Is there a setting that you dig, but have yet to run/play in?
This question was prompted in my head talking about "Systems Failure" in another thread. I really like the whole concept, but have never gotten a chance to run/play it.
Well, the new Luther Arkwright book for RQ6 pops to mind. I've been wanting to run something a bit 'secret agent' for a while now.
I'm writing up notes and such... and started a re-read of the comics... but I'm not sure when I'll get around to running it.
The Numenera setting is interesting to me for its call-outs to various stories I like.
Pirates of the Spanish Main...not a fan of the Savage Worlds rules but would try them if it meant playing pirates (with the magical/fantastical bullshit excised).
Something I've dabbled with a tiny bit, but never got to run a campaign in, is Kingdoms of Kalamar.
And, oddly enough, it's not a very sexy setting. The core book is system-neutral but written for D&D. So all the tropes are there, but it's kind of the opposite of, say, Eberron, that's trying to be D&D with a twist. I think it's just that it hits the Goldilocks zone of detail for me, with enough details to key off of, but no canon timeline, and no Elminster type NPCs.
Going by their house forum people are still playing it somewhere, although I'd be surprised if they ever got a sales boom again. I'd still like to run it someday, but now it's up against things like Qelong, Yoon-Suin or my own incomplete notes for a hexcrawl, so the odds are not great.
Quote from: Saladman;835592Something I've dabbled with a tiny bit, but never got to run a campaign in, is Kingdoms of Kalamar.
And, oddly enough, it's not a very sexy setting. The core book is system-neutral but written for D&D. So all the tropes are there, but it's kind of the opposite of, say, Eberron, that's trying to be D&D with a twist. I think it's just that it hits the Goldilocks zone of detail for me, with enough details to key off of, but no canon timeline, and no Elminster type NPCs.
Going by their house forum people are still playing it somewhere, although I'd be surprised if they ever got a sales boom again. I'd still like to run it someday, but now it's up against things like Qelong, Yoon-Suin or my own incomplete notes for a hexcrawl, so the odds are not great.
Your description makes Kalamar sound tolerable, which, believe me, is a complement, as I find most settings annoying when not flat-out shitty. Supposed "twists on D&D" are tiresome. If you're gonna twist it, why are we playing D&D at all?
Quote from: Saladman;835592Something I've dabbled with a tiny bit, but never got to run a campaign in, is Kingdoms of Kalamar.
And, oddly enough, it's not a very sexy setting. The core book is system-neutral but written for D&D. So all the tropes are there, but it's kind of the opposite of, say, Eberron, that's trying to be D&D with a twist. I think it's just that it hits the Goldilocks zone of detail for me, with enough details to key off of, but no canon timeline, and no Elminster type NPCs.
Going by their house forum people are still playing it somewhere, although I'd be surprised if they ever got a sales boom again. I'd still like to run it someday, but now it's up against things like Qelong, Yoon-Suin or my own incomplete notes for a hexcrawl, so the odds are not great.
Your description makes Kalamar sound tolerable, which, believe me, is a compliment, as I find most settings annoying when not flat-out shitty. Supposed "twists on D&D" and settings full of precious Mary Jane NPCs are tiresome. If you're gonna twist it, why are we playing D&D at all?
Oh man, that's a big ol' list, owning at least in part to the fact that I've homebrewed my settings for most of my life.
Tékumel. When I run this one, I'm doing it EPT style: PCs as "barbarians" fresh off the boat, go off dungeon crawlinh through the tsuru'um (underworld ruins of the high-tech ancients) beneath Jakálla, and if they survive, get rich enough to buy citizenship, clan adoption and appointments to political, military and/or religious office. Now if only I can find a perfect system! The dungeon-crawling bits suggest a TSR/OSR D&D variant, but the class structure doesn't strike me as particularly conductive to this sort of game, and neither does the arcane/divine magic divide.
Talislanta. The thing about Talislanta is that I'm attracted to it by its lush aesthetics. Truth is, a Talislanta campaign probably looks a lot like a D&D or Runequest campaign with exquisite, exotic "color" (to borrow one of the more useful bits of Forge jargon), so it's not really that high up my want-to-run-someday list. But it's definitely there.
