Mike Selinker's page

I wrote a thing about the day my friends and I released D&D 3E. Thought folks here might like it.

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Happy 25th birthday, D&D 3E

It’s August 10, 2000. I’m walking toward the seminar room at Gen Con, flanked by the best designers of Dungeons & Dragons ever. I hold a sheaf of 100 photocopied chapters in my hands. In each of these 12-page documents, Monte Cook has written one of the finest pieces of writing in D&D’s history, Chapter 1 of the new Dungeon Master’s Guide. It tells prospective DMs how to craft campaigns that sing, just like Monte’s. I expect the 50 people attending my two-hour seminar will like them. I made a few extra just in case people want one for their friends at home.

This seminar is the preview of the DMG, which comes out next month. I’m the least senior of the four creative directors on the 3rd Edition relaunch, helping to mold the work of the best game design team I’ve ever seen. Mostly I’m getting out of their way. They know what they’re doing. But hey, I’m one of the better public speakers on the team, and I’ve been running 50-person seminars at Gen Con for a long time, so I’m leading the panel.

As I arrive at the room, the youngest member of our team comes running up, breathless. He says there are more people outside than I expected.

How many, I ask.

“About 700,” he says.

I hand him my corporate AmEx. “Three blocks over on Monument Circle there’s a Kinko’s. You have 1 hour and 55 minutes to get back here with 800 copies. I will buy you a steak dinner at Morton’s if you make it.”

He gets the steak. Eight hundred people see the possibilities in what my talented colleagues have brought to the page. And we see how many people want us to succeed with those possibilities. The Player’s Handbook sells out, the highest selling book ever released at Gen Con. Three booths have the first products created under the groundbreaking d20 License. They sell out too. Everything we do sells out.

The best thing to ever hit the game industry launches on that day, 25 years ago. I had a little part in making it happen. That makes me happy, even to this day. And I still have my Player’s Handbook embossed with my name in gold leaf. It’s never leaving my house.

D&D still had some evolution left in it. It’s now the most telegenic game on the planet, played in the world’s biggest basketball stadiums. It’s digitally savvy. It’s got *good* movies now. It has evolved and morphed in Wizards of the Coast’s hands, all for the better. But at the start of that day, we didn’t know that was possible. Then we did.

Happy 25th birthday, 3rd Edition D&D. You did good.

Mike

I had fun with the flavor text on this dude.

I would like to state for the record that I am not the model for the skittergoblin deckcutter.

Thanks so much to Mike and all the Sharks for doing this!

<hat tip>

Thanks! One bit of advice: Leave the rulebook in the box and download the Living Breathing Rulebook from our Apocrypha website. We released it a year later based on lots of customer feedback.

I normally don't talk about Lone Shark's other stuff here, as this is a PACG forum. But I figured it'd be okay to link to a post I made about Lone Shark's "Save Our Sanity" offer in light of the coronavirus affecting us here in Seattle and around the world. You might find some things you might enjoy, especially if you're in a state of home care during this pandemic.

Thanks for playing our games!

Congrats, all!

But to be clear, we didn't say no one at Lone Shark had completed Core on Legendary difficulty.

While I can't yet say anything about how our discussions are going here, I would like to say that we all appreciate these comments and are taking all of them to heart.

Would you mind spelling out which ones you think have not been addressed?

I just realized that nowhere does this blog post say that Adventurer's packs will be sold as standalone products. I just assumed that would be the progression, hence these thoughts.

We have no intention of selling them as standalone products. However, it wouldn't surprise me to see multiple players "go in together" on single sets of Core and Curse.

Based on comments here in this thread, here are a few more changes we're planning to make.

• Alchemy level 0 Weapons changes "Sword" to "Sword Cane".
• Arcane level 2 Items changes "Gem of Mental Acuity" to "Circlet of Mental Acuity".

Our matrix had two copies of each of the six level 2 evil blessings from Core, where it should have only one of each. This made Arcane, Divine, Occult, and Tank get 54 cards where the other six packs have 53. The following changes will bring all packs to 53 cards.

