connection to the past and knowledge that it is building on and towards something- the Reckoning (in many ways) was meant to wipe that out and reduce mankind to roving barbarians. It’s up to small pockets of man to maintain peace and order in the mounting chaos, and knowledge may be his most important asset.

The whole concept for Mythweaver going forward from Reckoning is to get as much mileage out of every element and to work smarter, not necessarily harder. Mythweaver is going to continue to primarily be developed by me- and if I expect other people to play it, I need to have a plan so that there is ongoing support for the game. So, here’s the plan for how this is going to play out…

Mythweaver Adventure Journal. Starting with issue #6 (August 1), MWAJ will fully support Reckoning, with the odd Resolute article thrown in. While I don’t see wholesale changes to the magazine in the offing, I would like to see more regular columns… Dave had one going for a bit, and I hope he gets that fired up again (no pressure, Dave!) and I’d like to see others contribute regular columns. Even with minimal contributions, I can develop 10-12 pages of new material each month without too much trouble, so I know I can maintain that…

Web presence… this is where the big change is going to take place, and you’ll see that in three places- and it’s all free:

·    This blog. As of tomorrow, this blog is going to be used primarily as a design blog, discussing the development of a huge dungeon crawl campaign, starting from level 1 and (theoretically) taking a group of heroes all the way through level ten and beyond. This will primarily be useful for Mythweavers in developing their own adventures or for those planning to run the campaign I’ll be publishing through the wiki…

·    The Mythweaver Wiki will publish the ongoing campaign setting as it’s completed, giving the full maps, monsters, magic and treasure stats. While some things will be from the core rules, many of the encounters and items will be new and different from those presented in Mythweaver: Reckoning, providing an open-ended resource of new material to add to your own games.

·    Actual Play threads on RPG.net, the Forge and the Mythweaver Forum will take a team of new heroes from level 1 as they explore and complete the campaign developed on the blog and published in the wiki.

Between these three, you’ll get an entire game campaign from inception through play, and be able to see the entire process. All of this will be free, and the goal is to maintain bi-weekly updates of all three resources throughout the summer, and into the fall.

Basically, if you are sitting on the fence about picking up Reckoning, you are going to get a lot for your money… you’re making a $3 initial investment and a $1 a month investment thereafter to get access to everything Mythweaver. I hope that you’ll be along for the ride.

Also, the core rules for 2E, Arvandoria and the first five issues of MWAJ will be bundled together with Reckoning starting July 1 as a starter kit, and you can get the whole thing for $9.95, giving you hundreds of monsters and a vast background with more stuff to do than you could ever get through in a year… but in a system you can learn in the 48 pages of Reckoning, and adapt for that material with a 1-page conversion document from the Mythweaver web site. In short, I’ve made it as attractive as possible for you to dive into Mythweaver right now.

I have always loved the Red Box version of D+D. It’s haunted me for a long time. For this version, I have finally shaken off my need to ‘be the red box’… and I think this version ended up the closest of any I’ve done as a result. If Basic D+D circa 1983 is truly the epitome of RPG design (and for some people it is), then I should be playing that game or one of its clones. Of course, if it were, I wouldn’t have bothered writing RPG’s for the last 20 years.

One of the things that bothers me is what when I scope out the 'competition', I see a very disturbing trend. Many of the games I'm competing with are clones. I don't mind that D+D clones are out there; I do have a problem with people presenting themselves as game designers when all they've done is taken the parts they liked from the Players' Handbook 3.x, and written character creation rules that are 'roll 3D6 for each of six abilities: strength, intelligence, wisdom, dexterity...." I shouldn't find it insulting, but I do. I'm sorry if you are a designer of a clone system and you're put off by this, but it really isn't a level playing field we're on. In addition, it makes poor design easier to get away with- if you didn't solve a problem because you didn't know how or didn't have the time or energy to do it, someone else did somewhere (probably in the 3.5 core rulebook), and you can get away with ignoring it. I'm very happy not to have that luxury.

