After all this time, I know some of you are skeptical on if Donjon's going to get done. I have, in fact, just laid out the first four chapters, albeit without art.

In celebration, I show you Chapter 2: Character Creation. The layout may change a bit, and art will be added, but feast your eyes, and feel free to comment:

http://www.anvilwerks.com/rpg/donjon_ch2.pdf (131K PDF)

If you're going to open this file more than 2 or 3 times, download it. It's easier on my bandwidth.

This is a first-five-seconds question, but what is the name of the heading font you use? It looks very cool, and somehow makes me think "neo-retro fantasy rpg"

You'll recognize that font from the movie "The Dark Crystal," one of my favorite movies. Incidentally, it's called Dark Crystal.

Bonus question: what movie is the Paladin heading font stolen from?

- Clinton

Completely off the cuff commentary:

1) Seriousness level dial. Love it. Will there be a GM tips chapter or the equivelent where more info is provided for these similiar to Jared's OctaNe volume dial?

2) You may want to define "median" for the mathematically ignorant readers.

3) Human and other races dial: how about mentioning a dial setting that allows ALL races to be played as having a plethora of classes. I may want Human Knights and Goblin Pumpkin Bombers both. Wouldn't be "standard", but hey thats what a dial is for, right?

4) I recall (and recommend including if this was changed) rules for starting characters at higher than first. The line under level should cross reference the page where those rules can be found. Alternatively i think a Dial: Starting with Higher Level Characters text box would be great there.

5) Please reconcider changing the saves to Save vs Mind and Save vs Body. I just can't say Transmogrify with a straight face. Alternatively...hey, here's an idea...in the section mentioned in #1 where you list differences for the serious dial...perhaps you could include a different set of names for attributes for the different dials. Transmogrification is great for a tongue in cheek / Monty game. And I bet you could come up with more vicious sounding stats than adroitness and wherewithal for a blood and rust setting.

6) personal style note: I'd mention ending a page with a heading (like "Abilities") but I imagine this is just due to art not being positioned yet.

7) In the examples of Main vs supporting abilities...you may want to specifically note that a) abilities can be special traits or skills, and b) that the italics in the examples represent the Main....also in the Seriousness Dial section you could repeat these same examples with the same abilities named differently..."Unholy Eviscerate" in a blood and rust setting, "Slice, dice, and Jullienne" for a more comedic setting...

8) under "Distributing Initial Dice" since you specifically mention "Five abilities" you should probably also specify "two" for saving throws. Also the Wealth and Provisions line seems to be missing a word. Probably "one" in the second sentence.

Looks most tasty; can't wait for the main course.

Valimar hit all the points I was going to make about rules clarity and such.

It looks seriously fun as all hell.. I can't wait to give it a play.

You said in another thread that you had tweaked the magic difficulties down a bit- how so? What does the diff scale look like now?

Valamir wrote: 2) You may want to define "median" for the mathematically ignorant readers.

3) Human and other races dial: how about mentioning a dial setting that allows ALL races to be played as having a plethora of classes. I may want Human Knights and Goblin Pumpkin Bombers both. Wouldn't be "standard", but hey thats what a dial is for, right?

Clinton R Nixon wrote:

Bonus question: what movie is the Paladin heading font stolen from?

- Clinton

Jared A. Sorensen wrote: I think the point of the race/class thing is, play a standard (RPG parlance="boring") race, like a human, and you're able to spice it up using a class. Play a non-standard (RPG parlance="kewl!") race and you don't get to add that extra wrinkle.

Matt,

You are completely correct.

Jared,

You are also correct. Here goes a little geeky rant: man, I really hated going from D&D to AD&D. In D&D, the race/class thing was a hard decision - am I a cleric (I can fight, and bring the wrath of God) or a dwarf (badass fighter, and underground abilities). AD&D came along and suddenly everyone in the world was a half-elf bard, the bastards. They get all of the advantages of being an elf, but few drawbacks, and can fight, steal, and cast spells. Honestly, it homogenized characters to the point that I'd really rather play the original stuff.

In Donjon, there are no half-elf bards. (Although making a half-elf race with the abilities Influence People with Song, Fight with Longswords, Pick Locks, Inspiring Magic, and Lore about Famous Adventurers would be fine - and kind of funny.)

heh, heh...yup...I could tell that about you Clinton from Donjon without needing the rant. I, if it isn't equally obvious, am 180 degrees opposite on that issue. I detested the D&D race vs class distinction as being utter nonsense (since civilization pretty much developed because individuals in cooperation were able to specialize, it is completely unfathomable to me how there could be a civilization whose members aren't specialized...yeah call it the sim monkey in me)

Which is why I suggested including the alternative as a dial position since there's no possiblity of making it the default one ;-)

Why isn't "Half-Elf Bard" a good class? Works just fine for me... considering it makes no difference rule-wise, why bother with the distinction?

Clinton, you need examples of play, you let me know.

Bailywolf,
Half-elf Bard doesn't work because of the nature of the game. If you describe a Half-elf with the skills Clinton mentioned, you're essentially both
a) Declaring that all half-elfs (at least the ones that use your race's skills) are bards, making fun of the stereotype, and
b) Going back to Donjon's D&D roots, where you were either a race OR a class. That decision made us both smile a ton.

