Traps are a classic element of adventure design, but in play are often abstracted away with a couple of skill checks (one to detect the trap, one to disarm it) or outmaneuvered by clever play. Either way, the trap construction system presented in the Pathfinder Core Rulebook is more “mechanically sophisticated’ (i.e. …
In my last Race and Class post I discussed other ways race-class associations have been implemented in D&D and D&D-like games. I have come to prefer to the later-edition methods of handling it: some races are just better at certain classes, at least a bit, or exhibit traits similar to …
Or perhaps ‘historical alternates’. In my last post I described how race and class were linked in various editions of Dungeons & Dragons (and family). In this post I’ll expand a little on these connections, and a couple of alternatives to them. Later-era D&D 3.x presented ‘alternate class features’, where …
Four months since my last blog post?! Apparently the new job — which is going wonderfully — has been taking more out of me than I anticipated. However, now that I’m getting my feet under me it’s time to get back to some game design. Races and Classes in Dungeons …
In discussing city wards in my last post, I said that each ward could have up to three qualities. This was partly to keep the total number of qualities in a multi-ward settlement to reasonable levels, but also to prepare for this step: applying the polyhedral process (introduced in Polyhedral …
So far, the city construction process has really only covered fairly homogeneous settlements. You might describe a bustling port as having lots of commerce (high Trade score and the Mercantile property) but highly-transient population that can get pretty rowdy (low Stability score). This isn’t a lot of detail, but until …
In my last post I talked about the basics of city construction. Settlements have settlement scores analogous to characters’ ability scores, though applied to different purpose; levels analogous to character levels, that influence the size and resources available; population analogous to experience points (which will come into play more in …
Deviating from plan (I’d said my next post would be about building a ‘local pantheon’ of small gods), I decided to write instead about alternate rules for developing a city or other settlement. It expands somewhat on the Polyhedral Pantheons Adaptations I wrote about a while ago. Settlement Basics Before diving …
Many campaigns have world-spanning deities whose power reaches everywhere (more or less). They can provide the ‘full range of services’ (i.e. spells all the way up to ninth level, or seventh in some editions of D&D). Very useful from a game play perspective. However, the idea of being able to …
A brief diversion on the Words of Power exploration, I thought it worth providing a bit of an overview of how powers are constructed in HERO System. This looks like it will become important soon. Effects Powers in HERO are based on effect, with descriptors added to give flavor and something to …