Tag Archives: warcraft

Day Seven: Story Trumps Powers

Today is Day Seven of 30 Days of Dungeons & Dragons, and the topic is:

Favorite Edition

ok. It’s actually day eight for me… I failed my saving throw against sleep after getting home from work around 10:30 PM, so my post is late!

I feel like we’ll all get over that.

Full disclosure: I really only have two options to choose from, 4E and 5E, even though five editions exist. I suppose it might be fair to say that since I’ve tried Pathfinder, I’ve played something much like D&D 3.5, but I absolutely hated the mechanics of that system, so I won’t address it further.

I liked 4E. I love 5E.

I first started playing D&D when 4th Edition came out. Unbeknownst to me, having no previous experience with which to compare the new books, 4th Edition focused heavily on all the cool powers your characters possessed.

Every class had a variety of options. Some could be used all the time, at-will. Some were complex or taxing enough that you could only use them once per encounter or combat. Some were the best abilities in your whole bag of tricks, and could be used only once a day.

Fighters didn’t just get better at swinging a sword or ax as they leveled up… they learned amazing techniques and maneuvers that they could employ much like how a wizard might cast a spell.

I honestly enjoyed 4th. It felt like a big deal when one of my players declared, “I draw back my bow, glare at the enemy, and unleash a Thunder-tusk Boar Strike.” Then he rolled a nat 20, and everyone cheered at the ridiculous damage inflicted on this rando bad guy.

It also felt a lot like learning your button rotations in World of Warcraft or some other MMO. Use these abilities when fighting trash mobs, and then use all these “cooldown” super abilities when fighting a boss.

4E got a lot of grief for putting the spotlight on tactics and combat, powers and spells, while leaving the story in the dark corner at the edge of the stage. I think that’s an unfair perspective–if story mattered at your tables (as it always did to my players), you could make sure the collaborative storytelling aspect shone through.

It’s an unfair assessment in my opinion, but it’s one I hear often.

Not surprisingly, from the playtest materials of 5th Edition, the D&D team made sure to sprinkle hints and ideas throughout their works, like plot seeds ready to sprout into epic campaigns.

The character sheet dedicates prime real estate to jotting down reminders for role-playing, covering what matters to the character:

  • Personality Traits, like “I have a quip for every situation, the more inappropriate, the better” and “People, like feral beasts, are not to be trusted unless broken.”
  • Ideals, such as “I’ll always lend a helping hand” or “I’m not afraid to use my strength to get my way.”
  • Bonds, such as “I would do anything for a member of my old traveling troupe” or “One day I will find my missing sister and make those who took her pay.”
  • Flaws, such as “At best, I immediately forget the plan. Most days, I directly disrupt it” or “I can never resist a pretty face.”

When you make a character, you establish these aspects and have them readily available to answer “What would Grobthar do in this situation?”

One bit that caught my eye was the character backgrounds, particularly the starting equipment that you get for being a sage instead of a charlatan, for example. The sage starts with, among other things, a letter from an old friend with a question you haven’t yet been able to answer. What question? Who is this old friend? Where might the answer be found? Why does this information matter? 

The charlatan starts with a particular scheme they use to dupe their marks – do they forge documents, run con games on street corners, or make some easy gold by selling worthless trinkets to the naive? How would you role-play this in town? Who have you fleeced in the past? Who might be looking for a refund for the fake holy relic you pawned off on them?

The trinket tables in the DMG and Curse of Strahd are full of interesting and/or creepy options that can tie into a campaign or provide additional fluff for the setting.

Also, there are rules for laser guns, jetpacks, and bombs–if your campaign needs those. Haha… “needs,” as if there is any other option.

Newer 5E books like Volo’s Guide to Monsters and Mordenkainen’s Tome of Foes break down the story and background elements for a variety of monsters, allowing a DM to create enemies that feel like real personalities operating inside a vivid world, with unique motivations and intentions along with distinctive features or quirks.

With Volo’s, for example, common enemies like a hag, an orc chieftain, or a gnoll pack alpha become much more than bags of hit points and loot, pursuing some obscure, vaguely evil threat while waiting for a party of heroes to come slay them for XP.

To me, 4E felt like a great game, well worth the time spent playing.

With every section of every book, the 5E materials feel like pieces of a living world that welcomes you into a story which is already being told, already ongoing, just waiting for the answer to the age-old question:

What do you do next?

Coming Out

I admit it.

I’m a Brony. 

We may not be able to stop you from mocking us…
But you can be darned sure we’ll avenge it.

Apparently, that carries some sort of stigma.

For anyone not familiar, “Brony” means you’re an adult male who is a fan of the Hub TV show, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic.

