Jeff Vogel Soapbox Thread

[Zed Duke of Banville]

"Second printing, with a color cover. Where’s mah bird dude?"
Sutherland's cover illustration for the original version of S1 Tomb of Horrors remained in the later version as a page 1 drawing, completed with "bird dude".


"In the end, you might fight the demilich Acererack. (Dumb name.) This is not the awesumsauce fight depicted on the cover, alas. Instead the demilich is a laser skull."
Intelligent players will refrain from initiating the fight and instead peacefully make off with the treasure:

Inside are the following:
- all items from characters teleported nude
- 97 base 10 g.p. gems and 3 huge gems (a 10,000 g.p. peridot, a 50,000 g.p. emerald, and a 100,000 9.p. block opal)
- 12 potions and 6 scrolls (determined randomly)
- 1 ring, 1 rod, 1 staff, and 3 miscellaneous magic items
- a +4 sword of defending and 2 cursed swords and 1 cursed spear of backbiting
The demi-lich Acererak also lingers in the crypt . . .

Though the skull will "sink down again, sated" each time it destroys a character, which gives a foolish party an opportunity to escape (or perhaps figure out how to destroy it).

 

[Infinitron]

The grognard nostalgia fest continues: https://bottomfeeder.substack.com/p/gamer-deep-lore-exhibit-4-dragon

Gamer Deep Lore, Exhibit #4. Dragon Magazine, September, 1981​

Building the Tabletop RPG was a huge team effort.​

(On the advice of my lawyer, publicist, and priest, I offer no opinions on the cover art.)
Way back in the day, Dragon Magazine was the official magazine for Dungeons & Dragons (and occasionally other RPGs). I still have a pile of my old issues, and they reliably make fun reading.

At the time, tabletop RPGs were very much in their infancy. Everyone was trying to figure out how to make them work. How do you make good adventures? How do we do game balance? What systems need to be improved, and how?

If you care about these weird games, it was a really exciting time full of strange experiments, and Dragon Magazine was the petri dish. It was full of wild new ideas. 20% of them were good. 80% were madness. Mix this with cartoons and Gary Gygax's highly spicy opinions, and the first 100 issues of Dragon were a terrific read.

Here is my personal, very beat-up copy, which is full of good examples. And bad.


First edition AD&D came with a monk class, and it was really weak. Almost nobody ever played them. It was like being a wizard without spells. You just got beat up, died, and rolled up a real character.


The lead article was a massive tear-down rebuild job for the class. I can't remember meeting anyone who ever used it, but it was a really good job. It really tore the Gygax design a new asshole, and it says a lot for how cool a publisher olde-D&D did that their official magazine felt so free to criticize their flagship product. (If that happens today at all, it’s very rare.)


Dragon has tons of new character types. Some of them were cool and even got promoted to the main game. (Barbarian, for example.) Some of them were very half-baked. The Oracle, forever, sucks in a fight, but it is 100% able to predict that it will suck in a fight.

Most of these new classes explicitly said that they were intended to be NPCs. Yet, they all came with level charts, which you only really need for a character you are playing. I don't think anyone had hot pants to be an oracle. They can't kick ass. You want to kick ass.


Look! An ad for dice! Note that they are just white plastic, and they come with a crayon to color the numbers in. Really.

In 1981, dice technology was very crude. Sexy clear plastic dice with numbers you could actually read started coming a year or two later.

I have observed that, when people write about RPGs in our enlightened modern year, they thing they are discovering ideas and moral principles completely foreign to us dumb orc-people who played in the impossibly different time of the 1980s.

I assure you that we had every possible discussion and debate back then.


For example, we already knew that these games could provide an invaluable outlet for people with disabilities. Here is a moving article from a gamer with cerebral palsy, talking about what D&D meant to him.


And then, on the opposite page, an ad for Dragon subscriptions that ... would probably not be printed today.

I suppose I'm supposed to get all miffed and superior about this ad, but when I was a kid I thought it was funny. Bet the photo shoot was scary, though.


There were always new monster types, most of which were intensely bizarre. This may be the strangest one I ever saw. It's a lawful good lizard guy called as Argas. It gaines strength by eating gold and magic.

This is already not a good idea. But what elevates it to spectacular strangeness is that it comes with an experience table for a monster, the only time I ever recall seeing this. So you can keep track of how strong your argas is by how much you feed it.


What was this for? Is this a low-key character class? Should you have a hireling argas as a copper piece dump? If you feed your pet enough platinum, you get a free fireball a day?

OK, now I'm regretting not playing this.


