#Zendikar #DnD Take 2: new mechanics for a new edition

All right, I got distracted with some Ikoria, before that I passed through some tough D&D 4e nostalgia, but who am I fooling: "fixing" D&D is a titanic task that I can't hope to do by myself (at least not unless they hire me at WotC heheh...) What I CAN do is finally get Zendikar back to the present form of D&D!

In this blog you find tons of material that is marked as for 13th Age (I passed that phase too), but honestly it's perfectly fine for D&D. Icons and relations with icons can first of all not require additional mechanics, and then they can just be implemented with 13th Age mechanics within D&D, no tools required.

What I never properly converted to the new system are the things that need conversion, like races, subclasses, feats, backgrounds etc.
You could say: "Hey Lord, excuse the informal register, but WotC did that already, it's called Planeshift: Zendikar, and it's a free PDF!". And, "Well" - I'd reply - "I believe that document is one of the worst adaptations they could do!" - Because come on, Zendikar is widely different from other settings, and the mechanics have to show it.

When I praised recent design coming out of WotC was few days ago, when they came out with mechanics for Psionics that FINALLY made a good job conveying the flavor of the theme.
This is what I firmly believe: you can have fantastic narrative, world-building, and ideas, but if the mechanics are always the same, the playing experience will be always similar.
A brave new world requires brave new mechanics.

Speaking of this, the first mechanic that I would introduce is actually an add-in, something of a thin layer covering all or most of Zendikar D&D gaming. The ROIL.

Zendikar without the Roil is like Ravenloft without the Mists, or the Forgotten Realms without Drizzt and Elminster. You just can't. And although some types could say that you could easily reskin spells and environmental effects to "represent" the Roil, I don't want to just represent it: I want it to be an integral part of the experience. Something the players will have to think about. Possibly even something to build characters around.

The Roil mechanic I have in mind borrows again from 13th Age, and in particular from its Escalation Die. But only on the surface.
It's meant to be a die that can add randomness, but also some kind of "track". And it's not meant to be just a unified "this is how we do the Roil" thing either: the Roil is a force that manifests differently in every continent, and many times differently within each continent of Zendikar, as I briefly mentioned at the end of my previous post.

So each time there is Roil (spoiler alert - there's ALWAYS Roil on Zendikar, everywhere. It's just not always something visible. Or at least this is my plan for it) there is a particular die that can have different colors, and a different table, depending on the continent it comes from, and the mana involved.

Taking a page from the Psionic Die, this die can change in size, but the typical size is the Zendikarian size per-excellence: the d8, shaped (a bit) like Zendikarian hedrons!
This die is for "real roil", which can escalate to something terrible.
In "lull" conditions, the die is a d4. While in certain specific conditions, the die is a d6 (like the cube hedrons, and this may or may not be related...)

The idea is to have roil specifically tied to hedrons (although this is not canon, but it could be if you know the story) and the shape of hedrons being an indication of particular roil configurations.
This could mean two different scenarios: each die works in its own way (but that's three tables for each of five continents and each with five color variations, might be too much), or they follow the same "track", with the d4 obviously never reaching the "bad" levels of a d6 or the "terrible" levels of a d8.

What I came to prefer, though, is the exact contrary, and this is kind of supported by Rise Of The Eldrazi art: when Hedrons are Octahedrons, things are okay-ish. It's when they reconfigure in cubes that the Roil hits the fan... So it could be cool to have the three tables just for the system to go backwards in size, with the d8 being the most controllable (abilities and effects changing its value by 1 would not be as drastic on a scale of 1 to 8 as on a scale of 1 to 4, obviously), and the d8 would figure more prominently, which could kind of be the signature of the setting. The d4 could actually be 2d4, and symbolize the mess that happens when a hedron gets broken: worse effects, less controllable, and now you have two of them.

