When I was contemplating starting up a D&Dish game (in addition to the Call of Cthulhu game I play in) I gave 5e a serious look.  Free basic rules.  Why not?  Then I noticed the cost of the three hard backs.  Thanks to a Kickstarter stretch goal Swords and Wizardry Complete is a free PDF for everyone.  Microlite74 and the companions are also free and if you want to contribute something it goes towards paying off the cost of cancer treatment (and you get extra goodies):

http://www.retroroleplaying.com/content/retroroleplaying-cancer-fund-special-downloads

Legends of the Ancient World (Fantasy Trip type game) was also free.  And when someone does make an interesting OSR product they can usually be supported directly.  There's a real by gamers for gamers approach that I like.

It's really been a no brainer for me to avoid the commercial versions of D&D for this game.  While 5e has some call backs to older versions of D&D, it's actually best played for its own merits rather than serving as a basis for an OSR class free game.  $120+ for a game I'm going to hack apart anyway?  Nah.

Quote from: AsenRG;844883I didn't agree with Pundit in this thread, why do you suddenly decide that I'd take his opinion as the authoritative source on 5e now?
Clearly, he and I have differences in opinion. Just like you and me. Unlike you, he manages to present those differences in at least a somewhat tolerable way;).

When RPGPundit commented on your archetypes list, disagreeing with you as strongly as I did, you claimed you didn't have the time to debate with him; apparently your more pressing business was twelve further posts to this thread. Clearly you prefer to argue with me. So, I figured (and correctly as it turns out) that the quickest way to end my argument with you was to quote him and that you would fold like a house of cards.

You don't like D&D, fine; lots and lots of people don't. But don't claim deficiencies the game doesn't have.

For the record, I want to point out (again, maybe) that I am not opposed to a 'classless' game, as long as there are archetypes to be chosen, for people who either are uninterested in making an Elric of Melnibone wannabe (or other type of character) or are simply not able to.

Quote from: rawma;844980When RPGPundit commented on your archetypes list, disagreeing with you as strongly as I did, you claimed you didn't have the time to debate with him; apparently your more pressing business was twelve further posts to this thread. Clearly you prefer to argue with me. So, I figured (and correctly as it turns out) that the quickest way to end my argument with you was to quote him and that you would fold like a house of cards.

Yeah, I never have time for arguments that are going to go nowhere. That includes arguments with you, obviously:).

QuoteYou don't like D&D, fine; lots and lots of people don't. But don't claim deficiencies the game doesn't have.

Oh, I do like D&D. I dislike just some versions of it, a feeling that's actually quite popular on this forum;)!
Liking D&D doesn't mean I'm going to pretend the game doesn't have the deficiencies it actually does, I'd rather leave that to you:D!

Quote from: Christopher Brady;844981For the record, I want to point out (again, maybe) that I am not opposed to a 'classless' game, as long as there are archetypes to be chosen, for people who either are uninterested in making an Elric of Melnibone wannabe (or other type of character) or are simply not able to.

Aside from Elric being an archetype by himself, I'd agree that this is a good idea for any game out there.

Quote from: AsenRG;845049Aside from Elric being an archetype by himself, I'd agree that this is a good idea for any game out there.

Believe it or not, he's more of a Fighting Man than anything.  Most of the time, he either killed with Stormbringer, or summoned demons too powerful for him to control, so he ended up killing them with Stormbringer.

Quote from: AsenRG;845049Oh, I do like D&D.

You know so little about D&D that you're not really qualified to have an opinion about it, let alone a discussion. So, just a concern troll.

And it seems the issue has resolved itself, except not by the hands of the OSR:). Still, I thought I should mention it, since Dragon Warriors is nothing if not "old-school", and has been like that since the 80ies, with the newedition still using "rolls in order" to create characteristics.

Mind you, Dragon Warriors is still a class system, but the latest supplement now adds the "Paths" mechanic, allowing you to modify your class abilities and even add abilities from another class, which is basically the amount of flexibility the setting needs;).

Quote from: NathanIW;843158...

