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Winter Hibernation Reviews

It’s been a while since I have written anything for the blog, which tends to happen around winter time.  Here in Sweden, winter is a cold, dark, bitter experience that leaves one lethargic and unmotivated.  It’s a kind of hibernation where bringing up the strength to do anything but eat and sleep is difficult.  By February however the light comes back, the snow fall makes everything bright and you start to get your energy back.

Now even though I have been in my winter hibernation that is not to say no gaming has taken place, in fact there has been quite a bit.  I thought it would be great just to do a single article to get myself caught up by doing some mini reviews and drop some tips for a few games my group and I have been playing.   This is going to be a real mixed bag however because while we played quite a few new boardgames, we actually rotated back into some miniature gaming and role-playing games as well.

Lets get right into it.

Dungeons and Dragons 5th Edition

While there has been plenty of board gaming, this winter D&D 5th edition really took center stage for my gaming group as we put together a weekly wednesday night game that has become almost a religion for us.   Our campaign is set in the Forgotten Realms and has after over 20 sessions already reached many of those classic D&D heights like fighting dragons, giants, hobgoblins and much more all the while ranging the gambit from city life, dungeon crawling, wilderness adventures and everything in between.  It’s been an absolute blast.

Its new but feels classic, 5e got it just right!

For me personally D&D is a staple of role-playing, really my go to game for a great RPG experience and it has been so for nearly 30 years.  I have played every edition ever put out extensively, really you could say from a perspective of experience I’m about as veteran as you can get.   I was playing D&D when Gygax was a young man. That said however, despite 30 years of D&D I have rarely ever enjoyed the game as a player, which is why this particular campaign has been so much fun much for me.  Not being a GM not only gives you a very different perspective on the game, but allows you to appreciate the rule system in a very different, very personal way.

One thing I can say about 5th Edition D&D is that its probobly one of my favorite versions of the game from a strictly non-nostalgic perspective.  Meaning that I love it for what it is, a fun RPG, while being the fuel for what I consider a classic D&D experience.  It finds a kind of middle ground between classic/old school D&D and modern game design,  while simultaneously remaining rules light enough not to throw role-playing under the bus, but rule-sy enough to keep you interested in reading the books and exploring its nuances.  I still think 1st and 2nd edition offer the most in terms of the spirit of the game as Gygax intended it, not everyone would agree with me, but a fact doesn’t require you to believe it (burn!) but as a modern system, 5e is close enough to that old school method that in the hands of a good DM you can still get those nostalgia moments reminding you of your childhood.

The classics in their original form can still be enjoyed thanks to the Wizards of the Coast reprints.

For anyone who has never played a role-playing game before,  I highly recommend 5e as a place to start.  The rules are simple and streamlined, while the writing is done well enough to inspire your imagination.  If however you’re a 1st or 2nd edition player that has skipped all of the modern, post Gygax versions of the game, if there was one to try, it would be 5e.  Definitely a fantastic game, it gets my stamp of approval.

Twilight Imperium 4th Edition

When FFG announced that they would be putting out a new edition of one of my all time favorites after nearly 10 years of 3rd edition, my body was ready.  I certainly owe this blog a much closer and deeper review than what I’m about to do here, but suffice to say that like always Christian T. Peterson and his team do not disappoint.

This is the epic upgrade you have been looking for.

Twilight Imperium 4th edition takes the established formula of the 4x epic classic and brings it one step closer to perfection.  It remains the robust and dynamic experience we have come to expect while smoothing out some of the rough edges from the previous edition.  It still comes  with all the same flaws inherent to a game like this, namely its nearly unbearable length of play and rules weight.  I personally however accept and embrace it as is,  the depths of this games tactical and strategic lengths is well worth the 6+ hour investment you will need to make to play it.

I still believe that its a 6 player or nothing type game, you simply do not get the full experience with 3, 4 or 5 players, each suffering from various balance issues.   For the inducted veteran, 4e is well worth the coin for the upgrade and like always my suggestion to the uninitiated but interested is, tread carefully.  TI4 is not a board game, its a hobby and the price tag and time investment is too high to have the 5 kilo box sitting on your shelf collecting dust.  Be sure that you have the 6 man gaming group ready to dive in with you, if your twisting arms to get people to play, my suggestion is skip it. This is a game made for hardened veterans and fans of heavy science-fiction board gaming, everyone else is going to hate it.

All that said, for TI fans, this is another step towards that ultimate science-fiction gaming experiance.

New Angeles

By far this years smash hit for me is New Angeles.  I fell in love with this game after a single play as did my gaming group and for good reason, its fan-fucking-tastic.  Definitely a contender for game of the year, New Angeles is a negotiation, backstabbing joy ride that dare I say has effectively created a new genre of board gaming.

