Goodman Games

goodmangames wrote:The Mighty Deed of Arms system came entirely out of playtests. The earliest versions of the warrior were much more "vanilla." It was obvious in playing that the wizards were dominating the games, and warriors needed to somehow balance things out -- not to mention a rules mechanism to do some of the cool things players wanted to do.

The cleric is still in a state of playtest. The cleric spellcasting system has been tweaked several times and I'm not yet 100% satisfied with it. This is more of a gradual system of minor changes to get it "just right."

The thief skills got changed substantially in playtest. The class still doesn't feel "special" enough (c.f. other threads on these boards) and it might change again.

The spell fumble tables, corruption tables, and general fumble tables were far too lethal early on. They're all balanced out better now.

Spellburn has proven quite popular in one-shots so the spellburn table is now expanded quite a bit.

Various spells get changed as playtests reveal balance issues. Animal summoning was changed quite a bit -- it was too much of a lengthy ritual in the early games.

The fundamentals of the spell check system haven't changed much but some of the details have. A natural 20 was originally the highest result on a given spell's table; it's now just a "kicker" bonus to the overall roll equal to the caster's level. (There were too many level 1 wizards getting extraordinary results when they rolled those natural 20's.)

Probably the biggest change is the ability score progression. I like the current system, which is closer to the 1980 rules sets -- not the 3E system of "+1 for every 2 points."

And of course the various adventures themselves get tweaked after every game. I've run People of the Pit maybe 7 or 8 times now, and there's this one secret room that not a single group has found. Every other secret room has been found in at least one game, but not this one. I'm going to change the map slightly so this room actually gets found sometime. Things like that are what get tweaked slightly from game to game.

goodmangames wrote: Right now I'm playing with this:
Score ... Adjustment
3 ... -3
4,5 ... -2
6,7,8 ... -1
9,10,11,12 ... +/-0
13,14,15 ... +1
16, 17 ... +2
18 ... +3
It's definitely changed the characters in a positive way. I still believe in "roll 3d6 straight down the line" for ability scores. With the 3E stat progression, such a method produces a lot of lamed characters, and the occasional superhero. (And I do mean "lamed" with the D on the end - not the pejorative "lame" but the descriptive "lamed" in the sense that their physical stat modifiers are so terrible they simply fail at many tasks.) With the stat progression above, you end up with the occasional plus or minus, and, rarely, a +2 or -2, but not the same extremes.

It also makes spellburn more fun in an indirect way. There isn't a lot of math to do around stat changes to begin with -- no skill points, not much to re-work if a stat changes. With the more gradual progression of modifiers, spellburn becomes even easier; a stat generally has to change by several steps to influence modifiers, and even then the change is modest (a change of -1, maybe -2, nothing huge).

goodmangames wrote:The beta version went off to the editor a couple days ago, so I'd say it's pretty complete. Of course it's a document that is designed to be "fiddled with," since there will be lots of player input once it's released. So don't consider it "done" - just "frozen in time" for a moment so the editor can work on it, before it is unleashed to the public.

The beta rules will focus on levels 1-5.

goodmangames wrote:I am hoping to get the beta rules out a full week before Free RPG Day. There is a lot to do between now and then. As the editor finishes up each chapter he's passing it on for layout. If we stay on track we should be good, but you never know what might crop up. So hopefully we'll give you a full week to digest them before Free RPG Day. Maybe a little more, maybe a little less...once I have something solid in hand I will let you know with more certainty.

goodmangames wrote:In a few weeks, when the beta rules release, EVERYONE will get a chance to play! So hopefully that will address some of the requests in places we can't reach easily.

goodmangames wrote:Right now all my energies are going into these doggone beta rules! Harley had mentioned he had some thoughts on putting together DCC RPG adventures. It's not the same as writing traditional D&D modules - we're going for a more vintage flavor. So hopefully I can pass the buck to him and he can give us a neat little designer's diary entry shortly, but we'll see because he's also got some deadlines in front of him...

goodmangames wrote:The art direction for DCC RPG is a careful cross-breed of 1930's pulp sci-fi style and 1970's pop culture. You'll all see more on that as more imagery is made public but for now I thought I'd share some thoughts on maps.

Maps in early D&D were purely utilitarian with the occasional artistic flourish, and yet we've all come to love those basic, hand-drawn maps. In modern times, the advent of digital cartography has really changed map-making. Many RPG publishers use full-color maps which are beautiful in their own right but, frankly, don't get my blood boiling with the "spirit of adventure" like those classic D&D maps. Too much detail, too much photographic accuracy, too little left to the imagination.

So I asked Doug Kovacs -- who's not just "the DCC RPG cover artist" but also one of the playtesters and a life-long role-player -- to see what he could come up with in terms of vintage-style illustrated maps. As long as we're going for hand-drawn vintage style, why limit it to utilitarian function? Why not get the DM's mind flowing with ideas along with depicting a map?

goodmangames wrote:The beta rules will contain a "conventional" thief class (similar to what's been playtested, for anyone who has been in a game). I'm still mulling over ideas (including some of the good ones in this thread). I need to put a few things into writing and then actually play a few games with different approaches. I think I also need to go back and review some of the Appendix N literature on thieves - return to the source and make sure I'm reflecting everything appropriately. So, basically, not sure yet...

goodmangames wrote:I've recently been playtesting some alternate thief builds, including some of the suggestions in this thread (converted in some cases to slightly different rules interpretations of the same concept). Just wanted to say thanks for the ideas. The thief class is definitely evolving in a positive way.

Although it's going to drive the editor nuts because he's going to have to re-edit the thief class for the beta rules.