Do you remember when you first started playing RPGs, and reading sci-fi or fantasy, watching awesome movies and shows, reading comic books, or even writing, or drawing, your own stuff? Making up your own awful, or awesome games? Did you read adventure gamebooks? Lone Wolf, Zork, Endless Quest, D&D, Sagard, Wizards and Warriors, Fighting Fantasy, Choose Your Own Adventure?

Do you remember imagining being someone else, somewhere else, doing something else? Seeing scenes in your mind’s eye, either in a fully immersive, sit-back-and-close-your-eyes exercise, or just while you were staring off into space, while not doing homework, while someone was droning on?

When was the last time you truly used, focused on, for any significant length of time, your imagination; your active, conscious, willful, artistic creativity, to get back in touch with that ability to appreciate the wonder that you yourself can create and bring forth, all from within yourself? Were you ever able to do that? Did you ever do that? Can you still do it? Do you do it when you game, as player or GM? Will you do it?

I was talking with a friend of mine the other day, we’ll call him Ted. His 15 year old stepson, eh, name him Brent, has played games with us enough to understand the basics of a few systems, how gaming works, including GMing, and even ran a few sessions of Warhammer FRP 2nd Edition adventures from some of the more famous campaigns, and I thought, did pretty good – he’s a little rough around the edges in places, as player and GM, but for 15, he’s got a good grasp and has the dedication to sit down and work on NPCs and go over the adventures he’s going to run, when he wants to, to prepare.

So Brent is starting to GM for his group of friends, about 3-5 kids around his age, give or take a couple of years. He essentially observed that he felt one of the main problems with his group was that, besides them not being previously acquainted with RPGs, besides online (MMORPGs/WoW etc) or console games (that’s all for another post), he felt they just really didn’t seem to have the ability to imagine.

Granted, that’s just Brent’s opinion, and potentially carries some bias and he’s not exactly a trained psychologist, but from the standpoint of his experience with gaming, I think he might have enough authority in this particular subject to be able to at least “diagnose” that much of an issue, if it’s as obvious as he thinks it is. His friends do not fit the “gamer mold” as most of the rest of us (Brent, me, my friend Ted, my cousins, the group to which I and my friend belonged) – voracious readers, interests in psychology, philosophy, trivia, history, arts, various sci-fi/fantasy, various analytical pursuits or aspects of the games themselves (his is the in-game hierarchy, intrigue, etc., mine’s mechanics). Brent’s friends aren’t really readers except for one who’s also a Star Wars fanatic, one’s a sports nut, etc. In a way it’s neat to see out-of-the-ordinary “types” (for us anyway) interested in gaming, but in another, it’s a real head-scratcher as to how to deal with them or explain things.

Brent’s statement about the lack of imagination made me think about when he started gaming, and when my own cousins started, and when I started, and I think his observation is probably not just valid but significant. When I was in 7th grade, our science teacher did a guided imagery exercise where we closed our eyes and imagined what it was like to be an animal as a rainstorm came up – we had to run (or fly) for shelter – the smell of the rain, the cooling breeze coming in, the sound of the drops and wind, the other animals also scampering for cover, the intensifying breeze, flashes of lightning, booming thunder, all that. This was at least 20 minutes, maybe longer. I just thought this was one of the most awesome things I had ever experienced in school, as I was already playing RPGs at this time and realized at that time most of the other kids probably didn’t do anything that would lead them into anything that would ever give them the cause to do anything even remotely similar to that, and likely they never would again.

I flashed forward back to Brent’s statement about his friends and I realized that it’s quite possible that his friends, now that they had matured into self-awareness and long out of the influence of the toddler “imagination” stage, had no real practice in engaging their imagination, as they had no cause to do so. They didn’t read, only one drew or wrote; they most all played video games, but everything is already rendered very concretely for you. The only thing I could call to mind that might fire their imaginations was music so I hope they at least have that.

But again, I thought back and realized at the time of the animal visualization, even though I played RPGs and I did some peripheral visualization and wrote my own stuff and drew, I really didn’t do all that much true imagining either. Everything was always fuzzy and vague, and still is. I think that’s why that exercise was so awesome to me, because it was a true novelty even for me, because I was able to appreciate how it could fully be applied and its use in something, rather than just “This is cool but what good does it do?” like the other kids probably thought.