Glorantha. The Third Age is a classic but I think I'd rather run a Second Age game. The God-Learners read like Mage: The Awakening's hubris-plagued Atlanteans cranked up to 11, and the Wyrm's Friends are, well, fricking dragon-people and serpent-worshippers. You can have your pro-Orlanthi and pro-Lunar players each roll up their Orlanthi barbarians and [strike]Lunar[/strike] Dara Happan soldiers and they can team up against their common, greater enemies without hassle.
Third Imperium. My only Traveller campaign was ostensibly set in the Third Imperium, but it was too short-lived for the Zhodani, the Vargr, the Aslan, the Hivers, the Imperial Marines, Solomani totalitarianists and other OTU stalwarts to really make an appearance. So I still have the nagging feeling I haven't "really" played in the Third Imperium, and I'd like to revisit it with a vengeance some day.
Forgotten Realms. I've played in FR games a bit as a teen back in the day, and more often as a consumer of D&D-branded PC games, which has made the setting grow on me in spite of the (admittedy easily ignored, but still) annoying proliferation of über-NPCs. Since Leiber seems to have been such a huge influence on Ed Greenwood, I still want to run a city-centric D&D game, tentatively called "Ill-Met in Luskan" with PCs dungeon-crawling through Old Illusk and getting caught up with intrigue in the meantime.
Azeroth (from Warcraft). All right, I admit it. As a lapsed, if casual WC3 and WoW player, Warcraft "lore" is a guilty pleasure of mine, or at least it was up until Cataclysm. It's silly as hell but unashamedly huge in scope and yet still feels unpretentiously fun. I'd love to run a big ol' game set circa Burning Crusade and/or Wrath of the Lich King with ridiculously powerful PCs mowing down legions of mooks and engaging outrageous, earth-shattering bosses in long, drawn-out fights. Unfortunately, neither White Wolf's official d20-powered RPG nor J Arcane's clever, pared-down-d20 Drums of War RPG quite cut it for me. Maybe I'd be better served by a supers RPG.
Eclipse Phase. It's been on the list since I picked it up as a thank-you to the good people at the Manhattan Compleat Strategist (ah, the halcyon days of the strong real and weak dollar...) back in 2009, only to be inadvertently introduced to, and captivated by, new school SF. I intend to run this soon enough. The Ego Hunter adventure sounds fun if only for the "everyone plays the same character, slightly edited" novelty schtick.
Hyperborea (from AS&SH). One of the best S&S settings out there. I love everything about this game, but I often wonder whether DCC or RQ6 would do it more justice than even the excellent (second only to ACKS, IMHO) TSR D&D-derived engine Jeff Talanian put together.
Auran Empire (from ACKS). Technically this is not out yet, but most of my homebrewed D&D settings have been variations on the "fallen empire" or "Dark Ages" theme; and Autarch's take on the it, like ACKS itself, seems particularly suited to my gaming proclivities. There's an adventure module in the works and it'll include a setting primer, so I'm really looking forward to it.
Numenera. The OSR reawakened my interest in science-fantasy gaming and Numenera actually felt like a breath of fresh air by dint of being comprehensive and playable without being too gonzo or whimsical. Still iffy on the system, though.
Quote from: Simlasa;835588Luther Arkwright
I'm still tracking down the comics, which I haven't read, but I'm already enjoying this book as the ultimate RQ6 supplement. It's got rules for just about everything I've ever wanted to run with the system, but was too lazy to homebrew: vehicles (Day After Ragnarok!), psionics (Dark Sun!), space travel (Star Wars!) etc.
Quote from: The Butcher;835597Azeroth (from Warcraft). All right, I admit it. As a lapsed, if casual WC3 and WoW player, Warcraft "lore" is a guilty pleasure of mine, or at least it was up until Cataclysm.
I've always wanted to play a 'real' RPG version of WoW. The official D20 materials might make for some decent reference material but I wonder if it would work with some OSR thing.
QuoteNumenera.... Still iffy on the system, though.
Yeah, that's mostly what's held me back. Again, I wonder if it might easily be ported to something I already know and like.
