RPGA Living Forgotten Realms = God Mode D&D

Okay, I have now played my third session of Dungeons & Dragons 4E (plus the first Demo session), and feel like I am nearing the point where I can form a fairly honest opinion on 4E game play. A few more games should do it; when I reach that point, I will comment more in full on 4E itself.

This post, however, is on the travesty that is the RPGA's so-called Living Forgotten Realms organized play system. I want to get this out of my system before it builds into a terrible burden calling down all sorts of crazy, Ahab and the White Whale style.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again; can't y'all keep your video games out of my tabletop play? Or at least, find some other important RPG cornerstone to go and muck all up? All the tendencies of 3E to move toward video-game style play, all the soulless number-crunching combat-focused "character-role" building of 4E simply pales by comparison to what goes down in Living Forgotten Realms. Or LiFR, as they call it I guess, as in "please go get a LiFR."

If D&D 4E can be readily compared to "World of Warcraft the Tabletop RPG," then LiFR is most definitely "WoW in God Mode."

Where D&D 4E happened by mere chance to miss the last few rules "fixes" of whingy players, the sort that say that "the world and DM take control out of my hands and the game is no funnnnn..." LiFR more than fills that gap and gives the whingy little players a lollipop, too.

Let's start at the top, with "Creating a Character," shall we?

#1: All Characters Start at 1st Level. With 4E 1st level characters already starting out as true-biatching-ass-whupping-heroes, I guess I should count myself lucky that they don't start at 3rd or even 5th or hell, why not 11th level? So I guess I can't really whine about this...

#2: Ability Scores are Never Rolled. Fine and dandy, there are plenty of games where this happens, and it's been part and parcel of 3E since the beginning, too. Just this... no one who uses point-buy NEVER, EVER has a right to say they "rolled up" their character. You didn't roll 'em, you didn't earn the right. Call it "cherry picking" your character. That's all you deserve.

#3: Starting characters must purchase equipment that is from a player resource. Okay, understandable. No complaints, save that the timetable listing for D&D products that can be used reminds me more of the Magic Block Format listings than anything else.

#4: Character alignments must be unaligned, good, or lawful good. "Bu... bu... but his character PROMISED me he'd pay back his loan, and now he's gone and stabbed me in the baaack..." Wah wah wah. Seriously, is Lorraine Williams now writing rules for Wizards of the Coast? Next thing you know they'll say you can't slaughter orc whelps and, instead, after slaying all their parents you'll have to use the treasure you find in their lair to found the "Vile Rune Memorial Whelp Orphanage" or some such nonsense.

#5: Player resources are legal for character options. More Magic-isms about what is allowable for players use for their characters from Dungeon and Dragon so-called "online magazines." Meh; trying to keep the "tournament rules" all the same across the board was one of the reasons Gary wrote AD&D, so I can't complain about this. Well, except to say that Wizards' won't get dime one from me for their online MCFs, even should they get them to work. Considering the programmers are apparently designing using Trash-80s for products that people are expected to pay real money for, I doubt this will ever be a real issue.

"Ongoing Shared World... Stuff."

#1: Select a character background. Um, these all suck. Not only are the bennies of questionable real value, but there's no more point to them than deciding what color silk to line your casket with. The 4E Forgotten Realms has had all flavor drained from it more efficiently than the flavor of the so-called "salisbury steak" "meat-like product" at my high school. I could just as readily say my character is from Mars or Greyhawk for all the difference it really matters anymore.

#2: Select a sequential number for your character, starting with 1. Why ever worry about having more than one character? You can always re-train this one, and he'll never, ever die. Ever. This is pointless. (See below for full details, if you dare.)

"Special Access Rules"

#1: The 12 character backgrounds listed above. Apparently, if you "play good" and maybe win the "congenial gamer award" of the session, you can get a card that lets you create a character from one of the un-restricted backgrounds. Which I can only presume somehow hopefully suck less, not that that would be terribly difficult.

#2: Magic items from all player resources listed on page 2 are allowed in a limited fashion. This bodes not well... more on this below.

#3: You can only create items that you could purchase. Again, with the standardization, this means "no creativity in creating new items," which was always a complaint about the 33rd level paladin/assassin bringing his holy avenger bad-ass sword of assassination to the table in the olden days. So hey, it's needful, especially in an edition of the game where the DM's balls have been hacked off and uncerimoniously fed to fell drakes as players laugh and watch.

