Chat Transcript: The Book of Iron Might

December 9, 2004 — 5 p.m. PST

Last week in our chat room we welcomed designer Mike Mearls to talk with us about his new book, The Book of Iron Might. Thanks to everyone who attended and asked questions! And thanks as well to Conrad Hubbard for sending us this transcript*.—Monte

Galhavoc
Welcome everyone, and thanks for coming to our Book of Iron Might release chat featuring the book's designer Mike Mearls and Malhavoc's own Monte Cook. I'll be your moderator tonight. We're here tonight to talk with Mike about his newest Malhavoc Press release, The Book of Iron Might, which is now available in stores as well as in its PDF edition.

Mike Mearls
Hey everyone, and thanks for stopping by.

Galhavoc
Mike, why don't you start things off by telling us a little about what you were shooting for with this book. As a designer, what were your goals for it?

Mike Mearls
This is a book that I wanted to write for a while. I had experimented a bit with variations on the rules from BOIM in various home campaigns and one shots. I've found that, sometimes, combat in d20 games is a bit too rigid. Characters can try a wide range of crazy actions or gambits, but in a fight their options are limited to a predetermined set of actions. I like the idea of a combat system that rewards inventive actions and creativity. In every other facet of the game, the players have the ability to try almost anything that seems logical. Why not in combat?

Galhavoc
Do you enjoy playing fighter-types yourself, Mike?

Mike Mearls
I definitely like playing fighters. I don't know how many dwarf fighters I've played over the years, and my first 3e character was a human barbarian. I was fascinated early on by feats in 3e, and the fighter class provides a perfect excuse to use lots of them.

Galhavoc
Monte, what about you? What do you like about The Book of Iron Might?

Monte Cook
I think the book fits into the Malhavoc "mode" really well. That is to say, that it doesn't just present yet another set of the same old options, but really takes the d20 System and stretches it in some interesting ways.

Galhavoc
Okay, I'll start taking questions now. Feel free to ask about other Malhavoc or related topics if you like.

Varianor
Could you apply maneuvers to use of a spell? In other words, how would you use the system to say, cast a spell without an attack of opportunity?

Mike Mearls
The maneuvers only cover attacks. There's already options in the rules for doing that, with casting defensively. I had some ideas for defensive maneuvers that were similar to that idea, and probably would've included it as an option, but I didn't have the space to explore it in detail.

Ashanderai
Are there any plans for a follow-up book or something similar?

Mike Mearls
Hmmmm... maybe. The core idea is something I really enjoy, and I think that it can really add a lot of flavor and fun to the typical fantasy RPG. I'm not sure about a follow-up, but I wouldn't be surprised if we did something in the same spirit.

Monte Cook
We're discussing working some of the ideas into something... bigger.

Galhavoc
Hint hint...

LrdApoc
Combat is often the biggest slowdown of any gaming session and one of the aspects of the game that divides a group. Will The Book of Iron Might change this? Does it introduce a streamlined cinematic approach or is it more number crunching for the grognards out there?

Mike Mearls
It only adds as much complexity as you want. I intentionally designed the system so that a DM can use it in a few different modes. You can use the rules to build new combat maneuvers that the players can choose from, along with disarm or trip.

Mike Mearls
You could even use it to simplify existing options, such as by building a disarm manevuer that has fewer steps. The key is, the DM decides how he wants to apply it. You could even push everything into the DM's hands. The players might only describe what they want to do, then the DM uses the combat options to figure out what happens. Since everything is based on existing rules, you only need to learn the attack modifiers associated with each effect. Nine times out of ten, you already know the rules behind an effect. They're just applied in a new way.

Pevishan
Which one of you is going to be working on the rogue-themed book [The Book of Roguish Luck]? Or are you both going to?

Mike Mearls
I believe that Wolfgang Baur is the sole author on that one.

Monte Cook
I am working as the developer on the book. It's more like The Book of Eldritch Might I or II than Book of Iron Might, if that gives you an idea of where it's going. It's got some interesting stuff in it that goes beyond just classes and feats. Lots of in-depth discussion on the process of breaking into a place, or about gambling games, and things like that.

Ashanderai
I like how you took an existing set of rules for the game and showed us how to break them down and customize them to our individual game. Do you have plans to do anything like this in another book with another part of the game rules? Like, for instance, environment rules or options on spellcasting?

Mike Mearls
Glad you liked it—I really like doing that in a design. I think it's one of the defining things I do as a designer and DM. I think there's plenty of room for design that breaks down processes into their component parts and shows you how to use those pieces to build new objects. I can't go into specifics, but I have a project on my schedule that does something along those lines./

Varianor
Did any of the playtesters build the manuever system into cards? That way you could stack it all up for quick reference?

Mike Mearls
I believe there are a few quick reference sheets floating around. There's one on montecook.com, I believe, and I think Monte sent me one that a fan did that looked absolutely fantastic.