A big moment for me was when I flipped through a copy of D+D 4E and found out that the Raven Queen was one of the primary forces of evil in the game world. The Raven Queen has been a primary malevolent force in my game world since I was 13, and I'm pretty sure I didn't find it anywhere; it's something I came up with (Of course, if it turns out it was in a Greyhawk or Forgotten Realms supplement that I've long forgotten about, and ended up buried in my subconscious to be later retrieved and claimed as my own, I'm going to have some egg on my face). Do I think that one of the designers for 4E picked up one of my books at some point and saw the way I used it and borrowed it? Probably not, but that would be cool! I'd like to think that after all D+D has given me for inspiration, I'd love it that some element of one of my games made it into D+D. It's the same thing that I felt when Antz and a Bug's Life came out after I'd been working on Army Ants for four years- I've tapped into something that's out in the 'creative mass consciousness', so I must be doing something right.

The great thing about publishing online is that you get instant feedback. Unfortunately, the bad thing about publishing online is that you get instant feedback. Or, in many cases, you don’t get instant feedback, and that in itself becomes a sort of feedback.

In the past, I’ve let myself get down when I release something and don’t see the sales I expected- or any sales at all. A new release always comes with a goal- how many copies I’d like to sell in a certain amount of time. The only product I didn’t do that with was Resolute, and that sold twice as well as anything else I’ve done… go figure.

In addition to sales (or lack thereof), I find myself getting frustrated when no one writes a review of a new product, in spite of several requests and comp copies being sent… I get frustrated when the message boards are effectively silent about my game, even when I endeavor to get some conversation going (even on my own board!)… I get frustrated when I release something that I think is especially cool or interesting, and get no feedback about it whatsoever.

I’ve learned that the antidote for this is to keep moving. Stay in motion. Every new product becomes an opportunity for a potential player to see the game for the first time, and to maybe take a gamble on it. Reckoning is a more attractive starter package for new players, and I think will be more likely to entice someone to try it out. The considerable supporting material allows new players to feel comfortable picking up the game, and the history of regular, consistent updates also helps. These are the things I can control, so that’s where I endeavor to put my focus.

Right now, however, my focus is on my little girl, who turns 1 today! I’m off to a big birthday party…

This is the overriding rule. I have to know what is in the best interests of the game, of the game world, and of its continued growth going forward. Unless I have a firm handle of why the game should have four core archetypes, I can easily be swayed when someone writes in saying that the game absolutely needs a druid class, because druids are just that flippin’ cool. Druids may be that flippin’ cool, and I want to make sure that the game has a framework in place to allow you to build a druid if you want, but I can’t throw out a central design concept to make it fit. I understand that there is no way to please everyone. Trying is only going to water down the game to the point where no one likes it. I accept that Mythweaver is not going to be everyone's cup of tea. However, I am 100% sure there are at least 100 players out there who would absolutely love Mythweaver if they had a chance to play it. I have a good feeling that there may be 1,000 players out there who'd enjoy it if they played it. I have a feeling that there could be 10,000 potential players out there, if I found the right way to break through and be seen at that level. Developing a 48-page core rulebook is a great first step in that direction.

If someone doesn’t like something in the game- and believe me, there is always someone who won’t like something- listen to it. Take it and think about it and give it a play test. Listen to why someone feels the way they do, and try to step back and be objective about it. If my goal is to create the best possible game I can (and that IS the goal, by the way), I have to be willing to be rigorous in examining the game. However, I also have to remember not to feel obliged to use the criticism to change anything. 

This is especially important when talking with the people who actually play the game (and pay for it, by the way); these are the people whose voice should be heard the most clearly. While reviewers are valuable and give feedback that can be used to focus and clarify things you want to do, it is the people actually playing the game who give the most significant feedback. I’ve found the player community to be an invaluable asset. Generally, when you ask people for help, they are willing to give it, as long as they feel they are appreciated and listened to. I’ve received invaluable assistance on Reckoning by listening to what players were telling me. Some ideas are out there and unusable, some become the seed of something great that is a hybrid of what a player suggested and what I did with it, and some are pure gold- ideas I may have never come up with, but which fit perfectly with what I wanted to do. Unless I’m willing to ask for and listen to such feedback, I’ll never know what’s out there.

