Let's Read ACKS Core at RPG.net

There's a [Let's Read] ACKS Core happening at RPG.net by one of our forum members. Find it here: https://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?802789-Let-s-Read-ACKS-Core-Rulebook

 

 

can someone give me a quick summary of how these "Let's read" things work? I've always seen them, but never understood how they worked.

It's kinda like a long-form review, as far as I can tell, but literally going page-by-page, generally.

Interesting bits are picked out and commented on, and folks following the thread can ask questions or (for those that know the product) contribute.

I don't want to mess with my reputation as a controversial iconoclast over on RPG.net (I'm like the Orson Scott Card of tabletop gaming over there) so I will address interesting points that get brought up, over here.

  • The introductory story was written by Greg Tito, based on actual play of the Auran Empire campaign. He was one of the campaign's players. The introductory explanations in the story were written by Tavis Allison. That section is the only part of the book which I didn't write.
  • The reason that a sentient sword is in the introductory fiction is that the adventurers found the sentient sword of the founder of Aura during the campaign. It was a major plot point. 
  • Inthorn can now be found in Lairs & Encounters under Men, Brigands. You'll see that he's a former Auran vet who has been corrupted by a helm of alignment change. 

 

 

 

At the risk of stirring up things I wasn't aware of: do you think Tavis and Greg will ever contribute to ACKs again?  I got to see Greg on a panel at Pax East shortly after I got the core rulebook, and Tavis ran some fun one-shots at GenCon one year.  I assume they're both much more focused on their day jobs. 

[quote="Jard"]

At the risk of stirring up things I wasn't aware of: do you think Tavis and Greg will ever contribute to ACKs again?  I got to see Greg on a panel at Pax East shortly after I got the core rulebook, and Tavis ran some fun one-shots at GenCon one year.  I assume they're both much more focused on their day jobs. 

[/quote]

Greg Tito and I had some professional matters come between our friendship, and it ended badly. It wasn't Gary-Dave bad, but it was bad enough that, while we both did our best to make peace, we aren't likely to ever work together again. He remains an avid tabletop gamer and is working for Wizards of the Coast these days, however, and I'm sure he would be happy for more Twitter followers and so on.   

Tavis Allison and I remain on good terms, but his interest in tabletop gaming considerably diminished after Dwimmermount. He is now focused more heavily on his career and family and just sold back his remaining stock in Autarch. So it's unlikely that he'll write for us again, either. You will see him pop up in crowdfunding circles soon with some interesting new projects. 

 

 

 

 

Thanks for the insight, man! Do you mind if I copy paste your answers over there, or better yet, you could post in the thread if you’d like!

[quote="thirdkingdom"]

I don't want to mess with my reputation as a controversial iconoclast over on RPG.net (I'm like the Orson Scott Card of tabletop gaming over there) so I will address interesting points that get brought up, over here.

  • The introductory story was written by Greg Tito, based on actual play of the Auran Empire campaign. He was one of the campaign's players. The introductory explanations in the story were written by Tavis Allison. That section is the only part of the book which I didn't write.
  • The reason that a sentient sword is in the introductory fiction is that the adventurers found the sentient sword of the founder of Aura during the campaign. It was a major plot point. 
  • Inthorn can now be found in Lairs & Encounters under Men, Brigands. You'll see that he's a former Auran vet who has been corrupted by a helm of alignment change. 

 

 

 


-Alex

Thanks for the insight, man! Do you mind if I copy paste your answers over there, or better yet, you could post in the thread if you'd like! [/quote]

Your post on RPG.net was quite correct that I am controversial there, and I don't want to distract from your most-excellent readthrough. It would be best for you to post it. I'll continue to chime in from afar when I have further color!

 

Firstly, you've always seemed like a decent dude to me and I respect the fact that, while we may have different political leanings, you've always been nothing less than respectful and generous to people posting here, and that you defend your positions with interity and calmness (comparing yourself to OSC is unfair to you, BTW).  Secondly, do you have any insight into this question that was just asked (at least, as it applies to your design decisions with ACKS):

I've never particularly understood why proficiency throws and savings throws are static numbers unaffected by attribute scores. While I get that it's a throwback to B/X or 1e, it's always seemed peculiar to me after 3e and even more modern systems that an L4 Thief with an 18 DEX and another with a 9 DEX will have the exact chance on thieving abilities, or that two people with a Knowledge skill will have the same chance of success regardless of INT, etc.

