Hello, an introduction & a bit of errata for the PHB

[kajukenbo]

Hello.

I've been gaming since The Boxed Sets in about 1979 or 1980.
I've played & GM'd systems like Gamma World, Star Frontiers, Top Secret, Marvel, Dr. Who...the first Shadowrun, early White Wolf, blah, blah.

I stopped for a while, life in the way, lack of players, etc.
I got back into gaming off and on, most recently with the "Living Force" campaign until it ended.

I looked into recent editions of The Game bought by WoTC a while back but I saw at a glance that it was NOT what I played and DM'd in my youth and it turned me off. It was a scripted mess of dice rolls and tweaked uber-characters. To top it off it seemed that many of the players I talked to knew more about loopholes in the rules than they did about ROLEPLAYING.

This holiday season, I picked up the "Pathfinder Beginner's Boxed Set" for $20 because:

1) the reports and reviews said it was like the "old boxed sets" !!
2) I am seriously interested in introducing the 8-year old to gaming ..
3) why do you need more reasons than that ??

I opened the box.
+ VERY PRETTY, Great quality, full-color printing like graphic novels.
+ It is a complete game; nice counters, comes with a map, PHB, DMG
+ seems to be "upgradable" to "full Pathfinder"
+ Nice dice. Well made, opaque, inked. (Let us be honest here: those cheap dice and crayons were really not that great and coloring them in was not as much fun as you remember)

I played through the "solo" adventure in the PHB.
Somewhat entertaining (a choose-your-own-adventure deal with a d20) but not exciting or fullfilling to me personally. A fighter, pregenerated in a simple dungeon crawl of 4 or 5 rooms.
The 8-year old picked out her own dice and we ran through the same one together. I DM'd the "solo" this time and gave her the choices (go to section #12) in a roleplaying/DM mode, even doing some voices. I had to explain the rules a few times but she made it through the fights and skill checks, although she did not seem to be having as much fun as if she was just reading and rolling herself. At the end it hit me: the game was too rigid. She only had so many options, based on her PC's skills. The rules seem to be too sandboxed for much else.

No worries... That is to get people up to speed on the "very basics" and not the official intro module in the DMG. The official module would not have those sort of limitations, or so I hoped. But it does. In fact it looks like the whole point of the intro is to teach the same skills to 4 (or so) people instead of 1, but now all 4 sample PCs have specific skill checks written into the module! So what happens if no one in your party has ranks in the needed skills? Do you return the module to the FLGS? Do you just suffer a TPK? That may be why the focus on "game balance" has taken over. You must ensure the party has all of the feats and skills to overcome almost any obstacle but now a party of four 3.xE characters can probably put the smackdown on a party of 4 0E/1E. Instead of leveling the skills and powers in 3.xE down and trying to fix the mechanics, they "balanced" by powering everything up!

GRRR!

Anyway... The 8-year old did have fun so I was not going to give up. I have the 1980 Basic Box -with the B2 Keep and the cheap hollow dice- as well as most of the old 1E books but I was looking for something more. OSRIC? Meh, I have the originals. Basic Fantasy RP? Looks a lot like 3.5E. Labyrinth Lord? Swords & Wizardry? Maybe, they are classic dungeon crawls... But again, why not play the originals?

What about something a bit different? Simplified even more that 0E for an 8-year old?
Something like the unified mechanic I tried to come up with in the mid 80's... Something that can also take advantage of the classic stuff out there. Something that would let me GM B2-The Keep on the Borderlands again but might also let me play a 2E or 3E module if I found one I liked. Well, of course after some research I found C&C.
I downloaded the free PDFs from TLG & read through forums.
It all looked too good to be true so I bought the 4th Edition PHB and the 3rd Edition M&T Digest! LOL!
I am looking forward to trying to run her through a short module this weekend.
Please keep up the good work and thank you.

That being said, I think I found a typo in the PHB, unless I am misreading it.
The "Tiny Hut" spell says the temperature in the Hut is 70 degrees when the outside temp is between 0 and 100 degrees. Then it goes on to explain something like '20 degrees outside, inside it’ll be 50 degrees'.

