Quote from: Rob Necronomicon on September 02, 2022, 10:47:34 AM
Generally, I prefer lighter combat systems.

Like D100 or WFRP 1/2e. Also light OSR systems. I like to see the combat in the mind's eye as opposed to it being procedurally generated by tables, etc.

I agree. There's a sweet spot of just enough description to let the mind paint an interesting picture.

I also like d100 and some dice pool systems where the result is instantly known by looking at the dice. It makes the rolls more exciting.

Quote from: Lunamancer on August 30, 2022, 09:55:43 PM
I do not consider this to be a preference per se. More like a necessity that some just don't acknowledge.

There's a problem that comes up a lot in "realistic" combat systems. There's almost always an unspoken assumption that all the "realism" is assuming combat will be man vs man. As soon as a gelatinous cube enters the picture, a lot of that shit goes out the window. Even if you're doing a realistic "modern" setting, there's still attack dogs and mounted police and all kinds of reasons for animals to come into play.

Combat has to be at least abstract enough to handle all that without having 14 different systems or stat blocks that take up half the page. I'd be more than happy to see just how realistic you can make the system while adhering to this constraint.

I thought Dangerous Journeys had a pretty cool thing going with its hit location system: Non-Vital, Vital, Super-Vital, and Ultra-Vital. It had hit locations. And most people could more or less figure out what those locations likely meant when it comes to humans. But it's still applicable when fighting some ridiculous fantasy creature, like a three-assed elephant or whatever.

It's a shame really - DJ has some really great ideas. But GDW being threatened with lawsuits pretty much guaranteed that there was no opportunity for a 2nd edition.  A significant edit to clean things up and to "simplify" the Gygaxian prose would have done wonders.

Quote from: rytrasmi on September 02, 2022, 01:56:23 PM
I also like d100 and some dice pool systems where the result is instantly known by looking at the dice. It makes the rolls more exciting.

Is it "some" dice pool systems, since it takes so much time with many of them to figure out the results?
Any specific dice pool systems that work well? I suspect they need custom dice (such as, count the "hit markers")?

I like systems where you're rolling one or two dice and get the results from that.

Quote from: 3catcircus on September 02, 2022, 03:09:17 PM
It's a shame really - DJ has some really great ideas. But GDW being threatened with lawsuits pretty much guaranteed that there was no opportunity for a 2nd edition.  A significant edit to clean things up and to "simplify" the Gygaxian prose would have done wonders.

There is a group that I think are working on a 2E for DJ. I know for sure they're at least getting text and formatted text versions of the original books. They've got a facebook group. They're not really hiding it. I don't know what, if any legal arrangement they're working under. I remember seeing one dude comment something about copyright infringement, and he got unanimously shouted down as an idiot who didn't know what he was talking about. They're certainly acting as if everything they're doing is above board. One of the group members is co-author Dave Newton.

Which makes me almost have to address "Gygaxian prose." The thing is, somewhere along the lines during the 1E years, Gary started scaling back the actual writing he did. I'm not saying you can't hate or find faults with Gary's writing style. Personally, I love it. I'm just saying people point to "Gygaxian Prose" on things Gary didn't really write despite being credited. When I read the 1E DMG, I feel like I'm having a nice, relaxing fireside chat with a wise old friend. It puts me in a really good space in terms of mental clarity, and so I actually find his writing incredibly comprehensible. I don't get that same feeling from the late 1E stuff or anything allegedly written by Gary after. I'm not saying it's bad. It's just not the same.

And so I have a hard time doing anything but roll my eyes any time someone brings up Gygaxian prose. I get a strong impression that Dave Newton did most of the heavy lifting on DJ. I could be wrong. I suppose I could just go on over to facebook and ask him. He's fairly active in the group. I do have a little first-hand experience with this. I was co-authoring a module with Gary at the time he died. We started with an old document that was a hybrid of outline/manuscript that actually was written by Gary, which was brilliant by the way. And it was on me to do virtually all of the writing to turn the outline into a full-fledged module. He'd give notes and request changes here and there. If the thing had made it to print, the final words would probably have been about 95% mine and yet still get called Gygaxian prose. And so if a DJ 2E ever comes to fruition, it might still retain a good measure of its Newtonian Prose.

As far as DJ as a system, my personal feelings was that Advanced Mythus was too heavy, and Mythis Prime was too light. Gary did a great job hitting the Goldilocks zone with Lejendary Adventure. DJ definitely has some over-sized stat blocks. I find myself back-porting the LA stat block format to other RPGs, because I think LA nailed the stat block. If I were to do an LA-style stat block with DJ, I'd only list the Traits, not the individual attributes. And then I'd just list attack summaries that include Base Attack Chance, Base Damage, and damage bonus for each weapon. Armor, I'd probably used the simple armor stats option. And this same format would work perfectly whether you're playing Advanced or Prime.