I'm the first one to admit I was wrong: this book is totally worth the money. It's another DCC, not simply a crappy clone.

Just finished skimming through the preview. I think I shall be ordering this one.

Quote from: Brad;715935I'm the first one to admit I was wrong: this book is totally worth the money. It's another DCC, not simply a crappy clone.

Your turnaround on this piques my curiosity.  I wonder if we could get the author to come join us here?

RPGPundit

Quote from: RPGPundit;716654Your turnaround on this piques my curiosity.  I wonder if we could get the author to come join us here?

RPGPundit

I wrote him about this thread. I really like his game and I'm ready to ask him several questions.

Quote from: Brad;715935I'm the first one to admit I was wrong: this book is totally worth the money. It's another DCC, not simply a crappy clone.

What in particular stands out as  being worth the dough?

Quote from: Warthur;716800What in particular stands out as  being worth the dough?

I just skimmed through the book again last night, and here are the things that stand out the most:

1) Not simply another fantasy clone. There are races/classes designed for pulp, swords and sorcery, scifi, and "Dying Earth"-style campaigns (author's words). There's even a section on laser guns and explosives. You can use this book to play typical D&D fantasy, Gamma World, dark fantasy, John Carter or whatever. This seems to be the game designed to take advantage of Carcosa (yes, even over LotFP).

2) The magic system is really cool. Grey, White and Black magic/magicians, along with Delusion and Nature magic. Later in the book the idea of specialist wizards is thrown in almost out of nowhere which really expands the possible character types.

3) Going with #2, every section has new ways to expand character classes. There are a bunch of alternative classes in the appendix, the specialist wizards mentioned above, "prestige classes"...the skill system is a short list tied to attributes which allows for customizing the classes even further. Assassins, for instance, just don't get the same +2 bonus as thieves for a certain set of skills. Super simple, but it works. Varied backgrounds provide some mechanical benefit, along with flavoring the characters. There are also race-specific classes, which promotes the archetypal race-as-class.

Further, there's a free supplement for multiclassing that doesn't overpower multiclassed characters (introduces more generic, low powered classes that are combined). Pretty cool.

4) A metric fuckton of information for running games. When I was reading the book, I thought perhaps this could be used for a Cthulhu game but wondered how to handle the problem of sanity. Well, there it is in the book. Along with Talents (feats) and Psionics. Basically it's like the author included any sort of optional rule you might think of from other OGL/OSR games, but succinctly and unobtrusively.

5) Corollary to #4, no wasted space or fluff. EVERYTHING in the book is geared toward play, and there is no filler. You might decide not to use the section on the planes, but it's there just in case. The overview of religion is very useful as well. There is just enough information to spark ideas and give you a platform for creating your own world and not a bunch of bs that explicates how things are done. This is a toolkit that requires a good GM to make use of, but it also allows you to import any other resource you want without trouble. The section on monsters essentially gives you a quick-n-dirty method for converting them from other sources. I already have a shitload of monster manuals, so not duplicating those entries is much appreciated.

If you never play this game (I probably will not considering I can barely keep my B/X game going) it is worth the money simply for the ideas. The author obviously spent a lot of time playing and running various editions of D&D and D&D-like games in different genres, cherry picking the parts he thought worked the best. There are elements of many editions here, but melded into something unique, which is what the OSR is SUPPOSED to be, right?

Quote from: Brad;716824There are elements of many editions here, but melded into something unique, which is what the OSR is SUPPOSED to be, right?

Yep, tell the author you just sold a copy for him.

Quote from: CRKrueger;716926Yep, tell the author you just sold a copy for him.

I'm actually disappointed I chintzed out and got the paperback instead of the hardcover. If there's another Lulu sale, definitely ordering hardcover.

Quote from: Brad;716952I'm actually disappointed I chintzed out and got the paperback instead of the hardcover. If there's another Lulu sale, definitely ordering hardcover.

Sounds like a great game. Someone should bump this thread when the next Lulu sale is on.

Quote from: Brad;716824The section on monsters essentially gives you a quick-n-dirty method for converting them from other sources.

Are there guidelines for converting 3E monsters to oldschool?

Quote from: CRKrueger;716926Yep, tell the author you just sold a copy for him.

Seconded.

This sounds very excellent indeed, especially considering it's Brad who's posting about him (I don't know Brad a lot, but he doesn't strike me as the kinda guy who gushes uncritically on something new and shiny but rather the kinda guy who has a rather in-depth look at things before making up his mind, with a clear eye for things of importance).

Quote from: The Butcher;710469But then I own Mongoose Runequest 2, Legend, Openquest 2e and two copies of RQ6 (softcover and hardcover) so I might not be the best index for this. I really should give some of this stuff away, BTW.

Quoted for Truth.  

From skimming the pdf, I am really liking what he does with the Divine side of things.  The Friar and its related classes, the discussion of the role of Gods and religions, and the listings of template Gods.  Those are really neat and suggest what class combo PC priests of those Gods could be as well as including granted powers to flavour the divine classes closely to the deity.  Plus, if you really want your Priestly type to have spells, he's got Champion of Law/Chaos/Neutrality for those types that look like they were inspired partially from the Stormbringer allegiance system.

Drive by...

Quote from: Brad;716952I'm actually disappointed I chintzed out and got the paperback instead of the hardcover. If there's another Lulu sale, definitely ordering hardcover.

Free shipping is: FREESHIP
LULUEMP2013 is the 40% one. *

Using both the HC book is 21.64.

Quote from: Planet Algol;717000Are there guidelines for converting 3E monsters to oldschool?

There's not a ton of information about converting monsters, but Base-to-hit per 3.x = BtH in FH&W. Saves are similar. You can probably eyeball it and use monsters from 3.x with about 2 seconds effort. Converting from 1st/2nd might take 5 seconds (convert HD to BtH bonus). The underlying system is basically d20 with AD&D sensibilities, so using monsters from any source is pretty easy.

And thanks to Gib for the coupons; just ordered the HC.