Gloomhaven: review'd

GH is a game which can take upwards of 10 minutes per turn to simulate 6 seconds of combat. I spent years of my life trying to get away from overcomplex rpgs. Pathfinder is a mess. Sleepovers spending 4 hours making characters and then whatever energy we have left trying to run the first combat.

The appeal of being a nerd is fiddling with minutiae. Conversations about parliamentary procedure, debates about art, Gloomhaven, all yammering obsessives trying to squeeze approval points out of each other by means of what ultimately comes down to aggression. I'll admit though that Gloomhaven handles this process, mass quarreling, gracefully, by encouraging competition between the mercenaries. Secret objectives, unlockables, perks, XP, all the rewards are best won via selfish actions like abandoning your teammates for gold. So there's something *fun* to argue about.

I like Gloomhaven enough to emulate it using Tabletop Simulator. For a game that is very much alike emulating a video game, I am emulating it using a video game. I felt embarrassed talking to my babe about this, the shuffling and parsing of minutiae, dragging digital cards around, muttering to myself and sitting hours in a simulation. My partner was like, why are you ashamed? "This seems totally normal to me."

"Shut Up & Sit Down" has a good review which covers the benefits and frustrations of Gloomhaven, and the reviewer summarizes his affection as a feeling of "warmth" when extracting or putting away the complex innards of the box. Very much the nerdy management of minutiae, but let's also give credit to the game for creating continuous iterations of interesting puzzle-combat.

I wrote my own version of dnd

I had a rush of energy and wrote down my own little version of dnd, like one does. Someday I may playtest it... but for now I'd just to like to curate the good or interesting ideas I had.

SUMMARY OF THE "GOOD IDEAS" IN MY DND-LIKE I JOTTED DOWN:

• Three stats, between which you can distribute 2 points at character creation:
• Strength, Magic, Cunning.
• Strength: 1 point of strength = +3 hp, +2 bab, and +1 ac. Also helps some skills.
• Magic: 1 point of magic lets you cast one 1st level spell per day, 2 points of magic lets you cast as many 1st level spells as you want. 3 points of magic lets you cast 1 2nd level spell per day (and as many 1st level spells as you want), 4 points lets you cast as many 1st or 2nd level spells as you want etc. etc.
• many spells have their own restrictions about how often they can be used to limit the power involved.
• cunning: 1 point of cunning gets you 1 free action before initiative is rolled. So if you have 2 cunning you get two actions before everyone else goes.
• if multiple participants have cunning, these free actions happen in random order.
• skills, from which you get to assign 2 points at character creation:
• hunting- str OR cun +hunting vs. prey. can also be used to track
• healing- d4 hp per patient per day, per point
• climbing- str and cun + climbing vs. DC
• thievery-- includes sleight of hand and all stealth. vs. prey's cunning, or 
• no social skills at all.
• advancement:
• you can improve skills by fulfilling conditions like "practice this skill for a year" or "achieve great wealth using this skill". 
• improving stats, however, happens mostly on the basis of patronage, that is, service to divine figures in exchange for power.
• this is essentially a substitute for classes.
• examples of patronage:
• serving god:
• you get rewards for building churches, burning heretics, bringing righteous justice, leading a flock, converting nonbelievers and so on.
• rewards include the ability to channel divinity, stat bonuses, "taking communion"=full heal by going to church, holy weapons.
• however you are required to follow a strict moral code and receive
•  forgiveness from powerful priests if you misstep.
• serving the devil:
• can directly trade your soul for money or stat bonuses, and greater amts for a more pious soul.
•  Also you're destined for hell.
• Also the devil then can speak to you whenever it wishes, and will try to tempt you with, like, better positions in hell. or other stuff.
• serving the chaos god
• directly trades stats bonuses for people killed, e.g. +1 at 10, +1 at 100, +1 at 500, +1 at 1,000...
• You can improve your magic score by finding eldritch texts, building a library, communing with other wizards, and practicing the art; essentially the study of esoteric knowledge is its own "patron".
• Patronages can usually be advanced to some extent by spending money. Churches built, monuments to satan, etc.
• Failing patronage requirements usually doesn't take away the stats, but rather imposes other penalties: wizards who get their libraries burned get mishap chances when they cast, for example.

