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News For The Day

Every time I wake up before noon after 6-8 hours of sleep it feels like a gift. Getting eight hours of sleep and waking up after noon is a "well, it's the thought that counts" kind of gift, as it leaves me with a choice between having a good solid uninterrupted workday or being available for Jack when he gets home from work, and the way our lives are right now that's not exactly a hard question.

State of the Me

Okay. I felt the need to get away from the internet yesterday for a bit, which resulted in being out and about in the heat, but we're past the worst of the heat wave.

Dreams From Last Night

I was at an airport with my family, and after photographers spotted my old brother and I we were all deeply concerned that someone would figure out that "David Schwimmer" and "Matthew Perry" were just stage names we'd concocted to protect our privacy.

...

This might have been the weirdest dream ever.

Plans For Today

Got a chapter of Tales of MU to write.

Mike Mearls is using the "Legends and Lore" column...

...on the D&D website to do a sort of series on theories of complexity in game design that's only really been marginally interesting to me, but the newest installment on skill systems caught my eye.

Here’s what I propose as a starting point: A skill gives you something new to do or it makes you better at something you already can do. In other words, if you removed the skill chapter from the rulebook, the game would still be playable. You’d be missing options, but the basic functions of the game remain intact. We don’t hide things like the rules for climbing or jumping in the skills chapter. We just have rules for how to climb, and then perhaps a skill that makes you better at climbing.

For a lot of other stuff, we can shelve the basic rules for how to do things under the ability scores. For example, Charisma describes guidelines for using that ability to lie, gather information, negotiate a treaty, and so forth. It takes a general approach that sets the scope for the ability.

I think a skill system in D&D can either serve as a set of rules for how to do stuff, or it can serve as a way to customize your character. You can do both in the system, but I think that needlessly hides stuff away from the players. It’s clearer to just create a flexible, core mechanic, set out the basics of how to do common actions that you expect anyone to be able to do, give the DM a robust mechanic to improvise or make a ruling, and then focus skills on customization.

Mearls favors having broadly applicable basic rules and skills as ways of customizing character, making them stand out from each other. He gives an example of a skill system where being "trained" in a task like climbing gives a flat bonus and then each time you gain a further point you can choose from various talents represent advanced or specific training (Cautious Climber, Team Climber, Fast Climber, etc.)

This is sort of like a more systematic approach to what is basically the reality on the ground in D&D 4E: you do get a flat bonus for having training in a skill, and then you can gain more specific capabilities through Feats and Utility Powers. Those Feat and Power selections take up "character design resources" that could be used for other things, like combat abilities or more colorful customizations, which means that some players will habitually overlook or scorn them and others will look longingly at them while pragmatically making the character design choices they feel they "need to" make. By giving a separate space in the system for things that modify skills, that is avoided... though it adds another step/layer of complexity to character creation.

Among the reasons that this column speaks to me more than earlier ones in the same series did is that Mearls's thoughts on broad rules and customized capabilities speaks to what I'm going for in A Wilder World.

I take it as axiomatic that:

1) any adventurer ought to have a chance to get through a locked door
2) some adventurers will be able to do so better/faster/more reliably
3) getting through a locked door (or past a comparable obstacle) should rarely require opening up a rulebook.

I also take it as given that things that diversify character abilities are more interesting than linear number progressions. That is, abilities that start with "You can..." are preferable to "You gain +1".

Construction Post: TOMU 2-25

2:10-2:40: ~600 words (+500)
3:00-3:30: ~950 words (+350)
2:30-3:00: ~1350 words (+400)
3:30-4:00: ~1850 words (+500)
4:00-4:30: ~2250 words (+400)
5:30-6:00: ~2450 words (+200)


( Spoilers )

This is what life in a republic should look like, all the time.

Comcast launches program to provide cheaper internet service to low-income families.

Even though I know they are only grudgingly fulfilling a public mandate imposed on them to counteract the ongoing effects of the consolidation of the producers and distributors of information into fewer and fewer hands, I want to congratulate Comcast for taking this step. Lack of internet access might be a "first world problem", but if you're living and trying to find work and get an equitable education in a first world nation, then yes, it is a problem. Especially with libraries and other resources being cut or slashed to the bone.

The comments on the article are typically full of self-made Randian Man-Gods who cannot believe what the parasites and looters are getting away with, but let's be honest: Comcast didn't invent a wonder metal or a new type of engine that no one else could have invented. They've simply consistently out-competed others in the struggle to be the company that delivers information to the public.

Well, let's congratulate them on that, and allow them to make a nice profit for their labors... but at the end of the day, that they actually provide the service they've fought for the privilege of providing is a matter of public concern.

We the people should expect no less.