When I gamed, GM or player, it was always a mesh of mental calculations of game mechanics, narration and vague mental image of the current action – I never fully clarified in my mind the full scene, it was always just a snapshot or a video clip of what was going on, like < * SCENE: Pit Fighter throws Dwarf Trollslayer through window into goblin crossbowman *>. Sometime it would just be a hazy face or general outline, especially if I didn’t get a good idea of an NPC or creature from a description – it’s more used as a placeholder in my head, than for imagination purposes, just to categorize things for how and when I deal with them.

And I wondered about that. The whole point of games is having fun and I realize it comes down to what your definition of fun is, and not only that, I think it depends on WHICH definition of “fun” you’re going to choose each time you sit down to play. Some days you’re in a “standard gaming fun” mood, character sheet, dice, pencil and whatever else, and there’s nothing wrong with that at all.

But there is the more primitive but no less valid definition of “fun” – it isn’t about leveling up, hording coins, sucking up XP, buying new implements of destruction, slaying monsters, figuring out stats, or how many inches a feat lets you jump or how much damage you can do – not really; gaming, like any entertainment, are about escapism, and they’re about losing yourself, letting the books and numbers and dice and everything fall away, enjoying sharing the same make-believe world for a few hours with other people and everyone getting along and loving the whole experience of being able to be somebody totally different.

So, when you make that warrior or knight character, maybe you see him on a horse, okay… but… can you see YOU on the horse? Have you ever tried it? Is there a difference in first and second or third person point-of-view imagination scenes? How much does it change our emotional investment? Our enjoyment? Our appreciation? Can you imagine looking down from the view of the lush expanse of deep green meadow and the far distant lavender mountain range and dark silhouetted tower, and grabbing the saddle horn in your gloved hand, feeling and hearing the soft leather creak slightly as your grip tightens, while the bit and bridle jingle musically, and your whole body is jarred rhythmically as the eager horse trots forward in surprise, anticipating your tugging on the reins? Can you see your own royal blue velour tabard cascading from your body?

I think Brent’s friends, and probably a LOT of people, maybe a LOT of experienced gamers, may need a primer for just imagination – not a “game”, not an adventure or a scenario, but just like a 10 minute “walk-through” if you will, of just guided imagery, read by the GM, nothing but one long “read-aloud” box, directing them, similar to the animal in the rainstorm exercise. No dice, no stats, no character sheets – just “sit back, close your eyes, relax and imagine”.

I didn’t know a lot of the things, and didn’t have any experience with the rest so I didn’t vote for MUCH, but I still voted. And yes, I DID vote for WFRP3 in a few areas, just because I still think it is probably one of the more deserving games, though I did put in a good vote for BASH, though I haven’t played it – everything I’ve read about it, I like.

A friend’s nephew, let’s call him “John Freeman”, and some of his friends, got a starter set of Dungeons and Dragons, 3.5 I think, none of them had played, apparently, and one of them ran an intro scenario.

“John” said that after about only thirty minutes in, during combat, a couple of the other half dozen people said, “Hey man, did you bring Call of Cthulhu? Let’s play that.”

These are about 16-18 year olds, so I’m fairly surprised, considering this is a group that he has played games with before, Warhammer FRP 2nd Edition and I think Champions, and CoC and some other games, and considering how popular D&D is in other places in general.