Thanks for pointing this out. I normally avoid rpg.net now but this will be worthing reading. So one thing I noticed that was pointed out about ACKS core is it was mentioned that characters shouldn't rise in more than one level in a game month I don't remember reading that. Can someone point that out to me in the rulebook?

[quote="bestial warlust"]

Thanks for pointing this out. I normally avoid rpg.net now but this will be worthing reading. So one thing I noticed that was pointed out about ACKS core is it was mentioned that characters shouldn't rise in more than one level in a game month I don't remember reading that. Can someone point that out to me in the rulebook?

[/quote]

 

that confused me too and i'm not sure that's correct.  The closest thing I can think of is the confluence of two general assumptions:

1) it's generally assumed players will CHOOSE to adventure about once a month due to various game mechanics like domain growth and downtime

2) on a given return from an adventure, it's not possible to gain more than 1 level at a time.  If you would gain more than 2 levels, you stop at 1XP less than the amount needed to reach the 2nd new level.

 

edit: I feel you on avoiding RPG.net too.  The few times I've gone there and looked at the forums I usually pull an eye muscle from rolling on the topic titles alone.

[quote="Jard"]

 

 

Thanks for pointing this out. I normally avoid rpg.net now but this will be worthing reading. So one thing I noticed that was pointed out about ACKS core is it was mentioned that characters shouldn't rise in more than one level in a game month I don't remember reading that. Can someone point that out to me in the rulebook?

 


-bestial warlust

 

 

that confused me too and i'm not sure that's correct.  The closest thing I can think of is the confluence of two general assumptions:

1) it's generally assumed players will CHOOSE to adventure about once a month due to various game mechanics like domain growth and downtime

2) on a given return from an adventure, it's not possible to gain more than 1 level at a time.  If you would gain more than 2 levels, you stop at 1XP less than the amount needed to reach the 2nd new level.

 

edit: I feel you on avoiding RPG.net too.  The few times I've gone there and looked at the forums I usually pull an eye muscle from rolling on the topic titles alone.

[/quote]

 

Actually, I just realised that I am wrong.  The passage I am referring to is *Campaign XP*, not general XP, on p. 146; characters may not advance two or more levels per month from Campaign XP.  Huh.  I read that ages ago and it got stuck in my head that it referred to all types of XP.

[quote="thirdkingdom"]

Firstly, you've always seemed like a decent dude to me and I respect the fact that, while we may have different political leanings, you've always been nothing less than respectful and generous to people posting here, and that you defend your positions with interity and calmness (comparing yourself to OSC is unfair to you, BTW).  Secondly, do you have any insight into this question that was just asked (at least, as it applies to your design decisions with ACKS):

I've never particularly understood why proficiency throws and savings throws are static numbers unaffected by attribute scores. While I get that it's a throwback to B/X or 1e, it's always seemed peculiar to me after 3e and even more modern systems that an L4 Thief with an 18 DEX and another with a 9 DEX will have the exact chance on thieving abilities, or that two people with a Knowledge skill will have the same chance of success regardless of INT, etc.

[/quote]

Thanks for the kind words. Likewise, I appreciate the generous goodwill you and others extend herein. And obviously I appreciate you doing this in-depth read through. It's actually quite exciting as a designer to see it unfold!

Now, on to your question. It was a deliberate decision, not just a throwback to B/X, but it's one I find myself changing my opinion on over time.

Let's acknowledge that the prevailing trend in modern design has been to make ability scores more important and class-and-level-based modifiers less important. 5E follows this to its logical conclusion with bounded accuracy for level-based bonuses and constant increases to ability scores over time. A 1st level thief with 16 DEX will move silently at +5 (+2 from proficiency, +3 from DEX). By 14th level with 18 DEX, he will sneak at +8 (+5 from proficiency, +4 from DEX). Thus the change is only 3 points in 13 levels, and ability score ranges from 80% to 120% of level-and-class based modifier throughout. If that same thief had DEX 10, he would sneak at +2 and +5 -- e.g. the average DEX thief at 14th level is only as good as a high school athlete (DEX 16 is only in the top 10% or so). Ability scores in 5E are absolutely crucial!!!

ACKS bucks the trend and makes level-based modifiers more important and ability scores less important. In ACKs, a 1st level thief will sneak at 17+ and a 14th level thief at 1+, a swing of 16 points - unrelated to ability score. This is a stunning difference in design outcome for two similar games. 

