Rules-Lite Nautical Rules

Without learning actual nautical stuff, simple rules for sea travel are below. Rules are arbitrary, abstract, simplified, and based on assumptions.

1. Top Speed. We assume in optimal conditions (meaning ideal wind and ideal water), a vessel can travel its top speed. We assume the top speed of an average vessel is 24 miles per day (or 1 hex) and that it sails for a 12 hour day rather than an 8 hour day. A very fast vessel sails at 32 miles for day (or 1 and 1/2 hexes).

2. Other Speeds: In sub-optimal conditions (meaning poor wind and/or rough water), a vessel travels at either three-quarters, half, or quarter speed, which ever narratively seems more reasonable. If there is no wind or if the wind is blowing in the entirely wrong direction, the ship can only travel its intended course if it has ores.

3. Storms: Sailing in a bad storm can put wear and tear on a ship, causing damage to the ship. In a bad storm, a ship may sail at quarter speed and the crew risks exhaustion. An exhausted crew cannot row and must rest, and are more likely to lose morale.

4. Crew and Passengers: A ship requires a skilled crew for maintenance and operation. Each crew member earns 1 gp per day. Officers and navigators earn 10 gp per day or more. The size of the crew depends on the size of the ship. This crew size may be completely arbitrary. A small ship may be crewed by 10. A Medium ship may be crewed by 30. A Large ship may be crewed by 50 to 100.

5. Supplies: The ship must have supplies to feed its crew and passengers. This costs 1 gp per day per crew member and passenger. Supplies means food, medicine, tools, rope, gunpowder and shots for cannons (called guns) if applicable, and spare parts and materials for maintenance.

6. Cargo Space: The size of a vessel's cargo space is limited by the size of the vessel. Cargo space limits how long a ship can sail before needing to resupply. We assume a ship has enough cargo space for supplies for a 30 day voyage. The amount of supplies in your cargo space is therefore represented as X / Y days of supplies, or just X days of supplies.

7. Damage and Repair: Ships have HP and a Damage Threshold which are usually dependent on the size of the vessel. Damage Threshold means a ship does not take any damage unless it takes a certain minimum amount of damage. A ship may be mended at sea if you have the supplies, up to 1/2 it's max HP. You must return to port to get your ship completely repaired. Assume a ship requires one week for full repairs and the cost of repairs is 1 gp per missing HP. Ships may be damaged by ship combat, running aground, hitting a reef, or sailing in a bad storm. A ship at half HP or less may not sail at its top speed. A ship at 0 HP begins sinking.

8. Navigation. Make one navigation check per day or night.  If you fail, you identify that you're off course after 1d6 hours (and losing that much distance in your travel day) and can re-roll your navigation check. 

Navigation may take a penalty when land is not within sight or when the sky is cloudy, and a big penalty when there is a storm or fog. Ships ordinarily travel within sight of land to judge their speed, to drop anchor for the night or when needed. Traveling across a sea or ocean has certain risks of getting lost and running out of supplies, and benefits from having a crew with a night shift, and a sea chart.

9. Purchasing of a Ship: In a period setting, shipbuilding was controlled and expensive. A rowboat may cost 50 gp, but a small sailboat may cost 2,000 gp. A small vessel may cost anywhere from 3,500 to 5,000 gp. Medium vessel costs 10,000 to 15,000 gp. A Large vessel costs 20,000 to 30,000 gp.

10. Combat and Chases. In most cases, out-maneuvering another ship relies on having a faster ship. The referee may make any assumptions or decisions about the speeds of any ships at the scale the chases and combats take place. A faster ship automatically intercepts a slower ship in time, and a faster ship automatically escapes a slower ship in time. If you're engaged in a chase with a ship of a comparable speed, the referee may run a chase scene.

Chases: The referee determines the starting ranges. There are three ranges: out of range, firing range, and boarding range (alternatively, you may use four ranges that include long firing range and short firing range). Ranges are all arbitrary and abstract. Each round of the chase, the ships' helmsman (basically a boat pilot) makes a vehicle check. The ship that wins the check, changes the ranges in their favor by 1 range. The pursuer may elect to automatically stop their quarry if they succeed at the closest range. The quarry may elect to automatically escape if they succeed at the furthest range.

Combat: When a ship is in any firing range, the referee decides if the ships are in position for the guns. Ships at firing range may spend a round getting into firing position. Most guns on a ship are in fixed positions on the gun deck (below the main deck) and are pointed either to the left or right (starboard or port) sides of the ship. Guns on the main deck, if any, may be pointed in any direction. If the ship is not in position for the guns, then no guns on the gun deck can hit.

Each round, gunners fire one gun each. A gunner may make one d20 attack roll + their intelligence against the opposing ship's AC for one gun. Once all the hits are tallied, roll one d10 damage roll for each gun that hits, total and apply the damage.  The number of guns is restricted by the size of the gun deck, and the size of the gun deck is restricted by the size of the ship.

Alignment: How I Use It

What does alignment mean? Objectively speaking, I don't know. The books kind of leave room for interpretation. Part of the problem is they leave it a little too abstract. This causes confusion and arguments which leads to people hating alignment which is a shame because it's actually a good tool for describing your game. You need functional definitions. You need to nail them down with concrete examples. You need to define what alignment means in your setting for your players. If I say I'm lawful good, that needs to mean the same thing to everyone. Why have terms if we disagree on the definitions?

So, what does alignment mean in my setting?

Before we being it's important to note that we're discussing a low technology, low culture, fantasy setting. Please suspend your modern cynicism and progressive views. In other words, have an open mind and play along.

First, let's look at Law vs Chaos. 

Law vs Chaos describes a setting where forces of law are in conflict with forces of chaos. Society against barbarians. Forces of law may oppose other forces of law, like the police vs the mob, and forces of chaos may oppose other forces of chaos, like two gangs in the waste lands. The big distinction is that the world has these divisions of the tamed world and the untamed wilderness. There are lawful places with lawful people and there are lawless places with lawless people.