From a realist and personal standpoint, I’m not surprised, and am gratified that there are young people with the same kind of discernment that lead me to think what “John” does – “it’s like playing WoW but in tabletop” – which wasn’t meant as a compliment, even though he’s a WoW player.

johnV says:

June 27, 2010 at 4:34 pm

nice post JP, OK so i have been curious about this System. out with the old in with the new….I’m cool with that except for a few things. i do believe FFG probably put a lot of work into this system and its true it seems quite inovative. there are some things to be merited here.
my first issues is where did this come from. why the complete reHall? it speaks of a whole Marketing ploy to me. “if we make a new system people will need to re bye all new stuff” $$$. its the way most Roleplaying companies get more money. its a business after all. but when you invest time and money into a system you love its very hard to just through that all away and start fresh.
if you look at the newer version it reminds me so much of Advanced Hero Quest like nothing else. why didn’t they not call it something like that and publish it as a warhammer type game. i guess its a global move to make RPG games more like the Gamming style of WOW even then newer art work is heading towards that style.
You had some awesome original artwork from John Blanche in the v1 which was truly original and really helped create a feel for War hammer as that grim foggy wet and some what oppressive medieval European environment that set it apart from D&D and still does. fantasy art has become so generic and its so sad to see Warhammer v3 head down the same WOW/D&D path.
unfortunately i feel like FFG didn’t really review the old system for any of its merits v1-2 where a fast but detailed system which allowed you alot of freedom. now this new system has headed down the old tabletop cards and dice system its sorta taken the romance out of the game and particularly the artwork on these glossy over charactered colored cards ruins most of it for me sort like eating an over cheesy cheese Pizza.

Ah well its a new game so take it or leave it i guess if your new to the this then jump in FFGs and made some great Tabletop games for good old family fun. but for me sorry FFGs i doubt t I’ll be investing my time in the new system especially as they seem to be company that believes they know best and has no interest in connecting with the established and passionate community. also now there is a clear separation between tabletop battle and Roleplaying which is a dam shame for massive campaigns.

well back to collecting old Warhammers Roleplay stuff woot :)… thanks FFGs for making these gems more collect-able.

rockin it Old school :)

john

This main content of this post embodies the essence of what I’ve been trying to say – on one hand, I understand companies are in business to make money, but on the other hand, and you need to adapt or follow the trend or whatever to stay popular and relevant, but at the same time, you can’t help but think the whole redo of the Warhammer sysytem for v3 was for the sole purpose of $$$ and with little or no regard for long-time fans of the game and setting and existing system.

Chaosium is somewhat guilty of the same thing for half a dozen editions of Call of Cthulhu with precious little changed from one edition to another, BUT – the rules remained virtually unchanged at least – you don’t HAVE to have the newest version of CoC to play with the newest module or campaign – heck I’ve got 4 and even have had to make do with 3rd edition and there’s almost no difference in running or playing as long as you have the latest character sheet, you can wing it.

You can’t wing an entirely different dice mechanic, character and statistics setup, spell system, etc. That’s an interesting point about the art going from the more gothic black and white feel to the more generic D&D/WoW fantasy bubblegum/cheesecake – as I mentioned in an earlier post, nowhere is this kind of fashion-chasing more evidence than in the 3rd edition’s book design, that is nearly identical to D&D’s, made to look like old tomes – I thought it WAS a D&D manual at first.

As I’ve said in reply to other commenters, I HOPE it’s good, and I wouldn’t mind playing it, I might even like it, I don’t have any problem with dice pool systems, and though I’m skeptical, the whole “card” setup for everything could lead to a useful routine of keeping things efficient – I just wish they had found some other way to do it than gut WFRP.

I know I would keep the measurements of a 250 enc sack of wool being about 360 lbs and 36 10 lb. units, each of which is about 10 sq yd of wool yarn, enough to make a full outfit.

I actually find that 200-240 sheep were typically figured, at that time, to make up a sack of wool, so each would only be providing 1.5-1.8 lbs of wool each, not sure why the vast difference from the 10 lbs. I found yesterday, but historically, that was the much more common reference, with some figures as high as 280 fleece per sack.

I find a site that says to make a 36″x36″ (1 sq yd?) blanket out of worsted wool, you need 1000-1100 yards of yarn, so it apparently takes roughly a thousand yards of yarn per square yard of worsted wool, so 3,000y = 3 sq yd.

I miscalculated in my earlier post, as I find that supposedly, a pound of wool produces anywhere from 200 yards to a mile of yarn. And I think it is listed as taking about 3 sq yd for a light wool coat (I presume suit coat) in modern times. Throw in the pants, also about 3 sq yd probably, a vest, probably 2 sq yd, you get about 8 sq yd.