So the first question we have to ask is: Why does ACKS deliberately keep ability scores less important than they are in modern games? 

Part of the answer is thematic. The theme of the game is Adventurer - Conqueror - King. It is a game of becoming. It is a game of common men and women who rise to greatness. Aesthetically, then, an over-emphasis on ability scores would  sends the wrong message about the theme of ACKS.

Part of the answer is aesthetic. It feels good to allow sub-optimal characters a mechanical opportunity to thrive. There are certainly human beings born with the greatest gifts in their field, and they show up in fantasy - Aragorn, Conan, etc - and in history. But there others who succeed despite the seeming deficit of talents. By making ability scores less important, it keeps characters randomly generated with fairly average ability scores quite playable. That, in turn, means that there is a greater diversity of the type of characters that can be effective to play. You can play a shaman with high STR and average WIS, or a thief with moderate DEX but great CHA, etc.  Or, to use specific examples, in ACKS, it's easier to play someone like Taurus, the obese prince of thieves from Tower of the Elephant who nevertheless was a skilled climber and silent mover despite certainly not having a 16-18 DEX. Or Vincent, from Gattaca, who is inferior to his brother in every genetic measure, but the better man nonetheless. Or Audie Murphy, the hero of World War II, who was turned down four times for being too skinny to be a soldier. 

These two answers, however, don't fully respond to the question. Since ACKS provides generous benefits from leveling, the modest ability score modifiers would not necessarily swamp the value of training. A 14th level thief with DEX 9 would still be 1+, while a 1st level thief with DEX 18 would be 14+, so it's still a tremendous difference. Moreover, ACKS does allow ability score modifiers to apply some of the time, such as in to hit rolls, damage rolls, AC, initiative, open doors checks, and so on, so the answer is over-explanatory in that it suggests other parts of the game are designed wrong. 

The next layer of the answer is that ACKS was deliberately structured so that some classes are more impacted by ability scores than others. Fighters, for instance, have all of their important game mechanics affected by their ability scores - to hit, damage, AC, hit points. Clerics, on the other hand, have virtually none of their class effecs impacted - turn undead, divine repertoire, and divine spells per day aren't affected by Wisdom. Mages and thieves are in between. This, again, allows for a much wider variety of fun, playable characters.

However, over time I've come to feel that this latter choice wasn't necessarily a good one. Among other things, it has lead to Wisdom being a dump-stat in ACKS, and it has created an ugly asymmetry in that some target values that improve over time are affected by ability score modifiers (attack throws, magic research throws) while others are not. 

In my most recent home campaigns, I have had the Wisdom ability score modifier apply to ALL saving throws. In the Heroic Fantasy Handbook, where the emphasis is on more heroic characters, I have been toying with the idea of offering some rules to incorporate more ability score modifiers on rolls.

Finally, this wouldn't be an ACKS essay without mention of simulation. It is an open question within the field of human achievement how much talent matters and how much training matters. As far as I can gather (and I've read a lot, though not by any means exhaustively) the current findings are: (a) a minimum floor of talent needed to pursue training at all, (b) very high returns from talent early on with a point of diminishing returns and (c) continuous improvement from training over time  IF training is properly done with feedback from failure. So for instance older surgeons are typically better than younger surgeons, even though the latter have nimbler fingers, because the older surgeons' fingers are *nimble enough* and they have years of training. And I think ACKS' approach models these realities quite well. Games like Cyberpunk 2020 or 5E, where half the bonus is from ability scores, get it wrong; talent is not half the battle. Talent lets you train better, faster, and to higher aptitudes, but training and practice is what matters.

Character classes have prime requisites that set a minimum floor. Characters get a bonus to XP from high prime requisites to represent the higher return from talent. And characters get a bonus to starting proficiencies from high INT. I suppose if one wanted to be really realistic, probably the best way to handle it would be to have ability scores determine the speed at which leveling of skills occurs on a skill-by-skill basis, but that's more crunchy than ACKS can handle, and probably more crunchy than anyone would want.

In regards to your concern about Wisdom becoming a dump stat I have found that having Wisdom affect ALL saving throws has minimized that. The bonus to all saving throws has encouraged players to keep any 13+ Wisdom scores they have.

[quote="wmarshal"]

In regards to your concern about Wisdom becoming a dump stat I have found that having Wisdom affect ALL saving throws has minimized that. The bonus to all saving throws has encouraged players to keep any 13+ Wisdom scores they have.