Lawful alignment is about having an alignment to something, the question is what. Lawful alignment it is not about alignment to the abstract concept of law or lawfulness; that's stupid! Being lawful means YOU have loyalty, possibly sworn loyalty, to a homeland, country, or a faction, to it's leader or leaders, and to its people.

Religions are organized with rules, structure, and hierarchy, and therefore lawful, and so anyone belonging to a religion is inherently lawful. You can assume all religions require even their lowest ranking members to take some sort of vow in front of witnesses. Druids are members of a nature religion; it might be a very loose organization with very flexible rules, but if you're loyal to its cause and if you observe its practices, you're lawful. Organized criminal factions such as thieves guilds are lawful. Cults may or may not be lawful. Stay tuned.

In a feudal society, the King owns all the land. He grants that land to a class of nobles who rule parts of the kingdom like governors. In exchange, nobles are required at their expense to provide the king with soldiers to defend the kingdom. A count is a noble in charge of a county. A counts permits the citizens to live on that land. If you live in that county, you benefit from the protection of the counts laws and soldiers which maintain safety and order. In exchange, you follow the laws, pay taxes, and possibly provide military service.

A lot of times, religion was in bed with government even if the heads of government and the heads of religion were in conflict behind closed doors. The people had a different relationship with their government than they had with their religion, like how kids had a different relationship with each parent. One authority figure could use the people against the other and vice versa, or if the authority of one figure was in question, the other authority lend it their credibility.

Historically, this was a good deal. It worked. Peace and order were maintained. People can say they prospered from it, therefore, people thought this was a good thing.

Generally, the laws of kings are just and fair, but even if the laws are unjust and unfair, you still owe your loyalty to your king. In fact, having loyalty is part being an honorable person. Crappy laws are favorable to no laws. Questioning your king's laws may be an act of treason and treason is a good way to get kicked out of society.

If you are of lawful alignment, other lawful people respect that fact even if your societies are opposed. Why? Because being a part of a society implies that you're a valuable, contributing member of that society. And if you're from the same social class, your lives probably have a lot more in common than you think.

What does Neutrality on this spectrum mean in my setting? It means you're probably a wanderer, a vagabond, a hermit, or a member of an itinerant people who just go where the opportunities are. You don't have a home and so you don't have a homeland, even though you might have a people who you're loyal to, like the gypsies. 

If you are neutral, you may be perceived by lawful people as having no loyalty to anyone, and that's bad for you because if people don't know whose side you're on or that you follow laws, then why should they trust you? Neutral people usually have their own code of honor and definition of dignity, but you're a stranger with no name or reputation to precede you and tell us who you are. You could be a criminal or a ne'er-do-well. You might be liable to steal or desert.

Also if you're neutral, how do I measure you're worth? Ne'er-do-well doesn't mean evil bad guy, it means someone who doesn't earn anything by contributing to society. Basically it's a mooch. Laziness has always been frowned upon. So are people who don't pay taxes.  

Unfortunately, neutral people are unpopular with lawful people.

Chaotic alignment means you are not an accepted member of any lawful society, or if you are you're probably a known trouble maker and you become outcast eventually. You might be an outlaw like Robin Hood or maybe you were born in the wilderness like Conan the Barbarian. Chaotic people have few laws if only one law, and it'll simple like Survival of the fittest or right by might. That sort of thing. Chaotic alignment describes people who are opposed to laws, or to following laws, and in general, they are apposed to societies of laws. They might even be opposed to lawful people because lawful people represent the law.

Tribes of hunter-gathers or warrior clans of faiths who live simple lives in greater or remote areas of the wilderness are lawful if they have their own laws and hierarchical structure. Such people are instead chaotic if they are anarchistic and are kept together by a collective need for family, community and survival.

Therefore, instead of just writing "Lawful X" for your alignment, you would also identify the land, clan, tribe, religion, or faction you're aligned with.

Keep in mind, we haven't begun to discuss good vs evil yet! Chaotic people can be good. Lawful people can be evil. In my setting, law vs chaos is about a formal allegiance to something, but good vs evil is more about your nature or your personality type.

OK, so let's talk about good vs evil. We're all a little good and a little bad. With extreme exception, no one is purely one or the other in real life.

Would you describe yourself as being primarily good or primarily bad?

Good means kindness, compassion, and empathy are a part of your psychology. You generally try to do the right thing by other people. Maybe you like the idea of being a good person or maybe you get a feeling of satisfaction out of being good. You want to treat others the way you want to be treated: fairly. Good people are generally honest. They tend to fight fairly, allow retreating enemies to flee, and they treat prisoners with dignity. Good people rarely permit or apply torture. Good people are generally good even in extreme situations.

Neutral on this spectrum may describe different people. It may mean someone whose selfishness exceeds their compassion, someone who is numb or indifferent to the suffering of others, or someone who is not primarily good or evil but an even mix of both. More than anyone else, neutral people have the capacity to be genuinely kind when they're happy or cruel when they're desperate. Someone neutral doesn't make a selfless decision to risk their life to save people, thought they might do it when there's something to gain. The player needs to define what kind of neutral they are for their DM. 

Ferral beasts (which is not a slight against animals, that's just how people typically describe untamed animals) are neutral, neutral aka true neutral.

Evil means you're some sort of sicko or psychopath who has limited or no capacity for empathy and sincere kindness. Evil means you have a cruel or wicked nature. You like seeing people suffer and you might like causing suffering. Monsters are evil. Monsters are not people. Evil natures occur in people less commonly or even rarely in lawful places, and more common in choatic places. In a lawful society, an evil nature is something concealed for self-preservation.

This explanation exceeds three whole pages. Now I know why the books don't get into this much detail - no one would want to read it!