LrdApoc
Monte, you've often espoused a belief that Malhavoc would provide alternative rule systems and aim for a different focus than Wizard's main D&D line. With your Book of... series and when you announced the Arcana Unearthed setting and variant player's handbook, what audience did you have in mind for your products? Did you find that was the group that did indeed buy them?

Monte Cook
Our target audience is made of up experienced gamers who know their way around the game table. They're not afraid to let the DM make judgement calls now and again, for example. This is a somewhat subtle but important difference from the Wizards of the Coast target market is gamers with little experience who need more handholding and more concrete rules so that the DM needs to make fewer calls on his own. (That's not meant to be a slam, it's a viable and understandable approach for the market leader.) I do think that we are reaching our target market. It's clear that different Malhavoc products appeal to different people. Arcana Unearthed, for example, has had a wider appeal than say, the Event Books line. That's the kind of thing you learn only by trying out new things and seeing what people take to, really.

Derek A. Richards
Is there any hope of seeing "Ironborn paragon" classes?

Mike Mearls
I'm not sure. It'd be interesting to see what changes an ironborn would make to itself or the ironborn it forged. In my current Eberron campaign, I have a cult of warforged who replace their metal parts with flesh and bone to become more "alive". I'm not sure that there would be one class that could represent what an ironborn could/should/would be, since they are so flexible. If I did them, they would probably center around the different burdens they may be given.

LrdApoc
We've seen Malhavoc expand on classes, magic and combat systems and to an extent races with the Arcana Unearthed leveled race concepts. Without revealing too much, what's the next big innovation you are working on that makes you quake with anticipation?

Mike Mearls
Quake?!? Ha! Usually, when I do something different I'm sick with worry that people are going to absolutely hate it. I'm curious to see how Ruins of Intrigue turns out. It's more of a campaign toolkit than an adventure. It's designed to generate lots of ideas, plus I built it for maximum flexibility. Ruins has different "settings" for a variety of NPCs and organizations. If you want to portray the giants in the city as antagonists, it lets you do that. If you want them to serve as the good guys, you can do that to. Most of the groups and NPCs have a few different potential motivations and goals that a DM can play with. I hope that when people use it for campaigns, they can compare notes on how their version played out.

Monte Cook
Well, there's a big project coming out next GenCon that we're quaking about, but it is indeed to early to talk about it yet. One thing that is a little different that we can talk about, however, is a book we just today announced, called Monte Cook Presents: The Year's Best d20, which collects all the best stuff from other publishers in the year 2004 into one volume, as judged by me. This is something quite different from anything we've done, and anything anyone else has done, really. It's not just a comprehensive collection, but an actual analysis of what's been done that's good and why it's good. Should be interesting, I hope.

Varianor
Did you give any thought to ironborn who wanted to become more "fleshlike"? Sort of aberrations among their own kind?

Mike Mearls
It's definitely something I've played with in my own games. I'm not sure I'll have a chance to write about it, but I think it could be fun. I had some ideas for different, minor ironborn that were more like robots, but those really didn't fit into the book.

LrdApoc
A personal question—not meant as a dig but—is there a reason that the design of your books includes so much white space? It appears the text is floating in the page and actually has driven me to prefer reading the documents as PDFs more than in print, though I have to use the print for game reference. Will the fundamental design be modified with the new Arcana Unearthed products?

Galhavoc
(I'm going to answer this as the Malhavoc resident layout person...) I know with the white background in our books it seems as though we have a lot of white space, but actually our word-per-page count is pretty high.We like to keep the page layout fairly simple with wide margins for the ease of read and for lower file sizes for our PDFs. However, you might have noticed that starting with Mystic Secrets we have been adding even more words per page with a narrower gutter inside by the binding. Arcana Evolved is of course full color but still keeps to the principles of a fairly clean background for clearer printing and faster downloading.

Blackeagle
Sue mentioned "faster downloading" when talking about the layout for Arcana Evolved. Does that mean it will be available as PDF?

Galhavoc
Yes, Monte Cook's Arcana Evolved becomes available on Feb. 28 as both a PDF and a print book.

Ashanderai
Aside from the Akashic Nodes and Jade Oath books, are there any other small press publishers (who might not have a large enough voice to advertise products) working on books based on material from Malhavoc?

Monte Cook
Fiery Dragon has some interesting things in store, to be sure. I'll let them announce their own products, though. (Do they count as "small press?" Do we?)

LrdApoc
The description of Transcendence states that the book covers an evolution of characters and an emergence of new abilities, but there is very little hard info there. Can you enlighten us to any of the details?

Mike Mearls
Hmmm.. I'm not sure what I'm cleared to talk about. The book's also in playtesting, so it's always dicey to talk about stuff that may or may not be in the final product. I can say that it's designed to open up new options of character development.

Galhavoc
Well, Mike, if you want to give one or two details... we don't mind. (I'm sure these guys aren't going to tell anyone...)