I don't see why you couldn't allow race-class combinations, but it's not in the original spirit of Donjon. Donjon walks a line (it was a LOT finer in the beginning) between outrageous fantasy and D&D parody.

I would suggest a separate section in the book for alternate ways of playing Donjon, including things like non-Parody play (the Parody part is really much more visible during character creation than actual play), alternate names for abilities (you know, the more mundane nouns), the race/class issue, etc. Clinton? Thoughts?

And durnit, the sooner you get this thing done, the sooner I can work on Donjon: Post-Apokalypse. I've already got a bunch on mutations and vehicle combat.

I'm still into doing StarKrawl (where ya play a spaceship rather than the dude who flies it).

So Clinton...what would happen if Zak and I were both playing Donjon and we both wanted to play Bone Granite Trolls (or whatever) in a humans-are-standard game? Do we both get the same abilities?

Just curious -- I have a rule in octaNe that forbids two or more players with the same Role...wonderin' if Donjon has a similar prohibition.

Jared A. Sorensen wrote: Just curious -- I have a rule in octaNe that forbids two or more players with the same Role...wonderin' if Donjon has a similar prohibition.

I can certainly understand the spirit behind the rule ( I to evolved from a treasure grubbing dungeon crawling munchkin-in-waiting to the Higher Being you know today) but... I don't know. Seems a bit heavy handed.

I'd be happier if the dial for this scheme were wider, ranging from "anything goes" to "x race only" with "humans default" in the neutral position. At the lowest level of paradoy, you can mix-n-match race and skillset descritions willy nilly...at the top, everyone is a human (or whatever... imagine using Donjon to run tiny sentient ants or something...).

But any complaint thereabouts is just superficial. I could always run Advanzedz Donjon if I wanted to...

Valamir wrote:
(I'm a HUGE fan of Donjon...NOT a huge fan of Donjon as parody, hense my continued discomfort with "Save vs Transmogrify" and "Wherewithal" and my suggestions that those be used for the spoofier play modes and replaced with something more mundane for the less spoofier ones. The obvious D&Doriginal tie in to the race vs class issue just rubs me wrong.)

Travis wrote: <PEDANT>
Actually, Original D&D didn't have the "races are classes" thing -- that was "added" to the 1980 Basic/Expert D&D to make it more distinct from AD&D, which TSR wanted to do because of Dave Arneson's lawsuit over them not paying him royalties on AD&D.

In the original 1974 version, races were treated pretty much as they were in AD&D -- you're X race, you can choose from Y classes. (Granted, for most of the races, "Fighter" was the only class choice in the original set, but the expansions soon took care of that, and there was no "dwarf class", "elf class", etc.) The same was true in the 1977 "Blue Book" version.
</PEDANT>

Awesome trivia, Travis. I'm a sucker for that kind of info. Truth be told we were playing the old red-box D&D game when Donjon fell in our mental laps. Here's the actual play account (man, I remember playing the hell out of D&D as a kid, rereading this old thread brought back memories):

http://www.indie-rpgs.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=690

Le Joueur wrote:

Travis wrote: <PEDANT>
Actually, Original D&D didn't have the "races are classes" thing -- that was "added" to the 1980 Basic/Expert D&D to make it more distinct from AD&D, which TSR wanted to do because of Dave Arneson's lawsuit over them not paying him royalties on AD&D.

In the original 1974 version, races were treated pretty much as they were in AD&D -- you're X race, you can choose from Y classes. (Granted, for most of the races, "Fighter" was the only class choice in the original set, but the expansions soon took care of that, and there was no "dwarf class", "elf class", etc.) The same was true in the 1977 "Blue Book" version.
</PEDANT>

Okay, let's be a little careful what we call "Original" Dungeons & Dragons. I'm pretty sure that prize goes to the boxes set of three small, white-covered books (probably 5½ x 8½, but I've only seen them once).

Men & Magic wrote:
page 6: Dwarves: Dwarves may opt only for the fighting class...

page 7: Elves: Elves can begin as either Fighting-Men or Magic-Users and freely switch class whenever they choose...

page 7: Hobbits: Should any player wish to be one, he will be limited to the Fighting-Men class...

Le Joueur wrote:
Next came the one I 'grew up with,' the 'blue' boxed edition (so-called because the single book's cover was a monochromatic blue version of the box's artwork). I never purchased a copy of Orange Dungeons & Dragons books (those featured in E. T. the Extraterrestrial), so I cannot speak for them.

I am certain (short of recovering the original 'blue book' edition I had) that elf was an alternative to fighter, cleric, thief, or magic-user. You could not play an elf and a fighter, they were separate. Not called a class per se, but none the less conferred with all the segregated benefits of being a class (including their own 'to hit' chart). As a matter of fact, the thing that confused us most was that the 'blue book' edition we had was it made constant references to Advanced Dungeons & Dragons and when that first became available it let you choose races and classes independant of each other.

Le Joueur wrote:
But then I never purchased any Dungeons & Dragons books (except the Fiend Folio and Monster Manual II) after the first printings of the first three hardbound editions (which are almost totally destroyed, so don't even think of 'collectors value').