Out of the Abyss (5e campaign commentary)

  The problem with Out of the Abyss (OotA) is Wizards of the Coast (WotC) made a setting book and called it a campaign. When you think of this books as a setting book rather than a campaign, it seems to becomes much more valuable. This book is for game groups who want to play a game set in the Underdark because it does a good job detailing travel and various location in the Underdark. If you're not into the underdark all that much, you may also see the adventures contained as more of a compilation of adventures rather than a single campaign, but they would need re-skinning to suit anything else.

Chapter 2: Into Darkness details traveling in the underdark. It explains the travel pace, terrain, hazards, monster and character encounters, navigation, foraging, and optional secret dungeons the DM may place at any step, serving as a template for creating additional such locations to break up the monotony of the underdark. If you want to know how to run any travel by water in the underdark, you can reference Chapter 3.

Chapter 10: Descent into the Depths, Chapter 13: The Wormwrithings, Chapter 14: The Labyrinth, and Chapter 16: The Fetid Wedding (detailing an region of the underdark called Araumycos) also provided details for traveling in particular regions of the underdark with distinct features, random encounters and events.

Fixed locations in the underdark are detailed in their own chapters:

Chapter 3: Darklake details a Kuo Toa village called Sloobludop

Chapter 4: Gracklstugh, home of the Duergar (grey dwarves) and the Derro

Chapter 5: Neverlight Grove, home of Myconids

Chapter 6: Blingdenstone, home of the Deep Gnomes (aka Svirfneblin)

Chapter 8: Gauntlgrym, (a Dwarven kingdom not in the underdark but on the surface in Faerun)

Chapter 9: Mantol-Derith, a trade hub in the Underdark where drow, duergar, svirfneblin, and surface dwellers can meet and trade

Chapter 11: Gravenhollow details a mystic Stone Library kept by Stone Giants

Chapter 15: Menzoberranzan details the City of Spiders and some drow culture

If you're into the Drow, then as an honorable mention, Chapter 1: Drow Prison, describes a drow outpost called Velkynvelve and has a small section briefly detailing a Shrine to Lolth, a drow priest quarters, and drow military quarters/barracks. Optionally, you can use this chapter to base additional Underdark Drow outposts because surely there are more than one, right?

The book does not provide a solid campaign. Players travel from place to place like they're on a road trip. They stay in each location long enough for a small adventure, then they leave to the next place. There are two distinct parts with a break in the middle. Chapter 1 states that it assumes the players begin at level 1 and will be level 2 or 3 by the end of Chapter 1. I find that hard to believe and awkward.

The first part of the book, chapters 1 through 7, is about the player characters being captured, waking up as slaves, they trying to find their way to the surface while fleeing drow pursuers. Part one encourages gamers to use survival mechanics. The players characters may have their own stuff, or they may be in a position where they have to scrape by on a lot of borrowed or found equipment. Madness mechanics are introduced.

The break in the middle can be used to allow the player characters to take down time or take on side adventures. Then they receive a letter providing the plothook to part 2. As a side note, it suits me to have the players begin OotA after completing a starter set such as Phandelver and adjust the encounters of OotA to suit the players' levels. 

Part two is from chapters 8 to 17 and is about the player characters returning to the underdark to find a way to defeat the demon lords, and the final confrontation(s) with the demon lords. The encounters get tough in part two.

The way I see it, the first half of the book is a movie, the second half of the book is a sequel. Part 1 feels like Star Wars episode 4, and part 2 feels like Star Wars Episode 6. The break in the middle where the DM creates their Star Wars episode 5. I think this book gives a creative DM a good framework to work from. Following the vanilla story of OotA may be a detriment, so don't. Do you own thing, make it your own thing. I think that's the positive way to look at this uh, campaign.

D&D Crafting Mechanics

PLAYER CRAFTING

1. Artisan Tools must be available and characters must be proficient. The DM may rule a workshop or laboratory is also needed. Tools are abstracted as "smithing tools," etc. A laboratory or workshop are likewise abstracted as "smithing workshop," etc.

2. Materials are required to craft. Assume that the cost of materials needed is equal to half the cost of the item being crafted. Materials are abstracted as "smithing materials," etc. The DM and the setting determine availability of materials.

3. Time. Crafting time is abstracted and simplified. For simplicity, crafting time is based on item rarity, not artisan skill or material cost. Rarity may vary based on the setting. The table for Crafting Time is:
Common Items    1 Workday
Uncommon Items    2 Workdays
Rare Items    1 Workweek
Very Rare Items    2 Workweeks
Legendary Items    4 Workweeks

The DM may rule a particular item is atypically simple or complex, in which case the crafting time is either halved or doubled. A workday is 8 hours. Characters must complete each workday or the day is not counted and a workday worth of materials is wasted. Crafting time is divided by the number of skilled artisans working together on an item if it's reasonable for multiple artisans to work on the same thing, and they must be in the same place at the same time. DMs determine if it is possible to improve or refine an existing item and they may halve crafting time and / or material cost. Unique items should be based on similar items.

4. Knowledge. Characters must know how to craft the item. The DMs may assume characters proficient with tools know how to craft common items. Before attempting to craft, players roll an intelligence check and add their tool proficiency bonus to determine if their character knows how to create it. The DCs are:
10    Common Items
15    Uncommon Items
20    Rare Items
25    Very Rare Items
30    Legendary Items

If players succeed, the DM may assume all attempts to craft that item are successful. If player fails the check, it means the character does not know how to create the item. Characters may seek instruction from a teacher or a manual. A teacher automatically teaches a character in one day. Characters can study a manual for one day and repeat the Intelligence check. If characters do not have access to instruction, they may attempt to create the item and work it out by trial and error. To do this, they must spend all required time and materials, the roll the intelligence check with disadvantage to determine success of failure of item creation. If the character succeeds, they also learn how to craft the item. If they fail, the materials are wasted. In the case of failure, the DM determines whether the character has made a useless item or an inferior quality item, whichever is more reasonable.