This is probably one of the best FFG board games since Twilight Imperium 3rd edition.

Its populated with some clever mechanics, it looks amazing on the table and its driven by a really cool science-fiction theme, all things that speak to me, in on itself enough to recommend it.  This however is really just the icing on the cake,  the real meat of this game is how it establishes the feel of a political drama that plays out in discussions and debates driven by the very difficult to predict motivations of the players.  This is almost a social experiment of sorts, where much of the fun of the game is trying to deduce what the hell people are really up to, what their goals really are and who they are actually playing against and for.

Absolutely love this one, I haven’t played something this fresh since the perfect Blood Rage.  This is one of those games that belongs on every gamers shelf.

I will be doing a full review of this one sometime in the future.

Star Wars Armada

My gaming group has a tendency to cycle in and out various types of gaming, we will go through board game, miniature game or role-playing game phases at unpredictable intervals.  When we go in however, we go big and hard like porn stars.  Star Wars Armada for quite a long time was THE game for us, in fact its one of the few games we have as a group participated in official tournaments, something that was entirely new to us.  We even have a store and regional champion in our midst.

Just as quickly however it fell out of favor, but not because we stopped liking it or anything, its more that we simply got into something else and like yesterdays news Armada got set aside.   Well recently Armada made a comeback and suddenly we are buying into the new wave 7 ships, building lists and planning events.   Why?  Because Armada remains without question one of the best miniature games on the market today.  Yes its a bit heavy and I totally understand why it doesn’t compete in popularity with the likes of X-Wing and 40k, but from a perspective of game design, mechanics and sheer epic size and feel, it is among the best there is.  This is the gamers miniature game, its far less about rolling dice, painting mini’s and list building and far more about planning and execution.

FFG has done a great job of keeping each wave relevant, but it’s far from perfect.

For me personally the fact that there is no fussing about with painting and assembly is a huge plus, but really of all the selling points of Armada, capital ship combat in the Star Wars universe has to be at the top of the list.  It shines thematically as much as it does competitively.  It’s a game of layers upon layers of depth, a game of strategic and tactical subtlety which results in an endless stream of lessons as you get better at the game and gain a higher understanding of its nuances.  There is already so much strategy to explore in this game with what has already been released and with each new wave they throw in the next curve ball that has everyone scrambling and re-assessing everything to find that new key strategy that brings them the wins.  Its a fantastic experience that no miniature game fan should miss.

Now it comes with a disclaimer label and I’m not going to sit on a pedestal and tell you everything is rosy, there are some issues.  Like all miniature games it kind of suffers at the hands of the competitive meta math mining where certain combinations one can say are at the very least stupid, if not outright broken.  In the case of Armada these combos are effective but not overwhelming, yet sufficiently irritating to kick of more than a handful of forum debates.  Combos often abused by the masses creates this effect of negativity that can let some of the steam out of the game.  Right now in Armada I’m a bit cranky about the activation spam lists and mechanics like Relay which I don’t think really fit the games core premise.  This sort of thing however is quite normal in miniature games and in local groups like mine its a none issue. In our group  people create clever lists, but they always maintain that the premise of the game is about capital ship combat and fun is always paramount.  So long as your gaming group adheres to some restraint, these mechanical loopholes are usually not a problem.

X-Wing remains the king of the hill for the general masses, its light nature, simple rules and quick gameplay is hard to compete with.

All and all I think Armada remains the best option for gamers looking for a proper miniature gaming challenge, but generally I tend to still recommend X-Wing for most gamers over Armada.  X-Wing is quick to play, easy to learn and maintains that fun spark, though like Armada is has a few rambunctious nuisance upgrades and ship that can really throw a wrench into the ferries wheel.  Armada I find is a bit too heavy for most as well, like I said, its a gamers game, even I burn out on it eventually as it requires a lot of thought and energy to stay competitive, but if you strand me on an island with one miniature game, I rather it be Armada over anything else.

Sid Meier’s Civilization: A New Dawn

I was really excited for this one, in fact I bought it kind of blind without really reading reviews or investigating the game much.  This was mainly because it was FFG at the helm and the game was from the same designer that brought us the amazing New Angeles.

It looked good from a far, but ended up being far from good.

I don’t want to say I was disappointed, it was a considerable improvement over FFG’s previous lackluster attempt at bringing us the classic PC game to board game form, but I was not blown away by it either.  Far more Euroish than is good for it, the game while streamlined and a fairly straightforward experience lacked that feel of building up a civilization you might be seeking in a game with the word Sid Meier in the title.  It lacked epicness if I can invent a word and for a game that takes you from the stone age to the future age, you think this would be the one focal point for the designers.

