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Post by vladtolenkov on Jan 14, 2009 17:03:35 GMT -6
Hey all--I've just been looking over the S&W Whitebox PDF, and it looks great! I love the houserule sidebars, and Fin even got his index card character sheet in there.
Nice work guys. Nick
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Post by Finarvyn on Jan 14, 2009 19:01:31 GMT -6
Thanks! I know that the folks on the committee helped me a lot with their advice, and Jesse's layout helps me look good! I'm pretty happy overall with the way this project is turning out. :-)
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Post by dwayanu on Jan 17, 2009 2:15:49 GMT -6
The more I compare "Core Edition" and "White Box," the more arbitrary and dubious the division of S&W seems. The one certain benefit is two different covers that knock my socks off!
I'm probably an oddball in this regard, but I think it might work better in the long run to have a single basic book drawing from both the material most faithful to the actual White Box set. Material like that in the original supplements -- and more of it (Yes, I mean, e.g., Thieves!) -- could then be presented in supplement form.
The relationships of the two versions with each other, with the original game, and with other retro-clones seem to me a bit awkward just now. The project's usefulness as a common platform for adventure publishers, as a common referent for players, and as a more accessible presentation of the classic game's actual content (as opposed to the re-writers' house rules) seems to me hindered.
As "house rules" versions go, I think Holmes set a gold standard. Indeed, a mere process of elimination (perhaps of some of the very things that made the work so helpful at the time) might produce a gold standard of faithful re-presentation. Moldvay's was also excellent, and I think Labyrinth Lord ably carries that torch forward.
I certainly do not propose that having just run a Marathon, you should immediately start over! (The scary thing is that Matt probably could do just that, if the inspiration took him.) It's more a thought to put on the back burner while waiting to see how people respond to the work in the long run.
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mythmere
Level 5 Thaumaturgist
Posts: 293
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Post by mythmere on Jan 17, 2009 11:02:09 GMT -6
The more I compare "Core Edition" and "White Box," the more arbitrary and dubious the division of S&W seems. The one certain benefit is two different covers that knock my socks off! I'm probably an oddball in this regard, but I think it might work better in the long run to have a single basic book drawing from both the material most faithful to the actual White Box set. Material like that in the original supplements -- and more of it (Yes, I mean, e.g., Thieves!) -- could then be presented in supplement form. The relationships of the two versions with each other, with the original game, and with other retro-clones seem to me a bit awkward just now. The project's usefulness as a common platform for adventure publishers, as a common referent for players, and as a more accessible presentation of the classic game's actual content (as opposed to the re-writers' house rules) seems to me hindered. As "house rules" versions go, I think Holmes set a gold standard. Indeed, a mere process of elimination (perhaps of some of the very things that made the work so helpful at the time) might produce a gold standard of faithful re-presentation. Moldvay's was also excellent, and I think Labyrinth Lord ably carries that torch forward. I certainly do not propose that having just run a Marathon, you should immediately start over! (The scary thing is that Matt probably could do just that, if the inspiration took him.) It's more a thought to put on the back burner while waiting to see how people respond to the work in the long run. I suspect lots of people are scratching their heads just like you are, and remaining quiet because they don't want to sound critical - so I'm glad you raised this. It is awkward having the two games arranged this way, but I cannot see a better way to do it - and I should explain why. There might be a better idea out there, and I'm wiling to listen very closely, but I think you'll see where the problem lies when I explain the goals and the obstacles I discovered. My original goal was to do a White Box version and then allow for all supplemental material to be added on by the players. I had multiple goals in mind: (1) this would allow publication of WB material under the OGL, giving it that "living game" cachet which is very important to some gamers (often not the ones here on the net, but their non-internet group members), (2) supporting my idea of bringing a hobbyist rather than a consumer perspective back into the gaming community by offering alternative ways of developing the supplemental archetypes such as monks, rangers, etc, (3) using 0e as a "rosetta stone" to make S&W rules usable with 1e, 2e, OSRIC, Moldvay, LL, and all the other retro games out there, (4) creating an easily-learned, better organized set of 0e rules. Then the problems began. In order to introduce "my" 0e, which uses the supplements to a large degree and is highly compatible with later games, I'd have to use the GH expanded hit dice and damage for monsters. I was faced with CHOOSING compatibility (my GH-based 0e) or an accurate retro-clone of the WB. A true WB retro-clone is simply not numerically compatible with later games, and a highly compatible GH-0e is NOT an accurate clone of the WB. From this starting point, things are going to be a bit Darwinian for the WB. I will support it with Knockspell and with modules and supplements to the extent that people give me material. But my own writing is based on the expanded power-curve of GH, and the expanded spell lists and levels. It's not a matter of disliking WB, it's that I don't play it. Which means that Marv and I have handed the WB community a tool, and it's a very good one, but it is up to the WB community to put it to use. My own writing is going to be done for the Core Rules, because that's what I play. As I said, I'm very open to ideas and suggestions. Things are arranged in this awkward way because I am not willing to take a "corporate" route and alter the games to fit the "marketing." If we need two sets of rules and that looks strange, I prefer it to look strange rather than to eliminate a set of rules. However, there might be better ways of explaining it, better ways of organizing the efforts from this point forward, or some other solution I haven't thought of. Ideas are welcome.