 

How to screw your players (say these lines while making funny faces and voices)

1. You have to taste the potion to identify it.
2. An ancient red dragon appears. Roll initiative.
3. You hear the laughter of at least 50 goblins outside the torch light. What do you do?
4. Energy Drain.
5. The DC is 25.
6. Save vs Poison or die.
7. You're encumbered.
8. The sick man coughs in your face. Make a CON save.
9. Your pockets feel a bit lighter. Make an investigation check.
10. Fumble tables.
11. The green slime corrodes through your magic plate armor. You now have -1 AC.
12. You see an old one. Make a wisdom save against madness, please.
13. The banshee screams. Save or die.
14. You didn't say you avert your eyes from the basilisk.
15. Your horse takes damage. Make an animal handling check.
16. Rocks fall. Everybody dies.
17. 11 AC Cursed Armor.
18. Yeah, you have to pour holy water out onto incorporeal undead.
19. Go ahead an make a ranged attack into melee.
20. You see a ghost. Save vs fear.
21. That was a Rot Grub.
22. Invisible Stalker.
23. Sorry, the reaction roll for this NPC was a nat 1.
24. The fighter and the wizard are both charmed.
25. Death Knights can cast Fireball.
26. The villagers apparently didn't know there was a difference between a goblin an an ogre.
27. They served you brains.
28. The Nightmare Poison caused you vivid nightmares. You could not complete a long rest.
29. You're bucked off your horse and you tumble over the edge of a cliff.

30. Poison Gas starts filling the room.

31. Roll a DEX saving throw for your backpack full of Alchemist Fire and Acid.

32. Your burning flask of Oil misses. Roll on the grenade weapon miss table.

33. You successfully stealthed passed every enemy except one.

34. Out of place monster.

35. Spellbooks aren't waterproof.

36. Your backpack has a hole in it.

37. Someone stole your boots.

38. That must have been a false rumor.

39. There are no places to hide.

40. Skeletons resist piercing and slashing damage.

41. Zombies resist bludgeoning and piercing damage.

42. A lot of monsters have resistance to fire.

43. You can't activate this magic weapon in a zone of silence.

44. Effects from the same spell don't stack.

45. The tithe is 35%.

46. Ability damage.

47. Congratulations, you serve a Beholder now.

48. It's a coven of hags.

49. Yes, Paladins under mind control can break their oaths.

50. That was a portal to Hell.

What I Don't Like about Pokemon Sword / Shield

LT;DR: I don't like this generation at all. The game lacks intrinsic rewards and a fulfilling sense of challenge. Instead, priority seems to go to boring story and characters.

NO SENSE OF ACCOMPLISHMENT
Pokemon Sword / Shield has subtracts so many good elements of gameplay that were present in previous versions and the overall experience suffers for it. The mandatory EXP Share is the most obvious example. It means I can use only one Pokemon from level 5 to level 60+ (and I did), and five other Pokemon in my roster level up to 60 for doing nothing. For me it feels like I only earned one Pokemon and was given five freebies. There's no training going on here.

NO TESTS OF SKILL
The trainer battles are generally easy and most trainers have only one Pokemon. The routes are not challenging or interesting to travel. The dungeons are incredibly short and simple. HMs are replaced with bike upgrades and it eliminates the experience of relying on your own Pokemon for exploration. All of these changes surely make the game easier to design for Gamefreak because they don't have to make complex dungeons or routes with hidden or difficult areas to access, puzzles, challenging gauntlets of trainer battles that slowly wear you down and some that are brick walls, or carefully design when and how to give the player access to certain TMs/HMs.

NOTHING IS EARNED
There's no difficulty spikes in this game to remind you to keep improving. New areas are not intimidating. You don't feel like you've conquered anything when you've finished a dungeon or a route. Reaching a new town should feel like a milestone, but it just feels like a pit stop. The game has so many infinitely respawning random items to find on the ground, you can farm money and so nothing feels precious. I literally didn't buy anything for the entire game. Money has no value. Purchasing decisions have no sense of risk or fulfillment. The choices I make when I spend money are meaningless. Resource management is just one less aspect or challenge in this game.

NO DANGER, NO MYSTERY
Team Yell makes me miss Team Rocket. I liked the idea of encountering actual criminals in my travels and knowing that I could defend myself with my very own Pokemon and that others couldn't. It made the world feel unsafe and feel like like a wilderness, and it made my efforts as a trainer that much more valuable. I liked that I was the one who ultimately stopped a criminal organization. It didn't just mean I was an excellent trainer, it meant I was a hero. I liked how Team Rocket didn't have a screwball philosophy to push either, they just wanted to steal powerful Pokemon and possibly take over the world. No preaching or pretentiousness involved like other Pokemon villains.

Pokemon that appear on the map means they're not hiding in tall grass. The hiding part is gone and so Pokemon are more mundane than ever. Trying to encounter a specific Pokemon doesn't require any effortful searching or patience. You can just see what Pokemon inhabit any route or dungeon, so there's nothing mysterious anymore about a new location. There's nothing special about rare Pokemon when you can just reset the spawned Pokemon by walking away a little bit then walking back. Also, most if not all Pokemon can be avoided so there's no danger anymore.

STORY AND CHARACTERS
The story and characters are boring and feel like a constant interruption. The cut scenes go on too long and I just don't care. I wish I could skip all cut scenes. It feels like padding. I hope they didn't spend time and money on these. The Pokemon experience I grew up with was about a single trainer (you) exploring the world and battling other trainers. A lot of the story and characters were something that took place in my imagination and that was part of the appeal. If you used your imagination when you played Pokemon as a kid, type F. 

GRAPHICS / MUSIC
I don't care to complain about the graphics because my preference for Pokemon graphics is Gen 2. The fact that they're making a setting look like Britain doesn't stimulate me. Although the new Pokemon designs generally look silly, lame, or boring. Just do a google image search for original fan Pokemon designs and weep for Gamefreak artists. I can't say the music is memorable in this game, so that sucks. I remember the music in older Pokemon games and when I hear it it brings back satisfying memories. I think I muted this game and put something on in the background.