• potential for min-maxing abuse
• longer character-creation times from a glut of options and beancounting point-expenditure processes
• melange characters that end up looking like nothing and symbolizing nothing.
• not playing Archetypal characters so you can game the system.  
• Classless games will lead to people thinking less in terms of the world, and more in terms of points/options/feat-combos/whatever;
• classless games will have people thinking less about who their character is in the world, and more about what's the best stuff to start with.

...

It seems to me (as someone who's mostly played classless point-but systems, TFT and GURPS in particular) that these are potential issues, but that they mainly apply only to the character creation process, and to inexperienced or messed-up players. For actual play with good players, they are mostly not something that comes up much, and/or that can be addressed by a skilled GM and optional or house rules. Also, they mostly read like the concerns of players used to class-based RPGs and RPGs which don't give much choice about character creation.

That is, yeah new players and munchkins may think it makes sense to have a GURPS character who is a dylexic deaf albino with all his points in one weapon skill, who will be so uber. The D&D equivalent is something like letting your party pick any character and class and race and telling them nothing about the world or intended party type or adventure, and getting a party with a paladin and a drow and a troll vampire druid/thief/ranger, or the D&D players who sometimes ask if they can convert their D&D character to play in my GURPS campaign, who has two four-button swords and flaming daggers and immunity to 7 different kinds of attacks, and bla bla bla what what what?

In practice on those six points:

• I review and revise player-made characters to have them make sense and not be silly, and use house rules, templates, and pre-made characters.
• Making characters can take a while, but for good experienced players this is about making an interesting and fun character and is enjoyable, and not about beancounting. A good GURPS GM designs a sub-set of available traits and skills and provides suggestions and templates to make it easy enough to create appropriate characters.
• Good experienced players, and players aided by good experienced GMs, don't make melange characters (unless maybe there's a reason for them). Symbolic characters can be made just as easily, and are not restricted to a published set of symbols, and can express whatever symbol you might like. But I don't particularly agree that I want characters to be symbolic - I like them to be more like actual humans, with some themes but not being stereotypes.
• Again, people may try to game the system, but good players and GMs won't want to to unless that's what they're agreeing to do. That being opposed to archetypes, and archetypes being a great desired thing, are slightly foreign to me.
• I don't find that skills and traits have players thinking less in terms of the world, particularly because both the GM and players can and should be relating traits and skills to their origins in the world and in the characters' stories. Sure, it can be a pitfall for new/silly players to focus on buying abilities rather than what sort of person they're describing, but that's just a gamey approach to playing.
• Again, it doesn't have to be that way. I can see how classes and choiceless character design can be used as a barrier to prevent gamey play, but good point-buy players don't need that crutch.

It feels like the reaction of someone used to class-based choiceless chargen systems. I could give a similar rant from the opposite perspective against class-based systems, about how they force characters into needless archetypes, restrict choices in silly forced ways, stifle creativity, interfere with roleplaying, and dehumanize characters, etc. I expect experienced class-based players would have a similar "oh no we don't have those problems" list for me. They're different approaches with different strengths, weaknesses and styles, and either can be played skillfully and interestingly, or clumsily and sillily / annoyingly.

Dragon Warriors was awesome.  I don't know much about more recent versions but have fond memories of the small books from back in the day.

My weekly game is still ongoing.  I ended up dropping the magical talent "class" feature and now anyone who learns how to either invoke gods or demons or learns how to perform a given act of sorcery can do so.  I've been doing more and more FT style attribute checks.  

I ended up going with armour only interfering with magic that directly harms others.  I'm using a magic point system and so far it's worked well for the one player who wanted to become a magical knight.  He walks around in heavy armour and can do a bunch of helpful things but avoids directly hexing his enemies because of how potentially draining (or damaging as when you run out of spell points you automatically pay the shortfall in life points) it can be.