• Remove Rovagug's Destruction from Alchemy. (This deletes the level 2 blessing line.)
• Add The Publican between The Lost and The Sickness at Blessings 1 to Alchemy.
• Remove The Publican from Arcane.
• Remove Asmodeus's Tyranny from Divine.
• Remove Norgorber's Shadow from Finesse. (This deletes the level 2 blessing line.)
• Add Blackjack's Rapier at the start of Weapons 3 to Finesse.
• Remove Lamashtu's Madness and Zon-Kuthon's Pain from Occult. (This deletes the level 2 blessing line.)
• Add Bound Homunculus at the start of Allies 2 to Occult.
• Remove Urgathoa's Gluttony from Tank. (This deletes the level 2 blessing line.)

There are a couple of other small non-functional changes as well. As always, if you see anything else you think needs to change, let us know.

Mike

Zellara's Harrow Deck is pictured with the Occult Pack but isn't in the list. Since it's Loot I'm guessing it's not supposed to be in the pack but wanted to confirm.

I don't see any reason that cards with the Loot trait shouldn't be in the packs. If you run across a card you already have during play, then you already have it.

All of the comments above are quite helpful. It took quite the matrix to make this, so it's not surprising that it got a little borked in the transfer to the web. We'll get it all cleaned up soon.

One consequence of releasing two sets with 50+ scenarios and an OP adventure path on the same day is that it puts a long delay between that and the next time we're able to talk about future plans. We asked Paizo for a break after Core/Curse to evaluate what we are seeing in the player base and they were kind enough to grant it. When we have more to say about our future plans, you'll see it here first.

Yup. Sorry, didn't realize this was a pre-Core version comment. We noticed that possibility and decided it needed to be busted down in Curse.

I remember our discussion about this at the time. Someone (likely Chad) said "But couldn't this..." and I said "Tell me why winning with a bunch of plunder on the first turn is bad, exactly." We were all on board with the idea that anyone who pulled this crazy trick off just deserved to sail home with a hold fulla loots.

Just curious: Are you planning to empty your deck to make sure you get those two Fortune-Tellers back in your hand each turn? Because if so, good luck with that.

I am really, really sorry I didn't make it to the Organized Play sessions this year. Just too slammed with my panels and booth. Next time!

If I can ask, why the Curse of Tongue for her?

There's a point in Chris Jackson's novel Pirate's Prophecy where Celeste loses her ability to speak normally and understand people in combat.

“Rally!” he called out in encouragement. “We’ve got to take the quarterdeck!”

Celeste shouted something unintelligible, but her tone bespoke urgency.
“I can’t understand a word you’re saying, Celeste!” Had the wizard gotten off a spell to tangle her tongue? Torius swallowed his worry for her and slashed to drive the enemy back.

Later she figures out why, and it's kind of a pivotal element of the novel, so I probably shouldn't spoil it. I recommend picking up Pirate's Prophecy and finding out why.

I would like to learn that!

I made the very same arguments while working on Core.

(My suggested terms:
Retain them into a retention pile; deal with them during retention.
Bank them into a bank; deal with them during banking.
Suspend them into a suspension pile; deal with them during suspension.
Defer them into a deferment pile; deal with them during deferment.
Expend them into an expended pile or a recovery pile; deal with them during recovery.
Deplete them into a depleted pile or a recovery pile; deal with them during recovery.
Consume them into a consumed pile or a recovery pile; deal with them during recovery.
Spend them into a spent pile; deal with them during recovery.)

I even proposed eliminating the word "banish" altogether, introducing the verb "vault" to mean "put into the vault."

But while those solutions might make sense in a wholly new edition in which we didn't care about the usability of older cards, this isn't that.

I believe I said at the time, "I agree with every word you said, and no, we can't do that."

Before anyone asks: No, you can't search for "V1" or "A2." Treat those as if they're part of the card name.

Here's my latest:
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Blood Letters
by Mike Selinker
I'm not a vampire per se. More of a blood-drinker. Vampires have fangs. I didn't get so lucky. In fact, these loosey-goosey dentures really aren't helping matters.

Ten years ago, we did NaNoWriMi—National Novel Writing Minute—on this forum for the first time. Wanna do it again? If so, write as much of a novel as you can in one minute, then post it here. If you do, I will give you high praise and validation!

