1. The 13 True Ways cover above is our first rough draft. Aaron and Lee still have lots of work they plan to do on it. That’s a wind-and-lightning powered druid fighting a dragon who has yet to be revealed. It gives us game designers something to strive towards.
2. Lee calls the piece Over Drakkenhall. I love the name, partly because it reminds me of the WWI airplane battles that were my entry into gaming playing Fight in the Skies/Dawn Patrol. I guess I can confess that my slang for the cover-dragon is ‘the Bloody Red Golden,’but don’t worry, the story behind this has everything to do with Lee’s/Aaron’s art mixed with the sorcery of the Blue and nothing further to do with WWI ace jokes.
3. On other 13 True Ways work, Lee and Aaron continue to roll through the art, Robin Laws has turned over great work on devils, Drakkenhall, and Axis, and Jonathan is carving his own twisty multi-icon passages through the ruins of Drakkenhall.
4. While Jonathan, Aaron, and Lee press forward on 13 True Ways, I’m using my designer-head for a few weeks to help with the 13th Age Bestiary that Ken Hite has organized for Pelgrane. It’s mainly designed by people including ASH Law, Ken, Kevin Kulp, Rob Wieland, Ryven Cedrylle, and Steven Townshend, with editing by Cal Moore. There are innumerable dangerous and quirky touches that deserve to be touched on in later posts. For now I’m developing monsters, improving mechanics and suggesting ways that the monsters’ stories can dare more in individual campaigns.
5. And in regard to the book you’ve all been waiting for…. Once upon a time my page count estimates suggested we wouldn’t have room to print the last chapter of 13th Age, the mini-adventure called Blood & Lightning. We said we would put the adventure on line since we couldn’t fit it into the book. Well the good news is that I was wrong and the adventure does fit into the book. Last week, with the 304 page layout finished except for page xx’s, Simon and I decided to add the revised Blood & Lightning adventure back into the mix. We’ve got a 320 page book now with no need for an adventure download and it looks like the decision is only going to cost us three days. So we’ll have more good news soon, I think.

PublicOpinion posted this on the Something Awful 13th Age forum. Quite useful.

After messing around in Roll20, I found a way to automatically include the current escalation die value in the relevant macros:

First, you create an “Escalation Die” character on the Journals tab.

This step doesn’t matter, but its name should be something you aren’t likely to misspell.

You can add custom attributes to characters, so I give the EDie a “Value” attribute that goes up to 6 and starts at 0.

Then I make a token, and set that to represent the EDie. When a token is representing a character, you can set the bars to represent an arbitrary attribute so now people can just look at the EDie token to see where the battle is at, and it’s really easy to change the value. But that’s not all!

So we go to the option tab and add a “Melee” macro.

While you can make character specific macros, those can only reference attributes from the character they’re assigned to. It would be simpler overall to just set everything besides the Escalation Die to a constant number, but I wanted to see what the syntax could do so everything in the attack expression is pulled from Killbot’s character sheet. You can make the damage die generic as well, as (@{Killbot|Level})d(@{Killbot|Weapon_die})+@{Killbot|STR}.

And with the Escalation Die at 0, Killbot having a 0 STR mod, and being level 1, this is what that macro spits out. I can edit the EDie’s Value directly on its token and everyone’s macros would automatically update.

Rob Heinsoo recently emerged from the depths of the Queen’s Wood with disturbing tales of the little folk — and a piece of art from 13 True Ways.

David Kaehler was one of the winners of the Monster Art +13 contest for the 13 True Ways Kickstarter.

David asked for a somewhat straightforward illustration of pixies in a mushroom circle firing sleep arrows at surprised adventurers.

I decided that Aaron McConnell’s amazing talents meant I didn’t have to settle for a somewhat standard image. I rolled the picture forward a few minutes. What happens to adventurers brought low in a pixie circle? Aaron’s first draft is below.

It’s dark, it’s a ritual, and that’s one pumped-up pixie.

Haven’t done the mechanics yet, but they’re going to be fun.

The final illustration will bring out what’s going on at the bottom of the illustration with a bit more clarity while still maintaining the frayed boundaries of good taste.

Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm, murder pixies.

- Rob Heinsoo

The Other Steve recently picked up his Escalation Edition copy of 13th Age and can’t believe he waited so long as, in his words, “13th Age is, hands down, the most exciting modern D&D variant I have encountered.” In a detailed review over on BoardGameGeek, he explains how 13th Age:

…sits at the nexus not just of 3E and 4E – which has engendered much discussion from D&D fans – but also of the “story games” movement. It brilliantly melds the approaches of these three games into a cohesive, and fascinating, whole.

Then, on top of all that, it adds a new and compelling take on an RPG setting – defined by the game’s 13 icons – that provides dramatic conflict, ample room for GM and player input to the story, and makes the PCs themselves prominent.

The bottom line, he says, is that 13th Age:

…retains the strength of [the d20] system – a rich tactical landscape with vast space for character customization – but adds more freedom, and a well-designed toolbox, to add narration to the game. Toss in an exciting new style of setting design – centered around conflicts rather than places – and some simplification and abstraction to the combat mechanics, and the result is a beautiful game almost perfectly matched to my tastes.