In particular, following this latest model which seems to me like the most iconic, the typical situation would be this:

Roil Die: 1d8
1 Reconfiguration to d6 (roll it, rerolling 1)
2 Negative Roil
3 Lull - something
4 Lull
5 Lull
6 Lull + something
7 Roil
8 Roil Storm

Roil Die: 1d6

1 Reconfiguration to 2d4s
2 Weird negative Roil
3 Lull - something weird
4 Lull + something weird
5 Weird Roil
6 Reconfiguration to d8, level 8

Roil Die: 1d4 (the two d4 act separately)

1 Negative Roil Storm
2 Very Negative Roil
3 Roil Storm
4 Dire Roil Storm

Yes, the d4 would  not reconfigure anymore, but they would also not last for long. Possibly a number of turns equal to the number. After which it would reconfigure to... d8 level 4: easy to remember (from d4 to d8 set on 4), and makes sense.

Now, what is positive or negative Roil? I picture it very simply: it can be explosive (positive) or implosive (negative). A sudden geyser, gravitational uplift, awakening water, or vegetation bloom are examples of positive Roil. A quicksand, gravitational pull, whirlpool, or vegetation encroaching are examples of negative Roil. Note that I didn't say vegetation withering: a withering is a Black effect, which would have both positive and negative variants, but it would work kind of counter-intuitively, with explosions being actual creation of ooze, sludge, and decay, and implosions working like anti-blooms: withering concentrically to the point of implosion.

And speaking of points of explosion and implosion, here's the cool thing: the die can be placed directly on the map, as the source of the roil. Note that it could represent a hedron, or not. I would say that having it tied to the hedron would give extra ways of dealing with it (and especially a clear clue on where to tread carefully), while if there is no hedron, the die should be only on the DM's map, revealing itself only when the effect makes it obvious (the lake suddenly balls up in a floating gravity-defying bubble of water: pretty sure that makes the point of origin at the center of the bubble! And it's Blue Negative, d8 set on 2!)

The d6 Roil is cool because it should completely change the way you deal with it. First of all it's more subtle (although it's at the tipping point to the crazy state of d4s), and then it should also be more useful: there's plenty of characters shown manipulating hedron cubes, and while we are talking Roil here and not Hedrons exactly (or necessarily), I think it would be cool if the d6 Roil could lend some power to those who know how to channel it, although it could backfire (Hexaroil now sounds like the best name for it!)
Example: a Black Hexaroil on negative numbers could make a character either cast Hex together with a "Black spell", or suffer it when casting it. On positive, it would probably just deal Necrotic damage straight up, either to the target of a spell and surrounding creatures or to the caster and surrounding creatures.

The continent variants would provide first of all the diversity of colors (according to what I found out, Zendikar's remaining five continents go from 1 to 5 colors, each), and then peculiar effects, especially on positive. A Roil Storm in Ondu (where Roil tends to be circular) would be something like a hurricane, with a very calm eye of the storm in the middle, while in Akoum, (where Roil comes from the earth), it would be lava geysers erupting everywhere with or without an associated vegetation bloom, depending on the presence of Green mana.

Lullmages, a very common mage in Zendikar, so much so that I would make it a feat accessible to everyone with Arcana proficiency, would have the power of stabilizing the Roil die, bringing it to middle values in case of d8s and d6s, or reducing the duration of whatever mess the d4s are.

Merfolk instead could ride the currents of some Roil settings gaining the ability to fly, and could possibly have the racial power of making the die go closer to those settings they prefer (possibly of mild to medium Roil, most probably positive.

An actual Roil Mage, a Wizard specialized in this stuff, or a Roil Soul Sorcerer, could instead be aiming at changing the d8s to d6s, so that they can use the Roil to power spells. This could of course result in a mess happening, before they manage, and even more probably after they manage.

I better stop here, because anyway I am not going to create all the tables here and now: this is just a pitch, and possibly a more complete take would be my Z post for the RPG Blog Carnival of my friend Gonzalo!