Rules and example from ten years ago:

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Yes, you read that correctly. I wanted to do something to show solidarity with my NaNoWriMo friends, so I invented “NaNoWriMi.” You see how much of a novel you can write in a minute (hence the “Mi”), and then you abandon it forever. 1, 2, 3, go…

My "Novel Zero" was this:

Last Moon at Aggathor
by Mike Selinker
Today I am a man, thought Redclaw. I can give up enough of myself to make the change, day or night. The greater acommplishemnt is retaining enough of myself to change back.

Yes, that's how I spelled "accomplishment." You think I'm wasting precious seconds on spellchecking? I've concluded that the rule "You can finish your last sentence, but for God's sakes, be quick about it" may need to exist, but most people seem to get somewhere with 60 seconds from conception to (a sort of) conclusion.

Anyway, it's kinda taken off on my Facebook page ("novels" by Jason Bulmahn, Owen Stephens, Miranda Horner, and more), so I figured folks here might like in. I'll probably collect them somewhere afterward. Anybody want to climb on board the NaNoWriMi Express?

Mike

Yeah, I just would not stop yelling "Wolverines!"

I will be there! I first went to U-Con like 25 years ago, and I'm excited to return!

Shannon: Don't forget the four Goblins from We Be Heroes!

Speaking of which, how would replaying scenario 1A work at this point? Would we need to rebuild the vault for it, in which case getting the sword is impossible, or are we allowed to run it using the current vault? Reading through the rules I only found something that said that we’re allowed to replay old scenarios, not how to do it.

Just like any other scenario. You don't have to rebuild the vault. However, if you've already gotten the reward for that scenario, you can't get it again.

I imagine that what we'd do in this case is kind of like what we'd do with the ally Ayruzi in Rise of the Runelords 6: move some of the check dynamics out of the check boxes. So something like

COMBAT 20
or
DIPLOMACY 12
If you succeed at the combat check to defeat, attempt a Combat 20 check to defeat. If you succeed, it is defeated; if not, it is undefeated.

or

COMBAT 20
then
COMBAT 20
Instead of defeating this card normally, you may attempt a Diplomacy 12 check to defeat. If you succeed, defeat this card; if not, it is undefeated

Maybe.

I'm not aware of any time we've tried to do that.

A simple way to keep these useful is to draw a random Harrow blessing from the vault at the start of the adventure (or whenever you acquire the spell) and define it as the harrow suit for the purposes of these spells only.

As far as I know, you are the only person outside of our office who has reported back playing every scenario in Apocrypha. Congrats!

Correct.

It seems to have left the front page in the revision, but you can find a blog version of it here. This was written before Core, so it likely needs some updating.

Give us your plague-free heroes! Specifically we want a snapshot of what your characters look like after they took on the last challenge in Curse of the Crimson Throne. (That is, you've completed Scenario 6D: Legacy of Blood or Scenario 7A: The Inevitable Betrayal.)

Please respond to this thread with a full feat and deck list of any characters that fit the above description (and only that description!), in very specifically the following format.

Character Name: (name)
Role Card: (role)
Skill Feats: (skill)+(X), (skill)+(X), etc.
Power Feats: +(X) hand size, (added proficiencies), (other feats)
Card Feats: (type)+(X), (type)+(X), etc.
Unspent Hero Points: (X)
Weapons: (card), (card), etc.
Spells: (card), (card), etc.
Armors: (card), (card), etc.
Items: (card), (card), etc.
Allies: (card), (card), etc.
Blessings: (card), (card), etc.

Please don't skip or add any lines; if you don't have any of something, just leave the part after the colon blank. Include loot cards under their card type, please. Also, if your character died, let us know that.

Thanks to all saviors of Korvosa!

Mike

Mike Selinker wrote:

I think this rule should just be "You look at a location and decide what traits it should have if you care about them."

This is just how you become one of the best Game Creator in the world. I owe you a bottle of Gewurtztraminer for this one.

Late harvest Alsace, please.

Thanks for the reminder!

I think this rule should just be "You look at a location and decide what traits it should have if you care about them."

Complete side note, I love the "acquire a Magic card" phrasing of Ezren's power because now I can joke about buying a booster pack for an extra explore. ;)

In development, this absolutely was a stated argument against the "an X card" phrasing, but we were like ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.

Another common one was "a Giant monster," which we had to stress did not include the Giant Fly.

On a second glance, Mavaro looks fine as is. He should have the proficiencies to start, and then only later (on the Channeler role) gain the skills. So at the start he can attempt recovery checks but won't be very good at them unless he uses his skill-gaining power.

