What on Earth Are You up to Now?
As you perhaps saw from our announcement late last week, as well as my interview in Polyhedron #155, we're coming out with a new book next summer called Arcana Unearthed: The Malhavoc Handbook. I won't go into the basics of the book again, since you can read about it here -- oh, and don't miss the FAQ.

Incidentally, I love writing FAQs. It's like writing dialogue. I always want the question asker and the answerer to get in an argument and start insulting each other or something. Like there's some kind of plot or motivation behind the questions.

Anyway, in just the last few days I've heard a lot of feedback and questions regarding this book both in email and on various message boards. It's great to hear from so many people, but please understand that I can't answer everyone's questions right away. Not only because of the time it would take but because some of the answers aren't even finalized yet. The book is, after all, still nine months away.

What you can do, however, is check our site starting next week for a new feature I'm going to call my Design Diary. This will be updated sometimes every week, sometimes every other week. It'll cover issues that come up during the writing process. Of course, considering that I'll be continuing these even while the book is being edited and printed, some will come after the fact. I hope, though, that they'll be informative and interesting, and answer a lot of the questions that you have both about the book, about the kinds of things designers think about, and about the whole publishing process. Some will be specific design issues, like why I won't be adding or altering certain spells available to me, like say haste or harm. Others will be somewhat more esoteric, like the roleplaying hooks and opportunities that I've tried to intentionally implant within the new classes and races.

Come On, Give Me Something!

Okay, there are a few general issues I'd like to discuss right now. Like why am I doing a book like Arcana Unearthed at all?

Well, it's not because I think the existing Player's Handbook is bad -- I helped put that together, after all -- or that traditional fantasy is bad. In fact, one of the most interesting things that came out of our work on 3rd Edition was the realization that D&D isn't based on any one myth system, or any one set of fantasy tropes. Sure, it owes a lot to J.R.R. Tolkien, but it owes a lot to Michael Moorcock, Jack Vance, Greek myth, medieval history, Star Wars, and more. What it's really done is create its own type of fantasy. "D&D-style fantasy" is a concept with real meaning.

Arcana Unearthed deviates from D&D-style fantasy, but only somewhat. It's sort of a "what if?" kind of product. What if D&D didn't have dwarves, elves, fighters, and clerics? What if it was set up the same, but with all different pieces? An experiment, to be sure, but one that will be useful to virtually any fan of the game, since the new "pieces" can be added to a regular game as well.

But I said Arcana Unearthed deviated from the familiar D&D-style fantasy only somewhat. That means the basic ideas behind the game don't change. It's still about brave warriors with swords and spellcasters wielding mighty magic.

Thus, the whole project involves some very interesting thought exercises. For example, how do you provide people with all the options to play the character they want to play without using the standard classes and races? Arcana Unearthed isn't about classes and races that are easily mapped to existing ones. I didn't want to make a class that was just like, say, a rogue, with a few different abilities. Or a race that's just like dwarves with a different name. What's the point of that?

To accomplish this, I had to define the characteristics that made people want to play a certain type of character, then provide those qualities using very different options. For example, Arcana Unearthed has the unfettered: wild, flamboyant warriors that rely on their reflexes and wits rather than heavy armor. They're sneaky swashbucklers and they fill the need for someone who doesn't want to play a "tank" in plate armor but still wants to be in combat swinging away. A person who likes to play a barbarian or rogue (or even a monk) in D&D might enjoy playing an unfettered. He might also, however, like to play the unfettered's opposite, called an oathsworn. Oathsworn have a somewhat similar approach to combat, but while the unfettered are wild and unpredictable, the oathsworn follow solemn oaths and strict training to hone themselves into living weapons (and make anything they touch into a deadly weapon as well). And then, of course, there are those who specialize in what the unfettered and the oathsworn eschew: heavy armor and weapons. The warmain is a class of warrior that excels in the use of raw physical might, massive weapons, and exotic armor to defeat foes. And those are just three of the more basic classes.

More to Come

But now I'm getting ahead of myself, and my crude description of these classes probably isn't doing them justice. Arcana Unearthed classes, you'll find, intentionally have a lot more specific flavor injected into them, reflected in very detailed sorts of abilities. None of the above three is just your basic sword-swinging fighter, because -- well, you already have the core rules fighter. I'm not going to try to redo what's already been done there. This is my attempt at something really new, to give you things that can't be done with the existing classes while still filling the same roleplaying needs.

Arcana Unearthed presents a completely playable set of races and classes that provide everything the existing ones present, just in a different way. Intrigued? I hope so. If you've been playing only a short while, you've probably got a lot of exploration of the existing core rules and options ahead of you. But if you've been involved with the game a long time, you might find Arcana Unearthed provides an interesting new look at what you thought you'd already seen from every possible angle. I hope you'll stick around over the next nine months and read how this product develops. It's going to be a fun trip.