Several rules guide how I market and develop the game, going into Reckoning and continuing forward. The first is that I need to get out there.     

I need to keep a public face up. This has been one of the hardest things to do, since I would rather be working on my game than posting to message boards about it (I’m working on this entry rather than posting another actual play thread right now). The other challenge here is selling yourself and a game you believe in without sounding like you are selling yourself and hyping your game. Few things will incite the ire of message board posters more than jumping onto a thread and touting your own game.

The way I’ve found to do this is through actual play threads, and this has been successful for me. This becomes a win-win-win. I get to talk about my game all I want; I get to show off how it works; I get to make characters and go on an adventure and play the game. It requires me to take good notes and to be diligent in reporting actual play experiences, but it’s been the most productive and positive way to build press for the game. I don’t always have something great to add to my blog or something meaningful to contribute to a message board discussion, but I can always pick up some dice and take on a pack of ghouls.

Finding a balance of beasts has been tricky, but something that helped a great deal was differentiating between animals and beasts. Animals are natural (albeit bigger and tougher) creatures with a basic attack form and simple approaches to combat. An animal does one thing, and behaves in expected ways. If you meet a hungry badger, it’s going to try to eat you- it’s pretty straightforward. This allowed for a single chart (taking one page) that outlines a wide range of animals to throw against heroes. This created a good assortment of ‘random encounter’ types of creatures without taking up a big chunk of the core rules.

Conversely, beasts are ‘special’ creatures, and I’ve made a concerted effort to differentiate between the various beasts to make encounters with these creatures different from encounters with animals, and also different from encounters with other beasts.

The other big change here from 2E is in the levels of the beasts in the core rules. The most powerful beast given is level 13. This will allow new players to get through level 10 before needing more monsters, which can be done through MWAJ (or by Mythweavers once they know the rules). This allowed more monsters into the core rules, and also to make sure that there were a wide range of challenges for lower-level heroes. Most play happens below level 10 anyway, so most of the monsters in the rules should address that player need. The other benefit here was that the beasts given could have shorter stat blocks, since higher levels mean more abilities, and more information needed. A restless mummy is a stand-in for the lich, serving the same dramatic purpose (a powerful undead manipulator who pulls the strings for other undead), but requires a shorter stat block to give you the same fundamental creature. If you want to build a lich, give him a few levels and bump up the traits and abilities- voila: instant lich.

All told, I was able to squeeze over 50 different beasts into the core rules, but got them into a handful of pages. They have more flavor and variety than the creatures of 2E, and I feel they really show off some of the things that Mythweaver can do.

Here’s a sample stat block:

                Growing in the damp cold of ancient ruins, rimer's mold emits a cold chill felt by any creature traveling within 3 units. Any target coming within 1 unit of rimer's mold causes the mold to emit a burst of cold filling a U+1 AOE around the mold, forcing all targets to roll REA (DT 6) or suffer 5 points of cold damage. Those making the roll suffer only 3 damage. The mold does not roll initiative, but automatically emits a burst of cold at the beginning of every round (at 90, 60 and 30) in which a living target remains within 1 unit. The mold is difficult to notice, requiring a DT 6 INT roll, +1 for every unit distance from the mold. The mold cannot be affected by normal weapons, although a burning torch becomes a melee weapon +1 when swung at the mold.

Combat resolution is the place where Reckoning really differentiates itself from 2E. The method for determining and tracking combat time and movement has been fundamentally changed, resulting in a quicker, easier to manage (but more flexible) combat system.

