My Background in Tabletop Gaming: Part 1

Now perhaps would be a good time to establish how much familiarity I have with tabletop RPGs, and of course knowing that you've played longer than I have will make it much easier to dismiss any points I have that you don't agree with; allow me to accommodate you.

During high school my little clique of friends and I decided we should learn how to play D&D. David bought up the core books to 3.5 from the Borders bookstore and we set about reading them. None of us could figure out how to actually play. He eventually returned the books and we shrugged our shoulders and go on with our lives.

As I came to college in fall of 2008 I fell in with a bunch that would eventually form the school's fantasy and sci-fi club, and the founder was adamant about getting some new players for his fresh D&D 4^th Edition books. So he helped us make characters and we showed up eager to learn how to play. The campaign began with all of us in an arena as enslaved gladiators. Now I wasn't actually told how the rules of D&D worked, I just knew to roll initiative when a fight started and that if it was my turn that I could attack. It wasn't until after that session that I saw my character, Tarnykus Thunderscale the Dragonborn Warlord, was capable of healing. That came in handy in the second session, since we ended up fighting the guards of the arena. Who were level 14 Yuan-Ti; we were level 2. We managed to bust out though since we'd found all the other gladiators and convinced them to help us (then snuck away while they kept the guards tangled). Having completely hopped his rails, Matt introduced a DMPC to sneak us off the island.

Looking back, it's pretty obvious that this wasn't the optimal way to be playing 4^th Edition D&D. For my part, I started to get really invested in learning the system and seeing if I could get a better grasp on it, so I grabbed the books and started planning out my first campaign.

The first session I ever ran didn't go super well. I was ripping off the story to Seven Samurai and had an uninspired and heavily railroaded first delve cooked up. I was inflexible. I included mechanics of my own design in a boss fight which came to an unsatisfying conclusion. I could tell I needed to get better.

So I read those forums. I also borrowed a copy of Keep on the Shadowfell from a friend (at the time). I studied that thing; tried to understand why it was laid out the way it was and see how I could use that as a model for my own attempts. I ran 3/4ths of that adventure for two players that semester. Meanwhile, I was branching out. I started playing Werewolf: The Forsaken and Star Wars: Saga Edition that same semester. I wouldn't get to play much of either afterward, but I was approaching a level of familiarity with the hobby that I could appreciate what they did well and didn't do well. I'm still in love with the Condition Track in Saga Edition. The idea that you could build a character that ignores dealing damage and just focuses on knocking you further down that track until you're either unconscious or left a babbling incoherent non-threat...it's the very best way to get me wistful.

Over the next year I got big on roleplaying over the internet using Maptools, a digital tabletop program. I got to play in a wonderful campaign called Palonian Intrigue run in D&D 4^th Edition, and played what has since become my very favorite character: Canticus D. Feywood, Half-Elven Bard. Canticus had so long studied the heroic poems, songs, and Eddas that he was convinced he could use his knowledge of how those stories unfolded to inform his decisions and lead him safely through his own adventure, which he could then profit off of by writing his own songs detailing his exploits. He got wrapped up in a truly labyrinthine scandal involving a frame-up between the human kingdom of Palonia and the Elven fortress the Aegisthorn. It soon became evident that we had no idea how far up it all went, and all throughout the murderous wildcard Velvet dogged us.

Next up: My Pathfinder period

The Shatterpoint Explained

For those of you unaware, a "shatterpoint" is a phenomena that occurs in the extended universe of Star Wars. A shatterpoint is a moment in time recognized by those with Force precognizance to be an opportunity for massive and far-reaching change. Those Jedi or Sith who developed their ability to foresee the future saw these as moments that they couldn't hope to influence indirectly; a shatterpoint is an event that can completely change everything that was originally to follow. You can think of the climax of Return of the Jedi as a clear shatterpoint: Emperor Palpatine was a master of Force Precognition, yet he placed himself on the uncompleted Death Star and brought Luke Skywalker into his own throne room. He can't be a bad planner because, after all, he went from Senator of a Republic to an Emperor in about 10 years. Palpatine could see that Luke Skywalker had become a shatterpoint. Luke would either decide to become Palpatine's apprentice, murder his own father, and become a terrible Sith Lord and help the Emperor to stamp out the Rebel Alliance, or he would do exactly what occurred in the actual film. It was a huge risk, but Palpatine intervened hoping he could use the shatterpoint to change the future in his favor.

Well, the tabletop rpg genre is entering a shatterpoint right now. In the past couple of years Paizo's Pathfinder RPG has outsold Wizard of the Coast's Dungeons & Dragons, a mainstay and veritable juggernaut in the community for 40 years now. The last year and a half has seen WotC perform an Open Playtest for the new edition of D&D, which has began its release as of last month. No doubt in retaliation, Paizo has announced for next year the book Pathfinder Unchained which will feature new and alternative rules to the system. Paizo staff have of late been candid about the fact that the system their game is built upon is nearly 15 years old and that there are a number of facets of it they feel could be improved upon. They have been hesitant to do so in the past due to the initial advertising strategy Paizo used which marked Pathfinder as a continuation of the 3.x d20 system past WotC's discontinuation of D&D 3.5. For the foreseeable future these two publishers will be at all-out war for control of the market.

Though there are still other competitors in the arena. Fantasy Flight Games have just recently released the Second Edition of their Warhammer 40k rpg Dark Heresy and are continuing to expand upon their Star Wars license with Star Wars: Age of Rebellion and next year's Star Wars: Force and Destiny. Smaller publishers have produced a number of new systems within the past year that challenge the way we gamers have come to think of the classic fantasy dungeon crawl. 13th Age, Numenara, and Dungeon World each provide a welcome and refreshingly modern alternative to the same old D&D all over again. Could one of these games find itself standing at the peak of the hobby? If Paizo could do it, then perhaps the possibility is there.

The goal of this blog from here on then will be to report on how this shatterpoint unfolds. I'll be reviewing the 5th Edition Dungeons and Dragons Player's Handbook soon, along with 13th Age's 13 True Ways. You can also expect reports and analyses of my own games, those I run and play in. The future is an uncertain one, but I'm hoping you're willing to do what I plan to: just roll along with it.