On the next page, another new monster that's just dumb. Keep your off-brand gumby nonsense out of my game.


And we close with a tiny article. A half page at the back of the magazine. All dedicated to answering the question: "What level of cleric should be able to cure my character's lupus?"

So if I'm reading this correctly, you're gonna need a level 12 high priest to deal with leukemia, but a mere level 8 cleric can polish off pancreatic cancer. I'm so not sure why this table didn't make it into the official rules, but 5E D&D is being revised againagain. So it's not too late!

 

[Old One]

Old issues of Dragon are great fun.

Having read a whole, whole bunch of them, I think the magazine really hit its stride in the late 1980s into the mid 90s. By the late 80s they'd figured out what were the most valuable columns and features. The older ones are more gonzo.

The degradation after WotC took over was slow but continuous.

 

[Zed Duke of Banville]

"I have observed that, when people write about RPGs in our enlightened modern year, they thing they are discovering ideas and moral principles completely foreign to us dumb orc-people who played in the impossibly different time of the 1980s.

I assure you that we had every possible discussion and debate back then."

In before Jeff Vogel discusses paladin ethics, female gamers, depictions of women in TSR's artwork, and polearms.

 

[Infinitron]

https://bottomfeeder.substack.com/p/picking-apart-baldurs-gate-3-part-266

Picking Apart Baldur's Gate 3, Part 3 (The Only Thing You Should Care About: Loot.)​

If I have to wade through your story, I want my dopamine hits, darn it.​

It was a bold choice to ship this game with only one romance option.
I wanted to write a third and final article about Baldur's Gate 3 (BG3 for short), a really great game that most people have moved on from, but I want to talk about the most important part of any RPG: LOOT.

Treasure is the main driving factors of RPGs. The reward. The dopamine rush. The presents under the tree on XMas morning. If you can make getting loot really satisfying and exciting, it can paper over an infinite numbers of sins. (Looking at you, Diablo.)

Baldur's Gate 3 has a TON of loot. An enormous number of different items. It feels like everyone in the company got to design one item. No wrong answers. This is mostly very good, and also sometimes very weird.



Y’all basic.
Loot Is Important

One of my big problems with current desktop D&D is that the magic items in the game are very similar to back in the 1980s. This isn't a compliment. In olden days, the designers were still trying to figure out how to make a game at all. The magic items they made tended to be kind of dull (+1 sword), very flavorful but kind of useless (Decanter of Endless Water), or completely bonkers (Deck of Many Things).

In this area, more than any other, the BG3 designers really cut loose. There are a host of items in this game that are completely new to D&D, useful, and full of flavor. ("Flavor" meaning they feel appropriate to the setting and add color to it.)

A lot of magic items can cast spells once per long rest. In other words, they're consumables you can use without fear. Getting free stuff is always fun. The staff that can cast fireball once a day got heavy use in my group.

A lot of items combine multiple abilities, both passive and usable. Again, a nice change, though one sometimes more suited to computer games. I love an item that gives little bonuses to three useful stats, as long as a thinking machine is handling all the math for me.

One test I'm using for whether an item works is: Would it be appealing in the tabletop game? As in, is it useful, fun to play, and simple enough that your half-drunk buddy can administer it?



I like this item. It’s a goofy joke design, but it has a neat passive ability and a daily use ability. They’re good enough to be used but not broken. 10/10. No notes.
Baldur’s Gate 3 Has Mountains of Stuff

Over the years, I've tended to make my game designs cleaner. I like to cut out stuff that isn't interesting or useful and leave only things where I believe some player might actually get real value out of it. That is my personal aesthetic. Not everyone shares it.

One of the best articles ever written about game design is about Magic: The Gathering. It is about how they make magic cards for 3 different player psychologies. Basically, power gamers (Spike), people who want to solve puzzles and make useless things useful (Johnny), and people who just like big, impressive things (Timmy).

When I evaluate whether an item is a good design or not, I have to remember all the different sorts of players the item can appeal to. Thus, while some of the items seem impossibly fiddly to me, there are other players who love trying to get them to work.

BUT. Once you have figured out what your players are like and what sorts of things appeal to them, you have to make sure your item appeals to somebody. If nobody ever wants it, it could probably be cut.

Here is a list of all the item types/abilities in BG3. There's around 80 of them!

This is a LOT. And I think that a bunch of them have abilities like: "Enemy has 5% lower chance to hit you for 2 turns." I can't see anyone getting excited about that. The only reason to keep that ability in is to bloat your item list. It's a distraction that pads out an already enormous game.