Initiative is only rolled once per turn, and rounds automatically bump up against each other. Previously, you rolled initiative at the beginning of every round, and any action points left at the end of the round were lost. Now, these points carry over from round to round, allowing combat to seamlessly flow for the full turn. Whereas before game time was measured by the 30-segment round, it is now measured by the 90-segment turn. You roll initiative and add this result to 60; this is the first action you take, counting backwards from 90. Previously, a high initiative bonus allowed a character to take 1 (or sometimes 2) actions before anyone else got to go, happening each round. This gave quick characters a huge edge in combat. Now, those characters get the same edge at the very beginning of combat, but once the big, slow guys get rolling, it's a level playing field.

A new concept that came into being was the minor action, which has a default delay of 3. Many of the actions that used to take a full action (delay 10), have been changed to delay 3 to make them more viable in combat. Drinking a potion or changing between weapons now happen more quickly, and are easier to track. The same is true for a critical failure on an action, which now imposes a minor action penalty. Botching still sucks, but it doesn't suck as much as it used to. Previously, botches could easily end your combat round; now, they slow you down a half step before you jump right back into things.

This necessitated a change to movement, which always involved formulas that were too complicated. Move was previously set as a delay to travel one unit. While somewhat realistic, this made closing for melee combat a difficult and time-consuming task, putting ranged characters into the driver's seat for encounters. Now, the default movement rate for all characters allows you to move one unit as a minor action, delay 3. Want to move 4 units? You have to use 4 minor actions (total delay 12) to do it. This is much, much faster than the previous system. The only way to increase this is through magic, which will give you a magical bonus to the number of units you may travel as a minor action. Once you get your hands on a paragon magical item of movement, you ARE a ranged weapon- you can travel 5 units as a minor action! You can't outrace an arrow, but it's close.

I always enjoyed poring over the equipment lists when building a character, but this often becomes the point that really bogs down character creation- and for no good reason. The last thing that should happen (from a dynamic storytelling perspective) is for the game to stop because someone forgot to purchase a rope. Now, all heroes begin with a list of default starting gear and basic weapons/armor... and you have enough money to purchase one cool thing (or a cooler thing if you roll well). If your hero is primarily defensive, you can get some decent armor or a shield; if you are a damage dealer, you can pick up a better weapon; if you are a caster, you can get your magical focus and maybe a potion if you have some extra cash. This allows you to quickly buy the thing you want that is going to make a difference in the game, and not worry about whether you remembered to buy torches and a rope. 

Something that was on the verge of making it into 2E just as Reckoning was getting rolling was a revision of some of the mechanics on weapons and armor. During 2E play testing, I did several initial passes with getting different weapon types against different armors. I really really (really) wanted this level of detail in weapons and armor, but I couldn't find a way to make it work without over-complicating the whole thing. There was zero difference between a club and a sword from a mechanical standpoint. You may as well just write 'weapon +3' on your character sheet and be done with it. While this is nice for a simple system, it is neither evocative nor much fun, and I just didn't know how to solve it.

This ended up breaking up nicely between blunt, piercing and slashing weapons (which I liberally borrowed from the MMORPG Dark Age of Camelot). Similarly, armor is now be broken down into its protection against the three damage types... or not. If you want to keep things simple, just use neutral armor against all damage, and ignore the damage types. However, it's easy to use and plug in. Each beast is listed with its armor broken down among the three damage types to give each encounter (and each beast) more flavor, and the gear section gives sample armors for you to see how to apply this concept in play. Once you do the initial math and record it on your character sheet, you're done. The Mythweaver then has to say "You take 8 points of piercing damage" and you check you armor against piercing damage... take the difference from your health and keep playing.

The added benefit here is that Mythweavers can now tailor encounters to the strengths and weaknesses of a hero group with more precision. If the poor mace-wielding vindicator has been on the short end of things for a few encounters, you can throw in a group of crystalline monstrosities that have tremendous armor against piercing and slashing weapons, good warding against magic, and poor armor against blunt. Now, while the rest of the hero group has to nickel and dime the health of this beast, the vindicator gets to stride forward and lay the beat down with his formerly humble mace, taking big chunks out of the creature with each swing.