I think that should read if it is -20 degrees outside then it is 50 inside the Hut, right?

[Sir Ironside]

Want something to play with your 8 year old?

You can't beat Harvesters.

[alcyone]

By the way, since you are invested somewhat in Pathfinder, the 1-on-1 adventures from Expeditious Retreat are good. Each is tailored to 1 or 2 narrow classes, so if you run one for the class you have, the skill checks will match up. They can be run with C&C with some tweaks of course, but they feel a bit empty because they are targeted at a set of character skills more than roleplaying, as you've observed.

I'd love to see some 1-on-1 stuff specifically for C&C. Maybe we can get a challenge going at the C&C Society to write up and collect a few.

-20 degrees makes sense; the description is wrong.

[kajukenbo]

By the way, since you are invested somewhat in Pathfinder, the 1-on-1 adventures from Expeditious Retreat are good.

Hello sir.

I would not say I am at invested in Pathfinder, all I have is the $20 Beginner Box set.
But I will take a look at the 1-on-1 adventures if I run across them.

Thank you

[kajukenbo]

Want something to play with your 8 year old?

You can't beat Harvesters.

LOL! Talk about "exactly what the doctor ordered"!
I'll take a look.

Thanks

[Sir Ironside]

Want something to play with your 8 year old?

You can't beat Harvesters.

LOL! Talk about "exactly what the doctor ordered"!
I'll take a look.

Thanks

No problem. I've considered getting this to get my; Redwall, Circle of Light series, Animal Farm, MouseGuard, Watership Down thing on. I know that MouseGuard, Animal Farm and Watership Down are not for kids, but, it'd be easy to do with the source material. Circle of Light combines humans and anamorphic animals, but I couldn't really see any problems using both C&C combined with Harvesters to make it workable.

MouseGuard is already a rpg but, the rules are too complex to really enjoy the game. I've played the Burning Wheel rpg before, and it was alright but, I'm just not into rules heavy anymore.

[kajukenbo]

I've used a bit of google-fu and ordered a copy of the game (support the Trolls and they keep printing things) but I am a bit concerned.
There seems to be a fair number of issues with the published Harvesters book.
Confusing movement rules, missing class/race stats, missing spells, missing magic items, things like that.
Also, it sounds as if it has parts pasted from the PHB with generally poor editing.

Oh well. I'll see how it looks when it arrives.
I ordered the printed copy since I know She will have much more fun with that than with a PDF, no matter how well I print & hole-punch it.

Thanks

[Lord Dynel]

Welcome kajukenbo, to the Crusade!

Yes, I agree with the issues with Harvesters. I think the main issue (and I could be wrong) was that it was an almost complete "port over" of the C&C rules, and I think some things were missed that way. Not missed, I suppose, more than considerations with existing rules that were not considered. That being said, I would completely support John and the Trolls on a revised Harvesters RPG, especially if inconsistancies like these were addressed.

[Omote]

Welcome to the Crusade kajukenbo. C&C is where fantasy gaming is at. Enjoy your Crusade.

~O

[kajukenbo]

Thank you for the words of welcome.
I look forward to playing the C&C rule set (Harvesters seems like a great idea), although I am not sure I'll be able to talk Her mom into playing so it may be real small, quick adventures.

That (I think) is one of the biggest problems with PnP RPGs and the strengths of CRPGs: solo play.

I may be able to run Her through something simple this evening to see how She likes it.

[Dead Horse]

http://wheathollow.blogspot.com/

Harvester blog by the writer. He handles errata and gives new stuff.

[tylermo]

A fellow missourian. I live about 3 hours south of you. Also played some of the same games, including Fasa Doc Who. KETC classic Doc Who Sunday nights. Welcome to C&C.

[tylermo]

A fellow missourian. I live about 3 hours south of you. Also played some of the same games, including Fasa Doc Who. KETC classic Doc Who Sunday nights. Welcome to C&C.

[kajukenbo]

tylermo, thanks for the welcome.

3 hours south of StL?
I'd guess that is in the neighborhood of Cape Girardeau?