The 4th Age - I've pretty much loved the setting of Earthdawn ever since I found out about it. The rules seem overly complex, but at least they do model in-setting realities. Heck, the ED guys took a lot of the stuff present in D&D(dungeons to explore, character levels, spell slots) and wove them into something really neat. Not only are there in-setting explanations for a number of things, but those explanations are actually good!
Quote from: Saladman;835592Something I've dabbled with a tiny bit, but never got to run a campaign in, is Kingdoms of Kalamar.
And, oddly enough, it's not a very sexy setting. The core book is system-neutral but written for D&D. So all the tropes are there, but it's kind of the opposite of, say, Eberron, that's trying to be D&D with a twist. I think it's just that it hits the Goldilocks zone of detail for me, with enough details to key off of, but no canon timeline, and no Elminster type NPCs.
I once drew up a fictional city for a Vampire: the Masquerade game with people who had never played it, and I decided I would very much appeal to stereotype. So you had a Ventrue Prince, a Gangrel Sheriff, a Brujah-led Anarch gang, Lasombra and Tzimisce Bishops working to undermine the Camarilla, you know, the same old same old.
I showed it to an old gaming buddy who wasn't involved with that particular game and he commented something along the lines of, "your characters are stereotypical, but they are rich" -- and that's because, once I noted down who occupied which seats, and what sort of relationship I wanted them to have with each other, I had to flesh them out. I had to come up with a reason why the Brujah Anarch leader hated the Ventrue Prince, so I decided the city's previous Prince was an idealistic Brujah philosopher-king who was double-crossed by his ferocious Ventrue Sheriff. I wanted the Ventrue Primogen to be both a martinet and a business powerhouse, so I decided he was a Confederate veteran who founded an arms company after the Civil War, and threw in the One Arm flaw. And so on.
What makes me, both as a reader and as a gamer, engage with a setting is not so much exoticism or novelty (though those can be cool, too), but depth. Depth is not really an abundance of information, which can feel both overwhelming (as a reader) and constraining (as a GM). Depth is about building lifelike connections between individual building blocks.
To use an example from my list, Tékumel isn't amazing because of non-Western influences
per se; those make it
interesting, but what makes it
amazing is that it's a rare representative of a non-Western setting with depth; and this depth stems not from the fact that each nation has a full-fledged artificial language or extensive lists of historical emperors or standing legions, but from the fact that it goes out of its way to detail how Tsolyáni and Mu'ugalaviyáni feel about each other, and, without explicit comparisons, allows you to draw parallels to real-world analogues (e.g. I'd say Tsolyánu is France to Mu'ugalaviyá's Germany, or maybe the Brazil to their Argentina).
It's awesome that a dedicated world-builder can craft such a unique place
and draw from gaming experience to present in a manner that's both intriguing and game-table-worthy, but it's admittedly a lot easier to do so with more familiar building blocks drawn from Western history, literature and myth (to me, anyway; Prof. Barker was an expert in Native American and South Asian languages and probably knew a ton more about the Mayans or the Mughals than I could possibly muster about the Western places, epochs, traditions and fiction I'd call myself "familiar" with).
In any case, while I'm really fond of exotic worlds like Tékumel, I feel there's a lot to be said for "Goldilocks" settings.
I hope you guys are happy now: you've made me dig out my old copy of Space:1889 (GDW), a game I never got to play. Dammit. Now I really want to play this thing!
even after being burned twice by the system, I still want to run somthing like 7th Sea as a setting.
I want to run something in Dragonlance someday even though I don't care about the books or meta plot. Not sure why. there's just something orderly feeling about it I guess, and since I like the history of the game it would be like playing around with a museum piece.
Quote from: Ronin;835585Is there a setting that you dig, but have yet to run/play in?
This question was prompted in my head talking about "Systems Failure" in another thread. I really like the whole concept, but have never gotten a chance to run/play it.
Scraypers, Mechanoids, Wormwood and System Failure from Palladium: But in particular the new After the Bomb or even the original.
Meckton: Yes it is really a wargame. But it still plays well between the giant robots beating on eachother.