One reviewer comment on 2E was that ‘beast’ included such creatures as goblins and ogres… and those aren’t really beasts. The more I thought about this, the more I realized that the reviewer was right. In addition, it was counter-intuitive that orks were built one way (using character creation rules) while goblins were built another (using beast rules, and far more limited in their abilities). With Reckoning, eliminated ‘humanoids’ as a beast type altogether, and instead give some examples in the sample adventure of low-level goblins to throw your heroes against, built using the same rules for heroes. The beast section then is reserved for true beasts- the monsters that populate the game world.

In designing the core races, it was important that these provided a range of different enemy types for Mythweavers to use in building encounters. Winter goblins (small and quick), bloodstone ogres (big and strong) and dusk elves (stealthy and secretive) each fill a different niche, but provide a wide range of encounter types for the heroes to face right out of the gate. This is something that will be quickly expanded through Mythweaver Adventure Journal. It will be helpful for Mythweavers to have a number of prepared examples to fill encounters with; we'll soon have articles with a half-dozen sample bloodstone trolls, dusk elves and winter goblins. Now, when heroes come across a goblin, they have no idea what that means... that little bugger could very easily be a level 12 savant that drops frost magic on their heads before closing in to beat on them with its enchanted flail...

Everything about Reckoning had to be different from 2E, and races were no exception. Early on, I knew that each race would end up with an adjective before the name; this idea carried over into designing beasts as well, and it was important that the mechanic used to build beasts and heroes was closer (more on beasts tomorrow). One of the easiest ways to evoke atmosphere and give a sense of a race's world view was by giving each race a specific identity. An 'unshackled dwarf' is more evocative than a 'dwarf'; the name implied something about the dwarves, their history and their attitude. During development of the 6 primary magic talents, I decided that linking each of these to a core race would give the entire world a stronger sense of unity; this would also allow each race to have an affinity to one magical energy, and a susceptibility to its opposite energy. This created a number of cool side benefits, including:

- Each race has a natural enmity to another. Since forge gnomes are connected to flame and winter goblins are connected to frost, they naturally dislike each other, and they naturally 'hurt' each other with their innate magical connection. This was a logical, setting-based, mechanically-supported enmity; I see goblins and gnomes as enemies. The same is true for dawn and dusk elves, who are connected to light and shadow respectively, and for bloodstone trolls and unshackled dwarves, connected to stone and storm respectively.

- A central mechanic works for all races. Once you know how affinity and susceptibility work (which takes a one-paragraph sidebar), you can apply this to races, and each one becomes distinct. Now, there is more separating a troll from a dwarf beyond a few trait points in one direction or another and 3' of height. There are fundamental differences between the races.

 The fly in the ointment here that came up during play testing was the concept of dwarves and trolls. Since dwarves were created by the giants of the Barrens as slaves, they have a susceptibility to stone magic. The dwarves of Reckoning not only cannot use stone magic; they actually are more likely to be harmed by it! This counters the Tolkien-esque view of dwarves, but also helps to differentiate Mythweaver dwarves from 'other' fantasy dwarves. I see them as little vikings riding around in warships driven on by the power of lightning... a much different concept from most portrayals of dwarves. Conversely, trolls (being connected to stone) are more likely to be harmed by lightning- the trolls were the surrogates of the giants, used to enforce their will over the dwarves over centuries in the Barrens. When dwarves stole storm magic, the first thing they did was to use it against their troll taskmasters with devastating effect.

Skills have been a big bugaboo... the hobgoblin of my little mind. Skills create all sorts of mechanical problems. I've been very happy with how magic works- at its most basic, you make a trait roll to make the magic happen, and you roll the magic rating for the result. Your traits are important for magic, and your talent is important.