It’s kind of a typical Euro fair with rather obtuse mechanics and abstracted to the point where you realize it could just as easily had a different theme entirely.  You don’t really build much in the game, the differences  between nations and their strategic choices is quite benign and, like FFG’s previous attempt, they failed to produce a good combat system which is also a key feature of Sid Meiers game and it should be here as well.  Oh and I really hated the art style of the board game with as much disdain as I have for the art style of the new PC version.

It was an ok, one might say below average game. for me the search for the ultimate Twilight Imperium like epic for the civilization building genre continues, this was definitely not it.  It fell short of expectation and I don’t foresee it getting a whole lot of table time in the future.  Through The Ages and Nations remain the two reigning champions of this genre even though neither is played on a map.

18XX Series (1830 Railroads & Robber Barons)

One thing I got really into this winter is the 18XX series of games. These economic railroad and business management games really sparked my nostalgic love for classic PC games like Railroad Tycoon, Transport Tycoon and Capitalism.  Now I will say this up front, this is not a genre of games my local gaming buddies are into so I have to scratch this itch outside of my normal channels, hence it has hindered my efforts but I can say without reservation that there is real magic here.

If it looks complicated, its because it is. I would rate it at a 10 out of 10 in terms of complexity of rules, so be sure your up for it, there are far simpler train games out there for the less initiated.

The 18XX series has you running transportation empires, building them from scratch and over decades of time you slowly but surely develop your railroad business with a keen eye on the economic fluctuations of the stock-market and the cut throat competition of the other players.  This is definitely what I would call ”High Complexity” gaming, its rather slow and requires a general love for the genre and perhaps a bit of nostalgia seasoning.  Still it has this great attention to thematic detail giving you a really authentic sense of time and place.  I ended up picking up several of these games including 1830, which is among the first and perhaps most famous in the genre.

I recommend this title with a caution that there is nothing ”easy” about getting into these games, its definitely and absolutely for hardcore veteran gamers with a specific economic simulator itch to scratch.  You will read the rulebook several times before anything clicks and you need to play several games before the lights really come on, then you can spend a few years playing the virtually hundreds of titles in the genre each with its own take on the same premise.  But in the right group, games like this are truly a gamers greatest reward, a unique experience on a level of gaming most games never even come close to.  If you love railroad economic games, this is the final frontier in the genre, but be warned its not for the feint of heart.

Seven Wonder Duel

This is a game that I introduced to my 9 year old daughter in hopes that I might turn her into a proper gamer.  I failed with my son who went the cool route becoming a guitar jamming rockstar but my daughter is a lot more like me and took to Seven Wonders Duel like a moth to a flame.  Sometimes you love a game because you love the people that play it with you and Seven Wonders Duel definitely falls into that category for me.

There is strategy on many levels in this one with a lot of dynamics, it really has that infinite replay-ability thing going for it.

My daughter and I probably play this game at least 3 or 4 times each week and I give no quarter when I play her.  She beats me frequently, fair and square and that in itself makes me love this game even more. Its not complex by any stretch of the imagination, but far more complex than I would have expected a 9 year old to grasp.  True, my daughter is smarter than your average bear, but I actually believe this game to be quite kid friendly.  Its colorful, the rules are fairly simple to remember and because you don’t actually count up the score until the end, it keeps their attention as they ”hope for the win”.

I definitly like Duel better than the original, it has a quaint family game quality and the fact that its specifically designed for two players means my daughter and I never have to beg the none gamers in the family to join us.

Great game, highly recommend it, in particular if you are trying to induct one of your kids into the board gaming hobby or trying to turn your wife into a gamer.

Legend of the Five Rings

This FFG reboot of the classic CCG is born out of one of my favorite fantasy settings of all time, so upon its announcement I pre-ordered without hesitation.  It found its way on my most anticipated games of the year list and its one of the few that did not let me down.

In Legend of the Five Rings you take control of one of the many uniquely themed clans with different flavors of stereotypical medieval Japanese samurai from the world of Rokugan.  Its a very unique and rather specific setting that might not speak to everyone but in terms of a dueling card game it does a fantastic job of setting up a very engaging head to head match.  For me the theme is everything here however and I absolutely adore the art in this one.

Maybe its just my love for Japanese themed art, but Legend of the Five rings gets a 5 out of 5 stars for theme adaptation from me based on the art alone.