You can read The Other Steve’s well-reasoned explanation of why he thinks he’s in love with 13th Age in the full review here.

Michael Evans reviewed the 13th Age Escalation Edition for EN World, providing one of the most in-depth and crunchy-yet-concise examinations of the game to date. I encourage you to check out Part 1 and Part 2 of his review.

“As far as the Character Class design of 13th Age, I am quite impressed so far. I feel that the authors have managed to achieve a very positive blend of 3rd Edition and 4E concepts, but with some really interesting and thoughtful innovations to make the game more role-playing than roll-playing.”

“…[T]he ability of getting both d20 and 4E combats playable without a battle map is fairly impressive, and the FLWQ problem plaguing older D&D editions has been nicely solved here.”

“…I have to admit there is a lot to like about 13th Age, and I can see many 4E fans meeting Pathfinder/OGL fans on common ground with this game. While it has some mechanics which are reminiscent of both d20 and 4E, it strives very hard to favor story-telling and role-playing over that of rules crunching, and has some innovations to get players to develop strong and unique characters for a campaign. And it quite surprised me in finding ways to retain a decent amount of complexity in combat and game play without requiring maps and minis, and it still leaves flexibility for game masters to adjudicate and improvise.”

 

Last night we checked in with hard-working layout artist Chris Huth on the status of the 13th Age core rulebook. Here’s where we are:

Chris has finished laying out chapters 1, 2, 3, 5, 6 and 9. The core team has given him feedback on all those chapters except 9, which they’re now reviewing.

Chapters 4, 7 and 8 require all sorts of time-consuming finicky adjustments, so they’re going a bit slower than the others.

Chris also has the opening material to lay out, which is important because it affects the page numbers in the index.

Having delivered these updates, Chris collapsed asleep.

Rob Heinsoo rode up in a demonic chariot pulled by fiery hounds and handed us this update on the 13th Age Bestiary, written in blood on a blink dog’s pelt.

Speaking of the Bestiary, writer Steve Townshend was on the Haste podcast this week and talked about how the monsters will give players cool story hooks. Check it out.

A couple months ago Ken Hite was putting together the monster list for the upcoming 13th Age Bestiary from Pelgrane Press. I’d been helping with suggestions and sample monster write-ups. Then I mentioned the monsters I wasn’t sure we should cover.

Dogs.

Any time D&D did a book of monsters in 3e and 3.5, you could count on a substantial portion of the contributions amounting to dogs. Go ahead, start paging through with the core Monster Manual, you’ll hit the hound archon, barghest (wolflike is doglike, man), blink dog, dire wolf, gnolls (because hyenas count), and so on, up through the warg, winter wolf, and yeth hound. The monsters just get barkier in the Fiend Folio and in the old Monster Manual II, sometimes when you don’t really expect it. Caniloth? That’s a dog-like not-demon/not-devil. Senmurv? That’s some kind of coyote humanoid with rainbow wings. As soon as you do a race sourcebook, that race has gotta have a dog. Or three. The parade of dog-like monsters keeps spooling out like a WTF multiversal dog show.

I became aware of our canine design tendency when I was choosing minis for the D&D Miniatures game. Like other powerful unconscious tendencies, dog-ness often took us by surprise. A gravehound, a werewolf, a Nessian warhound, a gnoll priestess, an iron defender and a goblin warg rider feel like different monsters. But if you squint, they’re all from Canine Kennels.

The ubiquity of dog monsters isn’t a surprise. We think with what’s familiar. Twisting the familiar into a monster creates scary and resonant monsters. And other creators have had weird dog-fixations. Shakespeare tended to link ‘fawning’ in the same sentence as candy (sweetmeats, candied jellies) along with a dog or hound or mastiff, there are upwards of seven plays that feature this precise association, something like a text analysis fingerprint. Us ‘d20-rolling designers? We’ve got an even more obvious thread: new monster concept = obvious (or just maybe stealthy) dog.

So Ken made the call to exclude dogs from the upcoming 13th Age Bestiary. It was a good call. 13th Age is aimed at imaginative GMs and players who are being encouraged to add their own cool ideas to each campaign and session. It’s clear that most of us gamers can design actually-interesting dog-monsters ourselves and we’ve covered a few of the obvious wolves and hellhounds in the core book. We’re trying to supply ideas and inspiration you might not have had immediately on your own, so throwing more dogs onto the pile just isn’t necessary.

And by the hoary breath of the winter wolf, my previous work cycle created enough pre-painted plastic dog-style miniatures that you should have no problem finding minis to suit your new creations.

- Rob Heinsoo

Jon Spengler of Dorkadia volunteered to run 13th Age at Norwescon in Seattle, and posted about the experience on his blog. He’s kindly given us permission to share his article here.

If you’re interested in running 13th Age at a con or at your local game store, we’d love to know! Contact me at wade.rockett@fireopalmedia.com

I was introduced to 13th Age through a demo run at PAX Prime 2012. The demo was so unique and so fun that I preordered the game immediately after PAX. It was the hands-on experience that made me fall in love with the game. When I was asked by Wade Rockett to run a few demo games at Norwescon 36 this past weekend I jumped at the opportunity!