Skills don't work like that, because you don't make a result roll with them; they are all action rolls. In 2E, I solved this by having the trait and talent rating work together, and created a structure of difficulty targets set to challenge that combined rating, which was much higher than either the trait or talent would be alone. This created new problems: someone without the talent, or with minimal talent, often had no chance of success at all because the difficulties were so large; skills that naturally challenged another character's traits (using stealth to sneak by a target using INT to notice you), required a modification of the mechanic to allow them to work. Some skills didn't nicely link to a specific trait (if I'm looking for a trap, is this an INT + burglary roll, or a REA + burglary roll?).

With Reckoning, I re-envisioned skills not as a natural outgrowth of an existing trait, but instead as what amounts to an entirely new trait. Your ability to find and disarm a trap is not a function of how smart or how fast you are; it's a function of how good you are at finding and disarming traps. Your ability to sneak by a foe is a little bit about your speed, and a little about your perception, but primarily it's about how good you are at sneaking past someone. While many skills talents are opposed by a trait (INT is used to notice stealth), many are set against situational DTs (your success at picking a lock depends largely on how well-made the lock is).

Once I made this decision, the numbers (all numbers in the game, in fact) were able to get scaled way back, making the tracking of everything a bit easier. DTs could now be simplified, and a new DT structure was implemented; the DT of any situation is its level +5. This is incredibly easy to manage, determine and resolve, and variations are easy to assign, using the RM. Now, if you find a lock in a level 7 dungeon, it's probably DT 12 to pick. If it's a high quality lock, it may be up to +RM tougher (DT 15 in this case) or if it's poor, it may be as low as -RM easier (DT 9 in this case). This gives a lot of variety to situations, but makes the numbers easy to determine and manage. This makes all rolls potentially successful once you buy a skill, and makes even a few skill points very valuable. This becomes even easier to manage thanks to the use of the talent naming system. If you aren't sure how difficult it is to identify a rare plant, decide who would normally be able to do it... is this something an apprentice could do? Add +1 to the base DT of 5. If you'd need to have some training (adept), add +3. If you'd need to be an expert, add +6. If you'd need to be among the greatest naturalists in the world, add +15. You get to DTs quickly and with minimal fiddling.

The resulted in the elimination of athletics as a skills talent (although it may be back before long as a heroic perk- we'll see if that makes the final cut once I trim the fat next week from the book before it goes live). Athletics increased your physical traits in specific situations; a trait roll against a DT of 5+ level is much easier to adjudicate, and makes more sense.

However, both arms and skills had secondary talents, and skills needed them too. I was hesitant to add mending (a sort of first aid) as a skills talent, since this seemed to overlap some magic talents, but the way it ended up working and its universal applications to all living targets (regardless of their ASP) made it a good fit; it's not overbalancing, but gives you some ability to heal yourself or others without taking away from light/darkness magic. Skills like smith give more variety for character building, and help to create more well-rounded heroes for the game world, immersing them more in the story, and allowing heroes to do things like construct their own armor and weapons, which was never included in the game before.

It all started with magic. Six months ago, in Mythweaver Adventure Journal #2, a refining of the magic system saw print, providing a stronger system for developing spontaneous spells. After this, I couldn't get a refined spell system out of my head. Several players suggested a simplified core rulebook for new players, and that got me working on Mythweaver: Arvandoria, which simplified the core magic system into four types, linked to the elements and using the new engine from MWAJ #2. With more reflection, I found that the 'ideal' system would fall somewhere between 2E and Arvandoria- simplified and tied to the elements, but with more flexibility and range than Arvandoria allowed.

Very quickly, this broke itself logically into six spell talents, broken up along opposing pairs: light opposes darkness; flame opposes frost; stone opposes storm. I thought a great deal about building spell casters, and in developing synergy between spell lines. It was important that there was very little carryover between lines, but also that each line was fully functional and gave a variety of options.

Once these were set, I made a list of the abilities from 2E and Arvandoria that would not be allowed by these talents, as well as a list of magic abilities I'd like to include in the game, but which didn't fit nicely into one of the six primary talents. These lists lead to the creation of minor talents and secondary talents.