And yet ... Maybe what I just said is wrong. For some players, the important thing is VOLUME. More rules, more items, more encounters, more stuff. For these players, removing anything is bad. And this is also a legitimate aesthetic. Really shaggy things can be cool.

So what is to be learned? I think the answer is the same one I always give: Take a moment to figure out the product you are selling and the group of players you want to sell it to. Then follow through.

It's art, after all. Follow your vision.



The rules for this item are complicated and fiddly, but if you work hard and think about it, you can build your character in a way that makes it sort of useful. Happily, there are players who get all their fun from solving puzzles like that. Me, I sold it.
The Curse of the Consumable Mountain

It is very difficult to get people to use consumables in your RPG. It's not hard to understand why. Humans are hugely loss-averse. When you use a potion, it's gone forever. You are permanently weaker. Players HATE that.

Some games deal with this by larding the consumables into the game, one mountain at the time, until the player is coddled and reassured that they actually use them. Which is why, when I finished BG3, I had about 1000 potions and scrolls. I probably used 1% of the consumables I found.

Losing a few minutes in an 80 hour game sorting potions isn't really a big deal, and a lot of players really get off on having 50 sorts of scroll.

So is having this huge part of the game that most people are scared to interact with a problem? And, if so, how is it solved?

I think it's a fixable problem. (Again, if it is a problem.) Some examples of solutions… In my Queen's Wish games, potions come in refillable bottles, so you always get them back when you return to town. The items in BG3 that cast one spell a day are also psychologically easy to use. In the tabletop game, wands recharge every day. Also a decent answer.

A Few Final Comments

When a computer RPG has a very complex terrain system with lots of elevations, it becomes tempting to have every fight be complex with a spread of enemies at all sorts of different heights.

If you succumb to this temptation, I personally think you should keep it under control. I found fights in BG3 where it became really hard to target the high-up enemies.

Also, casting fireball is fun. Yes, spreading out all the enemies everywhere and at all the possible heights is the design standard now. But let me have one simple fight every once in a while where I can torch a big group and feel awesome?

That said, the balance in this game is very strong. At the end of my Tactician run, everything felt pretty easy, but I occasionally got a fight where I was still in real danger. Nicely done.

The open-endedness of this game is genuinely terrific. It lets creative players come up with all sorts of ways to be weird. (I did a basic, meat-and-potatoes, sword and spell playthrough.) For example, you can play 99% of the game as a cat. To see how comprehensive and versatile this system is, this video is excellent.

In Summary, At Last

I think Baldur's Gate 3 is an all-timer. One of the best computer RPGs. Anyone interested in the genre can have a great time picking this game apart. It has so many good ideas, implemented extremely well.

And that, finally, is all I have to say about that. Time for a vacation. Then I will write another game, now that I have been reminded that, yeah, these toys really can be a lot of fun. I need that sometimes.

 

[Infinitron]

A return to Vogelstalgia: https://bottomfeeder.substack.com/p/the-deck-of-many-things-peak-game

Next Kickstarter in "about a month". Will it be Queen's Wish 3 after all or something else?

The Deck of Many Things: Peak Game Design​

What is Dungeons & Dragons for? Why not just get crazy with it?​

How many other magic items get an official expansion all their very own? Though the prices for these things are so eye-watering.
The Deck of Many Things is one of the greatest designs in all of gaming.

Created by Rob Kuntz and Gary Gygax and published in 1975, it dates back to the earliest days of Dungeons & Dragons. It was created back when everything was new and nobody knew how to do anything and all writers just had to navigate by dead reckoning. Along the way, they stumbled upon all sorts of strange genius.

I often complain about modern design being too over-balanced and tight-assed. There's too much control-freakery in modern games. So I want to sing the praises of the craziest of all designs.

So What Is It?

It's a magic item in Dungeons & Dragons. One of the rare, powerful ones.

In its original form (which has remained mostly blissfully unchanged), it's a deck of 22 cards. You can choose to draw up to four of them. Each one has a powerful effect. You can get incredible wealth, wishes, or powerful, permanent blessings. You can also just get destroyed.

Once all players have drawn their cards or you draw one of the two REALLY bad ones, the Deck vanishes.

It's Russian Roulette in game form. Awesome rewards or utter ruin.

For example, the last time I was in a game where we got one, two members of my group got a free level out of it. One got totally rich. One got a permanent enemy who would stalk us through future adventures. And my character permanently lost a leg.

To be clear: Once this item is introduced, it will permanently change the game it is in. So the draws don't just pose risk for the players. They also threaten the Dungeon Master.