The Material

The convention material for 13th Age is perfectly crafted to show off the strengths of the system. (And it’s publicly available.) It’s a simple two hour structure: in the first hour the players at the table pick from a selection of pregenerated characters and brainstorm their one unique thing, icon relationships, and backgrounds. The second hour is an improv adventure born from those unique things that features a single combat encounter.

The demo is truly bare bones, little more than guidelines for adventure improv and a few sets of monsters to throw at the heroes. But because the meat of the demo is character creation, the players start the game engaged, leaning forward, and invested. In fact, the demo consists almost solely of what makes 13th Age so different from other “d20 rolling games”: the mechanics that give narrative voice to the players. Players of more traditional games start out wary of such mechanics, but by the end everyone is pitching ideas on why exactly “thick headed” is just about the best damn background for a barbarian ever. (It bashes down doors AND helps in social situations!) The improv, player-centric nature of the demo material is brilliant.

I also created PC and monster tokens for the demo using 1-1/2 inch rubber grippies made to protect hardwood floors from furniture. I’m going to make a post about these before long, they were easy to make and really work well for GMs like me that have to pack everything they need in a bag before they head out to game.

The Experience

The demo I ran was a hoot. All five of my players were engaging with the mechanics, laughing, and buying into the narrative mechanics. I did forget to have the players roll their icon relationships (which I’m kicking myself for) but ultimately it didn’t get in the way. One of the players was a friend of mine that had only tangentially been introduced to roleplaying games. I’m happy to say that she enjoyed herself.

The one unique things were exactly the sort of gonzo flavor that 13th Age revels in that other games would shy from. We had a bard that could sing the dead awake, a paladin that received visions, a half-elf half-dwarf, a barbarian cursed with eternal rage, and a sorcerer that punched the god of honor and lightning, receiving some of its power. That was a fun one to workshop out! There was very little story game experience in the group but it only took the gentlest of nudges to get every single person exploiting the hell out of the creative power they were given. It was really great to see the trepidation melt away as the players took the reigns and ran with the system.

The combat was fast and furious, most of the players immediately grasped their class powers in a matter of a single round of combat. The cleric buffed, the barbarian smashed, paladin smote with impunity. Huge success.

Jonathan Tweet and Ash Law, head of 13th Age Organized Play

The Conclusion

I had a great time running the demo and hanging out with the 13th Age crew. I know that all five of the players at my table enjoyed the freedom of the character creation and enjoyed the combat. I had more than one person walk away with their character sheet in their pocket, which is exactly what I did when I left my demo at PAX 2012 and preordered the game. The demo was a success; my only true regret is not being able to run a second game due to time constraints!

In case you haven’t gotten the message yet, you should all really check out 13th Age. (It should be on store shelves in a month or so.)

I have to add a special shout out to Ash Law. He was so busy coordinating the demos and gathering players that it seems like I only got to speak with him for a few minutes. But in the small amount of time I watched him run his demo I realized he was one of the most charismatic, energetic, and creative GMs I’ve ever seen in action. Just reading his comments on the 13th Age G+ community shows his passion for the hobby and his complete understanding of the dynamics of roleplaying. I’m going to try to take some of that magic I saw and apply it at my table.

13th Age is scheduled to be published June 2013 by Pelgrane Press. Pre-order 13th Age at the Pelgrane Shop, and download the v.6 draft of the rules to start playing now! 

Rob Heinsoo emerged from his incense-befogged meditation chamber in a state of divine communion with the gods of Light, to bring us yet another update on 13 True Ways…

The fire/layout situation claimed most of my attention, and I just realized that we never officially let you know the outcome of the I Hate This Town voting.

As most all of you suspected, the voting for I Hate this Town followed the pattern established when you voted for Drakkenhall and Horizon as the cities you wanted to see most. Yes, Santa Cora is the city that’s going to get pasted with slanders.

So we set up a halfling robbery illustration to get the hatred started:

I’d describe the architectural style that Aaron McConnell brought to this wing of the Cathedral as monolithic-papacy. All the better for our freedom-loving halfling to plunder.

Aaron and I have talked about how we’ll change things around for the final version. We’ll share that with you once it’s ready.

Liturgically,
Rob Heinsoo

We’ve just received the prototype images of the 13th Age icon ring. You’ll be able to use it to randomly determine which of the game’s 13 icons is involved in a  particular scene — or perhaps pulling the strings in secret.

Dice Rings certainly outdid themselves with the final product and we couldn’t wait to share it with you! We’ll let the image speak for itself.

If you backed the 13 True Ways expansion Kickstarter at $300 or more, you’re getting a gold icon ring along with your other rewards. You can also get a gold ring with the one of the one hundred limited edition 13th Age core books we’ll be releasing.

We’ll be putting the black icon rings up for sale in the Pelgrane shop soon!

Note that all rings will be size 10 only.

The other two rings are prototypes, and won’t be part of the run. Sorry, blue ring fans.

So! Are you as excited about the 13th Age icon dice ring as we are? Let us know in this scientific survey.

We’ll have another status report on the rings as things progress!