[Mechanics] Welcome to 13th Age in the Midderlands!

[Aethera]

I love the 13th Age system, and you can find all of the rules for free on the 13th Age SRD. They also have a quick-start version of the rules available for those who like to have something to download and hang on to, if you're not prepared to buy any of the books (which, you don't need to). You can find the quick-start rules directly from Pelgrane Press, and they may or may not have offered it around through sites like DriveThruRPG; I have not checked.

Why do I love the 13th Age rule set?
It's streamlined. The designers worked on D&D 3rd and 4th edition respectively, so while they kept the d20 basis, they chucked out a whole bunch of stuff. Some of 13th Age ended up in 5e, so I feel fairly comfortable saying "if you can play D&D, you can play 13th Age". There are mechanics to support narrative, rather than the other way around, as crunchier systems seem to do. I've provided a basic rundown of the highlights of the system (in my opinion) below. Please feel free to ask if you have any questions. I am happy to guide you through character creation with as much hand-holding as you'd like. I love this game system, and I'm always glad to introduce others to it. (Okay, I suggest it at every opportunity. I'm a fangirl.)


Unique to 13th Age Character Creation: One Unique Thing
Every player character in 13th Age is special in some way. You're an adventurer of some variety, which places you above the common-folk of whatever setting you are in. (We are using the Midderlands, but 13th Age comes with a generic fantasy setting called the Dragon Empire which is also fun.)

Your Unique Thing can be anything you like that is flavor but has no mechanical bonus. This is plot device central. Tell us a story! Give us a tall tale or a documentary, it's up to you. Whether you're King Arthur reborn, have extra-sensory perception, one or more spirit guide(s), were possessed by a demon for your formative years... give us something that sets you apart from any other adventurer hanging around.

In game play, your Unique Thing provides plot hooks. Lots of them, if I'm doing anything right.


Unique to 13th Age: Icons
The Icons in 13th Age represent the primary factions of the setting. In their Dragon Empire setting (the generic setting of 13th Age, when you don't have such a cool setting like the Midderlands to play in) has thirteen. The Emperor represents civilization and the Empire. The Priestess represents the gods of light and good. The High Druid is more about the plants and animals. The Great Gold Wyrm has a martyr's role in the Dragon Empire, throwing himself bodily into a massive tear into the Abyss, stopping a horrible influx of demonkind. The Diabolist secretly summons demons and uses their power to perform reality-altering experiments. The Archmage uses his powers to help the Empire instead. The Elf Queen and Dwarf King have their factions to lead. I'm going to explain with the Emperor, because at the time of this writing, I hadn't finished our Icons list yet. (I have since finished the list, even if some are secret.)

Each player character is tied into these factions somehow, even if it's that you/your character hate the Emperor with all your heart and won't have anything to do with the settled areas, end of story. Of course, sometimes it's hard to decide whether you hate the Empire or you love the High Druid and her ties to the untamed wilderness more. Each of these ties allows you to leverage that faction in some way during the course of the game.

In game play, at the beginning of each chapter, you get to roll a d6 (six-sided die) for each point of your relationships. On a 6, you get a boon (bonus, freebie, whatever you want to call it, it's free). On a 5, you still get the boon, but it has a drawback of some kind assigned by the GM. Each character starts with three points, so maybe you have a two-point negative relationship with (against) the Emperor, and a one-point positive relationship with (in favor of) the High Druid:

Dice Icon Relationship: The Emperor:

d6sch5	1 (natural 1)		✘ †
d6sch5	6 (natural 6)		✔ †

Dice Icon Relationship: High Druid:

d6sch5

3

✘

Poof. That there six means you get something. You get to decide how to work in your boon and what it is (within reason). The one doesn't mean anything here, only the 5s and 6s.

Magic items are a bit more rare in our setting than in the Dragon Empire, but maybe we'll just call them "wondrous items" and pretend that more than half the country wouldn't happily burn you at the stake for having them. But boons don't have to be physical. Since the relationship that got the six was the Emperor, perhaps your character makes a snarky remark that belittles the Imperial guards stationed nearby, and you get laughs from a trio of minor criminals who just happen to have the information you need to continue your job/quest. They take a liking to you, stand you a drink, and over a round of locally-brewed ale, they share with you some other dumb things the Imperial guards have done lately.