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Post by verhaden on Jan 17, 2009 11:28:47 GMT -6
Correct me if I'm wrong, but you're suggesting that the closest approximation of the WB be created, as the sole core book, and that all supplemental material be supplemental material? That the Core Rules represent this half-way point that goes too far but not enough for gamers? And are you saying that the Core Rules (or are you speaking of the Whitebox edition?) comes off as more of a re-writer's house rules? Just looking for clarification
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Post by dwayanu on Jan 17, 2009 14:23:18 GMT -6
As far as the licensing goes, could someone cannibalize both to make a new mix?
An alternative would be to make an addendum that would serve as a WB <---> OD&D translator. For example, some spell names in WB don't match but those in S&W do. On the other hand, the WB treatment of ability scores is closer.
Going with the established Core might be better, given your aims as I am (accurately, I hope) grasping them. I think it should be possible to do a "3LBBs" version without almost doubling the page count, because we're really talking more subtraction than addition. ("Later spells: Magic Mouth, ...") There's no need to duplicate all the common ground. I once started on a document like that for Classic --> OD&D, before the LBB PDFs were issued.
In other words, one might make a "supplement" that's actually the reverse.
I'm just thinking out loud. It might be better for me to add a little (probably very little) something to the mix sooner than to suggest in a sense subtracting from it later. If it turns out to be small enough, I guess it might be suitable for Knockspell.
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mythmere
Level 5 Thaumaturgist
Posts: 293
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Post by mythmere on Jan 17, 2009 15:12:23 GMT -6
As far as the licensing goes, could someone cannibalize both to make a new mix? Yes, pretty much anything can be done with the material. I anticipate one of the uses of the rules will be to cut and paste together a group's exact house rules, possibly with campaign material mixed in. I'm sort of waiting to see what unexpected things happen. With OSRIC, we didn't anticipate that it would become the modern gaming world's introduction to 1e for those not familiar with the 1e rules. But that happened, big-time. So far, S&W seems to have spawned not the individual campaign writeups I expected, but variant games themselves, such as Ruins & Ronin and Anacreon Zeta, based on 0e but in variant genres. One of the real pleasures of writing a retro-clone is seeing the unexpected uses people put it to. Give the internet some pre-typed text and an open license, and the unanticipated will result, guaranteed.
