I was reading through comments from the most recent Legends & Lore in which a number of individuals had disagreed in their discussion of the Hit Dice mechanic as a brief rest healing option. It got me thinking of the overall tool and how it is being used; during my series about session based solutions, I mentioned the always refreshing Vigor points of Chronica Feudalis. Perhaps that can be combined with the conflict disposition of Mouse Guard and the Hit Dice of D&D to create an illogical module of always variable hit points.

Diposition

In Mouse Guard, a conflict begins with a variable number representing the PC's interests in the conflict. It is a number also used for the NPCs involved. A player uses a skill to determine the number of dice to roll; the successful dice from taht pool

As a summary, I think the key to all three games is a session-based style of play. Because of this, several areas are shared by most games in a session-based play-style. If each of these factors can be reviewed and considered for D&D Next it just might be a far better game than the current playtest materials.

Lack of Experience Points

As I’ve done in 4e and I’ve experienced in group games, by dropping XP from our games, the adventure changes altogether. It is still a valuable tool for fine-tuning encounter design, but there is no need for a PC to spend so much time focused exclusively on killin’ monsters to gain XP and levels. The entire adventure can accommodate more role-play obstacles, skill obstacles, and generally using the right tools to get the job done.

Unfortunately I have not been able to sit down playing Trollbabe. I’ve read through several times and like the simple fashion of mechanics in the game, and always look for ways to try out house-rules that emulate elements of Trollbabe. More than the other games, Trollbabe is targeted as a collaborative story-telling game with very few precise mechanics about interacting with the stuff of the world. It is clearly focused on giving mere guidelines of interacting with the NPCs of the world.

Rerolls

Over the course of the game, a PC faces opportunities to reroll attempts to resolve conflicts and overcome obstacles. Regarding the reroll mechanic, each reroll comes with a small cost. Also, each reroll relates to something in-game. The cost of conditions related to rerolls ensures

Chronica Feudalis is entirely intended as a historical fiction RPG. It makes no apology in the description of the game that magic, fantasy, and miracles are not meant to be common PC capabilities. I’m sure there are some hacks for this game which provide those options.

What works great is the light, concise rules provide session-based tools for players. I’d love to see some of these techniques implemented in D&DNext. So, I’ll write a bit regarding how these tools work; later I’ll write about implementing these techniques.

Vigor

The absolute first thing to present is Vigor points. The mechanic is simple and abstract; for each scene—regardless of the conflict type—in which success or failure is on the line a PC has three Vigor points. They sort

I like playing Mouse Guard, but it is hardly a cup of tea for everyone. I’ve read through some hacks on Mouse Guard for Song of Ice and Fire, Rangers of the North, and a western gunslinger’s ball. There are likely more hacks for Mouse Guard than I know about. So, if you don’t want to play mice, you can approach using one of the hacks.

I think that it is popular for some of the easy –to-use session-based tools for player options. It abstracts combat into a conflict that works as a pattern for all story conflicts. That abstract conflict is pretty effective for all sorts of role-play exchanges. The player has access to loads of mechanical elements which are also abstracted into character narrative. My goal is to illustrate how this game solves some factors of a 5-minute

In D&D, the greatest error I see with regards to refreshing "daily-use" resources such as 4e’s Daily Powers, and the spell slots of earlier editions is that a long rest is written as a mechanical connection with the period of rest in a narrative. In simplest terms, the rules state that the mechanics depend on narrative, and the narrative defines the mechanics. 

Encounters (D&D 4e)

Before I started running the D&D Encounters event, I was having trouble with players that rested as often as the narrative seemed to allow. I was forced to contrive false reasons why they couldn’t have a rest. I started allowing more rested PCs to take on exhaustive combats which lasted longer and longer. Pretty soon, one session became one combat plus some role-play exchanges separated

Recently, the Rule of Three presented a response to a cogent question about the 5-minute work day which often occurs with daily abilities in the class options. Following this, Mike Mearls wrote about the 5-minute work-day in Legends and Lore. In fact, let’s not forget a post from Alphastream and a post from Areata both which discussed the issues of a 5-minute workday as well as methods for facing it.

Among the comments following the Rule of Three column, Arbanax included an invitation to respond to methods of fixing the 5-minute work day pattern. I’ve been thinking about some significant differences between D&D and some of my other favorite games for quite a while now. The invitation spurred me to work up a series of posts about how those other games avoid the 5-minute work