Quote from: Soylent Green;281659I don't have an issue with house rules as such as it someone choosing to customise the style of their campaign. I do however expect the rules as written to be sensible and playable.

What is sensible and playable varies from person to person. 4e apparently makes a lot of sense and seems very playable to a whole lot of people. For me, the combats are unplayably detailed and lengthy and the powers system sucks because the effects of the powers often do not map to anything that could likely physically happen (tripping gelatinous cubes and the like). I see 4e as not sensible and not playable. Others see it as the most sensible and playable version of D&D they've seen. Both opinions are 100% correct.

QuoteWhat is often missed out in these discussions is that you often find out that you need a house rule at the worse possible moment - right smack in the middle of a game.

For me, this isn't a problem. I've been making such mid-game rulings since the first game of OD&D I ran back in 1975. I didn't have a problem then and don't now. Of course, I make far better rulings now than then -- experience really does help.

Quote from: SpinachcatI highly suggest reading Matt Finch's A Quick Primer to Old School Gaming (its free) http://www.lulu.com/content/3019374

Agreed. I've given the link to my players.

Quote from: RPGPundit;281671Except that's my argument for why we DON'T need "Castles & Crusades", "Labyrinth Lord" or any of those other retro-clones, the originals still exist and don't need updating.

Again the focus on D&D clones. RuneQuest, Cthulhu, Traveller, James Bond - all these games are "old school", and all have their clones.

Not all the originals are still in print, or at least not in the same form as 20-30 years ago.

And again, they can be and often are streamlined, tidied up and generally made clearer than they once were.

You might simply ask yourself why you bothered writing FtA! I mean, it's obviously extremely derivative of a few other fantasy rpgs. What can it do they can't? If you condemn the clones, you have to condemn FtA! on the same basis.

I wouldn't condemn either. With over 2,000 published rpgs out there it's pretty hard to come up with something that isn't a copy of something else, in one way or another. But I wasn't the one who - obviously lacking any sense of irony - started a ranty thread about clones.

I've only played a few rpgs, all of them decades old.  I dig the retro-clones because they have given me new stuff for the hobby like Monsters of Myth and the modules from EXP.R. press.  I reckon it's pretty cool that folks are making stuff that I can easily understand and have fun with.

Quote from: RPGPundit;281669There's a small sample PDF over in the FtA! website on Flying Mice's pages; and a combat and stunt cheat sheet.  That's the closest it gets.

RPGPundit

OK, thanks - hard to tell from that, but judging by the skills list and the character sheet it seems more complex than I generally like.

Quote from: RPGPundit;281671Except that's my argument for why we DON'T need "Castles & Crusades", "Labyrinth Lord" or any of those other retro-clones, the originals still exist and don't need updating.

Labyrinth Lord gives me Moldvay B/X up to level 20 (instead of 14) in a single book; with better writing than Cook-Marsh's Expert set, and cleans up a few flaws in B-X such as the Cleric spells per day table.  And like I said it lets me play online easily.

Castles & Crusades gives me D&D with a unified mechanic and a streamlined system which takes mininal effort to GM.  Good for general play, I'm finding the unified mechanic makes it particularly good for chatroom based play.

Re LL, I could and did get by without it using B/X or BECM, which apart from the Basic sets I got off Ebay.  C&C fills a niche that didn't exist before, since it feels like AD&D but is much simpler to run.

Quote from: RPGPundit;281673Personally I think that if some FtA! fan were to want to try to promote FtA! seriously, they'd probably do better going and promoting it on Roguelike/Nethack fan forums than on T&T fan forums (if indeed the latter even exist?).

RPGPundit

They do.  The thing is, T&T players have pretty much done what OD&Ders seem to have done: Picked their system, and they basically don't much care about other games unless they are in fact interested in other games to play.  They already LIKE T&T, and aren't looking for its replacement.

Plus the fact its still in print, still getting support products, and the myriad of available editions in print (like 4 of them.  Seriously.) that are all 80-99% compatible means they are set.

(I reviewed the newest version on my blog, which also got a nicer laid out version here:  http://aliveandoutofprint.org/forums/articles.php/?p=130 )

And that's sort of the deal with this whole retro clone deal.

I have the originals.  ALL OF THEM.  O, Holmes, B/X, BECMI, RC, A1, A2, 3.0.  

Unless there is some magical program to let me easily edit in my house rules I just don't need the remakes.  Most people are NOT gonna play the retroclones, or even the original.  Or even a neoclone like C&C.  (One player says he had a bad experience running it and will never play it again.  Yet he will still run 3.x, even though his last game was an utter DISASTER.  The problem is I got him into gaming with 3.0 and he loves it in spite of everything else.  Luckily he will play non D&D RPGs.  But for D&D its 3.x or 4.  I would rather NEVER GAME AGAIN than play 4.)

So the creators have a problem.  Make an as close to original clone, and its basically a pointless waste of time.  Make a massively house ruled version and the grognards will bitch and moan how you have desecrated the spirit of old school gaming you fuckface that probably likes Larry Elmore artwork and enjoyed Dragonlance corporate loving douche.