I’d say you could extend this to about 4 sq yards for a light medieval coat, 2 sq yd for a tunic, and 3 sq yd for pants, for a total of about 9 sq yd, then add in for a cap and socks for a medieval peasant, for 10 sq yd of yarn, or about 10,000 yards, assuming 1,000 yards per pound. So that takes care of a 10 lb. unit of wool perfectly. How symmetrical.

Taking all this together, 10 lbs of wool produces considerably more than enough to make a modern man’s full suit (not including cotton shirt, socks, shoes etc for modern times), with probably the 1 mile of yarn per pound measurement.

I’d still say:

1 lb worked wool = 1,000 length yards of spun yarn/1 square yard = .70 enc = 1gc retail

1 lb raw wool = 1,000 length yards worth of yarn/1 square yard = .70 enc = 10s retail

10 lb raw wool = 10,000 length yards worth of yarn/10 sq yd = 7 enc = 5gc retail

364 lb raw wool = 364,000 length yards worth of yarn/364 sq yd = 250 enc = 182gc

Maybe once the raw wool is worked into square yards of cloth, its Craftsmanship goes up, increasing its value, so this being raw and unworked wool, it would be Poor (1/2), so 80gc or something similar? Plus being trade goods, it wouldn’t be standard book retail price I’d guess, as it would be done at a trading volume discount.

**EDIT: I see now I doubly miscalculated. Previously, since each pound was also 1 sq yard, there should have been 364 square yards per sack, at 1gc each, so 364gc per sack, so even halving that, you just now get down to the 182gc.

Clearly the problem lies in Warhammer’s math and not any of my figuring, because my effort is beyond impeccable =)

Bags of Wool

Someone posted on a forum that in the Enemy Within Campaign, there are sacks of 250 encumbrance wool that can be used for trading, but he had no idea how much they’d be worth, or how “big” a sack was, etc. So I delved into the internet to find out – this is my story…
In the WFRP2 Old World Armory, it says a light coat, which could be made of wool, costs 3gc and weighs 5 enc.

I found a non-game school test site that includes a question that says a coat requires 5 square yards of wool to make a coat. No idea on context but it’s close enough for me, so assume another 5 average for pants and maybe a cap or something.

I know ENC is bulk too but although wool is very poofy and bulky if carried by the handful, I’d assume wool would be stuffed in sacks as tightly and efficiently as possible, and could be considered to be reduceable to minimum mass and weight.

I also found historical mentions that a sack of wool was developed as a standard unit of measure about 1310 (?) and weighed 26 stone, or 165 kg/364 lbs.

From the above, since a bag of wool “weighs” 250 enc, and say the average fleece worth of wool weighs 7-10 lbs (I’d go with 10 to make things easy), you’d just need to figure out how many square yards of wool you can get per fleece (or pound of fleece).

Since each fleece weighs 10 lbs (6.87 enc), there are 36.4 fleece per 250 enc sack of wool.

1 sack = 250 enc or 364 lbs of 10 lb. wool fleeces
364 lbs / 10 lbs = 36.4 10 lb. wool fleeces
250 enc / 36.4 = 6.87 enc per 10 lb. wool fleece
5 lbs wool fleece = 3.435 enc
1 lb wool fleece = .687 enc
1 enc = 1.456 lbs wool fleece

The core rules state that 10 coins = 1 enc, and a coin weighs about an ounce. From the coin and wool examples, and assuming a coin weighs less than an oz instead of a full oz, we see that 1 enc of coins is 1/2 lb (8 oz or .80 oz each), and 1 enc of wool is 1.456 lbs, so the “bulk” difference is .956 of a pound, close to a full pound worth of difference, in bulk.

So for pure weight with little or no bulk considered for an item, its enc value is 1/2 lb per 1 enc, or 2 enc per lb, while for bulkier but lighter items, their enc value may be as much as 1.45 lbs (or more) per enc, or .687 enc per lb.

