Minor Update: Death Threshold

After playing around with various ways to implement the concept I wrote about here, including lots of number crunching and contemplation, I realized that messing with the death threshold and altering it from -10 would necessarily mean I would have to alter some of the other Fighting Skills I'd implemented. Certain abilities already altered how far below zero someone could go without dying. This isn't a major concern on its own, since it's easily enough fixed.

But I also came to the conclusion that unless I was going to go ahead and strip the ability to bring back the dead, as the other person had, then all I was doing was increasing an already generous hit point system at high levels, and in some cases (depending on how I chose to implement it) making lower level characters less likely to survive.

So at least for the moment, I'm not going to be using altered death threshold rules. I'm still fond of the idea, and like the increased realism that such a system would bring, but I'm already concerned about the level of complexity in my system anyway. Until I manage to do some serious playtesting to determine current power levels, I should probably just leave the mechanics alone.

Nielsen Family Diaries

A few weeks ago we got a letter in the mail from the Nielsen ratings people. They really do exist, and not just as a plot-device in movies! They gave us five new, crisp $1 bills to fill out a quick survey essentially stating how many television sets we have. I explained, in my responses to the online survey, that we do have televisions, but that we don't have cable or satellite or even access to public channels because of reception issues, and I expected that would be the end of it.

It wasn't. They called, and my wife answered and spoke to someone who said they wanted to send out a TV Viewing Diary for us to fill out, as well as $30 for the trouble. The diaries (one for each television set) arrived yesterday, and we got a reminder call today about filling them out. While I had the guy on the line, I again pointed out we don't have cable service, only internet, and asked if viewing a movie online, say through Netflix or similar, would be something they would want recorded. He said I could write that down, sure, as long as it was being shown on a television. I don't have any such internet movie subscription, but maybe Hulu would count.

I neglected to ask about purchased or rented DVDs, though. I mean, if Netflix would be something recordable, it would seem to follow that a rented DVD from an actual movie store would be just as valid. The instructions in the book only state what to do if you're watching something while recording it, or recording something for later viewing. It doesn't mention the possibility of viewing DVDs that have already been bought. Fortunately, such a circumstance is listed in the FAQ on their website, and it looks like I should write it down though it's still worded as though you had recorded the DVD yourself.

I guess I'll be keeping track of what DVDs our son watches, and maybe I'll see about some sort of movie night during this survey time. Then again, would that alter the actual information they're looking for, since I might not have done it otherwise? I must maintain the integrity of the survey, and not allow such a paradox to creep in!

Wow, who knew being a Nielsen family would be like time travel?

Methods of Improvement

I already had a system in place that would allow a character's Faith score to be malleable through the course of normal play, changing the score based on exceptional success or exceptional failure with Turning checks. Just today I wrote down and implemented a similar idea for the Luck stat, where the Luck would alter with exceptional critical hits (consecutive natural 20s), or exceptional critical fumbles (consecutive natural 1s).

I also allow stats to be built up using Combat Proficiencies (my term for Weapon Proficiencies, Non-Weapon Proficiencies, or Feats, depending on your chosen version. I don't know what the 4th Ed. equivalent is, but I don't care), but since I have these two stats as potentially variable I was wondering if there were other stats that people thought should be so quickly alterable. I know that physical stats such as Strength should not be so quickly or easily changed, but maybe Charisma might be affected by apparent wealth, or the Charisma scores of the people you're with?

Probably not, since it's a bit trickier than the systems I have in place for Faith and Luck. As it stands, Faith is really only important to one class, or anyone who wants to Turn or Rebuke undead. Luck is a bit more universally useful, since it affects saving throws, but there are two classes in particular that are majorly helped by having Luck as a primary stat. I like having these two stats alterable on-the-fly because I think it reflects the concept behind them well, but I don't know that any of the others really lend themselves to such.

New Exercise Program

I'm by no means a small person, and haven't been for the majority of my life. Part of this is simply skeletal structure passed down by genetics, and part of it is personal willpower limitations. I recognize I should "eat less, move more" to improve my body image and overall health, but quite frankly I find that I'd rather be spending my time on other things, like video games.

My solution? Video games that make you move. Sounds great, except that I don't have a Wii or any other system that really logs movement. I have a PS2, and an Eyetoy, but the only game I have for the Eyetoy isn't really engaging. When I first saw a Dance Dance Revolution arcade game, I thought that would be a great way to lose weight, except for the fact that (a) it costs money every time you want to play and (b) you have to potentially look like a completely uncoordinated goof in front of an arcade full of people. The latter reason became especially true after knowledge of professional DDR players became widespread, with videos like the one where the man starts breakdancing on both dance pads, and ends with a perfect score.