CHANGES I WOULD MAKE
Besides rectifying all the above complaints to make the game feel challenging, rewarding, and even dangerous and mysterious, I would also try to make Pokemon Version A and B different in a more substantial way. Traditionally, one version has these Pokemon and the other version has those Pokemon. Sword and Shield does something cool with version-specific gyms, not that I care. The biggest missed opportunity that I can see is to make two separate versions feel a bit more like two separate games. For version B, I would make the player start in a different town and have you work your way around the world and all the gyms in a different order. This would require redoing all the levels of all the Pokemon, money and item rewards, and probably some other complicated changes to balance Version B. If I can make two different yet satisfying versions, I think that would better justify the existence of two versions.

I would definitely outsource Pokemon designs and I would reduce the number of Pokemon in the game. I know that's a sticking point for Pokemon fans, but I think it has to happen sooner or later. 2,000 Pokemon is ridiculous and I suspect most people stick to their favorites anyway. I want to try to give people new favorites and I want to encourage them to learn new Pokemon, and I think learning brand new Pokemon is part of making the game have a sense of mystery again. In fact, I might try make a simple custom Pokemon for the starter. Instead of picking one of three Pokemon, you can pick your Pokemon's type, body plan, color palette, cry, move set, stats, and name it. I would keep the options simple. The rival would get a custom starter Pokemon which is suited to beat yours. The game would treat your custom Pokemon as rare but standard Pokemon. That would be the in-game explanation. There wouldn't be some whacky custom gene gimmick driving the story or anything. The purpose of this is just to give the player the ability to pick a starter that suits their play-style and preferences slightly more than choice 1, 2, or 3.

I think I would bring back the humbleness of a Pokemon scientist like Professor Oak who was just some plain looking guy in a very small town with no shops. The Pokemon professor should be someone who is studying Pokemon in an underfunded rinki-dink lab because Pokemon are mysterious and because the professor is someone with an intellectual curiosity, not because they're an eccentric animal loving hippy. They send children on Pokemon adventures to collect data because that's the best way the Professor can do their research.

I would simplify the story and characters. I don't think Pokemon needs depth or story, I think it's a distraction. Pokemon is a game you play by yourself but you discuss and share with others. I think that's where the story is. It's about sharing your experiences with your friends, talking about the rarest Pokemon, the luckiest wins, the closest loses, and the struggling with the hardest obstacles until you had a breakthrough. It's about comparing your same yet unique experiences. I do think Pokemon needs a good Rival character again who can make you think "I've got to beat that guy!

The items in these games have gotten so bloated and I would cut so much of it out. There's no need to have 500 items in your Pokemon game. I'm sure that's going to save a lot of development time and cost and make every item that is included feel more valuable for it.

RPG Faction Checklist - Religion

 Cleric: A Cleric is a type of priest who has learned the art of war (a war priest) and who receives extraordinary powers from their faith in a deity. Clerics are unique because they required to be a part of a faction, i.e. a religion. Clerics are ordained members of an organized religion dedicated to the worship of that deity. They make vows to uphold a charge and a code. Their charge is what they do or what they are responsible for, like defending the innocent and smashing evil. Their code is a morality or a set of ethics. Either the GM or Cleric players need to provide the following:
1.    A religion with a name, general philosophy, and spiritual beliefs on matters of souls and afterlife.
2.    A deity: name, traits, and powers.
3.    A charge: i.e. Destroy evil or protect the innocent.
4.    An Ethos, code of ethics or a morality; example: always accept surrender or never strike first, etc.
5.    A sacred day of the week when they won't adventure or eat certain food.
6.    A sacred text or collection of stories, legends, characters, myths, and prayers.
7.    Traditions including rituals, ceremonies, songs, prayers, clothes, and holidays.
8.    A sacred symbol, animal, or object, such as a fish, a cross, the sun or moon, etc.
9.    Temples or other sacred places, shrines, cathedrals, abbies, churches, etc. Form? Function?
10.    History and politics of the organization; it's status in the present and how it got there.
11.   Relationship with other factions / religions?
12.  Terminology do the members have?
13.  Enemies: Who hates them / what do they hate?

Druids ARE clerics of a different faction (religion) and have to answer all the same questions. The major differences are:
1.    Druids belong to low-tech civilizations that live in harmony with nature. Rather than live in cities, they are itinerant and live in the wilderness, or they live in villages.
2.    Druid's worship a nature deity and believe nature is sacred.
3.    Druid tradition is oral, so they don't write anything down.
4.    Druids keep parts of their religion secret and do not seek to make converts.

GAME DESIGN SUGGESTIONS FOR TRIPLE A GAME DEVELOPERS BY SOME GUY

1. Creative Mode
    I grew up with games that had built-in cheat codes, glitches that you could expliot, and save state hacking tools like game shark. Pen and Paper RPGs let you Homebrew. This adds to the fun that you could get out of a game. Skyrim has console commands. Minecraft has a creative mode in which the player gets the ability to play the game normally, but they have special controls that allow the to spawn anything. I think I should be able to pick make custom spells and equipment too. Let players choose a model for a weapon then pick stats and abilities for it, then name it. This is something you could do at a D&D table. I would like to start a new game of Skyrim with a Mjolnir or a Firebrand or Excalibur.