I can’t say for sure that I will become a collector, I may just stop at the core set, but I think this is a really thinky game that is easy enough to teach that you can just spring it on someone, yet has that almost expected depth we have grown accustomed to from FFG card games.  Its always my hope that I will show it to someone who falls for it giving me a chance to drive deeper into the game, but so far no one in my group has really taken the dive.  Its not surprising, among my gaming group most of us have our preferred go to card game, so its more common for one person to collect rather than everyone getting into it.  Among my gaming group we already have Star Wars The Card Game, Game of Thrones 2nd edition and Lord of the Rings.  In each case there is just that one collector that supports the game for everyone elses enjoyment and I think Legend of the Five Rings will fall into that same category.

All and all though, of all the FFG dueling card games that have been put out over the years, this one is right up their with Game of Thrones for me.  It has that tightness of gameplay that ensures every match is really close, while also producing that ”lets play again” feeling that you get from a great game.  So far everyone I have showed it to enjoyed the game, but it hasn’t exactly blown anyones doors of.

Sometimes it really does just come down to theme, if you like that medieval Samurai theme, this is definitely the game for you, it handles the material wonderfully.

Arkham Horror

My love for Lord of the Rings the card game goes quite deep, but unlike 99% of the games on my shelf, I have bought this one for entirely selfish reasons as I play predominantly solo and that’s the way I like it.

Arkham Horror is the new cooperative card game from FFG and offers that same solo opportunity as Lord of the Rings, so I very naturally jumped at the chance to explore it.

If your a fan of Lovecraft, this is an absolute must play. Easily one of the best games in this setting I have played and that includes all the board games.

Right out of the gate I was captivated by how richly the gameplay captured the pulp horror theme, between the locals, the types of cards the limitation and tightness of resource and the really imaginative scenario’s.  The one complaint I always had about Lord of the Rings was that the campaign mode was a bit lackluster and linear, I absolutely adore the handling of campaign mode in this game as you can effectively play through the entire story-line with the same characters.  Upgrading equipment and cards as you go, tracking stats between plays and experiencing different branching of the same story or repeat plays.

The card play itself is very good, I still prefer Lord of the Rings over this one, but that’s because I think Lord of the Rings is more of a deck builder.  Its more focused on strategies and overcoming obstacles through the act of preparation in constructing card combinations that are designed for a specific task.  In Arkham Horror deck building is kind of a afterthought really, there is some, but your mostly focused on playing the game and making clever use of the resources you have rather than trying to out smart the scenarios with clever deck building.

I also prefer this one more in a group as compared to Lord of the Rings which I play almost exclusively solo.  This one works well with 2, 3 or even 4 players and if you pick up the expansions you can really make a whole night out of it.  Still its actually quite fun and quite challenging solo, I have definitely burned quite a few evenings hunched over the table trying to unravel the mysterious of the underworld.

Great game, highly recommend it, another hit by FFG who are quickly gaining a reputation for producing some of the best collectible card games in existence.

Conclusion

And with that you are caught up.  That was more or less my winter.  We of coursed played many of the games I have covered in previous reviews, this certainly wasn’t everything but definitely among the most notable.  I have quite a few reviews to write and I definitely want to get back into some What Makes It Tick articles.   The hibernation is over, time to get back to some writing.

 

 

Gaming Articles

The Mystery Of A Classic

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1st edition AD&D, love it or hate it, is the definitive root from which the entire D&D franchise and quite possibly role-playing itself has sprouted. It sits on a pedestal of nostalgia, immortalized for all time more often by those who have barely played it or opened the dusty tome of secrets that is the core system than those that actually did.

Today we are going to explore the myth that is AD&D, in particular where this myth comes from and how it has affected our nostalgic sense of Gygax’s original work.

Before we get started however let’s speak frankly for a second first. For all its nostalgic qualities and happy memories it has provided over the years, when you actually read the rules of the game and hold them up against the 40 years of design experience AD&D is a really shitty game. Release AD&D today under a different name and it would be unlikely that anyone would ever publish it, let alone buy it or play it. Even for a nostalgic throwback game, there are better options available today. Even Gygax himself played Castles and Crusades over his own invention. AD&D’s claim to fame is based more on the timing of its release rather than the quality of its design. Gygax was a genius, but it wasn’t because he was a great designer or even a particularly good writer, he is a genius because he had a brilliant, original idea and the understanding that D&D’s appeal is its mystery, the great vale of fantasy. In another words he was a visionary and like all visionaries, it wasn’t that they were experts in their particular field but they created or discovered something original.

For years designers have been working on a way to live up to the nostalgic sense that AD&D induces in people but have been met with picket signs at every step by holistic purists who hold their 1st edition AD&D DMG up like the word of god. An odd sentiment given that from a design perspective the game is inferior to modern versions of the game. It’s been a difficult journey and it’s doubtful there is any circle among the D&D hobby where purists aren’t constantly holding back the franchises efforts for modern design, hell I count myself among them. Even in my previous article I set the standard of what to me qualifies as a great version of D&D and holding up tradition was among the short list of requirements. Every edition and sub edition over the years has tried to rise out of AD&D’s shadow in some way, but the truth is that we have made the shadow so big that the franchise is doomed to spend eternity in a time loop. No greater evidence can be presented than the rejection of 4th edition, a modern design and the creation of 5th edition, the latest edition, a clear throwback to old school thinking.