Original wrote:

After you play a spell that has the Arcane trait for its power, you may draw a random spell from the box that does not have an adventure deck number and has the Arcane trait and recharge it.

We've updated it to:

Updated wrote:

After you play an Arcane spell for its power, recharge a new Arcane spell that is level #–2 or lower (minimum 0).

The concerns I brought up earlier:

Me whining wrote:

I added "...you may..." to the power, though this is one area where we should probably leave it out. Thematically, Flenta is a fighter posing as a wizard, so she doesn't have the Arcane proficiency and doesn't recharge spells. She simply casts spells (reading from scrolls?) and then gets new ones (presumably from some vast store of simple scrolls). Putting "...you may..." in the power would severely limit her.

Right. When we put that in the Conversion Guide, we did not intend it to be optional. The Conversion Guide is correct.

Yeah, I'd say that's any of her checks (and no one else's). By the way, we still use "the X trait" when describing a trait. So "any of your checks to defeat has the Swashbuckling trait" is more accurate.

It's possible I was looking at the wrong Flenta power. Which one do you mean?

Vic hasn't weighed in on the potential FAQ change to Koren, so I'd hold off on that.

Addressing these issues:
1. Noted. We’ll talk about it.
2. I would say all should get "Closing your location does not prevent you from exploring” per Core Amiri. We will have to look at adding that to the Conversion FAQ.
3. I would not do that.
4. Harsk should not get guard.
5. We’ll have to discuss that.
6. We’ll figure that out in our discussion on Mavaro.
7. I don’t follow this one.
8. That sure isn’t easy.
9. The Mindchemist feats should be retained.
10 and 11. Already addressed.
12. Flenta should not get a “you may.”
13. I’m fine with Poog getting “reload.” Up to Vic whether that gets added to the Conversion FAQ.
14. This sounds like it needs a fix to the FAQ.
15. You can split that power up.
16. I don’t follow this one.
17. That’ll need to be fixed by CD FAQ.
18. I don’t see a need for a change here.
19. I’m fine with this getting reload as well. Up to Vic on whether it’s added to the FAQ.
20. We’re still talking about this.
21. I think we’re still talking about what happens with temporary gains, but I'm not sure.
22. Include the power feats.
23. An update is coming on this.

I wouldn't have interrupted you for a bone-in filet at Harry and Izzy's.

I believe the answer to both of those is yes, so Kasmir may need some help.

I have described this situation at least 20 times since Gen Con. It was a wonder to watch.

That said, I seem to remember a Paizo/Lone Shark person stating way back that they used "she" in the male character powers, and "he" - in female's - ostensibly so they avoid confusion if the character is targeting someone else of him/her/themselves :)

In the core sets, that's true. But we were inconsistent. Reiko, Nyctessa, and Zelhara are some characters that broke that rule, likely because we forgot the rule occasionally.

The singular they is a subject of great debate at the Lone Shark office. Everyone agrees with it philosophically, but the wording is sometimes very awkward. A lot depends on how you feel about the "word" themself. So we try to avoid constructions that lead us down these strange and unfamiliar passages.

Corrected—now he's an investor instigator alligator Eskimo investigator again.

Wow, I cannot be trusted with anything.

The two main takeaways I got from this blog are that:

* We're not going to see a Jade Regent AP any time soon (though that may be relative to when the Ultimate Add-On Decks were conceived, so it might be more soon).

This seems likely. Mostly, we have a lot of ideas we'd prefer to do first. But the positive side is that the Core+ format allows us to make Adventure Paths of pretty much any size, so depending on Paizo's interest level in Jade Regent (or anything else), we can now do it a lot easier than we could have. Still, Hayato and Reiko's appearances in Ultimates, plus all of their Eastern-inspired gear, whetted our whistles for Jade Regent for a while.

We're not going to see dedicated Class Decks for the classes that don't yet have them.

This is less clear. We haven't really evaluated whether we're going to do more Class Decks. We are watching the RPG line to see which characters get revived in PF2 and what they look like. Both Valeros and Harsk changed enough in their weapon/armor choices that we will want to make sure we get any new versions of characters right in line with the RPG designers' thoughts.

The back of your character lists your favored card; if it gives you a choice, choose 1 for the scenario before drawing.