The version we used when I was a kid. Not even Baldur’s Gate 3 would let itself get this crazy.
So Let's Cover The Obvious

The Deck is great theater. You have to come up with cards and set them up on the table. The players then draw them in reality, with their own hands.

It is gripping. I can guarantee your players will give you their total undivided attention. Nobody will be checking Instagram when the draws are happening.

It will shake things up. For everyone. Whether you want it to or not.

So Would You Draw From It?

So here's a question, assuming you play or have played D&D. Picture yourself playing your beloved character and the deck shows up. Glory or destruction face you.

Do you draw?

If You Said 'No' ...

Think about why.

No, really. Think about it. Because remember, none of this is real. As I often say, "I don't care that much if my character dies. All I need to make a new one is a sheet of paper. I own lots of sheets of paper."

If you are spending your time engaged in this pleasant but somewhat silly ritualized make-believe, what, exactly, are you trying to get out of it?


This long-ago tweet is heart-breaking. If I gave my players a chance at the Deck and they were all scared, that’s a campaign I’m ending, whether I made nice custom cards or not. No hard feelings. I’m just looking for a different story.
The Power Of Fantasy And Make-Believe

To understand why the Deck is such an iconic creation, ask this question: What is the point of fantasy?

Fantasy is a human universal. All cultures have tales of heroes, gods, and monsters, going back to earliest history. Isn't it a little odd that humans are compelled so strongly to tell each other stories of the unreal. What do we get out of it?

I believe the power of fantasy is that it uses metaphor and analogy to deal with difficult, painful realities in a powerful way without looking at them too directly.

The stories of Icarus and Phaethon are silly. A giant labyrinth? Wax wings? Dragging the sun across the sky with a chariot? This is nonsense. But there is something about giving a lesson in a surreal way that slams a message into our brains more effectively than a thousand dry, didactic speeches ever will.

(This is why attempts to make orcs and goblins in D&D less "racist" are so pointless. The "evil" races are a manifestation of the occasional need to fight for our survival, on an individual or national level. Any people who blunder into a real war, where tragedy is constant and survival is on the line, will suddenly rediscover the need for the idea of an "orc.")

What Is The Deck Of Many Things A Metaphor For?

Life.

Life is full of choices that lead to reward or disaster. In fact, such events are the signposts of your life. To take that job? Go to college? Start a business? Close it? Move? Join the Army? Get married? Have children? Or not?

These choices are important, but they are only rarely fun. Even the joyful ones, like marriage, tend to also be full of terror. Not to mention having a kid.

But you do have to make those choices sooner or later.

The Deck of Many Things is mental practice. Because, remember, IT DOESN'T MATTER. All you are risking is a sheet of paper.

Drawing from it lets you practice risking all. And, more importantly, it lets you see that losing is tolerable. If the Deck destroys your character, you get might more out of it than if you get the treasures. It lets you practice overcoming a small loss, which gives a tiny bit of reassurance that you can handle the real losses when they (invariably) come.


There are a bunch of custom decks for sale on Etsy, which is adorable. Though I just use a deck of card. I mean, I’m not made of money.
A Message For Any Normies Reading This

Yes, I am talking about using this silly game to learn life lessons and understand the world. Yes, this is very odd. Did you really need me to tell you that the vast majority of people who play D&D are kind of odd?

Dungeons & Dragons is best understood as a sort of structured socializing for people who are highly introverted or have problems coping with other people. Some kids learn lessons about life, communication, and perseverance by doing sports. Others play D&D.

I'm not going to pretend it isn't strange. I believe, based on long observation, that the sports played by kids vs nerdy kids, in the long run, result in equal happiness.

Also, It's Good For Campaigns

Some Dungeon Masters are afraid to use the deck because it'll shake their campaign up.

Yeah? Well ... good! I've never been in a campaign that couldn't use a good kick in the pants every once in a while. Suppose one player loses their soul and must go on a quest to get it back. (Void.) Another gets a treasure map. (Key.) Another gets the hatred of a powerful devil. (Flames.)

This is a lot of chaos. Embrace it! This can be the springboard for a bunch of new adventures. You'll have to scramble and hustle a bit, but isn't that fun? Why are you so determined to have total control of a fantasy? Doesn't that defeat the purpose of fantasy, even a little? Stagnant campaigns have a nasty tendency to end.

Nobody Could Make This Design Today

I believe that a lot of the reason Dungeons & Dragons is still so popular is because of the weird old stuff. The cruft and wild ideas of designers who did their best and are no longer able to hear our complaints.