REFLECTING ON THE "GOOD IDEAS":

• Cunning
• Cunning awards actions before initiative is rolled, essentially free surprise rounds. Thus, the more often you can trigger initiative being rolled, the more often you get your free actions. So to some extent, paying attention to when initiative is rolled will be necessary for the design to prevent abuse.
• Free actions like Cunning gives might be very overpowered.
• Potentially complex and/or bad interactions with how chases work.
• Making initiative more complicated might not be good.
• This seems like a unique take on initiative, and I'm proud of it. Going first has always been a huge advantage and often underlooked by design, so I'm happy to place it as a primary feature of the character mechanics.
• Also seems like a good way to keep tactics fresh. Goblins have 0 strength but 1 cunning so they're weak but they get to do something surprising.
  
• Simplicity
• Not sure how much benefit there is to constructing a very simple framework for characters, especially since so much of the appeal of DND-like games comes from specialization. With 2 points to distribute between three stats, every character will be shades of each other.
• On the other hand, there is a lot of variety presented by a party composition such as this:
• guy with 2 magic
• guy with 2 strength
• guy with 2 cunning and stealth.
• Patronage
• the essential idea is that instead of XP you have class-specific goals. Improvement happens in a wider context, such as a hero's rise in a church or a deepening debt to the Devil. 
• This lends more drama than just becoming more powerful by defeating monsters.
• Asking players to pay more attention to their advancement seems like it might turn people off or split the party more.

• No social skills at all
• LOTFP gets away with just using reaction rolls, and for a while I've insisted that players offer good deals if they want NPCs to do stuff. I don't like "roll to convince" so I'm fine taking it off the table. However, there will probably be unforseen consequences.

I don't know when I'll give it all a playtest. Sharing on my blog because its where my creative mind is rn. 

You can see the rough design doc here.

SEPTEMBER 1ST SUPERFIGHT

a superfight is an exercise where you run a fictional tournament between some fictional combatants. today's fighters are:

kirby
mahatma ghandi (2nd time participant)
mewtwo
morrissey
a lamp
me
president bill clinton circa 1994
horse (returning champion)

Mr. president.

ROUND ONE

kirby v me

I am able to grievously wound wound kirby. however the kinetic force of his "suck" power is able to carom me off a wall or piece of furniture, dislocating my spine. Match: kirby. 

president bill clinton v. horse

bill clinton: not in shape, however has been photographed riding a horse (see above). Tame a wild horse? Unlikely. Victor: HORSE

mahatma ghandi v. a lamp

ghandi cinches this? Dude can break a lamp.

mewtwo v. morrissey

mewtwo uses confusion and flips morrissey into the ocean. the battlefield for this superfight is on a beach. winner: m2

ROUND TWO

mahatma ghandi v. a horse

mahatma could swing this. however, he wisely chooses not to ride the horse, as it poses a health risk.

match: mahatma. he is able to calm the horse down or simply outwait it until it sleeps.

mewtwo v. kirby

the actual fight we've been waiting for. obviously kirby copies mewtwo off of the bat. from then on we have a classic shadow ball match. kirby however does not have a reflective ability and I think that means mewtwo has the upper hand. perhaps the wound sustained in kirby's fight with me earlier makes an unfortunate reprisal. 

match: mewtwo

FINALS

mewtwo v. mahatma ghandi

mewtwo is curious about philosophy enough to stay its psychic powers. Can the mahatma sway mewtwo to the the path of pacificism? my gut instinct says no. ghandi is obliterated via psystrike

**MEWTWO WINS**