Free RPG Day 2023

 I actually put myself out in front of other people on Saturday supporting my FLGS for Free RPG Day. I volunteered to run one of the free games for people at the shop. Hoping to avoid the horror show that was my Starfinder game last year, I thought I would try something that sounded simple and fun. Heckin Good Doggos, a game where your character is a dog.

I was allowed to pick up the module the night before the event so I could read up and get prepared. While the system was simpler and I was able to get up to speed on how everything worked, the provided scenario simply didn't hold up.

The major sin is that it didn't open with the hook. It's a little bit forgivable if you're meeting in the tavern and you have a scene of interaction or interest before you see the robed figure in the corner with your mission, or something bursts in the door that kickstarts the action. But the hook was actually hidden and had to be found to start off the story proper. Without that hook, the players spent most of the time just dogging around. One of them finally met the "questgiver" but by this time, they were all doing their own thing.

The other sin is that the scenario didn't lean into its themes. While each character sheet lists details about each dog's owner (or Best Friend in the game's terminology) and their neighborhood, both of those things are strikingly absent from the scenario. It's set in a separate place and may not even be there with their Best Friends. On the one hand, a "generic" adventure can be forgiven because the designer may not know what any individual player group. On the other hand, the characters are pregens, so that gives you a powerful tool to insert as much specificity as you want.

I think if I'm going to do this next year, I would run the system of a free game being offered, but not the adventure. Just so I have time to be properly familiar with the system and scenario and to address any problems I have with either.

WIR 13th Age #3

 Now we get into the classes proper.

Quickly looking over the classes, there's a lot of repeated content. Each class advancement chart lists how many feats the character gets, when they get ability boosts and weapon damage bonuses, which appear to be consistent across all classes. There's even a little "action stat block" for melee and ranged attacks, though there does appear to be some variation. Most classes use Strength for melee attacks, a few classes have the option to use Dexterity, and the rogue class uses Dexterity for all attacks.

This is probably carried over from D&D 4e, which a couple of the developers worked on before.this project. Rather than design for efficiency, repeating rules only when necessary, they've opted for ease of reference, repeating rules whenever they feel it would be most helpful.

It doesn't always stick the landing, though. Because the chart is full of repeated information, unique information isn't always included. Like the barbarian and their Barbarian Rage class feature. That seems a shoo-in for appearing on the class progression chart. But it's the only class feature they get, with everything else being feats and class talents, so it would be a lonely entry on the chart, with no follow up. 

What is on the chart is an enumeration of the classes' hit points, their total feats, how many class talents they get, the points at which they get ability score boosts and the multiplier to their ability score to damage. A lot of repeated stuff that only differs a little between the character classes. It also does nothing to sell the individual classes. Not to knock the art and descriptive text, which do a lot of the heavy lifting here.

The bard is next and as our first spellcaster, we see another oddity in this system. While it matches the D&Dism of 1st through 9th level spells, it only includes spells of the odd numbered levels. Though it does better than D&D in that character level and spell level line up pretty neatly. You get 1st level spells at 1st level and 3rd level spells and 3rd level and so on.

But the big oddity is that you only get access to the top tier of spells that you can cast. While it's sort of customary that a D&D style spellcaster focuses on their big gun spells, they do have a train of lesser spells that they have acquired over their career. The good news is that even though you are forced to advance to bigger and better spells, you can keep and upgrade spells that are already in your repertoire if you like them. Each spell starts at a particular level and has rules for upgrading it to any higher level so you can keep it for your entire career if you want.

I think D&D 5e does something similar with "upcasting," increasing a spell's power by using a higher level spell slot. Both solutions streamline the rule from prior editions where a spell became more effective as your caster level rose, but since each spell used caster level in different formulas, it had to be managed on a per-spell basis.

Bards also get battle cries, which are given names that are clearly intended to be called out. They are used as part of a melee attack. Depending on what you roll on the die, often regardless of whether the attack roll hits your foe, you can trigger different effects.

Just like in other flavors of D&D, the cleric gets various domain to choose from, reflecting their divine inspiration. But unlike other versions, this doesn't do a whole lot. You don't get a set of themed spells and the powers that you get don''t go too far away from the cleric's core competencies. Also, since the game leans heavily into its Icons to provide the same sort of flavor that gods would in a more conventional D&D setting, 13th Age clerics don't really fill the same setting role, even as they fill the same game role.

This is exacerbated by the fact that there are relatively few options. For example, there are 7 1st level spells that your character can learn. You will start with 4 of them and gain a 5th before you branch out to 2nd level spells.

The cleric class description with all of its repeated rules and limited class options, is only 10 pages. The fighter class is even shorter, with only 8 pages, one of them taken up by a full page illustration. There's a decent selection of class talents. It's would actually be possible to meet two 10th level fighters who do not share any talents, which is pretty good after the last few classes.

On top of that, they also get maneuvers, which use the same mechanics as the bard's battle cries. On certain rolls of the dice, you have the option to trigger one of your maneuver effects, some extra damage, a bonus to hit on your next attack or whatever. It feels a little weird that the class is so heavily based on randomness. You can strategize a little by taking maneuvers that trigger on different results, or lean heavily on a certain type of outcome and have a choice of effects whenever that result comes up.

The paladin class is even lighter than the fighter. Their main class ability is called "Smite Evil," but since the game doesn't really do alignment, that's kinda meaningless. There are no special rules, like spells or maneuvers for the paladin, just a modest set of class talents to choose from. It's mostly what you'd expect. Lay on hands, and a couple of abilities that let you dip into cleric slightly.

The ranger is likewise fairly simple. You can be cool archery ranger, cool double weapon ranger and/or get an animal companion. The animal companion rules are fairly simple, with a standard stat block for each level of play, so your pet scales with you, and a small selection of abilities to customize to feel like different animals.

The rogue is an odd duck in that it actually has something of a role outside of direct combat. But as is emblematic of this game, the rules are deliberately loosey goosey. The "Swashbuckle" talent is basically a license to do crazy stunts without requiring a roll of any kind.

On top of the normal mix of class talents, rogues also get what are called "powers." There's a lot of variety here. Some powers are variant attack abilities with different special rules or effects, a couple of them are special actions of other types, and some rely on a resource called momentum that only rogues get. I would have really liked to see the fighter get some of these moves, or at least a similar system.

The last two classes are the sorcerer and the wizard and it's always interesting to see how people view the difference between them. In this case, sorcerers are generally blasters, with lots of damaging spells, including a variety of breath weapon effects.They also lean into the "magic in the blood" with talents that imply heritage from one of the magical Icons.

Wizards are more "cerebral." While they do have their share of damage effects, they also get status effects and utility spells that sorcerers generally don't.

Now that I've gone through all of the classes, next up is the combat rules.