Mike Mearls
Let's see.... it does new things with the racial classes, giving new ones that anyone can take. There's also a new mechanics that lets you alter what a level means for a character class. For instance, you could take a mageblade and substitute some of the class's current abilities for new ones. Each class has a few new optional abilities that you can take in place of the current ones to make a more unqiue character.

Galhavoc
Cool! And the evolved litorian on the cover is coming out as a miniature from Iron Wind in March. (I'm a big fan of the Transcendence cover art.) Here's a comment on Mike's Transcendence items:

LordNightbringer
That sounds like the return of kits.

Monte Cook
Them's fightin' words.

Mike Mearls
Much different than kits. While kits were binary—you either had one or you didn't —the replacement level mechanic is much more flexible. In essence, you can pick and choose from a few different options at various levels rather than take the one embedded in a class. They much more like racial substitution levels than anything else.

ugulu
I'm sure you've only been asked this once or twice but any chance of a sequel to The Banewarrens that could work with Arcana Unearthed or straight 3.5?

Monte Cook
It's a long way off, but you can expect something along these lines in the future (although there's a lot more to it than that). It's quite a ways off, though, to be honest./done

Ashanderai
Are there any plans for Malhavoc or any other party to do "splat" books on the new classes and races introduced in the Arcana Unearthed or other Malhavoc books like Iron Might?

Monte Cook
Not exactly. Transcendence covers all the classes with cool new "stuff" and Book of Iron Might is really as useful for warmains and unfettered as it is for fighters and barbarians. So, no plans for anything exactly like that in the immediate future.

Pevishan
Do any of you have any plans to attend any cons on the West Coast within the next year?

Monte Cook
We're considering going to GenCon SoCal next year, but cons in December are really difficult for us.

Galhavoc
I understand SoCal is moving up to November next year, so perhaps we can make it...

Mike Mearls
I'm not really sure. I'm planning on moving to Seattle in the early spring, but I'm not really familiar with the con scene out there. I'll likely be at GenCon and Origins, and maybe Winter Fantasy in DC.

Kylea_OOC
Will there be any books helping integrate Arcana Evolved or Arcana Unearthed into a standard D&D game?

Monte Cook
Arcana Evolved has a conversion appendix for handling just that, actually.

Galhavoc
Back to Transcendence again for a minute...

JediSoth
It almost sounds like Transcendence is an Unearthed Arcana for the rest of us... so to speak.

Mike Mearls
Hmmm... sort of. I can see the resemblance, and I think that in some ways it's apt. It's more of a player's guide. If you like Arcana Evolved or Arcana Unearthed and want more options, it opens up new ways for you to tweak your characters.

Ashanderai
I heard that Monte will be coming to Indiana sometime in the future. When and where will that be? Will Mike and Sue come too?

Mike Mearls
I'm not aware of any trips to the Hoosier state, aside from my yearly GenCon visit./done

Monte Cook
It's actually Ohio, at the end of February: BASHCon. And Sean Reynolds will be there too (and plenty of others, I'm sure.). There was talk of getting Jonathan Tweet and Skip Williams to come so the three of us would be there together, but I don't think that worked out (but I could be wrong)./done

Galhavoc
We have a few minutes to take any last questions you guys may have...

Varianor
On stunts, have you tried running a game with stunts and without some of the standard D&D combat?

Mike Mearls
Yes. The book saw its genesis in a short game I ran early this year. It was really over the top, crazy stuff. I had purchased a d20 book that shall remain nameless and was totally underwhelmed by it. I had tried using the rules it gave, and it totally played against what we wanted/expected. So, on the fly I kit bashed rules that evolved into The Book of Iron Might. It was fun—the big final battle took place in a sorcerer's tower, with a 30-foot tall ape creature climbing up it to squash the PCs while they battled mutants and the sorcerer on the sloped roof.

Galhavoc
Cool! And now, our last question of the evening:

Pevishan
Do you think you will do anymore of the Dragon Magic that you introduced in Book of Eldritch Might III? I liked the flavor in them, and was wondering if any more will be coming our way.

Monte Cook
Actually, Arcana Evolved takes the concept of Dragon Magic and runs with it, what with the return of the dragons and all... So you'll see that stuff Arcana Evolved-ized as well as some new stuff there.

Galhavoc
Great! Thank you so much, Mike and Monte, for joining us tonight and talking about Iron Might, Arcana Evolved and other Malhavoc news. And thanks to all of you who attended and had such good questions.

Mike Mearls
Thanks to everyone for stopping by. It was fun!

Monte Cook
Thanks, everyone! Happy Holidays!

Galhavoc
We'll be scheduling another chat to preview Arcana Evolved after the new year, so that should give you a lot of time to absorb the previews we will be posting and accumulate new questions. As for Iron Might, Mike has a bunch of Design Diaries at montecook.com talking about design aspects of the different chapters, so check them out! Thanks again, and good night, all.

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