Of course making a "in the spirit of" original game has its flaws too.

Mainly there are TOO MANY Sword n Sorcery FANTASY RPGS out there.  Nobody really wants or needs another one.  

Heck, D&D alone is really 5 different fantasy RPGs. (O, Basic, AD, 3.x, 4.)

I myself own enough non D&D fantasy games to not need any more.  Tunnels & Trolls 7.5, Runequest 3rd, Castles & Crusades, Runequest Mongoose (PHB only. 3.33 US at a clearance price is enough to grab it.), D6 Fantasy, MERP, Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay (1st ed rulesbook, and a ton of 2nd stuff.).

And that's just what I remember.  If we count the generic or multifunction systems, I have many more.

We just don't need any more fantasy RPG systems, retro or not.

Some cool worlds?  Fuckin A we do.  

Neat house rules documents that easily plug in and fix old systems?  Rock on.

Adventures?  Hells yeah!

More rulesets?  No.  Not so much.

I guess if these retroclones allow for new stuff to be made and its the ONLY way it can be they serve a purpose.

Otherwise most do NOT.  Outside of OD&D and maybe RC, the books aren't scarce or expensive.  

They sold tens if not hundreds of thousands of these things.  There are probably more Mentzer Basic sets that were sold in its day than the entire 4th ed D&D line will sell in books PERIOD.  (Maybe not so much when the inevitable 4.5 or Revised comes out though.)

You can probably get Mentzer or Moldvay Cook Basic and Expert for about the same price as most hardcopy retroclones.  (And regardless of what the old school horde says, they really aren't any different.  Moldvay is more compact and thieves have faster skill advancement, Mentzer has better artwork, and is far superior to teach the game.  I say get whichever one you like best.  Or Black Box Basic.  All are sub 20 on the Bay.  Then 5 bucks for Rules Cyclopedia, and print out the pages you need to fill in the blanks.  If you stick to 1-14 level play you really just need the Dominion and Stronghold rules anyhow.  And maybe the Mystic class.)

Quote from: Captain Rufus;281719Of course making a "in the spirit of" original game has its flaws too.

Which makes a large fraction of the 2,000+ rpgs ever published "flawed", since most are derivative of one or more other rpgs.

I mostly see the marketing advantages of these old-new systems. While it is legally possible to create products in support of old editions, it seems that simulacra are able to build and bring together creative communities.

Food for thought: I see discussion about XRP's adventure modules, but precious little about the ones you find on Dragonsfoot (although people do play them, as Premier should confirm), while the former cost money and are for a simulacrum, and the latter are free and are explicitely for AD&D. Simulacrum products get reviewed, non-simulacrum ones generally don't. There are of course exceptions - my Garden of al-Astorion did get a review on Dragonsfoot, Fight On! has had some recognition, and of course Carcosa proved extremely well covered by various commentators - but it seems that the key to success, if we measure success by peer recognition and mindshare, mostly lies in community-building, and that simulacrum games, or retro-clones, or whatever, are the currently fashionable tools for that.

Quote from: Melan;281725but it seems that the key to success, if we measure success by peer recognition and mindshare, mostly lies in community-building, and that simulacrum games, or retro-clones, or whatever, are the currently fashionable tools for that.

True - I guess a problem with the adventures on Dragonsfoot is the lack of quality control.  Something like The Endless Tunnels of Enlandin is fantastic and deserves much attention, but others are not very good.

Well, commercial products do not come with a guarantee of quality either. I have bought OSRIC products that were fairly lackluster, while some of DF's offerings were excellent - e.g. Where the Fallen Jarls Sleep and a few others. All in all, it is important to watch the label, but you should look at the author's name first instead of the brand. When we make that distinction - and buy things from people we trust - we will have made a huge step towards building healthy hobbyist communities. For example, I buy Sword&Wizardry products from Matt Finch (Mythmere) because I trust he will deliver something interesting and useful, while I avoid the products of others even if they started to support S&W.

Quote from: Melan;281758Well, commercial products do not come with a guarantee of quality either.

True - the current rpgnet thread on Goodman Games' Dungeon Crawl Classics is certainly bringing that home!

Huh, weird. I totally agree, except I wouldn't say the clones "suck". I just don't understand their use in a world where the originals are still available.

If I want to run AD&D, I use the AD&D books. Last year when I ran it, I only had the pdf's available (which were pretty cheap), but I have now rebuilt most of my 1E collection ( I have everything but MM2 and Deities & Demigods), and that's all I would ever bother to use anyhow.

Quote from: Melan;281725...but it seems that the key to success, if we measure success by peer recognition and mindshare, mostly lies in community-building, and that simulacrum games, or retro-clones, or whatever, are the currently fashionable tools for that.

Agreed. Retro-clones generate buzz and a sense of community. However, I'm skeptical of claims that they have grown the pie of old-school players (and by players I mean people actively running tabletop games), instead of simply giving the old-school players who hang out on web forums more stuff to read and discuss. The 'renaissance' in old-school gaming is about internet forum exchanges and house-ruled PDFs, rather than a growing market or community of active players. At best every new ruleset just cuts the same pie into smaller pieces.

Double-post.