Cute Fuzzy "Cockfighting" Seizure Monsters for BESM: With a title like that you can guess how likely that is to attract a GM. Also Big Ears Small Mouse.
Macho Women With Guns: Yes it is really a minis wargame too. But like Melee/Wizard and Meckton, all the fun is in the posturing on the battlefield.
Buck Rodgers: Interesting setting and the PC games from SSI were great.
Quote from: Ronin;835585Is there a setting that you dig, but have yet to run/play in?
Yes, a guilty pleasure of mine : I'd like to run a
Star Trek game, none of my players is even remotely interested.
Mutant Year Zero as the "metaplot" is kind of fun. Don't care much about the rules though.
Numenera though I have no idea how I would run it, I'd like to make it more than just fantasy with sci-fi trappings.
Traveller 2300 (Mongoose) : at least a one-shot of gritty sci-fi would be nice.
Quote from: GeekEclectic;835604The 4th Age - I've pretty much loved the setting of Earthdawn ever since I found out about it. The rules seem overly complex, but at least they do model in-setting realities. Heck, the ED guys took a lot of the stuff present in D&D(dungeons to explore, character levels, spell slots) and wove them into something really neat. Not only are there in-setting explanations for a number of things, but those explanations are actually good!
++The rules seem overly complex...++
I would encourage checking out Earthdawn 4th edition. One of the primary motivations for the new edition was "simplify and improve speed of play". Basically, while the Step Table is still there, every other part of the system has been re-done. You no longer need to look each roll Result up on a Success Level table (compare result to diff)... you now earn an extra success for every 5 over the target number! Also, you can use the optional rule of applying temporary modifiers to the Result (thus not changing the Step/Dice each combat round). Those are the two big ones that improved the game at my table, but nearly every aspect of the mechanics have been revised.
Quote from: Ronin;835585Is there a setting that you dig, but have yet to run/play in?
Planescape. I've been paying the CRPG
Planescape: Torment over the past few weeks, and I really love the setting. Of the 'non-vanilla' A/D&D settings to have been published over the years, this one is the most impressive IMO.
I'm sad that I missed it when it first came out. (By the early 1990s, to the extent that I was still following and playing RPGs, I had become something of an anti-AD&D snob. Oh, the follies of youth!)
Quote from: Telarus;835694nearly every aspect of the mechanics have been revised.
Are the mechanics still tied closely to the setting... such as with how magic works? That was the main reason I was at all willing to put up with the complexities when I was playing Earthdawn... because the setting is so good and the mechanics tied into the cosmology.
Over the Edge - somehow this one escaped me when it was in print, and only lately have I collected the anniversary rules and some supplements. It's a bit rules-lite for my tastes but works well for what is intended. It's weird, because back in the nineties when I was completely all about Burroughs, Barton Fink, David Lynch and all that OtE would have been perfect, but instead I was using GURPS for my surrealistic adventures.
Birthright - it seems like the sort of stuff I would have loved to play in, or maybe run, but the timing of this setting was all off....burned too many times by TSR it was easy to ignore when it first came out. Regretted that decision later.
Shadowrun - I avoided this game for ages, and only recently with the CRPG Shadowrun Returns and Dragonfall did I realize the core conceit of the setting was a lot more interesting than I gave it credit for. Been messing with the 5th edition of the rules, but these days I don't have enough time to absorb the mass of content to run...and know one else I know has that kind of time or interest, either.
Quote from: Matt;835594Your description makes Kalamar sound tolerable, which, believe me, is a compliment, as I find most settings annoying when not flat-out shitty. Supposed "twists on D&D" and settings full of precious Mary Jane NPCs are tiresome. If you're gonna twist it, why are we playing D&D at all?
Does anyone really fill setting books full of precious Mary Janes anymore? I haven't noticed that phenomenon for ages. I mean, I assume there are lots of NPCs in the various and sundry setting books out there, but I haven't seen a game where those NPCs couldn't be eviscerated, at least for D&D, in a long time....like a decade or two. Barring official settings, of course.
