Nearly Four Years Ago...

...was the last time I wrote about Wizards of the Coast's free Basic Rules for Dungeons & Dragons. People may remember I had some rather harsh words at the time for a company that had promised (and was thrown a lot of public accolades for) a free game that would be "the equivalent of the old D&D Rules Cyclopedia" (May, 2014) and had failed to deliver even a complete game (by January, 2015), when it appeared that "the process of launching fifth edition is over."

Well, Lo and Behold, I checked out WotC's D&D site yesterday and found that there was a recent update to the Basic Rules!

Released without almost zero fanfare on November 19, 2018,  it appears (from a cursory read-through) that the D&D Basic Rules could just about be called "a complete game." Finally.

Now, it's not a great "complete" game...it's certainly nowhere near the old RC, for example. But it at least it tells you how to advance characters and how a DM sets challenges and awards experience. No, it has exactly zero information on how to build adventures or run campaigns, but presumably one could puzzle it out through the process of building "fun combat encounters" appropriate for the players you have and stringing them together. Hey, it's not like Heroes Unlimited offers a whole lot more in its core rules!

So, while the 180 page "Basic" game may not provide a lot of great instruction for the new DM that wants to run D&D, I can still squint my eyes and see WotC meeting it's original promise of providing something that "could easily provide a lifetime of gaming" (well, "easily" might be a bit of a stretch). I will give credit where credit is due...it took a few years, but they did get around to it. Who knows? More updates might be to come. Perhaps these Basic Rules will someday be as beloved as those of Holmes or Moldvay or Mentzer!

[interesting that the update doesn't register a blip on Mike Mearls twitter feed. There IS something from Jeremy Crawford (11/26), who is billed as "lead rules designer" and "managing editor" for Dungeons & Dragons...maybe Basic is no longer Mr. Mearls's baby? There was only a single line on WotC's news feed about the update, which makes me think they're not really all that interested in their Basic Rules anyway]

Anyway, I would be remiss if I didn't at least mention this after noticing it.

I Am Sorely Tempted...

...to get a SubWay sandwich. But I think I can hold off.

Currently sitting in the Panama City airport (that's Tocumen International, I guess), waiting for my connecting flight to Dallas as I once again wing my way back to Seattle. That's right, folks: I'm on the road again. Just a short jaunt back to catch the NFC Championship game and then I return to Paraguay on Tuesday.

An extravagant splurge of resources? I suppose...but I did buy my tickets as soon as the 'Hawks got home field through the play-offs (I had no doubt they'd clean up in the division round). And my actual game tickets aren't expensive, seeing as how my family's been season ticket holders since 1978 (if you couldn't figure that out from my rampant homerism).

So, yeah...I stayed down in Paraguay through the playoffs last year, but the last time I caught a conference championship game was 2005 and I wasn't going to skip this one.

Of course, the nuts and bolts of flying (and packing and making sure the house was in order before I left) means I haven't had a chance to revisit my "Hey, Mike Mearls" post of the other day. Though, believe me I have been reading/keeping up with everyone's comments.

*sigh*

I'm not sure how the post amounts to any kind of personal attack on Mike Mearls (did I call him names or something?) or any kind of indictment/judgment of 5E at all. So please everyone: step back from that particular discussion.

NOW...at the moment I have about six minutes till I start boarding and despite the lack of sleep and yet another ticket snafu at the airport and blah-blah-blah...despite all that, I'm not feeling particularly irritable at the moment. So let me see if I can be a little less snarky and a lot less inflammatory.

You ever read that story The Emperor's New Clothes by old HCA? Well, sometimes I feel like there's a lot of "oo'ing" and "ah'ing" and not enough people pointing to the overall nakedness of what's on display. That's me folks...it perturbs me to no end, and I feel obliged (for whatever reason) to point out the ass that's mooning everyone.

In this particular case, there was a big rigamarole about WotC and their Basic Rules. A lot of praise for a lot of promises. And...yes, really...a big over-sell and under-deliver, even considering the what was being offered was a free product. I've never been one to buy into crowdfunding like KickStarter, but I know that some of my readers have and I imagine there have been folks who have experienced similar disappointments and can thus empathize.