Skipping a bunch of paperworky crap...

"Treasure and Rewards"
Hoo-boy. Whoever wrote this section musta had his hand in on the original "bail-out bill" put before Congress...

#1: At the end of the adventure, you can select one magic item or ritual bundle from a list the DM gives you of things you found during play. It’s OK if you and another player select the same item for your character. If you select a weapon or suit of armor, you might have to choose what type it is when you make your selection. Simply write down your choice of item on your adventure log, and you’re all set. However, there’s one very important rule you must observe when selecting a magic item (see below). "Bu... bu... buuut IIIIII waaaanted that item. Me! ME ME ME ME! I waaaanted it! Why does he get it? Waaaaah!" "Dude, you are playing a wizard, why would you want a +2 flaming sword?" Need I elaborate? Okay, yes, as they say, see below...

#2: You can only possess a number of found magic items equal to your character level. In 4th Edition D&D, your character finds about one item every level or so. Therefore, in Living Forgotten Realms, characters cannot possess more found magic items (that is, items acquired at the end of an adventure) than their level. If you sell or discard a magic item you’ve found, it still counts against your total number of found magic items. Y'all have already seen my opinion on the whole "Bundle" treasure system of 4E; this ruling codifies it in such a way that it takes it to truly new levels of stoopid; yes, the kind of stoopid that is so bad it does not deserve to be spelled correctly, lest true stupid be peeved at the comparison. So... not only do we not actually get to loot the bodies of our defeated foes, we are instead handed a "Menu of Heroes" to choose from at the end of the adventure, and from that we get to choose... one item. Of course, in the bizarro "balanced" world of 4E D&D, this kind of makes sense (man, I'm going down the rabbit hole). But then, there can be items on the Menu that were never used by your foes, or that your foes never had, or were not even, perhaps, in the same dungeon, part of the Realms, or even plane of existence at the time. Why? Well... because. I guess there's only so much "magic bandwidth" in LiFR and it is divided in a wonderfully socialist fashion. The guy who sat back all adventure, and huffed and puffed and didn't do a thing? Yeah, he gets a pick. The guy who saved everyone's bacon? Yeah, he gets a pick, one pick, just like Mr. Lame-o. And now they can pick the SAME THING, even though only one ever appeared in the adventure, or even none ever appeared in the adventure. I guess the Dungeon Master — you know, little guy in red robes, long white hair, stupid grin on his face most of the time? — well, I guess he drops by and hands the "young heroes" their latest magic bling, special to order from the Menu of Heroes. And so that nobody feels left out, everybody can choose the same thing if they want... And you know what? The whole list can still suck. But maybe that's because the 4E magic items were all bought at Apu's Suck-o-Rama sale.

#3: You cannot choose a magic item more than 4 levels above your character’s level at the end of the adventure. "Why no, Frodo, this is not the One Ring. It is a simple Ring of Invisibility. Have fun with it, but remember, you can only use it once per day. Wait, you aren't 14th level yet? Well, I'll just buy that from you then, here's 20% of its true value." Of course, Bilbo would never have found a ring of invisibility, anyway, being at best what, maybe 5th level by 4E standards? Wow, I'll bet those gauntlets of the ram came in real handy during the Battle of Five Armies...

#4: You can purchase any magic item that is equal to or less than your level with your gold, as long as you have access to it. Okay, so though you can't win more than one magic item per level based on HEROICS, you can always go down to Sauron's Pawn Shop and BUY more magic items (again, with the level limitation). But how to get enough gold to buy such items? Well, since you are limited to only "finding" one magic item per level, and you can only sell it for 20% of its true worth, and all magic items of the same level cost the same, and gold treasure awards suck (even if you forgo a magic item because they all suck or because you already "found" one), I'm not really sure HOW you are supposed to be able to buy one more than maybe once every three to five levels... Hmmm... more number crunching balancey goodness, I guess.

#5: Get the access you want to items through the advancement tracker. I've read the whole paragraph that follows this doozy of a sentence but... It. Doesn't. Make. Sense. You get to list five more magic items per 10 levels and I guess when you get to a high enough level a magic item you already have is magically transformed into one of these items on "Santa's List"? Does the Magic Item Fairy come visit in the night, changing your ring of uselessness to a sword of paper cuts +3 if it is hidden under your pillow? (And wouldn't that be a coup-de-grace on yourself?) It's just more senseless playing of Balances & Rulesmongering with a healthy dose of flavor text from the Gimme Gimme Gimme Sourcebook.