But wait a minute, didn't Dance Dance Revolution get converted to console gaming before they introduced the PS3?

Yes, yes it did.

I am now armed with two DDR titles, as well as a pair of dance mats. They arrived in the mail today, and I'm so far very pleased. Just tonight I have, according to whatever calculations the game uses, done the equivalent of a two mile jog. I'm not sure how accurate that is, since I didn't feel terribly winded afterwards (though I definitely felt like I had a workout!) and I was still sorely tempted to keep going. I'll probably play again for a bit after I'm done here.

I've made a few observations on my initial play-style, however. For one, I have trouble switching legs, with my right leg dominant. It's actually easiest for me, so far, to just stand on my left leg and use my right to do all the steps, even crossing in front or behind of the left leg to hit the left arrow. For some reason, I'm not nearly as adept at playing with my left leg, as when I tried to reverse things and just stand on my right leg, I ended up switching very quickly because of coordination issues. I have to wonder if this comes from the fact that the arrows on the screen are read as a pattern, and therefore under the "left brain's" authority. I also wonder if this is why having two left feet is a negative thing in dancing, since it implies that the left foot is already inferior.

Despite my right leg doing all the steps, though, my left leg may actually get the harder workout as it ends up being my sole balancing post and support for much of the movements. Either way, I'm definitely excited about this prospect.

City of Heroes: Freedom

Surprisingly, the in-game graphics are not far off from the box art.

City of Heroes is a MMOG based on the premise of comic book style superheroes, with adjoining City of Villains filling out the other side of the gallery, and the recent Going Rogue expansion portraying an alternate dimension with a few more shades of grey.

I've played this game off and on for a few years now. Thanks to my alt-itis, I don't tend to get very far with any single character, but this game almost encourages that by having one of the best, most variable character creators I've seen. From mixing and matching power sets to designing the appearance in much more detail than I've seen possible elsewhere, you really get the chance to personalize each character. Heck, there are times I've wanted to resubscribe just to fiddle around with the costume designer!

So I should probably be happy for the upcoming change to the game's business model, following in the footsteps of other games that have switched to the "Free to Play" format. Despite the company's reassurances, though, I still have my doubts.

Part of it, I suppose, stems from the sense of elitism one gets from being part of a game that requires a subscription to play. The $15 per month charge keeps the "riff-raff" out, as it were. But there's a not-so-snobby truth to this as well, because as anyone who's played both a subscription and a F2P (Free to Play) game knows, F2P is notorious for the number of griefers, spammers, goldbots, farmers, and otherwise irritating players not as prevalent in a subscription-based game.

This ties in, somewhat, with the points I made back here, too. The unofficial RP server on CoH is Virtue, and it already has a full load during peak hours. The people who have been playing there for years have already well-established their characters and supergroups (player-run guilds) on the server, but may end up being muscled out because the server is too full for more players once it's open to everyone. The company states that a new server is in the works that will be open only to Premium Subscription members (basically, the people who don't stop paying even once it's F2P), but why should the people who have already established their characters and supergroups be, essentially, required to start over somewhere else? Especially since they'll be competing with similarly-displaced players from the other servers as well, making it likely that this new server will be just as full and lagged as Virtue is now.

But, the costume creator will be free to play around with at last. That's gotta count for something, eh?

Delusions of Shakespeare

So why am I "The Bard?"

Contrary to the title above, I'm not trying to horn in on Will's racket. I've always been very musically inclined, and am an accomplished vocalist. I've been operatically trained, have been appearing in plays and musical theater productions since Elementary School with an actor's resume some 5 pages long. I've played trombone, piano, and guitar, but my primary instrument is my voice. As a young child, brought to events by my parents, my goal in the SCA was to join the musician's guild (and go fight in full armor, but what kid doesn't want to do that?). I am a Master Harper in one such SCA guild, modeled after Harper Hall in the Dragonriders of Pern series (and sanctioned by Anne McCaffrey).

I even bring my guitar, a Martin Backpacker, to gaming sessions. When I was a regular attendee at the Tuesday Games(tm), I would have it out nearly every session. Because of its small frame, it didn't interfere with most dice rolling, and it's easy to put to the side when the action gets heavy.

