The Icon Riffs series offers inspiration for adventure design and improvisation at the table. The ideas presented aren’t numbered, because numbered lists imply a certain consistency between results. These lists are evocative rather than consistent. They’re also not thorough. This isn’t an attempt to list all the things that could be associated with the icons. There are huge numbers […]
Tag Archives: 13th Sage
When many people give you the same feedback about your game for years, it’s got to have some truth in it. Today’s probable truth: “The combination of the wizard’s Evocation talent and the force salvo spell is broken.” Some GMs even report that the combo skews their thinking as they set up battles, since they […]
Jonathan and I usually agree on the mechanics of 13th Age, but our memories don’t always agree when it comes to how key mechanics were created.* The escalation die is a prime example. I remember using the escalation die in a bizarro 4e game, fighting minions of Torog, back before we started work on 13th Age. […]
The Icon Riffs series offers inspiration for adventure design and improvisation at the table. The ideas presented aren’t numbered, because numbered lists imply a certain consistency between results. These lists are evocative rather than consistent. They’re also not thorough. This isn’t an attempt to list all the things that could be associated with the icons. There are huge numbers […]
An interviewer once asked us, “If someone has never played a tabletop RPG, why would 13th Age be a good game for them to try?” Well, that interview never ran, so we’re going to share our answers here. We designed 13th Age for experienced GMs, but it can be a great entry point into the hobby for new […]
By Rob Heinsoo and ASH LAW At the Gen Con 2014 Monster Design workshop, ASH LAW, Gareth Ryder-Hanrahan, and I collaborated with the audience to create a new 13th Age monster from scratch. It was great fun, and our audience-collaborators all signed my black book so that we could list their names at the end of this […]
When you’re adventuring in the 13th Age, things sometimes get…out of hand. Maybe you stumbled into (or instigated) a violent uprising against the local authorities. Or maybe, thanks to that ritual you performed at the heart of a living dungeon, you accidentally brought about the end of the age — and massive armies dedicated to opposing […]
Greg’s Stolze’s 13th Age novel, The Forgotten Monk, is punching through Kickstarter goals for another 7 days. That’s Pat Loboyko’s wonderful cover art above. The earliest stretch goal summoned stat write-ups for several of the characters and monsters in the novel. My advice will be that the protagonist, a monk who acquires the name Cipher […]
A 13 True Ways Preview Chapter five of 13 True Ways is all about devils—those malevolent creatures from the Pit who delight in corrupting, binding and tormenting mortals. Where demons rage, devils persuade; where demons destroy, devils subvert and dominate. Typically their role in your campaign depends on which icon you associate them with. If […]