#6: Magic items that have an enhancement bonus can be upgraded. This means you can pay (FULL price, not 20% of the difference mind) to have your sword of bad-assery +3 "upgraded" to a sword of bad-assery +4, when you are of the appropriate level (and somehow acquired the gold, likely through pawning all your other magic items... I guess in a way you are truly pwned in more ways than one). I guess there are magic sword merchants wandering around that just kinda do this... Apu's Magic Sword Sharpening Service... we deliver in an hour or it's free! (And they do deliver in an hour; the enchant an item ritual only requires an hour per enchantment. And Sauron took how many years to make all those rings? Sucker; he should have waited for the upgrade.)

#7: You can’t receive treasure from another player character. You can pay for expenses as a group (like ritual costs, bribing for information, paying for passage, etc.), but you can’t receive gold, magic items, rituals, or any other treasure from another character. You can lend another character an item for use for the adventure, but it must return to the owner at the end of play. This is just... WTF? This is like taking Player vs. Player to an all-new level of weirdness. Did they simply forget to program the game with a hotkey for "Hand Item to Other Player" and decide on this rule to cover up their mistake? Of course, the problem here is that if Sam loans Bill his 50' hemp rope, and said rope falls over a bottomless cliff, the game gets stuck in a loop as at the finale, Bill can't return the rope to Sam... Now, can unaligned characters roll other characters for their treasure? Hmmm...

#8: Story awards give you interesting hooks to further play. Right. Of course, as the modules will jump all-over-Hell-and-back, most of these story hooks are going to be worth bupkiss. But at least you get a pretty certificate you can hang on your wall. Back when I first joined the RPGA in an earlier incarnation in '82 they sent me only one certificate, a membership certificate, and I had to pay for that with the membership, so I guess this is an improvement somehow...

#9: View your rewards online. And BTW, why don't you check out our premium pay-to-play services on DDI and Dragon and Dungeon. Gleemax? Um, never heard of it... you must be mistaking us for a company that has programmers who know how to code...

"Character Death" or "Highlanders and Dungeons and Dragons, Oh My!"
This must be repeated in full for you to all enjoy the complete insanity of this rule... I'll use quotes instead of bolding, so your screen does not asplode...

"Adventuring can be dangerous business. Your character might succumb to those dangers and die. However, death for your character is usually a temporary situation. If your character dies during the course of the adventure, you and the rest of your group have two options, provided that the groups has access to the Raise Dead ritual (either a PC has it and can use it or the characters return back to civilization), they have access to the body, and it is possible to return your character to life.

#1: Pay the component cost for the ritual. If the group chooses this option, the cost should be divided evenly amongst the group (500 gp for heroic tier, 5,000 gp for paragon tier, and 50,000 gp for epic tier). Using a source outside the group to cast the ritual costs 20% more than the component cost. Total cost when using an outside source is 600 gp for heroic tier, 6,000 gp for paragon tier, and 60,000 gp for epic tier. A PC that dies and chooses this method of return gains full (or half, if the party was defeated) experience points from the encounter in which the character died, but no experience points for any encounters that were missed while the character was dead. If there’s still more of the adventure remaining, the PC continues to earn experience as normal, and receives a normal cut of the rewards at the end of the adventure.

#2: Invoke the Death Charity clause. If the group cannot afford to pay for the ritual (or doesn’t desire to do so), the PC can choose to return back to life at the end of the adventure. Doing so forfeits all rewards (including treasure and story rewards) earned for the adventure except experience points gained prior to the character’s death (the character receives the experience point award for the encounter in which they died). The PC cannot participate in the same adventure a second time."

At what point did the writer of this section somehow write this, "Adventuring can be dangerous business" and yet at the same time, a mere paragraph down, write this, "Invoke the Death Charity clause." There is a small disconnect here. No, small was not the word... WHOPPING disconnect. AMAZING disconnect. We're talking PARSECS of disconnect.

This is a freaking "Get out of Death Free" card.

Not once. Not twice. No, not even three times. But ALWAYS. And FOREVER.

So let's review. Rewards suck. You cannot die. There is no victory, but you cannot be defeated. You cannot win, but you cannot lose.

So... what's the point?

God Mode for D&D, indeed... for wussy gods.