2. Alternative to Essential NPCs
    Ultimately, the reason why you have essential NPCs is so that the developers have less work to do. I don't expect the developers to try to anticipate all of the "Else" scenarios that players can possibly cause and I'm sure that would add the the time and money spent developing a game. The problem with Essential NPCs is that it breaks suspension of disbelief / immersion, and it's just plain disappointing. Some NPCs like Mercer Frey are absolutely essential because his role in the thief guild story is an interpersonal conflict with Karliah and who the hell else would become a Nightengale? There is not a line of successors who could replace Mercer, however, Jarl Ulfric Stromcloak is technically not essential. Ulfic can be replaced infinitely by randomly generated successors that spawn into the game after X in-game days, presumably by anyone of rank in the stormcloak army. The replacement NPC is a randomly generated NPC who may or may not take on a new name (or he can be Ulric II) and character model, but all his lines can be exactly the same spoken by Voice Actor B. The only problem is with the name. All successors to Essential NPCs will have the same name with a new number, or they will have different names and every NPCs will never be spoke like Tidus in FFX. Alternatively, create a library of 100 names, have the successor NPC assigned a random name, and every voice actor record themselves speaking all 100 names in various emotional expressions. I shudder at how tedious the scripting must be. I think players should be able to kill any NPC though. Otherwise, it's a restriction on play-style. Players can anticipate that Mercer Frey is the villain and then try to kill him, but Mercer Frey would have some kind of teleport ring and escape with 1 hit point. Then you would have "Thief Guild Questline B" where alternative missions or alternative versions of the same missions are provided to account for Mercer disappearing mysteriously or after "the" or "that" incident.

3. Long Intros Suck! Where are the Alternate Starts?
    Why do I always begin as potentially some criminal in Bethesda Elder Scrolls games? Not cool. There is literally 3 and 1/2 minutes of no player input in Skyrim after clicking new game. You make your character, then there's another 3 minute long period of no player input. The opening makes you feel like you have to wait on the game to play the game on a repeat playthrough. That kind of thing was cool once upon a time, but I have started like 30 new games in Skyrim and I don't care to to wait that long. Either option A. let me automatically skip to the exit of the cave at the end of the Helgen Dragon Attack scene or B. provide the option to have an alternate start.
    There is a mod called "Alternative Life" or something like that where you get to choose your own starting point in the game. Can't be that hard to write the game in a way where the dragonborn starts anywhere else and the hot rumors on everyone's lips are "Dragon Attack in Helgen," then provide one or more plot hooks that would send the player to Whiterun. Let me pick a quest that my new character gets immediately assigned at the beginning too; One of my favorite quests that I would like to start with is Meridia's Beacon where a god gives you a magic fire sword and a vague, long-term quest to expel the evils of the world. By the way, I made a hard save right before you get to make your character so I can skip the cart ride if I want to start a new game.

4. Radiant Quests Potentially Don't Suck
    I'm not going to be the guy who knocks radiant quests but I am. The guy who invented radiant quests is really just some guy who's good with Microsoft Excel, but Kudos to him anyway because it's a really good idea to put never-ending quests in your game. The only flaws are that radiant quests are boring and unfulfilling. They are basically fetch quests that become stale and predictable after only two and they're not very rewarding. Radiant quests are a good idea but it's missing something. Radiant Quests need some depth and sometimes the rewards need to be really good.  

5. Fast Favorites
    You've already got a favorites menu in Skyrim that lets you open up a pause menu and choose from a list of favorites spells, gear, etc. What if you could save a favorite "Set" or "setup" of items, spells, gear, etc. to swap in and out of on the fly or whenever?

6. Custom Clothier
    In Skyrim, there's a very limited number of outfits. How about an option where you could visit a clothier and place a special order, basically, you choose the colors or palettes of wearable items. I really wish capes, cloaks, coats, scarfs, more hats, and a few other things were available in Skyrim.  This is a simple customization ability that I think is just plain lacking in Skyrim perhaps due to budget or because the creators wanted to give Skyrim its own identity.

7. Import Player Characters from Other Saves
    Some games have a New Game Plus mode where you can start a game from the beginning but you can retain something from a previous save, like money, levels, or equipment. How about letting me insert a player character from a previous playthrough into a new game as a follower for a new player character? I just made a character the other day and became the arch mage if the mage's college. Now, I'm done with that character *shrug*.  I think it's a shame how fast I got over them and I never get to see them again because let's face it, I won't tough that save again. I still like that character even though I'm not interested in playing as them again. I think there's potential untapped nostalgia in allowing me to import them as a follower.

8. Player Faction and Player Faction Questline
    I think having the option to create my own faction, build my own town or stronghold, and recruit followers is not important, but I think one of the Fallouts did it, so why not every other RPG ever. Please note that I sentence ended with a period. Sometimes, games become boring when you run out of things to spend your in-game money on, and when you run out of things you want to earn, or when you run out of things you feel invested in. I'd like to start my own "Guild" as a level 1 character and have a unique Player Faction questline based on the type of guild I create and the types of factions I ally with, compete with, or make enemies with. 

9. Custom Followers
    Suppose I wanted to create my own Non-player follower? Sounds like giving the player too many options and it'll be a programming nightmare, right? OK, simplify it like this: I can visit a mercenary barracks, temple, thieves group, etc. and recruit a generic level 1 adventurer who I customize just like my player character. Not a big deal, many an RPG let you customize your own party members (like Final Fantasy). I could round out my character's weaknesses more precisely this way. Some people would like it, some people would prefer to interact with the standard NPCs. I think players who would like this option would appreciate being able to choose a face and name too. How about this though: Let's say when you hire one of these followers, they come with their own randomly determined questline. They might be good, they might be evil, they might be the illegitimate son of a noble, or someone with amnesia trying to get their memory back, someone with a religious quest, whatever. Create 3 or 4 different Generic NPC questlines and surprise the player. It could be a short quest line with 5 quests: A beginning and inciting incident, rising action part 1, 2, 3, and a climax / resolution. Gate the next quest in the questline behind the player's levels to build suspense so that players are incentivized to keep the NPC around for at least 15 or 20 levels and get good and attached. 

10. Challenge Mode
    I like watch videos of gamers who beat games with strict restrictions. How about a new game "Challenge Mode" where you choose types of restrictions like Survival Mode that has survival mechanics turned on, Hardcore Mode where NPC followers can die, or a Specialization Mode where the player chooses a style of play at the start of the run and they are restricted by this for the entire game. The specialization could be choosing a list of "Mage Only," "Thief Only," "Ranged Only," "No Magic," "Level Cap X" etc., or you can just manually lock certain skills or features from a master list or manual inputs.