There are more concrete examples of Icon Relationship boons in the house-rules thread. Suffice it to say, if you want a mechanical benefit, it will be much smaller than the effect of gaining a magic item or story benefits like making friends with the right lowlife. This game will highly favor narrative and roleplay over diceroll-play.


Unique to 13th Age Character Creation: Backgrounds
Instead of giving you a list of skills and making you hem and haw over skill points spent certain ways... how about instead, you tell me what your character's been up to, and then divide eight points (max five in any) between them to show me approximately how strongly you did or committed to one or the next. These should be specific enough to give you and me some hooks to use them, but not so specific that they become unusable in our current game.

"Elven guard" is not specific enough. "Elven guard of secret chamber-within-a-chamber treasure chamber" may be cool, but it also kind of implies it's only the secret treasure chamber where your guard has experience. That limits its usefulness. "Sergeant of the Queen's Forestry Division" tells me something and offers ideas for how you might be able to wrangle that nice bonus to apply to whatever skill check I just threw at you. If you want to discuss how detailed to get, that's fine by me. Skill checks are more of a you-suggest/I-approve system than just a modifier. If your bard can use Charisma and pocket lint to cross a castle moat, explain how and make me believe it.

I wrote a character creation walk-through some years ago (good heavens, 2014 is... eight years ago now?!) that may help if you want some guidance. I'm also a good resource, being both your Game Mistress and the RPGX 13th-Age peddler.

In game play, a skill check is a d20 (twenty-sided die) roll, plus your character's level, plus an appropriate attribute (like Strength for bashing in a door or Intelligence for remembering something you learned), plus one of the Backgrounds. You get to decide which background applies to the check and how, but I'll tell you if I don't buy it.


3 Types of Scenes in 13th Age
There are limited ways you have to deal with mechanics in 13th Age. There are Skill Challenges, where you will roll skill checks as described above, d20 + character level + relevant attribute + a relevant Background, in a pattern assigned by me, the GM. In group play, it can be a pattern like "roll 3 successes before 3 failures" for a group challenge, or a different challenge for each player to need to solve. Sometimes you get penalized for failures (remind me to tell you about that poison ivy that time ) but that's going to depend on the challenges you come across in game.

Next type of scene is Combat. Unsurprisingly, you will face combat of some variety. Likely nothing too dangerous on your own, but I'm not going to make your lives too easy, either. All rolling in combat is a similar d20 + character level + relevant attribute trying to beat the number I provide for the bad guy/critter/eldritch horror that you're fighting. Damage dice are different sizes, but those are assigned by your weapons or spells, and you will know what dice to roll if you hit the monster. Sometimes spell damage comes with a saving throw, where you or your enemy can roll a d20 and it's either 11+ is good (straightforward 50/50 split on a twenty-sided die) or sometimes 16+, but I'll walk you through those. There are a few other types of dice rolled during combat, like when you get healed, but it's all laid out ahead of time. Once you make it through character creation, it's really very simple. (And if it isn't, I'll be explaining it.)

The vast majority of the remainder of the time in-game will be roleplay and that's it. You and me if you're in a solo thread, you and the group you're in if you're in a group. We will have scenes 13th Age calls Montages. You know what a montage is in a movie, it is where they speed up time and show some bits of what's going on, like the highlight reel. Most often used when traveling a distance, I will ask each of you to describe an obstacle to your travels. In a solo thread, you'll have to solve the obstacle yourself. In a group thread, I may ask another player to solve the obstacle you suggest, and then they suggest one to the next player, and so on. Sometimes it gets hard to do in play-by-post format since we're not sitting around a table nudging each other. But I think we can handle discussing things in the OOC thread if we get that far. Montage scenes don't actually require dice, just creative storytelling.

And that's it. That's all the dice required. More detailed examples of the scenes described can be found in the house-rules thread.