One source on the internet says 10 lbs of wool can make a modern man’s suit. If we say the same would apply for a medieval peasant, the coat and breeches and maybe a cap take up about 10 square yards of wool, that’s about one fleece’s worth (10 lbs of wool, or about 50 yards, at 5 yards per pound) of wool yarn. As an aside, a coat takes about 10 hours of labor to make, so I imagine a full outfit would take about a day and a half probably, not counting shoes. Also, in general, a new wool coat set most farmhands back about 2-4 weeks wages, historically.

Anyway, simplifying the numbers above, we get:

1 sack = 36 fleeces worth of wool, 250 enc, 364 lbs/165 kg, 162gc

1 fleece = 10 lbs, 7 enc, 7.07 sq yd wool, makes 1 outfit, 4gc 10s (probably charge 5gc for outfit at least)

5 lb wool coat = 5 enc, 5 sq yd wool, 3gc for finished item

5 lbs wool = 3.5 enc, 5 sq yd wool, 2gc 7s

1 sq yd wool  = 1 enc, 1.7 lbs, 1gc (as listed in core rules)

1 lb wool = .70 enc, .70 sq yd wool, 12s (so 1 enc per sq yd of wool)

So according to my calculations, 1 bag of 250 enc (and sq yd of) wool should be worth about 162 gold crowns.

Since we know that usually 10 coins is 1 enc, and 20 shillings make a crown, it is likely that the 10 coins or 1 enc of coins would weigh about 1/2 a pound, or 8 oz, not quite an ounce each.

Now, if you assumed each coin did weigh 1 oz, then:

10 oz coins = .625 lbs = 1 enc (compact, heavy)
23.3 oz wool = 1.456 lbs = 1 enc (bulky, light)
20 oz = 1.25 lbs = 2 enc
46.6 oz = 3 lbs = 2 enc

Either way, the only way it makes sense for an objectively  lighter item, like wool, to have the same encumbrance value but be over twice as heavy as an objectively heavier material, is for the bulk to be minimized, and thus the wool is able to be “folded” down and packed so finely that you’re able to fit 3 lbs of wool into the same “mass and bulk space” as 1.25 lbs of coins, which does sort of make sense from a certain standpoint. You can’t bend and fold coins to make them fit into a smaller space, but wool you can flatten and fold tightly.

You just need to decide 10 coins is 8 oz (1/2 lb) or 10 oz (.625 lbs)

10 coins = 1 enc, as the rules state, seems workable I guess, and since, as stated in the rules, each coin weighs essentially an ounce, we can therefore extrapolate a larger-than-silver-dollar coin-sized object as the standard representative unit of encumbrance, small, compact, rigid, stackable, though round and not easily interlocking, and somewhat heavy for its size.

From this we get:

10 oz or coins = 1 enc, so…

5 oz or coins = 1/2 enc

16 oz (one pound avoirdupois /US) = 1.6 enc
(which I personally would call 1.5 enc for simplicity sake if only working with lbs as the important weight factor)
2 lbs (30-32 oz or coins) = 3 enc
4 lbs (60-64 oz or coins) = 6 enc
6 lbs = 9 enc (I’d call this 90-100 coins for simplicity)

To me it looks like it would be easier to make coins weigh less than an ounce and have 20 coins be a US pound.
-If you did this, it would make each coin weigh .80 oz each, or, with some somewhat unsteady math, 23 grams each coin to come up with 460 grams per pound or 25 g per coin to equal a full 500 g (1/2 kg).
-This would make 10 coins = 1/2 lb or 230-250 grams (1/4 kg), where 1 kg = 2.205 lbs.

Going by this, 1 enc = 1/2 lb (8 oz) or (very roughly) 1/4 kg (250 g).
I have no problem with THIS portion of the ENC system, really, one ENC system is as good as any other, just about, if you have to use one – some arbitrary number represents bulk and weight, and while this takes its liberties with the gap between US/European measurements, it’s doable overall, though I haven’t checked the equipment to see how well it maps to items, though I think one would have to consider an “effective bulk” rating that is worth so much weight, that is the tradeoff to explain “heavy” pillows and such.