11. More enemy variety
    Skyrim does not have that many different enemies. It kind of sucks. Greater enemy variety creates a less predictable and more mysterious world where the player might not be prepared for the next thing they might encounter. Skyrim is also missing more enemies that can be a brick will.

12. More Factions, More Generic Factions, More Questlines, Branching Questlines
    I've recently realized that I can actually start a new game and end any single questline and feel satisfied with that character before they reach level 20 and without beating the game. Actually, I've never beaten Skyrim but I've probably put 300 hours into it. The game offers some quests I like and some I don't, some factions I'm interested in, and some I'm not. Some questlines I don't like because there is only one path and I crave another option. If I want to complete the Thieves Guild quest, I have to sell my soul to a daedra. If I want to complete the companions quest, I have to become a werewolf. I want the ability to say "My character wouldn't do that. Pass." and be offered an alternative route to the end of the questline. Also, I think all quest lines should have a good ending, neutral ending, and a bad ending, or at least two possible endings. I think the factions should be more generic for broader appeal. Instead of the Companions, I want a Fighter's Guild. Instead of the College of Winterhold, I want a Mage's Guild. What's the different? The Companions and the College put me in a faction with a more fleshed out identity. If I don't like the identity, I lose interested in the faction. A Fighter's Guild and a Mage's Guild is just a group I sign up for that offers training, work, and makes me feel like I'm making progress. They still have story quests to them. The guilds in Morrowind also had an advantage of offering Ranks. Prestige and a feelings of satisfaction come from Ranks. You improve your rank based on the time and effort you put into the game. Once upon a time, satisfaction from games came from you the player making choices and an investment, and I'm sure there's gamers who crave this today. This form of ranking also gives you milestones and long-term goals. I miss this aspect of games. I suppose it's a design tha doesn't mix well with a game that scales all challenges to the player's level. In case you think this restricts part of the game from casual players, why not make a Casual Mode? Casual mode would allow you to rank up after completing quests only. I fell that Skyrim is missing a faction for players wanting to approach the game as a Cleric build. Your choice of factions are basically Fighter, Thief, Wizard, and Assassin, then Colonist or Imperialist.  You'd think an Elder Scrolls game with a big ass pantheon would offer a religion faction? I suspect a Talos Worshiper faction got cut. It's sounds obvious in hindsight. Try to create factions that suit potential play-styles. There's no bandit outlaw faction I can join and I can't be a guard who serves a city or get special Thane questlines for each hold. There could be a questline for each skill and race; The different categories of magic have their own quests I think.

12. Bring Back Custom Spells
    At the very least, just let me name them! How about some built-in spells with standard spell animations and a library of animation for player created spells? What if spells had a spell tree the same as skills? I have Fireball, but I can invest points into improving it's damage, duration, range, AOE, magicka cost, accuracy, or additional effects. 

13. Design a More Dynamic Game
    Are there too many things in fixed locations that don't have to be? Not really, but maybe the game could stand to be a bit more dynamic. I suppose what I'm complaining about is that every playthrough will always have some stuff in the same place and some stuff that always happens in the same way, what if there was even less of it? Resident Evil 1 allowed players to unlock a new game mode called Arrange Mode where enemies and items were assigned alternate spawn points. Resident Evil 2 had an alternate starting point and alternate path for each character. Resident Evil 3 provided one of two versions of each room, Room A or Room B, to keep you guessing. This changed the game up somewhat making them less predictable, adding replay-ability. Note, they did not rely on RNG to make things wildly random, just A or B.

14. Secret End-Game / Post Game Dungeons
    One thing I definitely miss about older games is a secret dungeon available only later in the game or at the end of the game. I think a game should definitely lock some specific content behind progress. I think the game should consider offering a game-play reward for beating the main story. May I remind you, I've never beaten Skyrim, but I've played more Skyrim than I should have. Earning an achievement is stupid; It's like a merit badge for a scout. I want an actual gameplay reward for playing the game that incentivizes me to actually play the game. A disappointing Post Game is just "Oh, you can keep playing as your character to continue to resolve unresolved quests and stuff. Have you ever thought about making a post-game questline and boss? You defeated Alduin using by essentially using Time Travel. Time Travel always causes something horrible to happen. You looked into an Elder Scroll and gained forbidden knowledge. Some daedra or elder god might be really pissed. Why wouldn't there be some secret ultimate villain behind the main story's major villain who has to react to the hero defeating the major villain? And yes, the secret ultimate villain is so powerful that they make the major villain look like a chump.

15. The Ending Sucks, Do This
    Endings suck and I think know why. You need multiple climaxes to take you steadily down the falling action side of the plot. You can't just go from the climax to the end. If you have only one climax and then watch the final cut scene before the "The End" and credits, it's like going from from 60 to zero. It's like when you're at the bumper car ride and they just turn it off. It's like having all this dopamine in your head and then the game gives you the signal that it's about to be cut off. I think that's what happens when you release all the tension and solve all the mystery at once. I should get to the ending and know something is resolving but I should still feel I'm not out of the woods yet. Once you kill the villain, that's the perfect time for an NPC to say "You didn't think it would be that easy, did you?" Then, give me something to do like escape the self-destruct sequence or race to some goal with a macguffin to do the thing then some minor villain shows up to inconvenience you one last time. Whatever. You want to be careful that the ending doesn't drag, however.

16. All The Dungeons Are The Same
    I can appreciate more dungeons, but they all start to look the same after a while. Many of them are straight lines too with. Maybe it's just the way the dungeons tend to me designed? You've got radiant quests, but you don't have a random dungeon generator? Tell the game to make Dungeon Q. Specify that it has between 20 and 25 rooms. The rooms are between this size and that size. They are connected by halls and/or they are touching. They have no doors, doors, locked doors, secret doors, puzzle doors, etc. There are traps of this and this and this type. They occur at this and that frequency. There are monsters x, y, z, in etc., treasures, textures, random objects, features, etc. I'm pretty sure Daggerfall did that! Oh, and let me "Fast Exit" a dungeon that I clear or if I do not have dangers or obstacles blocking me from the entrance. That way, you don't have to worry about creating a convenient path out or from the ending to the beginning.