One premise of my game is that the mythic underworld changes all those who enter it.  It's really the only place you can reliably gain magical power but almost always at a price.  One character got claws and can see in the dark, another got his spirit replaced by that of a long dead priest of a strange god.  Another can only feed by killing other sentient creatures with a cursed dagger but never needs to sleep or eat and has stopped aging.  So far it's worked for us that all the cool comes from what you do and find in game and not from preselected character classes and their features.

Quote from: NathanIW;858823Dragon Warriors was awesome.  I don't know much about more recent versions but have fond memories of the small books from back in the day.

My weekly game is still ongoing.  I ended up dropping the magical talent "class" feature and now anyone who learns how to either invoke gods or demons or learns how to perform a given act of sorcery can do so.  I've been doing more and more FT style attribute checks.  

I ended up going with armour only interfering with magic that directly harms others.  I'm using a magic point system and so far it's worked well for the one player who wanted to become a magical knight.  He walks around in heavy armour and can do a bunch of helpful things but avoids directly hexing his enemies because of how potentially draining (or damaging as when you run out of spell points you automatically pay the shortfall in life points) it can be.

One premise of my game is that the mythic underworld changes all those who enter it.  It's really the only place you can reliably gain magical power but almost always at a price.  One character got claws and can see in the dark, another got his spirit replaced by that of a long dead priest of a strange god.  Another can only feed by killing other sentient creatures with a cursed dagger but never needs to sleep or eat and has stopped aging.  So far it's worked for us that all the cool comes from what you do and find in game and not from preselected character classes and their features.

OK, now you have me interested!

Just had a really simple idea. For a dark fantasy, horrific S&S sort of game.

Start with LotFP, chuck out the cleric and the demihumans. Fold some or all cleric spells into magic-user spell list (the ideal approach here, for me, would be to come up with an entirely new magic system, but for now let's keep it simple). So now we have three classes, the Fighter, the Magic-User and the Specialist.

Characters start out as 0-level and use a given amount of xp (say, 750 for Specialist, 1000 for Fighter and 1250 for Magic-User) to buy the first level in any one class.

Henceforth, they can, and may indeed, be expected to multiclass, 3e style, by buying levels. Each level costs precisely the xp needed to reach it, i.e. buying your 3rd level in fighter costs 2000xp (4000xp is the treshold 3rd level - 2000xp the treshold to hit 2nd level).

Example: Everard the 0-level human scrounges together 750xp and is now a 1st-level Specialist, as per LotFP rules. After acquiring another 1500xp he can get that 2nd level in Specialist... or, for 1000xp, a 1st-level in Fighter complete with better HD and to-hit bonus, and save the remaining 500xp left to use later.

To further make things simple:
# Each level in Fighter buys you 1d8hp and +1 to hit.
# Each level in Specialist buys you 1d6hp and 4 skill points.
# Each level in Magic-User buys you 1d4hp and the ability to work increasingly powerful magic.

What do you think?

Quote from: The Butcher;862811To further make things simple:
# Each level in Fighter buys you 1d8hp and +1 to hit.
# Each level in Specialist buys you 1d6hp and 4 skill points.
# Each level in Magic-User buys you 1d4hp and the ability to work increasingly powerful magic.

What do you think?

It sounds cool. Are there any default abilities for those 0 level characters, to help them get to their first level in something?

I would expect the effectiveness of the system would be very closely bound to issues like the usefulness of skills versus spells. I.e. the task of making each level up choice a meaningful one.

But I'd play it.  

Quote from: Majus;862818It sounds cool. Are there any default abilities for those 0 level characters, to help them get to their first level in something?

Didn't really think about it. Maybe 1d4hp and 4 skill points? I like 'em squishy.

Quote from: Majus;862818I would expect the effectiveness of the system would be very closely bound to issues like the usefulness of skills versus spells. I.e. the task of making each level up choice a meaningful one.

Again, for a dark fantasy/S&S game, the ideal would probably be a whole new magic system, with predominantly ritual casting, and harsh spell failure mechanics.

But you could also keep the classic magic system, and make Magic-User levels much, much more expensive than Specialist or Fighter levels.

Quote from: Majus;862818But I'd play it.  

Thanks