4th edition represents in every way that matters a rebellion against Gygaxian philosophy and design, a look into what the future of D&D could have been while 5th edition represents the apology and admission of a humble defeat postmortem, forever bowing to its master. In the end the purists won, 5th edition is nothing short of a throwback, an attempt to appease its fan base and bring the game back to familiar traditions. It’s an apology for 4th edition and in many ways an apology for not listening to its disgruntled fan base. The question is why? What is this holy fanaticism that is permanently etched into D&D player’s minds that has us constantly looking back? Is it really the design? Am I wrong here, was 1st edition AD&D really an ingenious game not just because it was an original but because THAC0 was in fact a better design?

Understanding why is the key to understanding both the present and the future of D&D and naturally, since it’s my blog, I have a theory.

I believe the secret sauce is that AD&D always has and continues to have a lot of mystery surrounding it. A sort of shadow that looms over the books, the rules themselves and the themes it presents and how it presents them. There is an intangible quality to its imperfections and indeed it’s the imperfections, the messiness of it that make it work. There is a sort of naïveté to the writing and to the design and a handing of the torch of creativity to the DM by an inexperienced creator and predecessor. It’s a game that’s up for interpretation, but that interpretation is assumed to be in the hands of the games Dungeon Master, god for all intense and purposes, which in turn creates mystery for both the narrative of the game, as well as what the rules of the game really are for the players. From a player’s perspective, role-playing under 1st edition AD&D was not just a discovery of the game world and the DM’s imaginative creations, but of the very boundaries and physical nature of how the game works. There is a built in social order to the work too, its presumptuous in its tone, written less as an instruction manual on how the mechanics of the game work and more a philosophy, a bible if you will, about how the mysterious art of role-playing works, which itself is filled with grey areas and omissions to be filled in by its god. Only the most basic outline of the game is provided to the players in the Players Handbook, the Dungeon Master Guide however is where the heart of the system exists, the bible of the game and one intended for DM eyes only.

This looming mystery creates mental pictures for the participants because there is little physical material to look at or hang your hat on. There are grey areas everywhere and without clarity we evolved a sense of imagination, the driving force of mystery and fantasy.

Perhaps I’m wrong, but for me, in a nutshell, 1st edition AD&D’s greatest asset as a game is that the rules of the game were largely unknown to the players. There is flexibility in this approach, in that, as players you aren’t expected to know how things work but rather expected to try things to see how they work. A process of discovery to which there was no conclusion thanks to the nearly infinite possibilities of a fantastically magical setting and the fact that the DMG was frankly very unclear about what the rules actually are.

Mysteries however are only mysteries until they are unveiled and in that is the hidden differentiation between 1st edition AD&D and everything that came afterwards. 1st edition AD&D was empowering because it did not define the rules clearly, it presumed the dungeon master would invent a great deal of it himself, forcing players to discover what those rules are during play. That’s the secret sauce of the mystery.

Once the mystery of D&D was solved, once the rules are known, made clear and once we understand what the rules are, the game is unmasked, its weaknesses exposed. This is the case in modern versions of the game where there are no mysteries to begin with, the rules are hard coded there is nothing left for interpretation, they are very clear. This is what modernization has done to D&D. It has unmasked the game, exposed it to scrutiny, we have handed over the DMG, the bible of the god who runs the game and asked for the player participant’s opinion, than outlined the process in a step by step instructional manual. It’s akin to revealing the odds of a slot machine, you might be better informed by knowing them, but the wonder of pulling the lever and hoping to win millions is broken by the reality of knowing you stand virtually no chance to do so.

You might argue (and you would be right) that AD&D’s mask was a thin veil at best to begin with. Clearly plenty of people read the DMG cover to cover even back then, but the reality was that the book was about empowerment of the DM because it understood that the DM is the storyteller, it understood that D&D wasn’t a game, but an experience. It understood that the game wasn’t about rules.

It must have been a disappointing experience to read the 1st edition AD&D DMG for players only to find out that the book really was nothing more than vague suggestions for the DM on how to run his games. What was really revealed is the fact that the Dungeon Master himself is the Wizard of Oz and his only power was the very thin veil he kept over your eyes, the one you just tore off by reading the book. There really where no secret rules, or unsolved mysteries revealed. The exploration of the rules through play was a fictitious game made up just like the story’s of the alter ego’s the players would go on in the game. The revelation was meaningless except for one thing, there was nothing left to reveal to you about the game afterwards. Simply reading and understanding how the magic trick was done, broke the spell.