The problem is the weight of people.
So someone weighing a standard S 31 + T 31 x 10 roll of 620 enc = 310 lbs (4,960 oz) or 155 kg. But I still don’t see people with high S and T weighing massively more – it breaks down here as well. I can see using S and T both as maybe the basis for carrying capacity, rather than just S though.

It is weird WFRP uses a table for determining height and weight and tells you how much coins weigh in both real-world weight and encumbrance, then uses an encumbrance formula that totally makes characters’ weights in the two arenas contradict each other.

But moving on to this surprising inventory:

Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 2nd Edition (my own fantasy system of choice)

Character creation.

For a so-called “classless” game, there is a gob-load of “careers” to slog through. For new players, I can only imagine this would be overwhelming, as it still can be to me, and I’ve ran it a number of times. Say what I will about D&D, Fighter, Thief, Cleric, Wizard has a certain simplicity, and even the more current 10 or so class framework with Paladins and such is still a good mix of manageability and variety. Warhammer’s Rat-Catcher and Toll-Keeper, while surely historically accurate, are completely irrelevant and definitely not worthy of being actual significant player career choices, set apart by themselves. There should be maybe a Peasant class (which there is in a later bit) and sub-types given and broken down into things like this if a player wants, but it would still use the same template). This would severely curb the authors’ fetish for careerizing everything under the sun into an adventuring motif, and cut the career part of character creation in half, at LEAST. You could still buy a Small But Vicious Dog as a pet or a special ability or something.

Stats.

Oh boy, a max of 2D10 + 20 for all my stats if I’m a human. Out of 100. So up to 40%. So not quite half. Neat… You know, “gritty” is one thing, but incompetent is another. Combat is already still potentially deadly at any level of achievement, proficiency, experience or armament, so why give me less than a 50/50 shot to hit the broad side of a barn? And don’t say that the enemies and other citizens also have that, that doesn’t help, that just means EVERYBODY will be rolling dice a LOT and saying “Damn I missed AGAIN too, your turn”. I think this was a horrible, HORRIBLE mis-calculation and mistake on the part of the creators. It takes SO long to up stats significantly, and they’re split into either your main stats or your secondary stats. You also have to choose to do that instead of buy abilities.

Those secondary stats, which are the tens digit of your main stats (Toughness Bonus, which reduces damage, is taken from your Toughness) are also superflous. Just ALWAYS use the tens column and you won’t even have to have this on the sheet, just look half an inch up and see that your toughness is 32 and know your TB is 3. Presto! But no, you can increase these, which begs the question – what the f*k is Toughness for?!

Percentiles.

Yeah it’s 100% but I don’t like it. It’s not a roll and sum system, it’s not even a count successes. It’s roll two dice and read them, it’s essentially purely random, more random than random, if you know what I mean, and if you don’t, I’m not going to go into the math. It’s not bad, and if you have a 72% Weapon Skill, you’re still going to hit a lot of the time, but it feels so cold and spartan, there’s no dominance like 5D6 in Weapon Skill, where you just know you’re gonna roll a shitload at some point and be like “Oh yah, that’s 52, out of 19, suck it!” Their critical hit system is a mess, you reverse the dice for hit locations or use doubles or – it’s complicated and steps over its own feet and my group tends to use the old BRP system of 10 or less is a critical hit, or 10% of your skill is, depending which is better or more dramatic at the time and/or the old Warhammer every time you roll a 6 (well 10 now that is uses D10 for damage) it “explodes” and you roll an extra die – Ulric’s Fury I think it’s called now. But the system isn’t consistent, to make skill checks, you don’t roll percentile, it’s a roll and add skill bonus setup – way to keep a mechanic simple and intuitive for us, jerkwads.

Is this another hatchet job? Yes. Why? Because I can. Because it’s true. Because I’m playing in two play-by-post AD&D 3.5 games right now on what I call “The Mormon Forums”, actually International Discussions RPG/Member Wars section, and my half-orc rogue just lost all 6 HP in two turns and went down, in one game.  Because I participated in a realtime virtual tabletop session a few weeks ago, and spent an hour and a half AFTER COMBAT trying to figure out how to get our dwarf cleric out of the dead giant’s mouth and THEN how to extract the giant’s teeth from him, causing him damage every time we did – BEFORE we even got to the “looting”.

