Get Inspired: 13th Age
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The 13th Age system offers many mechanics that you can incorporate into your games. From backgrounds as skills, and simple monster stat blocks, to the escalation die and more!

This is a blog post I wrote on the many elements and mechanics of 13th Age you can port over to your favorite d20 games–or if you are feeling adventurous, reasons to try out a few games of 13th Age! I’ve enjoyed the system in my time with it and just wanted to share some of the cool ideas :)

  • Sandra@idiomdrottning.org
    1·
    1 year ago

    I agree that 13A is well worth a read.

    I’m not the biggest fan:

    • One Unique Thing I’ve seen so much heartache and strife around. GMs love to imagine the cool things their players are gonna say only to then shoot 'em down
    • Intercepting is something I indepentently came up with and playtested for a while but it wasn’t working very well for us compared to the Wizardry “front rank / back rank” system that The One Ring also uses
    • Range bands, sure, I wanna simplify it even further to engaged vs ranged. Again taking more cues from The One Ring RPG which in turn works like Wizardry did.
    • Escalation Die, I dislike. I like the idea of immediate results, fortune at the very end, you know viscerally right as the dice hit the table if you hit or missed. To that end, a player can write down “I hit these ghûls if I roll a an 8 or higher” but the escalation die messes with that.
    • The “living dungeons” I also don’t find particularly fun to engage with as a player. I’d wanna do something crisper and blorbier.

    You’re right about those monster stat blocks. 👍🏻

    • skulbuny@sh.itjust.worksOPEnglish
      1·
      1 year ago

      One Unique Thing I’ve seen so much heartache and strife around. GMs love to imagine the cool things their players are gonna say only to then shoot 'em down

      Yeah, a lot of GMs aren’t really ready for one unique things, especially since it gives up part of their worldbuilding.

      Intercepting is something I indepentently came up with and playtested for a while but it wasn’t working very well for us compared to the Wizardry “front rank / back rank” system that The One Ring also uses

      I GM a 13th Age game and I play in one and I’ve seen intercepting used pretty much every fight at least one time–seems useful for my groups

      Range bands, sure, I wanna simplify it even further to engaged vs ranged. Again taking more cues from The One Ring RPG which in turn works like Wizardry did.

      I mean, I don’t even like ranges necessarily, but it’s certainly a much more welcome system than a grid to me :)

      Escalation Die, I dislike. I like the idea of immediate results, fortune at the very end, you know viscerally right as the dice hit the table if you hit or missed. To that end, a player can write down “I hit these ghûls if I roll a an 8 or higher” but the escalation die messes with that.

      Yeah, my favorite games (Powered by the Apocalypse, Forged in the Dark, and Ironsworn) all have dice mechanics where you pretty much know instantly what the results are (PbtA and Ironsworn have a tiny bit of math, but still)

      The “living dungeons” I also don’t find particularly fun to engage with as a player. I’d wanna do something crisper and blorbier.

      Agreed. I don’t run them–personally don’t find them that interesting.

      You’re right about those monster stat blocks.

      Because they’re sooo good 😩