Minor talents are more limited than the primary talents, but still allow for some progression through talent ranks. These cap out at expert rank, giving you the full access to all spontaneous spells within the talent. These were still pretty broad talents, but are more focused than the primary talents. Examples that became part of minor talents are illusion and travel. Each of these may be useful as a backup spell line for a primary caster, or as the primary line for a savant (the former vindicator- see yesterday's discussion) or myrmidon/seeker who uses bonus talents. I could see a seeker using a bonus talent rank to pick up some travel or some illusion magic to become more versatile.

Secondary talents have a one-point buy in cost, and once you have them they automatically level as you go. Things like quick spell go here; once you have purchased it, you automatically get a bump in your casting speed as you advance.

This better reflects the way that both arms and skills work going forward, and lends a better sense of continuity to the three talent types.

One place where designing Arvandoria really impacted Reckoning's design approach was the simplification and streamlining of the archetypes. While these used to be called 'classes', several people have commented that these are more templates or archetypes than actual classes. I felt that they fell in the middle ground, and did so inconsistently. Myrmidon and mystic were very 'general' and much more archetypal; you can have myrmidon fit any number of characters with any number of approaches and philosophies. Conversely, the classes like hunter, rake and defender implied a more limited scope and approach.

This game had to go one direction or the other, and since the whole goal was to streamline and focus, the decision was to go with four core archetypes, and to pull these all a bit closer to 'center', so that you could still customize the class to touch the fringes of the others. Each of the four archetypes ended up with 18 talent ranks by level 20 (the same as 2E), but with more uniformity of progression. All get 3 bonus talents to place where desired, as well as:

- Myrmidons (the fighting archetype) get 10 ranks of arms and 5 ranks of skills

- Mystics (the casting archetype) get 10 ranks of magic and 5 ranks of skills

- Seekers (the skills-based archetype) get 10 ranks of skills and 5 ranks of arms

- Vindicators (the hybrid archetype) get 5 ranks each of arms, magic and skills

This means that you can build a myrmidon who almost gets to a vindicator (10 arms, 5 skills, 3 magic); or you can get closer to a seeker (10 arms, 8 skills); you can go full arms (13 arms, 5 skills) or do a little bit of everything (11 arms, 6 skills, 1 magic), depending on how you see the character. Want to play a druid? Are you a more balanced vindicator druid (ending with 6 arms, 6 magic, 6 skills) or a more magical vindicator druid (5 arms, 5 skills, 8 magic); or are you a mystic druid with minimal combat ability (2 arms, 10 magic, 6 skills), a mystic druid with more skills but no developed ability in physical combat (magic 10, skills 8), or a mystic druid who has focused all of his training into magic (13 magic, 5 skills). They can all be considered 'druids', although each approach and build is different. The archetype system allows for the full range of possibility, and every step between. As your character grows, you get to make a lot of choices about the direction of that growth. Your archetype choice gives the general shape your character will take, but each level you get to really shape your character in the specific direction you want to go.

Inspired by working on and thinking about Shakespeare’s Macbeth, I envisioned a time when the world was dark, mysterious and unknown. At first, I thought about a cataclysmic event that would shake the world to its foundations and allow me to re-work some elements of 2E in new ways, within the context of story. My initial notes included a magical war that re-aligned magic entirely. Then I realized the game world had already had such an event 800 years before the current game system- a LOT can change in 800 years. I also liked this for the Star Wars vibe of “a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away”. This is literally ‘once upon a time’ for a game world I’ve already developed in some detail. It’s a far more authentic way to envision the past in a way than I could have come up with any other way. In terms of story, I’ve been itching to tell tales of just before, during and after the Reckoning, since I see that as the time of greatest conflict in the Mythweaver universe. Why not set the game there?

                This has been enjoyable to work on because of the given circumstances of the world. I know that I cannot change certain things without invalidating the work I've done before. I also know that this opens up entire worlds (literally) of adventure. The other cool side effect from a writing standpoint is that this occurs before any demigods have arisen to help mankind… so the heroes of the world are literally ‘on their own’, since the only god actively intervening in the world is committed to its absolute annihilation.