Gygax persuaded players to avoid revealing the secrets of the DMG to themselves and those that adhered where treated to the wonders of it. Reading the DMG back than was the equivalent of reading the adventure before you joined it as a player.

This is at the heart of the problem of trying to re-invent the nostalgia of AD&D in modern versions of D&D and why the nostalgia exists in the first place. As a player who experienced that mystery and then became a god and watched others experience it, I know the desire of wishing there was a way to go back. There simply isn’t. For one modern gamers expect the rules to be clear, the game has evolved and a lack of clarity is seen as an obstacle rather than a mystery to be unveiled during play by the DM. Secondly, modern DMG’s have important rules that are clearly for the players, for example in 3rd edition you had prestige classes which clearly are player material infused into the DMG. In a sense, players had to read them.

I believe that modern role-playing hobbyist who did not experience the wonder and mystery of playing a game whose rules they did not know missed the golden age of the hobby. Their understanding of what D&D could be, or perhaps dare I say should be, can never be properly conveyed. I know that Gygax for years tried to break through to modern gamers and designers by example and I often wonder how many people got the message.

There is still mystery to be had in D&D, naturally the story the DM has prepared for you can have plenty of unexpected twists and turns which can result in plenty of fuel for the imagination, but there is a big distinction between the mystery of a story and the mystery of the game. 1st edition AD&D had both and it was thanks to the fact that the game was less defined, less refined and empowering. It gave the powers of creativity to the DM not just over the story, but the rules that governed it. The DMG was truly a guide, it lived up to its name, a place where modern versions of the same book do little more than provide clear and coherent rules with the expectation that both the DM and the players will read them.

I mourn the loss of this mystery, I think a piece of the game was lost when we set our focus on concepts like streamlining, clarity and transparency. The position of the DM in modern versions of D&D is more as an arbitrator of the rules and every DM today knows the feeling of having the rules quoted to them from a book that once was intended for his eyes only. In the end, this was the genius behind Gygax’s work, he understood that the draw, the thing that made his work special was that he empowered DM’s to keep that thin veil over the eyes of his audience and like a good magician, he expected a good DM would never reveal the secrets.

Gaming Articles

D&D 5e: The Advantage System

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When I first read 5th edition Dungeons and Dragons I didn’t pay much attention to new Advantage/Disadvantage mechanic, I thought it was interesting but really didn’t consider its implications to the game. After having played about 100 hours of 5th edition D&D I have discovered that not only is this a foundation mechanic for the system, but when used to its full effect creates one of the best role-playing experiences I have ever had D&D or otherwise. How does such a small, seemingly simple mechanic make such a huge difference? Well, its all about application and understanding its purpose as a narrative tool.

To really understand why the advantage system is such a piece of genius in D&D you have to understand the core problem with all editions of Dungeons and Dragons, one that each edition has tried and failed to fix. That problem is that as long as D&D has been around, the line between the story of the game (the narrative) and combat has always been very thick. It’s a massive gap really. The moment combat starts there is a subtle but noticeable shift from seeing the game as a role-playing game and seeing it as a tactical combat game.

Each edition has handled this differently. In AD&D, combat was very fast and swingy. One way or the other it would end in a short few rounds so in essence AD&D didn’t do anything about it other than just keep combat fast so the temporary lull in the narrative is, well very temporary. It worked well enough but combat wasn’t particularly narrative, in particular if you brought out miniatures.

3rd edition tried to make combat more simulationist and as such, the mechanic defined a lot of the narrative for us as players were able to perform a large amount of actions during their turn covered by a very detailed rule system. Combat was extended a great deal in 3rd edition, but it depicted the action in greater detail. Still it wasn’t narrative, it was mechanical and it was easy to lose yourself in the nuances of the rules rather than maintain the nuances of the story.

4e very aware of this effect if you consider how it was designed, tried to simplify the rules, but elaborate a great deal on depicting the action. It worked wonders, the tactical game really told us a story. The drawback of this system though was that your actions where narrow, defined by what was on your character sheet and combat was extended even more, taking so long in fact that it could swallow up entire sessions. One of the longest standing criticisms of 4e is “not enough role-playing”, but that isn’t a stab at the combat systems depiction of the action, but rather the fact that it took so long you never got to the role-playing part of the game.

It’s clear that since Gygax’s original vision, the designers of the game have been aware of this problem on some level. How do you maintain the narrative element of the game and still have an interesting, tactical combat system that D&D deserves? Their answer is the Advantage and Disadvantage system. In an amazingly simple way they have not only merged mechanics and narrative flawlessly, but created the motivation for players and DM’s alike to be more descriptive and involve themselves deeper in the narration of the story.