Or maybe not. My own reaction went from curiosity to annoyance to skepticism to (somewhat) patience to huh, WTF. As in WTF happened to a project that just dropped off the face of the earth.

Now since my posting I have bothered to check Mearls's twitter feed and such and know that he and his wife just had their first baby in early December (congrats to them!) and have had two kids in the last four years I know how a newborn in the home can derail all sorts of plans and brainpower...both at home and work. So maybe I should cut Mike some slack for the dropped ball here.

But then who at WotC is picking up the slack? Or, as it kind of appears, has the idea of Basic being a "complete game" - the core game of the most recent version, according to (self-proclaimed insider) RPGPundit - been scrapped? Is this free thing that WotC was lauded for in their press releases just a clever ruse to drive customer interest and sales? Or is it temporarily on-hold?

People who tell me that I need to buy the 5E books are kind of missing the fucking point. The whole concept advertised by WotC was that the hardcover books were supplements to the core...the equivalent of Advanced game aids of an earlier edition. Those weren't supposed to be core...but yet you can't play Basic without them? If you think this was The Plan then you haven't been reading the press releases.

Okay, I've got to go board now. More on this later. Maybe.

Hey, Mike Mearls...

...what the fuck happened to Basic D&D?

I know I spent the last couple months doing a lot of holiday traveling and whatnot, but I distinctly remember this celebration of Wizards of the Coast because they were so awesome as to release the Basic Rules as a free PDF. Does anyone else remember that?

Remember how I said, 'hey people: this isn't a complete game?' To which everyone pointed me to the articles on WotC's web site stating that the game was going to be released in installments/updates (along with the hardcover "advanced" 5E volumes) until the end of the year? People around here remember that, yeah?

In fact, what I remember specifically is this quote:

For the D&D basic rules, our initial release will include character creation. It features the human, elf, dwarf, and halfling for races along with the cleric, fighter, rogue, and wizard classes, all from 1st level to 20th level. As the Monster Manual and Dungeon Master's Guide near completion, we'll add to the basic rules with more material to grow into a complete game. Our goal is to continue to make updates to the basic rules for D&D until the end of the year, at which point it will be feature complete.

- from Mike Mearls 6/30/2014 (emphasis added by me)

Yes, I remember also an earlier article (from May 27th) that said the Basic PDF would be expanded in August to include "the DM rules needed to run the game along with the rules for wilderness, dungeon, and urban adventuring." But I figure the June article's later "end o year" timeline was an update to a more realistic release date. That's why we like updates, yeah?

So WTF happened?

I can say this for sure: the last "Basic Rules" update occurred 11/3/2014 and added two new magic items to the "Basic DMG" (Keoughtom's ointment and cloak of elvenkind for those who are curious). We're now in 2015 and there's still no information on how to run a game or build adventures. 

At the beginning of December, Mearls announced the end of his Legends & Lore articles, stating that "the process is complete, for the time being," and that "the process of launching fifth edition is over." There is no mention of the Basic Rules or any future updates intended for the PDFs. Nor do I find any other articles or news items on the web site discussing forthcoming changes or new push backed timeframes for the Basic Rules to become a complete game. In fact, other than the additional two magic items added with the 3rd update of the DMG, the main difference I find is the removable of the sidebars that say "Works in Progress!" Apparently, these are no longer WIPs. They're not complete, but it doesn't appear any further progress is going to be made.

Hey! Remember when Mike Mearls wrote:

"With just the Basic Dungeons & Dragons rules, you can play D&D for years."

Fuck you, Mearls. No you can't.

It would appear that I was right when I said this whole thing was a bunch of bullshit, a PR move designed to get a bunch of positive press for a company that was on the ropes, and an enticement to the rubes to shell out yet more money for yet another edition of Dungeons & Dragons. The whole puffery of wanting to get the core game into the hands of as many people as possible...for free!...growing the hobby with a new generation of fans was simply a huge, steaming pile. You can't play Dungeons & Dragons with these PDFs; they have less information on creating and running a game then the original white box edition.