I think it's a good idea to be unfair sometimes. Sometimes people should get more or less than they deserve. If your game isn't PvP, I think you should put in at least two times when the player gets something that feels too good and one time when the player gets unfairly screwed over.

(From Software really gets this. That's why their brutal, nasty, freakshow games are mainstream hits now.)

And if you play D&D and get a chance to draw from the Deck, I really hope you do it. Because then you'll know you're a person who can.

---

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[Grampy_Bone]

I played tabletop D&D for 20 years, both DM and PC, and every time the Deck of Many Things appeared the players A. loved the idea and B. whined like bitches at the consequences. This was before "modern day gaming."

Players have never liked consequences. Nothing new about that. The Deck of Many Things is a stupidity check for players. It's the gambler's fallacy incarnate. The only good move is not to play.

 

[Tweed]

I played tabletop D&D for 20 years, both DM and PC, and every time the Deck of Many Things appeared the players A. loved the idea and B. whined like bitches at the consequences. This was before "modern day gaming."

Players have never liked consequences. Nothing new about that. The Deck of Many Things is a stupidity check for players. It's the gambler's fallacy incarnate. The only good move is not to play.

Wild Mages are great, they can try to manipulate the deck to draw the card they want.

 

[n0wh3r3]

Why can't I stand Jeff Vogel's games anymore? I've always loved them from when I first noticed their existence, but I didn't finish my Geneforge Mutagen playthorough and even beginning Geneforge Infestation felt like a chore ...

 

[*-*/\--/\~]

Why can't I stand Jeff Vogel's games anymore? I've always loved them from when I first noticed their existence, but I didn't finish my Geneforge Mutagen playthorough and even beginning Geneforge Infestation felt like a chore ...

Because he has dumbed them down for some reason, I recently played the Avernum 3 remake and it feels gutted compared to the original Avernum/Exile version. Even the skill system is simplistic shit now.

 

[n0wh3r3]

Why can't I stand Jeff Vogel's games anymore? I've always loved them from when I first noticed their existence, but I didn't finish my Geneforge Mutagen playthorough and even beginning Geneforge Infestation felt like a chore ...

Because he has dumbed them down for some reason, I recently played the Avernum 3 remake and it feels gutted compared to the original Avernum/Exile version. Even the skill system is simplistic shit now.

I have my free copy of Blades of Exile, do you think that one is better of his current games? Should I give it a try? I've tried to launch it once, but felt too dated...

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

I love that old style. Yeah, I would have thought remasters would have extended content and an even more complex system for mechanics and combat. Making it simple is a fucking insult.

 

[n0wh3r3]

I love that old style. Yeah, I would have thought remasters would have extended content and an even more complex system for mechanics and combat. Making it simple is a fucking insult.

It's not like the "new" style is entirely different from the old one... They are like Adderall and Dexedrine. Or even less different.
Are my eyes wrong?

 

[*-*/\--/\~]

Why can't I stand Jeff Vogel's games anymore? I've always loved them from when I first noticed their existence, but I didn't finish my Geneforge Mutagen playthorough and even beginning Geneforge Infestation felt like a chore ...

Because he has dumbed them down for some reason, I recently played the Avernum 3 remake and it feels gutted compared to the original Avernum/Exile version. Even the skill system is simplistic shit now.

I have my free copy of Blades of Exile, do you think that one is better of his current games? Should I give it a try? I've tried to launch it once, but felt too dated...

I haven't played Blades of Exile, but I did enjoy Blades of Avernum, which is quite similar. Neither got a remake so far.

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

Maybe that's good. Maybe he puts out some odd simpler versions so he can then make yet another remaster called "Ultimate." At this rate though... he'll be dead before that happens.

 

[n0wh3r3]

Maybe that's good. Maybe he puts out some odd simpler versions so he can then make yet another remaster called "Ultimate." At this rate though... he'll be dead before that happens.

IIRC he kinda explains everything:

https://youtu.be/stxVBJem3Rs

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

Let's compare a little:

 

[almondblight]

I have my free copy of Blades of Exile, do you think that one is better of his current games? Should I give it a try? I've tried to launch it once, but felt too dated...

It's a good game, and many scenarios are only a few hours long so you might as well give it a try. I think it comes with 3 of Vogel's own scenarios, but there are plenty of other ones out there as well.

 

[n0wh3r3]

I have my free copy of Blades of Exile, do you think that one is better of his current games? Should I give it a try? I've tried to launch it once, but felt too dated...

It's a good game, and many scenarios are only a few hours long so you might as well give it a try. I think it comes with 3 of Vogel's own scenarios, but there are plenty of other ones out there as well.

Where can I find them?