As for twists....if you're playing D&D and it doesn't have twists....what are you playing? I thought D&D was all about the twists. Even in the good old days, when the twists were as simple as figuring out the house rules and special exceptions from one table to the next. The whole point was no one ever played it the same way....the idea of a codified "one process to rule them all" kind of D&D strikes me as really recent.
Quote from: Matt;835628I hope you guys are happy now: you've made me dig out my old copy of Space:1889 (GDW), a game I never got to play. Dammit. Now I really want to play this thing!
Thats another one I would like to run as well
Quote from: Ronin;835721Thats another one I would like to run as well
Let me know when you do!
Quote from: Telarus;835694I would encourage checking out Earthdawn 4th edition. One of the primary motivations for the new edition was "simplify and improve speed of play". Basically, while the Step Table is still there, every other part of the system has been re-done. You no longer need to look each roll Result up on a Success Level table (compare result to diff)... you now earn an extra success for every 5 over the target number! Also, you can use the optional rule of applying temporary modifiers to the Result (thus not changing the Step/Dice each combat round). Those are the two big ones that improved the game at my table, but nearly every aspect of the mechanics have been revised.
I'm honestly not sure if it's worth doing for me. To my knowledge, I have every print product that's been put out for both Classic and 3rd Edition, and they're good stuff. Enjoyable reads. But . . . I'm seriously starting to doubt that I'll ever get to play in a serious game. And while I've heard that the 4th edition was simplified in some respects, the people I've asked have said that it hasn't been simplifed all
that much. I'm not sure how much they could change about thread weaving, for example, while still maintaining all the necessary flavor -- names, patterns, threads, etc. I'm not saying it can't be done -- I'd love for there to be a simpler magic system that still has the right feel -- but that I'd have to see it to believe it. There's also the fact that they stopped 3rd Edition way too fast(and didn't change enough to justify a whole new edition in the first place), and then the hastily-abandoned 3rd Edition revised and Savage Worlds and Pathfinder-compatible editions . . . yeah, I'm just not feeling a whole lot of trust for that company at the moment.
I also found Red Brick(now the new FASA)'s first truly-new-material attempt to be kind of disappointing. I'm not sure what I was expecting from Cathay, but overall it just didn't feel
Earthdawn enough. I think it might have been
too stereotypically oriental for starters. This happened sometimes in earlier editions, too, where they went outside of Barsaive proper and had some weirdness ensue. Like Talea(4th Age Italy), IIRC, resembling actual Renaissance era Italy quite a bit. On the flip-side, I have no problem with the metavariant Jackal-people of Creana or the monkey-people of Cathay; I actually think their existence makes a lot of sense and provides a great reason for future people of those territories to include said people in their stories and legends.
Quote from: camazotz;835701Does anyone really fill setting books full of precious Mary Janes anymore? I haven't noticed that phenomenon for ages. I mean, I assume there are lots of NPCs in the various and sundry setting books out there, but I haven't seen a game where those NPCs couldn't be eviscerated, at least for D&D, in a long time....like a decade or two. Barring official settings, of course.
I'm comparing it only to "official" (well, published) settings. I haven't yet across come someone else's homebrew setting that I'm jonesing to run (the topic of the thread). Neither have I seen every published setting for D&D, so I'm not saying everything commits that error, just that KoK doesn't.
And... I'm not thinking only of Mary Sue-ness when I say Elminster-type, but scale as well. "Scale" covering power, level and influence. There's an assumption that becoming a mover in the world doesn't require even getting to name level, which interests me.
Quote from: camazotz;835701As for twists....if you're playing D&D and it doesn't have twists....what are you playing? I thought D&D was all about the twists. Even in the good old days, when the twists were as simple as figuring out the house rules and special exceptions from one table to the next. The whole point was no one ever played it the same way....the idea of a codified "one process to rule them all" kind of D&D strikes me as really recent.
I suspect we're not using "twists" in the same sense.* I'm saying,
at the setting-wide level, there's no attempt to make it steampunk, or modern-but-with-magic, or trains running on fire elementals, or everything's got the cold template like in
Hellfrost, there's no big *gasp* reveal about the game world like in
Sundered Skies. It's medieval-tech D&D. If you read the hooks, there are all kinds of local, adventure-level twists, but not the setting-wide theme kind I was talking about.