[that's information, by the way...not "word count." For all the lack of real info in the PDF, it's no slack in the extra wordiness department]

But, hey...I realize I may not be the demographic WotC is trying to win over here (the "sucker" demographic?). In fact, I know I'm not, judging by how much new D&D product I've purchased since 2002 ($0 unless you're counting the AD&D reprints which aren't actually "new" product)...if I am their target, then they are really shit at appealing to my wallet.

All right...well, it's good to see I'll be as irritable in 2015 as I was last year. Jeez, JB. I'm going to go take a nap (I'm still a bit under the weather). Hopefully cheerier posting later.

; )

Quantity versus Quality

[warning: probable "nerd rage" on the horizon]

Well, it would appear my self-imposed hiatus is winding down, as things have gotten more organized around this neck o the woods. We'll see...I'm not promising to come back in "full force" but I've definitely started poking my nose back into the blog-o-sphere. And I've got one hell of a shnoz.

This post was originally going to be called "Monsters, Monsters Everywhere" but I've already got a blog post by that title (waaaaaay back a few years ago) and I try not to duplicate; however, for folks who were hoping for an NFL/Blood Bowl entry...no, this one's going to be about D&D.

Back in 1981 or '82 when I started playing D&D, my introduction to the game...my first rule set...was the Basic book edited by Tom Moldvay. Much of my love and appreciation for this particular game has been documented on this blog, but allow me a quick summary: the book gave me everything I needed to play D&D, and in doing so it changed my life. I can say this honestly with the hindsight of 30+ years to look back on.

I'm not going to pretend I follow what WotC does with the D&D brand all that closely. I don't. I'm just not interested in most of their revenue streams and I don't read or frequent their forums. I have a curiosity about 5th Edition, both as a person familiar with the play of most editions of D&D and as an active game designer interested in other folks' work. And it's because of this curiosity/interest that I've bothered to download and read the (free) PDFs of WotC's D&D Basic Rules. I grew up playing something called "Basic" D&D, and I still find it an elegant piece of craftsmanship. I'm interested in seeing how WotC handles the same task given to Moldvay and Holmes and Mentzer...namely, making a simplified game that "was designed to be easily read and used by individuals who have never before played a role playing game."

[that's from the Foreword of Moldvay's Basic book]

My first impression of the new Basic rules was not a good one. As an obvious work-in-progress, an incomplete game, I wondered at why WotC would even bother to release such a thing. As I wrote at the time:

"There's no information on running the game, no information on creating adventures, no information on running NPCs ("monsters"), no information on treasure, and (perhaps most basic of all) no information on how XP is earned/awarded. In other words, no information on what the objective of the characters are, or what they're supposed to do."

There are other things that were left out of the 110 page (now 115 page) rule book that Mike Mearls said was "the equivalent of the old D&D Rules Cyclopedia," like how a DM was supposed to award inspiration (a new mechanic that I have not seen in prior editions)...but then the new rules were only in their "version 0.1" (now "0.2") stage and a little digging in past press releases found that the rules needed for adventure creation, running the game, etc. would all be released in time.

Welp, last night I stayed up to read the new, 61 page document that is the "Dungeon Master's Basic Rules Version 0.1." Most of it (59 pages) is content. It is divided into the following four sections:

Monsters (51 pages)
Non-Player Characters (3 pages)
Building Combat Encounters (3 pages)
Magic Items (2 pages)

The Non-Player Character title is a little misleading: there's no information on creating or using NPCs, simply additional stat blocks (with light description) the equivalent of the monster entries. In other words, it's three pages of additional "monsters" that can be used to further describe (or add abilities to) humanoid NPCs encountered.

The last two sections each have highlighted sidebars noting they are Works in Progress! and that additional material will be released as the new DMG gets written. Which is probably a good thing because some folks might be prone to panic (or scoffing) when they see the hot mess that is Building Combat Encounters (not, um, "designing adventures" or something) or the small handful of items (18 total) that comprise the Magic Items section. No, there are no randomized tables in the latter section.

You know, it's fascinating: Moldvay gave us 50+ magic items in 4 pages (including the random tables). Is it possible (I'm not being sarcastic or rhetorical here) that the new "Basic" is over-thinking itself?

