Quote from: Larsdangly;837396It's really not complicated. I am not going to run through the whole thing in a forum post, but the basic notion is:

Looks like a solid core. I wouldn't be interested myself, since I usually default to non-D&D systems when I specifically want a classless game, but I'd be genuinely curious as to how that would work out in actual play.

Quote from: Cave Bear;837417Not all of these abilities are of equal value.
Maybe group abilities into major abilities and minor abilities, then let players choose one major ability or a couple of minor abilities.

I'm personally not very sympathetic to the whole value balancing business. I figure if everyone in the party would like to gain 1d6 hp or be able to cast 1st level cleric spells rather than become expert at tracking, that is their business. So, I just jammed all the abilities you find in core D&D into a list and said 'pick what you actually want'. If you care a lot about ability balance you'd obviously do something else. But I honestly don't care, and so it doesn't bother me.

Ah, the classless system...where everybody can make a Fighter Mage! Or maybe a Mage Thief?

My thought is, that is what everyone seems to want to do anyway, so why not just make it straightforward instead of making up hybrid class after hybrid class. I actually think making people choose between HP and abilities is a good way to keep folks honest. A 5th level character who has a couple levels of wizard spells, a couple thief abilities and a level of cleric spells might sound pretty cool. But what if he only has 4 hit points? Not so cool any more. Your fighter with no abilities but 30 hit points will likely think he made a decent choice. Perhaps a bit weird (like most house rules we all have floating around our hard drives!). But it seems less 'broken' than most of the hybrid classes I can think of, which generally just amount to have-your-cake-and-eat-it-too grade inflation.

You mean like Traveller? Or Call of Cthulhu? Aren't there already a ton of classless systems? Or do you mean it has to be yet another D&D ripoff but without classes?

Quote from: Matt;837441You mean like Traveller? Or Call of Cthulhu? Aren't there already a ton of classless systems? Or do you mean it has to be yet another D&D ripoff but without classes?

Exactly. It isn't straightforward to run Tomb of Horrors with Traveller.

sigh...hostile much?

I don't think codifying your house rules or ideal D&D are ripoffs.  I'd even argue that fairly strait lifts of specific editions are more about the owners of the game abandoning the fans than the fans abandoning the owners.

Now, if you go to press with your game, it gets iffy, but in terms of discussing or codifying the parts you want or fixing the parts you don't, well, if you aren't doing that you're not playing D&D right anyhow.

Quote from: Larsdangly;837427I'm personally not very sympathetic to the whole value balancing business. I figure if everyone in the party would like to gain 1d6 hp or be able to cast 1st level cleric spells rather than become expert at tracking, that is their business. So, I just jammed all the abilities you find in core D&D into a list and said 'pick what you actually want'. If you care a lot about ability balance you'd obviously do something else. But I honestly don't care, and so it doesn't bother me.

Okay.
Instead of one ability per level, why not 1d4 per level?

The whole point of D&D is the classes.

Quote from: Shawn Driscoll;837493The whole point of D&D is the classes.

Nope. There is a long list of things that make D&D what it is, and classes are somewhere near the end.

Quote from: Cave Bear;837474Okay.
Instead of one ability per level, why not 1d4 per level?

How about this for boiled down: there are no abilities, beyond supernatural things like spell casting and turn undead. Every level you choose one of the following:

• +1d4 HP and one level worth of one type of spell using ability (Turn Undead is a unique power that can be taken once instead)
• +1d6 HP and +1 to any stat
• +1d10 HP

Everything other than spell casting is just a roll vs. a stat, thus you will get better at whatever you sink your stat points into.

Quote from: David Johansen;837456sigh...hostile much?

I don't think codifying your house rules or ideal D&D are ripoffs.  I'd even argue that fairly strait lifts of specific editions are more about the owners of the game abandoning the fans than the fans abandoning the owners.

Now, if you go to press with your game, it gets iffy, but in terms of discussing or codifying the parts you want or fixing the parts you don't, well, if you aren't doing that you're not playing D&D right anyhow.

Sigh...taking rules someone else wrote 40 years ago and pretending you've authored a new game is exactly what a ripoff is. OSR often seems to stand for "Outright Stealing & Ripoffs."

Quote from: Larsdangly;837500How about this for boiled down: there are no abilities, beyond supernatural things like spell casting and turn undead. Every level you choose one of the following:

• +1d4 HP and one level worth of one type of spell using ability (Turn Undead is a unique power that can be taken once instead)
• +1d6 HP and +1 to any stat
• +1d10 HP

Everything other than spell casting is just a roll vs. a stat, thus you will get better at whatever you sink your stat points into.

Okay.

Why?

I'm not going to argue about the point of house rules in D&D, or whether everyone is 'ripping off' the original game. Only on internet forums can you find dipshits who misunderstand the hobby on these issues, and they never respond to reason anyway.

But I will explain why I like this particular style of house rules (whatever the details might be).
- 40 years worth of grognards have correctly noted that every time you add a new class you implicitly narrow the view of what every other class can do. The classic example is the thief's appropriation of being sneaky, climbing and opening stuff, but you could argue the same thing about nearly any class you want to name. So, why not just say 'fuck it' to all of them and let every character try what they want? The strong characters will be good at feats of strength; the smart ones will succeed at things that call for cleverness, and so forth.
- Class expansion and re-definition is the main mechanism of grade inflation in D&D, which I consider lame.
- Most of the parallel but different systems of dice rolling mechanics are pointless; the game is the same if you resolve all the saves, attacks, etc. with one sort of roll. Of course it does no harm to keep them all, but there is no reason to fetishize them. For fuck's sake, the original edition says: 'resolve combat like this. Or, if you like, instead do something completely different. Or add hit locations. Or don't. Or whatever. Anyway, on to the important bits..." (I paraphrase).
- The rules are actually the least interesting thing about D&D, so why not make them as short and transparent as possible?

Quote from: Larsdangly;837513I'm not going to argue about the point of house rules in D&D, or whether everyone is 'ripping off' the original game. Only on internet forums can you find dipshits who misunderstand the hobby on these issues, and they never respond to reason anyway.

But I will explain why I like this particular style of house rules (whatever the details might be).
- 40 years worth of grognards have correctly noted that every time you add a new class you implicitly narrow the view of what every other class can do. The classic example is the thief's appropriation of being sneaky, climbing and opening stuff, but you could argue the same thing about nearly any class you want to name. So, why not just say 'fuck it' to all of them and let every character try what they want? The strong characters will be good at feats of strength; the smart ones will succeed at things that call for cleverness, and so forth.
- Class expansion and re-definition is the main mechanism of grade inflation in D&D, which I consider lame.
- Most of the parallel but different systems of dice rolling mechanics are pointless; the game is the same if you resolve all the saves, attacks, etc. with one sort of roll. Of course it does no harm to keep them all, but there is no reason to fetishize them. For fuck's sake, the original edition says: 'resolve combat like this. Or, if you like, instead do something completely different. Or add hit locations. Or don't. Or whatever. Anyway, on to the important bits..." (I paraphrase).
- The rules are actually the least interesting thing about D&D, so why not make them as short and transparent as possible?

Cool.
In the future:

https://youtu.be/sioZd3AxmnE