*(Actually from the insulting tone and the bringing in "one process to rule them all" out of nowhere I suspect I'm being trolled, but I'll give it one shot explaining.)
I didn't bother to answer because I thought the question was disingenuous.
Quote from: Saladman;835800I'm comparing it only to "official" (well, published) settings. I haven't yet across come someone else's homebrew setting that I'm jonesing to run (the topic of the thread). Neither have I seen every published setting for D&D, so I'm not saying everything commits that error, just that KoK doesn't.
And... I'm not thinking only of Mary Sue-ness when I say Elminster-type, but scale as well. "Scale" covering power, level and influence. There's an assumption that becoming a mover in the world doesn't require even getting to name level, which interests me.
I suspect we're not using "twists" in the same sense.* I'm saying, at the setting-wide level, there's no attempt to make it steampunk, or modern-but-with-magic, or trains running on fire elementals, or everything's got the cold template like in Hellfrost, there's no big *gasp* reveal about the game world like in Sundered Skies. It's medieval-tech D&D. If you read the hooks, there are all kinds of local, adventure-level twists, but not the setting-wide theme kind I was talking about.
*(Actually from the insulting tone and the bringing in "one process to rule them all" out of nowhere I suspect I'm being trolled, but I'll give it one shot explaining.)
Well....makes sense. Okay then! Yeah I agree, "world wide twists" can get old because when every world has one then is it really a twist anymore?
Although, with an edit, I'll add that I really don't see why D&D can't accomodate all sorts of settings, including steampunk or whatever. D&D really isn't just medieval-tech D&D anymore, it's not even medieval in many regards. Over a spectrum that is one side of what D&D is, absolutely....and loving that side is fine. But there's a lot more to this game than that, which is why I like it.
EDIT 2: on the "one system to rule them all" I happen to strongly believe that 3rd and 4th edition especially (and even 5th to a certain degree) have an emphasis on conformity of design, and years of playing all of them demonstrate a concerted move toward mechanical and marketing design that gets players and GM's on the "same plate" to make it all more familiar and portable. That's what I am referring to in that context. Unlike the older editions of the game where my fantasy take could be remarkably different from your fantasy take....there was a great deal less effort at rigorous mechanical and setting enforcement in the old days, at least IME back then. (Final thought: you mention insulting tone. I'll try to curb it, but I think it was just in reaction to Matt's posts, which appear to be 95% borderline aggressive "I'm gonna say this and fuck you" sounding posts. But this is text and it's likely just me reading that in)
Quote from: Matt;835808I didn't bother to answer because I thought the question was disingenuous.
Hardly. I actually have no idea who you are beyond brief and provocative posts so no, I do not get your point and I am not being disingenuous. But thanks to Saladman for responding at least.
Tekumel - On the surface, Barker's masterpiece is almost precisely what everyone tells me would be perfect for me to run. I've never done it. I should.
Earthdawn - heard lots about it. Always wanted to check it out.
Deadlands - This has be crawling up my spine to run. I'm thinking when Rifts lands with the Savage Worlds edition - it'll be my chance to dig into Deadlands.
7th Sea - I know all about it from the d20 edition which I loved (Swashbuckling Adventures). But I need to play the real deal.
Azeroth - This has been an irksome no-brainer. I've played WoW since beta, and I still raid in it. I know a shit-ton about the lore. Hated the d20 edition. I've always said I could run this as a fantasy game and make it kickass. But I've never done it. Some friends and I were joking about it this past weekend... I need to move on this too. For a system - I'm thinking of converting FASERIP for fantasy-use. It would be perfect for WoW. I could scale it beautifully to do high-end enounters with the Burning Legion etc.
Midkemia - Always wanted to do a fantasy game set in Raymond Feists world (and Kelewan which is a Tekumel rip-off).
Quote from: tenbones;8358197th Sea - I know all about it from the d20 edition which I loved (Swashbuckling Adventures).