“But, JP,” you may say, “that sounds like shitty GM’ing!”, and you’d be right and then I’d tell one of your parents or legal guardians that you’re using naughty words. But I’ve had worse GM’s (though not by much), but he couldn’t DO half that shitty GM’ing if he didn’t have an abortion of a gaming monstrosity that encouraged that kind of ridiculous fiddly pixelbitching. Can you blame a game system for the user misusing it? Yes, if it is made badly enough. Some would say you can’t blame someone for misusing a tool. You couldn’t blame a hammer’s manufacturer for someone using it to kill someone else – that’s true, but you could blame the maker of a frisbee with deadly razor blades that squirt acid and shoot laser beams for killing a crowd of ten people.  God, that’s awesome – where was I going with this? Oh, yes…

So What is Wrong with D20?

Needlessly overcomplicated, intimately inter-dependent to the point where it almost gets to the point one rule refers to another rule that relies on the rule you’re referring to in the first place.  “Help! I’m at the corner of First and First, how did I get here?!”

Everything needs a Feat or you get a massive penalty to do something most other games foolishly think heroes or even normal people do can without tripping over their own feet and impaling themselves with a plastic ice cream spoon. Where did you get that anyway, cheater? You only start with 3D6 gold pieces, which is actually enough to feed 3 medieval families for a year each, but in D20 land can only buy half a cow. Need to sneeze? Better have the Sneeze Feat  or you’re out of luck and your head will just implode for 10D12 damage. How do you get them? You level up and get them arbitrarily, even though you did nothing during all the intervening time to work toward getting them.

Sorry you can’t use a sword, you’re a wizard. It’s against wizards’ religion to use weapons that can provide effective self defense and don’t make them look like weenies. You memorize a certain number of spells per day and have to sleep to get them back, or read them off a scroll, which usually disintegrates – just like all the famous stories and movies! Oh wait… You can’t read or detect magic until you cast a spell that lets you read or detect magic – since you cast a spell, isn’t IT magic? Shouldn’t it be glowing and detecting itself?

Clerics have actually improved somewhat from how they used to be treated but they’re not in any better positions than wizards, really.

Weapons in D20 systems have more stats than ACTUAL real-life weapons. That’s too many.  Why do weapons do less damage to larger creatures? It’s almost like they feel it less, or they have more Hit Points. Oh wait… THEY ALREADY DO.

Attacks of Opportunity! Everything you do gets them! Whisper to your friend? ZAP! Move 10′ and attack? POW! Backstab? GANK! Breathe? AoO!  If you don’t happen to have a micrometer on you, just assume that your character can move one foot in any direction, then cut that in half to be safe, and now you can perform any single action, knowing you won’t draw any AoO. Probably.

Critical Hits are awesome – except when they’re not! Except when it looks like a critical hit but NO it wasn’t after all. You have to make TWO successful hit rolls in a ROW, with one having to be 19 or better. That seems very realistic, seeing as how this is being done on one twenty sided die, which generates a purely random non-bell-curve distribution comparable to the size of the Gulf of Mexico – thank goodness they’re all about realism.

McMagic Items. Sunrods. Thundersticks. Gluebobs, Taffyjerks. Why go adventuring to find cool magic items when you can buy them off the shelf at your local general store like you’re stocking up on batteries or ramen noodles?

You’re good at what I say you’re good at.  Level up, here’s your new stats! Wait, what? No, I’d like to up these things over here. What – those – oh no, I don’t think so. You’re going to take Improved Extreme Ballroom Dancing and like it.

If anyone is interested, I planned on putting these in a zip as a PDF and the OpenOffice spreadsheet file so people can add their own favorite third-party Types in and have their own custom Types lists.

Basically, the only thing NOT on the profiles is the full description of the Type, and the explanations of each Unique Schtick – I figure since you have to look Skills and Schticks, Sorcery, etc. up, I’ll put together a Unique Schtick list too for that.  These are basically for people who already are familiar with the Types and just need a quick reference to make new characters, or newbies, it should work for both.