Now I can’t be certain if it was the designer’s intention to make the advantage system the solution to this issue, but whether intentional or not they have done it. The thing is that when we are not in combat, we are doing collaborative storytelling, acting and speaking on the behalf of our characters, describing their actions and rolling the dice to see how our intended actions fared. So why is this approach not used in combat? In a sense that’s what 5e asked and the 5e combat system in particular the advantage system answered with.

See D&D has a tactical element, it always had, but no edition in the past has ever really tried to infuse the same narrative approach we have to the rest of the game into combat, into this tactical element. Another words, combat was always about working out the math, rather than working out what happens narratively (as is the case at every other moment when playing the game.).

The advantage system represents a non-mathematical way to maintain a tactical element in the game and encourage players to think about combat in a narrative way. Players describe their actions and can gain advantages and disadvantages based on what it is they actually attempt in combat. Do you rush a guy and grab for his weapon? Do you try to use your sword to reflect the sun into the eyes of the archer in the tree? Do you slide under the Ogres feet and attempt to cut him where the sun don’t shine? It’s difficult to come up with mathematical formula for those things. You can guess or you could create a complex series of rules that attempt to account for every conceivable situation but really, for a DM the “pick a value that represents this action” game is a burden. The advantage and disadvantage system however makes this easy by allowing you to simply respond with a positive or negative effect on any given action when considering its impact and like a roll at any time, create a narrative resolution which notably is backed by a rather traditional D&D combat mechanic (HP, AC, To Hit etc..).

EXAMPLE: Player: “Ok I position my sword to reflect the sun, shining the sun into the eyes of the archer in the tree”. DM: Make an deception roll, if you succeed the archer gets a disadvantage on his next attack roll, if you fail, you are unfocused and the next attack against you gains an advantage”. Done. No math, no fuss, great narrative, the players are imbued with endless possibilities for tactical action limited only by their imagination and the game doesn’t skip a beat.. next player!

What’s great is that you can utilize other parts of the system to help ensure the actions are driven by character abilities. Skill check, attribute checks, saving throws etc. In this case I chose a deception check but it could have as well been a dexterity check, an intelligence check. The idea being, that you and the player can work together to come to a conclusion about what makes the most sense.

The advantage system is so much more than just a narrative level to pull on however. Its built into the system, so gaining advantages and disadvantages creates opportunities to use different abilities and make decisions about your actions. For example in the above example if the character failed, he might decide that he is going to use the dodge action this turn since he is at a disadvantage, or if he succeeds in gaining the advantage he might decide to climb the tree and assault the archer knowing he has a good chance of being missed as he makes his ascend and a better chance of hitting him.

These opportunities for interesting narratives unfold very naturally, once players get into the mind set of using them, the game becomes about them and in turn becomes about narrative play. Yet the tactical element, the core rules of combat are maintained.

It’s a wonderful system but it does take practice and naturally like any mechanic it can be abused, maturity and understanding of its purpose and the larger purpose of the game as a whole as always is required for it to work well. None the less, it’s a wonderful system when you get it working and it really breathes new life into dungeons and dragons.

Yet another wonderful element of Dungeons and Dragons 5th edition!

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From Mediocrity to Perfection: The Trials of D&D

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When it comes to D&D, truly I am a fan of the concept, I hold Gygax and his original vision in high regard, yet for the past 30 years I have considered D&D to be kind of a second class citizen of role-playing games. I always enjoyed playing it don’t get me wrong but I have always found a lot to dislike about it, mainly in its handling of mechanics.

To me the true D&D is 1st edition AD&D, it defined the original game and conceptually it is a masterpiece. The problem with 1st edition was mostly in practice. Mechanically speaking the narrative high’s where often contrasted by the mechanical lows. If I where to put it to words I would say the system got in the way of the game.

Since first edition, each new edition of the game had its own take on “the next step” and how to solve some of its problem and dare I say each failure has been worst then the next. 2e clearly felt the game required more rules and they added mountains of them, yet did little to streamline or make them manageable or balanced. 3rd edition seemed to steer the game towards an odd form of simulationist realism with a moderate focus on tactical gaming and while the rules where more coherent, the game itself pulled away from the narrative focus of its predecessors to the battle mat in what amounted to a terribly unbalanced mini game. 4e streamlined the rules even more, giving way for simplicity and a return to free form role-playing, yet countered this success by creating so much focus on combat and making combat so slow with such stringent rules it felt like playing a computer game.

In the end all of the editions addressed various aspects of the game, each edition seemed to focus on repairing the previous edition which in turn addressed the edition before that. The problem was that since 2e came out and addressed none of the real issues of 1st edition, the successors where fixing things that really weren’t broken in the original vision.

