Solanyt, the #Simic and #Dimir winged elf assassin, from #DnDNext to #13thAge

I had already written before of how I consider 13th Age the perfect system to play in Ravnica, but I had questioned the feasibility of it in representing my Solanyt character.

The expansion book 13 True Ways will bring multiclassing, thus making it really easy to build the Solanyt I want, but even before laying my sticky fingers (or sticky cursor) over the new product, Wade Rockett provided me with very useful suggestions to build the character using the core system, just tooling around a bit!

So let's go through character creation, following the book step by step.

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The Ranger that #DnD never gave me. A #DnDNext wanna-be post.

There are a few D&D classes I always rant about. Basically all the "not-big-4" classes. That is, everything that is not Fighter, Cleric, Wizard, or Rogue.

The idea that all other classes should be derived from these is a common "political alignment" in the D&D community, and it's a nasty confusion in and by itself. Because one thing is saying that classes should all be classifiable in those 4 big groups, which would make it easy, for example to have mechanics such as feats or things such as magic items apply to whole groups of classes, like all spellcasters, all scoundrel etc; another thing is to say all classes are technically a combination of those 4, and at that point can very well be sub-classes. You know, I agree: if they are a combination of features from those 4, definitely make them subclasses. Or even more rationally, (p)re-packaged multiclass characters, for those that really don't like to manually multiclass.

The big problem is very simple: all of this comes out of one seldom-recognized mistake: wanting to recreate the "hybrid classes", such as the Ranger, in every edition so that they resemble the first incarnation of the class. You might say "But it's tradition of the game, it's a classic". And I say: "Sure, the Ranger is a tradition and a classic. But is its class advancement table also that??".
My point is that for a class to respect its own tradition and classicism (pun not intended), the mechanics need not to be the same.

Ranger by BBeaton

ABU HELL - Auras

- "Mom, mom!"
- "What's up, baby?"
It took a few seconds for Ryan to reply.
- "Look outside!"
- "The clouds?"
- "The... Birds."
- "Where are they, Ryan?"
- "... There... No, th... There..."
- "I can't see anything, honey, are you playing with me?"
She was still in a good mood, although something in the way the kid was talking was a bit unsettling.
- "..."
- "Ryan?"
- "..."
- "Oh my God, Ryan..!!"

At the special training, they were quite specific: treat the stratospheric ascent as a normal take-off, and avoid walking in the cabin, unless extremely necessary. But the attendant calls were sounding like crazy, and a handful of people, especially moms, were also calling outloud. Some directly for help.
After purser and flight deck approval, the crew began walking, not without difficulty, around the cabin, to see what was going on. Many kids were having strange symptoms. Their muscles were extremely tense, breathing was powerful but rare, eyes unblinking, very difficult to move, especially neck and head.

ABU HELL - Flight FZ001

Early morning. A very well known aerospace hub. February. Already 27 degrees Celsius.

The immense, shining-new, world-record-breaker airliner is taxing towards the runway for its very first flight with passengers. It's a historical day for the company. And for aviation.

Three thousand passengers distributed on 3 decks. There's no economy class. There is a lower class but it's not called economy. It's either Silver, Gold, or Platinum.
And to accommodate the changes and underline even more the already apparent will to separate this beast from the other aircrafts of the company, a new sub-company's flag is on it. "FAZL". Strange name. Apparently a possible transcription of Arabic for "grace, generosity".
Some strange marketing decision, along the one of painting the whole aircraft red, leaving only tail and part of the wings white. Some said it looked cheap, others appreciated the pioneering vision of it.

The aircraft seems too big even for the airport, literally. It towers over the terminals. A new one is in construction, but making the first flight was a priority. Insiders opinions are divided. Some say things were rushed, others say an unprecedented amount of work and care has been put into the whole thing.

Crunchy Bits: New, #Zendikar themed, Rogue and Barbarian #DnDNext Subclasses!

Yes, I got inspired again. Yes it's gonna be crunchy bits, this time!

Zendikar's under my spotlight again. A fellow Italian player wants to D&D-ize the setting using 3.5-PF rules (no surprise: no 4e or Next fans in Italy!), so he contacted me, having seen my previous work on the setting, which can now be found here: http://community.wizards.com/group/zendikar-dd-campaign-setting

Ravnica would also be an evergreen and although none of the two are the latest setting MtG has touched, seeing the latest setting only makes me want to think about the old ones and eventually what's coming next..! Seriously, a setting based on a B- movie (Clash of The Titans), certified B- by seriously awful metacritic scores. And it's even graphically inspired by it, completely. The artwork is even good to the eye, but when the brain connects to the eye... Oh my God(s)... </rant>

However, I decided to focus on Zendikar because its adventuring theme makes it effortless to come up with D&D material for it!

So here we are, trying to design some new stuff for Next, waiting for the crunchy bits to come from Wizards itself...

World-building for #dndnext again, in #13thAge style!

So 13th Age, as you may have read, revolutionized my way of looking at fantasy settings and cooperative storytelling within them.

The concept of Icons intended as powers that have clear (or murky, but definedly so) relationships with each other, and with which the player characters can have in their turn defined relationships with, kind of stated the obvious about world-building, but in a "why haven't I thought it before" kind of way.

My own "infinite project" named World of Cthon started as an alternative cosmology for D&D. The key idea was putting all the planes of existence inside a single material world, with defined spatial and temporal relationships with each other. That is to say: Heaven is a place on earth. And Hell too.
Such a "pocket-size" cosmology naturally implies an "assumed setting". That is, it's not just a guideline regarding planes, but it strongly suggests a story, and stories have characters.
The most influential of these characters are the three major families of gods of Cthon, that are beings sometimes defined as godly, sometimes not, throughout the whole history of D&D (if keeping the original D&D flavor).
In what I wanted to be a heads-up to real anthropology, the three families of gods represent/define three periods of time.

#13thAge is Awesome! Plus my #Ravnica #dndnext character in 13th Age

With this very self-explanatory title, I basically gave you my personal review of Heinsoo and Tweet's great "advanced D&D vision" that is 13th Age.

Two things in particular blew my mind, and they're the elements that are advanced in the field of story-telling devices that the game offers to both players and GMs.
Backgrounds and Icons.