I have the excuse that “My kids love the show, and as a concerned parent, I pay attention to what they watch.”

But the fact is, I watch the show because I was sucked in based on silly Internet videos dubbing over the original voices.

I watched the show and found it to have enough of that quirky humor I enjoy, just like Powerpuff Girls. 

How could you not like them?

Go figure, both were written (in part) by the same person, Lauren Faust.

Technically, “Brony” can also refer to some extremes – like people who dress up like the ponies in the show. I have not worn, nor will I ever (I hope) wear a pony costume.

But I don’t mind if my characters in Skyrim do!

We all have hobbies and personal interests.

I have friends who pour money into building and rebuilding cars. They take apart engines and put them together again; they spend money on upgraded parts and they spend hours putting the new parts in. More power to them.

I have friends and family who collect coins. They take great interest in stuff I personally don’t care about. They can tell you all about the various Liberty Dollars, and each design of the penny over the years. They can recall which metals were used to mint U.S. coins in which years. They know all about the different currencies in other nations, and they pay attention to the gold and silver rates the way I pay attention to my Facebook wall. More power to them.

I have friends who can tell me the stats for the obscure player on the worst team in the National League in 1986. They remember all the best plays of all the best games, and they can tell you the champions of the World Series or Super Bowl or NBA Finals or Stanley Cup or whatever other thing. Like all the champions ever. They track actual stats and they watch the performance of their Fantasy (Fill-In-Sport) League, talking about how their team is doing with a sense of ownership as if they are personally on the field scoring points. More power to them.

Some of my friends play or have played World of Warcraft. They know all the equations for figuring out Damage Per Second, and they know how to get every ounce of performance out of any character. They’ve tried out every bit of the content in their chosen game over the last seven years, for the low low subscription price of fifteen bucks a month.

Some of my friends play music. They have their own studios in their houses, where they write and play and mix and record and publish their creations. They’ve invested thousands of dollars into their equipment, and they have a list of everything else they are looking to buy in the future.

Some of my friends write. Some read voraciously. Some are avid cooks. Some just like to browse imgur. Some like to run 10-20 miles a day.

Some are rabid debaters, always looking for a topic to discuss. Some are avowed Trekkies (or Trekkers, or just plain Star Trek fans), and they can tell you all about why their favorite iteration of the Trek franchise is better than all the others.

Some are Star Wars fans – the kind that build their own lightsabers to movie-accurate detail. Some read comics, and can tell you all the “facts” about what their favorite heroes have endured over the years.

Some get together and roll dice, moving figures around a table, cheering when “dragons” are slain.

Some are amateur theologians, devouring religious writings and commentaries, learning all they can about their chosen religion. Some, like my 7-year-old son, are only interested in Angry Birds.

Some of them are bloggers who pretend (like I do) that anyone really cares what they write.

I’m sure there are plenty more that I’m unaware of. People have all kinds of interests.

More power to all of them.

None of these hobbies bother me. I don’t consider any of them “invalid” or “beneath me” or worthy only of “losers.”

That’s what I don’t get.

What makes one hobby any better or worse than another?

Ok, I can see how some hobbies are more beneficial than others… the avid runner is better off than the stereotypical couch potato. The lady who goes to Spin each week is better off than the lady whose hobby is making (and eating) cakes. Some activities are more healthy than others.

But when Sports Girl makes fun of Warcraft Guy, or Car Guy picks on Brony Guy, it’s a bit ridiculous. It’s just as ridiculous if Star Trek Girl makes fun of Sports Jock, or Star Wars Guy picks on Spin lady.

Some guy hits a little ball with a stick and runs around a square… and that matters more than a group of 5 or 25 people getting together online to play a game? Someone watches a guy put an orange ball through a hoop on TV, and that makes him better than the person who browses LOLcats on the web?

Someone spends a few hundred dollars to put the perfect engine into their car, but makes fun of another person who watches a TV show? Someone who wears every piece of Husker memorabilia and sportswear makes fun of a Star Wars nut standing in line at the theater in costume celebrating his favorite movie series… and that makes sense?

We all have our own costumes, our own collections, our own interests which we are willing to invest time and money into. But we also have social expectations to deal with; it’s easy to try to hide what we know others won’t accept in order to look “normal.”

After all, you don’t want people to know you’re a Trekkie… a gamer… a Bears fan… a Brony…

Come on.

Be real. Be honest. Be open.

We’re proud of our hobbies, and that’s alright. We should be.

Maybe if we are willing to honestly show the joy we get from the things we love, others will see something worthy as well.

And if not, so what?

My hobby is not for their enjoyment, after all. It’s for me.