17. Bring Back Bosses and Mini-Bosses
    A mini-boss was a boss before the boss, or some kind of mid-point boss or a secret boss behind a hidden door. It was usually weaker than the main boss of a dungeon, but tougher than the standard enemies, and there was a bit of a story to it. The mini-boss could be a warm-up for the main boss and it could be a servant, lieutenant, or champion or the main boss. You know what Skyrim is missing in general? Boss fights. They just have one Bandit Chief in some areas. I don't count dragons anymore. They're big bags of hit points, not bosses. I dunno man, reflecting on boss fights in Skyrim makes me think the only boss fight in Skyrim is Mercer Frey, but it was probably just the way the game decided to scale him to my character's level. Most of my level was from speech, sneaking, lockpicking, and pickpocketing, not fighting, so I died a lot.

18. Monster Hoards
    A hoard of enemies is not a boss fight and should not be presumed to be one ever (Dark Souls 2, you bastard!). That said, a hoard can still be a fun encounter.  I think Skyrim is too concerned with scaling enemies to be equal to the player that they didn't think to halve or quarter it for "Hoard Scaling." Speaking of scaling, Resident Evil 4 would adjust the difficulty dynamically based on how well the player was doing, that way the game was never too easy or too difficult. Capcom has some clever bastards.

19. Award Treasure as You Go; Looting Bodies is not Treasure
    If I go into a dungeon and don't get any loot until one big fancy box as the end, that's lame. Also, looting Randos is not treasure. I would like to state for the record that I think looting bodies is an unheroic way to play a game and is not the only style of play that should be incentivized. Seriously, I can make a bunch of money by exploits or I can kill 10 random people, strip them, and sell 10 sets of armor and weapons to a merchant who should really be asking some fucking questions about where this shit comes from. The RPG formula of primarily providing rewards as dropped loot makes me feel like I have to loot the shit out of everyone and everything and it's tedious and it slows the game down. I know, looting bodies is optional, but I just don't get other satisfying rewards as a good haul to make me feel like I can ignore it. It's a horribly programmed impulse now. You kill something, you search it's pockets. How very heroic. It's not what Luke Skywalker would do.
    What is treasure? It's silver and gold stuff, money, gems, finery and trade goods, art objects, magic stuff, better equipment. Treasure is not a +0 Noobie hide armor of plainness or apples, potatoes, tomatoes. I check all the sacks, barrels, and urns out of a compulsion to be thorough and I think it sucks. I also think it sucks to find potatoes or 3 septums at a time.

20. Voice Acting is Overrated
    I understand why you would have a ton of voice overs, but industry Standards be damned. I'm sure it adds a lot more to the production cost and time of a game. One of the advantages that books have over the movies is that the reader can choose their own voice and even the tone and emphasis for each character. You can even interpret the character differently. Written dialogue is therefore more adaptable to different interpretations. You can also instantly populate a dialogue box with an entire conversation and skip it with two button presses if you've already played this part of the game. To me, the cinematic quality of video games is completely unnecessary. Video Games do not have to have a presentation like a film. Video games are interactive and so have the ability to be their own thing. Also, if all the voice actors start to sound the same, well it's not distracting but I think it's lame. Seriously though, the scripting of all the models in each scene to resemble a move scene in must be arduous and cumbersome for development; fuck it.

21. Secrets Are Fun, Assholes!
    There should be more secret shit (treasure, bonus content) in each dungeon. I don't think Skyrim has any secret shit in any dungeon that you can miss. The skill of the player is controlled for by the design of the dungeon and the build of the character. Unless there's a character build restriction, all players can find all the same shit in every dungeon as long as they're kinda thorough. A character build should not be a universal gatekeeper from secret shit either, like in Fallout where I need a minimum skill to do certain things; that's annoying. Secrets are fun. Figuring the game out is fun. That's part of the appeal of Zelda games.

22. Casual Mode and Hardcore Mode
    I like the idea of being able to play a game casually where the game literally guides me with a radar and map markers and stuff. However, I think disabling these and other quality of life features would make the player have to actually pay attention, keep track of their own shit, and explore without a safety net. Can I at least disable some of these options if I wanted? I don't actually explore, I follow hand-holding directions. Actually, one of my favorite spells in Skyrim is Clairvoyance. It at least makes me feel like I can explore if I want to or I can psychically find what I'm looking for. Maybe make a lot more things work like a magic or psychic power. Teleportation has already been replaced by fast travel; just saying. If you're going to give me a compass with markers that guide me around, maybe you could at least disguise it as a magic item my character gets that I can choose not to use.

23. Character Involvement is One Dimensional
    I don't care about most NPCs and I feel that this is due in part to the developers failing to give me NPCs to care about. My character doesn't really get any sort of personal relationship with any either. There are no mentors like Doctor Emit Brown or villains like Darth Vadar who are consistently a part of the story. NPCs aren't written with drama in mind, they're written to be things that give players quests and items. For most NPCs, once you do your good deed, the developers flip a switch so that the NPC likes you now, and you never get anything new out of that NPC. Maybe take a few pointers from dating sims where your relationship with characters grows over time and new options become available as you make progress. This makes game design more complicated and many players probably still won't care about some NPCs, but I think it's disappointing that once the game flips that "Does the NPC like you?" switch from off to on, that's the end of that NPC. After that, the player doesn't have to work to earn anything from that NPC, and the NPCs usually don't have anything else to offer. If an NPC does have something else to offer later, they're an exception and so the player doesn't expect it and won't seek that exceptional NPC.