One particular Tuesday night, playing 3rd Ed. D&D, the party was trying to make their way down a corridor that was bottlenecked by a horde of goblins. As the rest of the group began discussing options, I started plucking out a tune I'd picked up at the St. Louis Renaissance Faire a year or two prior, modified for the current events:

"They're standing in line.
They're standing in line.
They want to get killed so
They're standing in line.
They're standing in line
For a very long time.
They want to get killed so
They're standing in line."

"Everybody sing!"

And everyone did. I led half a dozen people on an impromptu sing-along reprise, most of which had never even heard the tune before. There was no hesitation on anyone's part. No one missed a beat, and no one missed a word.

To make a group of full-grown men break into song without prior training or expectation of performance? That's a powerful feeling. If I'd needed any more convincing of real-world bardic magic by that point in my life, that event would have satisfied me.

So that's why I'm the Bard.

Experience Overhaul

Thank you for the comments on my last post. They allowed me to realize that the numbers were hiding a flaw in my entire system of experience.

My original intent with my system, as I explained here, was to reflect easier or greater difficulty in progressing, based on Intelligence and how many classes you took, and eliminate the feeling of "wasting" a high Intelligence by not taking as many classes as it could handle. While it did do this to some degree, it was flawed in the fact that it based experience per level more off of the number of classes than the Intelligence. There was nothing in place to adjust difficulty for relative Intelligence. A low-Int character would simply not have access to the more "valuable" classes, but it could still out-level a higher-Int character that had more classes in short order.

That's been fixed now. A low-Int character taking its recommended maximum number of classes will now progress at the same speed as any other character that is also taking the recommended maximum number of classes for the character's Intelligence score. I may tweak it some from here, as I lost some "downward mobility" in the advantage a person gets by not filling up on classes, but I think this is the form I was going for earlier. The numbers were just getting in the way, so I couldn't see it. So again, thank you.

Experience Over Time

I've always had alt-itis, I guess. I generally don't get any D&D character past 4th level except under extraordinary circumstances. Tonight, though, I thought I'd do a quick comparison check to see how the experience tables I have worked up for my game (based loosely off of 3rd Edition's charts) stacked up against the old 1st Edition AD&D tables I grew up using. What I saw surprised me a bit.

At 11th level, a Paladin from 1st Edition had amassed over a million experience points. By 15th, the Thief class crossed the one million mark, followed only by Bard at 16th level (which doesn't really count since it was the 1st Edition equivalent of a Prestige - you had to be both a Fighter and Thief for 5+ levels before you could become a Bard). To get to 20th, you're talking 3.3 million for the most lenient table, ranging up to nearly six million points for Paladin.

By comparison, the pure 3rd Edition chart is child's play: 2nd level at a mere 1,000 points (The least expensive in 1st Ed., Thief, was 1,251), 10th level at only 45,000 which provides you with a "massive" gap to the 190,000 total needed for 20th level. Add to that the fact that 3rd edition experience is granted, according to the DMG, as an even split to all participants in an encounter (rather than being awarded individually based on damage dealt and treasure found - a bane to all low-level spellcasters) and you have what seems to be a supercharged elevator to the top. No wonder WotC came out with Epic Level handbooks so quickly!

I remember, as a child, sitting in a restaurant with my parents, and overhearing a conversation from a booth behind me: one guy was telling his friends about a campaign that took place in some tower, and his Paladin character made it all the way up to 50th level, only to be defeated or level-drained or some-such, and had to start over again at the bottom, so he did it again and got up to 50th level, and he got booted back down again, etc. Being the naive, inexperienced youth that I was, I got excited because they were talking about D&D, and I suppose I asked my mother why she didn't seem interested in asking them to game with us. That's when she explained to me the concept of "Monty Haul" gaming, and why it was generally considered to be a lesser form or of poorer quality among serious gamers.

I have to wonder if WotC was intentionally reducing the difficulty in such a manner, hoping to snare old and new players alike by promising greater rewards at a much quicker pace. Perhaps they thought that the attention span of modern gamers wouldn't last as long as it used to? Or maybe they simply believe most gamers play infrequently enough that too wide a gap between levels is discouraging, a belief I can't readily refute given that I typically only manage 1d4+1 sessions a year.

Now, however, I'm left with the concern that my own table is likewise too lenient. After all, even my highest chart only requires about 370,000 points for 20th level, and that assumes a character with a maximum class load.

I could make a return to the charts of old, or try to find some balance between the old and the new. After all, with the more generous experience rewards given by 3rd Edition rules, it might somewhat bridge the gap between players of different editions. Or, I could shove it off to the side for now, perhaps ruminating further upon it when I actually have players with characters above 4th level in the current system. At present rate, that might only take five years.