[/quote]

 

I'm not so sure I would give an across the board bonus to Saves based off the Wisdom modifier.  I think if I were to adapt something similar I would allow the player to divide up the Wisdom modifier as desired between the different Saves; so a character with a Wisdom modifier of +2 could gain a +1 bonus to two Saves.  I'd probably also allow clerics to apply the lump sum bonus to a single save, instead of having to spread it out, to represent the favors of the gods (it woud also make sense, frex, for the follower of, say, a god of thieves, or one with a snake theme, to get a significant bonus to saves against poisons).

The issue of insufficient numbers of general proficiencies and/or a method of training is something I may address in an upcoming AXIOMS article. As an extrapolation of the existing rules for gaining proficiencies from aging (5, 15, and 35 years of work), a character might gain proficiencies more rapidly form high-intensity training.

Briefly summarized, here are my current thoughts:

  • All characters have four implicit general proficiency slots which represent their potential for natural accretion of knowledge over time.
  • It takes 80 days of major activity - training that proficiency to gain the first rank of a proficiency. 
  • It takes 320 days of major activity - training that proficiency to gain the second rank or the first rank of a second proficiency.
  • It takes 1,280 days of major activity - training that proficiency to gain the third rank or the first rank of a third proficiency.
  • It takes 5,120 days of major activity - training that proficiency to gain the fourth rank or the first rank ofa fourth proficiency.
  • If characters do not fill up their proficiency slots with training, they can automatically fill them after 5, 15, 35, and 70 years of work. 

 

[quote="Alex"]

The issue of insufficient numbers of general proficiencies and/or a method of training is something I may address in an upcoming AXIOMS article. As an extrapolation of the existing rules for gaining proficiencies from aging (5, 15, and 35 years of work), a character might gain proficiencies more rapidly form high-intensity training.

Briefly summarized, here are my current thoughts:

  • All characters have four implicit general proficiency slots which represent their potential for natural accretion of knowledge over time.
  • It takes 80 days of major activity - training that proficiency to gain the first rank of a proficiency. 
  • It takes 320 days of major activity - training that proficiency to gain the second rank or the first rank of a second proficiency.
  • It takes 1,280 days of major activity - training that proficiency to gain the third rank or the first rank of a third proficiency.
  • It takes 5,120 days of major activity - training that proficiency to gain the fourth rank or the first rank ofa fourth proficiency.
  • If characters do not fill up their proficiency slots with training, they can automatically fill them after 5, 15, 35, and 70 years of work. 

[/quote]

I dig this a lot. it gives players that want those general proficiencies a route to them that doesn't involve leveling.  I might introduce this in my game and see how the players take advantage of it.

Indeed. Question though: would there be any other costs associated with training other than time? Cash, trainer fees, etc?

There's sort of some baked in assumptions already present about training costs and times.

Light/Heavy Infantry take 1 month, and you could infer from their wages that the job of trained soldiering is equivalent to the Labor proficiency. (Under the theory of war being mostly hurry up and wait, it's equipment upkeep, camp upkeep, marching in a straight line, taking orders, etc, and as normal men the fighting bit is almost ancillary, as far as their level of skill goes, it was not necessarily improved). I'm not sure if it's supposed to be inferred that the cavalry units actually gain the Riding proficiency or not.

And there's the Axioms that talks about training elite troops, that's instilling a proficiency in someone; as well as the mention in the gladiator rules (that's replacing a proficiency, so, dunno)

 

 

[quote="koewn"]

There's sort of some baked in assumptions already present about training costs and times.

Light/Heavy Infantry take 1 month, and you could infer from their wages that the job of trained soldiering is equivalent to the Labor proficiency. (Under the theory of war being mostly hurry up and wait, it's equipment upkeep, camp upkeep, marching in a straight line, taking orders, etc, and as normal men the fighting bit is almost ancillary, as far as their level of skill goes, it was not necessarily improved). I'm not sure if it's supposed to be inferred that the cavalry units actually gain the Riding proficiency or not.

And there's the Axioms that talks about training elite troops, that's instilling a proficiency in someone; as well as the mention in the gladiator rules (that's replacing a proficiency, so, dunno) [/quote]

 

I think it is implied, because mounted archers and cataphract troops need to be able to fire while mounted, something that's not possible without Riding.