For example each new edition tried to address how tactical combat should work, when the reality was that the original vision of the game wasn’t for it to be a tactical combat game, quite the opposite, D&D was created with the very intent to not be another war game. Combat was also supposed to be quick, the game meant for us to have violent encounters often, being able to play out several in succession. Instead each new edition slowed it down even further, ending with 4e’s dreadfully slow and repetitive miniatures tactical game. 1st edition had quite a few issues that could have been solved with the experienced we got even back then, but no one ever really tried.

Now 5e has come out of a long, heatedly discussed and very public beta. When I first held the shiny new players handbook in my hand I have to admit I was bracing myself for disappointment. I honestly expected the new edition to be just another fix for the previous edition, without much attention given to the original vision of the game. I really only had one question for 5th edition Dungeons and Dragons. Are you really D&D or are you one of the others?

It was with great pleasure and excitement that I read page after page of the Players Handbook and it wasn’t because I was blown away by the games “new” design, quite to the contrary what caught my attention first and foremost is the familiarity of the game, that in every way that mattered, 5e had within it the spirit of the original vision. Page after page it was clear that the game had come home.

5e isn’t a perfect mechanic by any stretch of the imagination but for the first time since the first remake that was 2e was released someone actually made a true successor to 1st edition AD&D.

I’ve always been amazed about how much misinformation and silly misconception there are about people who speak highly of 1st edition AD&D and play the original vision of the game. The reality is that very few D&D players I have ever met in over 30 years of gaming have claimed 1st edition AD&D rules to be any good. It wasn’t the rules that defined the game, it really was the principles on which the rules where founded. There are many of them, but as I read the 5e book it was evident the designers clearly knew more about the true foundation of D&D then I ever knew or thought I knew.

I was struck by a number of things so blatantly pulled from the original Gygax works, even though in many ways they were in contrast to everything that has been done design wise with D&D since the original.

For example the zero to hero effect so eloquently designed in 5e, I think if Gygax were alive he would say “yeah, I should have done it like that”. D&D was originally a game about ordinary would be heroes in extraordinary worlds and situations. It was a game that told the tale of their rise, the story of how they became heroes. This was the adventure. 5e took that concept but made it fluid, fun and with a assertive progression to stability so that once you took those first steps you wouldn’t be sitting around for many sessions before you could tell the next chapter of your heroic deeds. 5e created a progression that makes, one looking back at 1e would be easy to implement in that game and would make a world of difference in its design.

Another great example of 5e looking back and fixing It design is combat speed, which has such a huge impact of every other faucet of the game. By taking all that we have learned about D&D combat over the years, stripping away the unnecessary gibberish and zeroing in on the most fun aspects of it 5e has created the most effective and coherent combat system I have seen in years. A combat system that is not only fast, but manages to infuse itself with plenty of wiggle room for narrative play with simple systems like the advantage/disadvantage mechanic. Now DM’s can freely reward and punish players for their narrative risks in combat, fluidly mixing in with the mechanical aspects of combat without losing a step. Always pushing the adventure forward, always bringing us the narrative. Combat is so vivid in 5e, its everything I had always hoped 2e, then 3e and ultimately 4e would be prior to hearing the bad news and realizing that they have all missed the point.

Finally I think 5e pays proper tribute to other editions of the game. While I certainly find plenty of fault with every edition, there were many concepts and mechanics in all editions of the game that where going in the right direction, they just needed minor adjustments to make them practical and in so many places this is exactly what 5e did.

The Wizard for example with its handling of the familiar handling of the magic system. One of the biggest problems of 1e (and subsequent editions as well) was that mages had too few spells and even when they had a lot in their spell book in practical terms they only had access to very specific spells they prepared. Need a Detect Magic spell? Sorry you didn’t prepare it, see you in 8 hours. Now with the prepared spells and spell slots being separated without having to choose in advance you can cast the spells you want. In 3e from where this concept is clearly pulled, they did this with the sorcerer and they were so close to getting it right. Only problem was that they separated the Wizard and Sorcerer into separate classes and for balance reasons the Sorcerer had reduced selection, a decision clearly made to ensure the Wizards toes weren’t being stepped on. The merging of the two classes in 5e gives us really what the Wizard should always have been. The addition of at will cantrips a concept borrowed from 4e is another example of great design borrowed and implemented with balance in mind.

I could probably write a book about all the ways 5e got it right, but really what’s important here is that we finally got a worthy successor to 5e and I couldn’t be happier with it. For the first time in years me and my gaming group are excited about D&D again.

Thank you Wizards of the Coast, you got it right!