You're the first person I've encountered who liked it. I'll admit some of its ideas were intriguing and occasionally useful, especially when I made my personal second edition of the Roll and Keep version of the game, but overall I found it to be a poorly tuned affair.
Still, I may yet draw inspiration from it if I ever adapt the 7th Sea setting to 5e D&D.
Quote from: tenbones;835819But I need to play the real deal.
I tried. I really tried. After a lackluster first campaign I studied that system inside and out, back to front and re-wrote it for mechanical rigor while trying to stay true to the source. Still a mess. I really don't think you would get much out of playing it. If you still feel like it eventually, contact me in two weeks so I can send you my notes.
Quote from: Simlasa;835698Are the mechanics still tied closely to the setting... such as with how magic works? That was the main reason I was at all willing to put up with the complexities when I was playing Earthdawn... because the setting is so good and the mechanics tied into the cosmology.
Definitely. That's one of the core draws of the game, and it's still very much the case. You can use mechanical terms in-character like "Circle (level)" and "Discipline (class)". Patterns and threads are still the core of the magical metaphysics. Spellcasting is actually one area that got *some* simplification, like standardizing Thread Weaving difficulties, the spell list got cut down a bit, spell designs for each Discipline have been re-focused on their themes, etc. Thread #s for spells got cut overall - but it did get "more robust" by adding the Success Levels mechanic, and also an "Extra Threads on the fly" mechanic that gives spellcasters "combat options" each round by giving them the choice of powering the spell up more if they are higher Circle. This has cut out the *whiff* moments of playing a spellcaster and rolling turn after turn just to beat a target number. They've also introduced a similar "special maneuver" system for all Creatures based on the new success mechanic. Examples include creatures spending combat attack successes to trigger Knockdown rolls if the target has a lower Strength score, or giving defending characters opportunities that cost attack successes like targeting a wing or leg to slow movement. Each creature has at least one thing it can do on the fly and one thing that can be done to it on the fly. A lot of thought seems to have gone into this latest reboot.
(Also, I agree with the earlier poster about Cathay. Loved some of it, some was meh. Hank Woon - lead writer on Cathay - is no longer writing for Earthdawn. Really, the team changed pretty radically when the new line developer came in. Looking forward to the focus on new material also, we can convert the older stuff ourselves.)
Quote from: Shipyard Locked;835837You're the first person I've encountered who liked it. I'll admit some of its ideas were intriguing and occasionally useful, especially when I made my personal second edition of the Roll and Keep version of the game, but overall I found it to be a poorly tuned affair.
I've often had to explain my position on Swashbuckling Adventures (and I realize you're not asking me to). We all know that 3.x was a hot fucking mess for non-casters RAW. When I read SBA, it dawned on me, this was the way that 3.x should have handled non-casters. Specifically the 5-level PrC's. They were, by comparison, *massively* more powerful than the standard 3.x shitpiles of PrC's, in that they frontloaded all the good shit and mechanically exemplified the exact concept it was trying to let you explore. Instead of nickel-and-diming you with silly shit... meanwhile casters can just do whatever the fuck they want.
The irony was that SBA was a "low-magic" setting. So why in the fuck should non-casters not have this kinda of juice in "standard" 3.x games? It doesn't make casters less powerful after all.
I remember having this long discussion with Mearls talking about SBA specifcially - and this was before he did Iron Heroes. And he was with me on this, and we always talked about how we wanted our Dragon material to reflect this more (that's why you'll see a lot of our martial stuff in Dragon we're trying to push the envelope a bit in that direction.)
Quote from: Shipyard Locked;835837Still, I may yet draw inspiration from it if I ever adapt the 7th Sea setting to 5e D&D.
I'm already doing that. A lot of the 5-level PrC's can easily be translated into Feats representing a fighting style.
Quote from: Shipyard Locked;835837I tried. I really tried. After a lackluster first campaign I studied that system inside and out, back to front and re-wrote it for mechanical rigor while trying to stay true to the source. Still a mess. I really don't think you would get much out of playing it. If you still feel like it eventually, contact me in two weeks so I can send you my notes.
Definitely will take this into account. Maybe I'll just use the fluff and a different system! Thanks for the heads up.