ANYWAY...monsters. That's the bulk of the new Basic "DM's Guide." Stat blocks for monsters and information on how they fight and information on how to set-up combat encounters because, you know, while Mearls talks about three broad categories of activity (exploration, social interaction, and combat...see page 5 of the Basic Rules), really people only give a shit about fighting.

*ahem*

Back in March of last year, I wrote a piece on cosmology (and paying attention to it in design) that no one seemed to give a rat's ass about, probably because it was attached to a series exploring clerics and their inclusion in fantasy adventure games and "been there done that." But I was writing about more than just clerics...I was talking about putting a little forethought into the whole creation process, especially with regard to monsters. But yeah...murderhobo doesn't care.

For me, I put a lot of thought into what "monsters" I include in the (B/X-style) games I design. Mine is not a "kitchen sink" approach...I make lists, I consider what fits and what doesn't and then I write it up. It's one of the tougher parts of the game creation process...I have more than one work-in-progress currently on-hold due to the "NPC" section. And it's not like I write paragraphs and paragraphs of text for each entry! The entries for monsters in my B/X Companion are positively "wordy" compared to the entries in Five Ancient Kingdoms. For comparison purposes:

B/X Companion: 16 pages, 67 entries (roughly 4/page)
Five Ancient Kingdoms: 17 pages, 86 entries (but on half-sized pages!)

The new Basic has a total of 159 entries in 51 pages (or 169 in 54 pages if you count the NPC section...which I do). Regardless of the number per page (WotC can make their books as big as they want...this is their precursor to a new Monster Manual, after all!)...regardless of the amount of space they take up, 169 entries is a LOT of monsters. More than both my published works combined (and for the record, there's only nine or so shared entries between the two, so the total count is still over 140 in 20-30 pages). Maybe you're licking your chops at the prospect of all the combat encounters you can build with such quantity...but maybe we should look at what that quantity consists of?

Mearls and Jeremy Crawford (who are listed as the "lead designers"), have statted out each individual monster as its own entry, regardless of similarity to monsters of its own ilk. For example, in my B/X Companion, I count Animals of Legend as one entry, even though it lists four different creature profiles (and gives notes for creating others). I count Ruinous Powers as one entry even though there are five unique creatures. My entry for Giant includes both Half-Giants and Mutant Giants, but I count it as one entry.

It's a space saving device to group monsters together...something I learned from Moldvay's Basic book (see Cat, Great for panthers, mountain lions, lions, tigers, and smilodons; see Bear for black, grizzly, polar, and cave). I use the same tact in 5AK (Vermin, Giant all fall under one category regardless of bat, rat, whatever. Same with giant insects, donkey/mules, etc.)...I don't need or want to "pad" my word count...I'm trying to cut down on the pages I'm sending to the printer to reduce my costs and that of the consumer.

Mearls and Crawford don't seem to buy this idea. We have separate entries for brown bear, black bear, and polar bear. There are separate entries for draft horse, riding horse, and warhorse. There are separate entries for fire elemental, earth elemental, air elemental, and water elemental. And the thing is organized in strict, alphabetical order so it's not like the horses or elementals are even grouped together (air elemental with the "A" monsters, water elementals with the "W" monsters). You want to find the stats for an adult red dragon? It's not under "D" (for dragon) or even "R" (for red) but under "A" (for adult). Looking for a "Frog, Giant" to put in your swampy temple? You'll be searching in the "G" section of the document under "Giant Frog," right between "Giant Fire Beetle" and "Giant Goat."

Giant Goat?

Yes, a classic monster...surely you've encountered many in your D&D games over the years. In 5E, it's worth 100 XP and has a "Sure-Footed" feat that gives it advantage on STR and DEX saving throws that would knock it prone. It has a Challenge Rating of 1/2, you will have to include 3 to 6 when building an encounter for your party of 1st level adventurers. But if you're worried that a small herd of giant goats with their damage range of 5-11 will be too tough, you can always use non-giant goats.

WTF?

Yes, the goat...it's a medium beast, unaligned and it's CHA is only 5, but with that STR of 12 it has +3 to its Ram attack roll (only 2-5 damage). And that's a LOT more than the damage done by a normal frog.

Frog?

Yes...a tiny beast, the frog only has a STR of 1 (WIS of 8 however!). It has 1-3 hit points and the following special abilities:

Amphibious: the frog can breathe air and water.
Standing Leap: the frog's jump is up to 10 feet and its high jump is up to 5 feet, with or without a running start.

The description states:

"A frog has no effective attacks. It feeds on small insects and typically dwells near water, in trees, or underground."

Wow...thanks for that! Now I know how to use that frog entry when building my combat encounters.

These are worth 10 XP a pop! Eat all three for 30!

There's a lot of bullshit filler like this in the book. Some of the entries you might find less than useful for  Building Combat Encounters include the Badger, Bat, Cat, Crab (blue shell, I think), Deer, Elk (really? do we really need a separate entry between deer and elk? Where's the reindeer and the moose?), Hyena, Jackal, Lizard, Mule, Owl, Pony, Rat, Raven, Spider (not giant spider...just a spider), Vulture, Weasel. You might get more mileage out of the giant versions.

Oh, here's a good one: the Awakened Shrub. It's a small plant, animated by magic. With its 3D6 hit points, it's a lot tougher than it's friend, the evil Twig Blight, which looks like a dead shrub but has 2-5 hit points and is (for some reason) of a higher challenge rating than the Awakened Shrub (25 XP instead of 10 XP).

There's a lot of weirdness with the stat blocks. Since when does a Medusa have 17 hit dice? Same Challenge Rating as a Mammoth (6), though the latter, huge beast, has only 11 hit dice (the medusa is a medium monstrosity). I mean, not that it matters terribly...I'm just curious.

Okay, this is getting long and I'm already late to pick up my boy. Maybe I'll write more later. Maybe.

Not Eating My Words Yet

[I've got 15 minutes to post this...hiatus continues]

Remember when I was complaining that WotC's new Basic D&D wasn't really a game, but rather a sneak peek at the soon-to-be-released PHB? And my astute readers pointed out to me that Mike Mearls had in fact said that the Basic D&D game would be released as an incomplete game pending the release of the PHB? In May, Mearls specifically wrote:

At the launch of the D&D Starter Set, Basic D&D will include the material needed to create characters and advance to 20th level. In August, with the release of the Player’s Handbook, Basic D&D will expand to include the essential monsters, magic items, and DM rules needed to run the game, along with the rules for wilderness, dungeon, and urban adventuring.

[emphasis mine]

SO...admitting I was being deliberately obtuse (but still feeling the whole hype and press regarding Basic D&D was bullshit), I decided to wait and see what the expanded Basic rules would look like.

Still waiting.

The new PHB has been released, expanding on the "sneak peek" and again getting folks fired up. The Basic rules haven't yet been updated, and I didn't see any article talking about delays or pushed back timelines...until I caught this old article from June 30th, which wasn't referenced or linked in the previous articles I had found (instead they linked to the May 27th article with the August statement):

For the D&D basic rules, our initial release will include character creation. It features the human, elf, dwarf, and halfling for races, along with the cleric, fighter, rogue, and wizard classes, all from 1st level to 20th level. As the Monster Manual and Dungeon Master’s Guide near completion, we’ll add to the basic rules with more material to grow it into a complete game. Our goal is to continue to make updates to the basic rules for D&D until the end of the year, at which point it will be feature complete.

[emphasis mine...again]

So contrary to what I wrote previously, I will now be waiting till November or so (the scheduled release of the DMG) to see what the new "basic game" looks like. Which is fine...I've got enough to keep me busy. But, again, it makes me question the motivation for releasing Basic D&D. I mean, other than the snarky reasons I discussed earlier.

By the way, I'll be back in Seattle for a few, short days next week. Probably not enough time to get in any gaming; however, I do plan to entirely avoid purchasing the new PHB while I'm in town. I'm sure I can find something better to put the money towards...like, over-priced beer at the Seahawks preseason game.

; )