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Post by Finarvyn on Jan 17, 2009 17:23:07 GMT -6
To reinforce what Matt said, the problem is most likely the order in which things were written. Matt was putting finishing touches on the Core rules when he decided it wasn't WB enough so he asked me to do a WB version. My initial plan was to make both rules sets compatible, but it became obvious after a while that certain things couldn't be the same (such as additions and changes from GH). My plan was to trim things back as much as possible, but at the same time I wanted to sprinkle in some "house rule" options that I had been using in my own game. As such I suppose I "failed" by not leaving everything 100% pure, but since there needed to be some differences from a legal standpoint and so some of the names got changed and whatnot to keep things proper. I'm probably an oddball in this regard, but I think it might work better in the long run to have a single basic book drawing from both the material most faithful to the actual White Box set. Material like that in the original supplements -- and more of it (Yes, I mean, e.g., Thieves!) -- could then be presented in supplement form. If I was to do the whole thing over, I'd probably take a very different approach. Indeed, one more similar to what you have suggested. It would probably have been more ideal to design a game in the same manner in which the original evolved -- WB first and then build supplementary materials onto a main structure. That’s not the way it went, however. When I first went to work I began to take things out of Matt's version rather than build one from scratch. Along the way I put together what I guess was really my own “house” set of rules based on the Core rules. I wanted thieves and I wanted certain other things put in and others taken out. I had hoped to bring in elements from Chainmail (such as rolling for spell success) which never got off the ground in the draft. See, I guess I've never really played 100% WB "by the book" either and have house ruled things since 1975 because that's the way Gary suggested we do it in Men & Magic. (And I never realized how much I house ruled things until I had to put together these WB rules!) I was so happy with my “final” product until others looked at it and said (in the nicest way possible) that it really didn’t fulfill the intended goal. Folks said things like, "Well you can keep thieves in since they're your rules, but it isn't very WB to do so." As such, I had to strip away parts of what I had done and do some things over to make it more WB than my early draft. Rules became options and so on. Funny how that works out. I guess I'm too creative to simply "follow orders" and create something simple and identical. I’m happy with the results overall, and certainly I understand the process better. It’s impossible to exactly duplicate the WB so you have to come up with something which is a close approximation and hope folks like it. To me, whether a spell is called “Cure Light” or “Healing I” doesn’t really matter -- it’s how the spell fits in the campaign that’s most important. Maybe that’s just me. It would be easy enough to put together a “conversion guide” for spells if someone really wanted one.
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mythmere
Level 5 Thaumaturgist
Posts: 293
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Post by mythmere on Jan 17, 2009 18:28:24 GMT -6
Despite the awkwardness of the way the two games fit together, though, I am extremely happy with each one separately. I think Fin's created a work of art with the WB, and Verhaden has turned it into a real thing of beauty in terms of the layout and art (thanks also to Chad Thorson and Arthnek, the interior artists).
Now, I'm hoping to get some artwork into a reprint of the Core Rules (plus a couple of tables that should have been included). I'm envious of all that art!
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Post by dwayanu on Jan 18, 2009 16:28:10 GMT -6
Fin, that appraisal of what "doesn't really matter" raises the question of just what purpose WB is meant to serve.
As I think about it, I don't see what purpose I would serve by adding more pages of retro-cloning mutation. The original text is now widely available to anyone who thinks it does matter, as are plenty of other versions.
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Post by greyharp on Jan 18, 2009 17:10:28 GMT -6
It wouldn't be too hard to take the text files of both versions of S&W, play around with them a bit by comparing them with the original books, and produce a fairly exact replica of the originals, but in a much improved format - for personal gaming use of course.
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Post by dwayanu on Jan 18, 2009 18:44:13 GMT -6
Sorry for being such a wet blanket! Everyone involved certainly did splendid work.
Now we've got at least four editions of Retro-D&D. Let the edition wars blooming of a thousand flowers begin!
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Post by coffee on Jan 18, 2009 22:17:56 GMT -6
I think the whitebox edition looks pretty spiffy! Good job, all!
I do have one quibble, though...
On page 13, top of the right hand column, there is a table of movement rates. An unencumbered human or elf has a movement rate of 12. That's fine, but the text immediately above the table describes this as:
"...in terms of feet per combat round."
Surely that should be "tens of feet", shouldn't it?
(Sorry; I was a proofreader professionally for two years and it kinda stuck with me.)
Other than that, though, I love it and may well run it for people (so I can leave my original books at home where they'll be safe!)
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Post by dwayanu on Jan 19, 2009 2:57:12 GMT -6
I left my original books at home by accident, having stuffed my pack with other things I thought "might come in handy." WB might have been that in the event, and although I haven't printed it out yet I can see that the page count is between Moldvay Basic and Best of the Dragon -- compact enough to find a permanent place in a campaign binder.
As it turned out, three decades of playing means that one can almost do without a book! If the players could recognize when (if) I was off by a point, then I reckon I would just tap their memories.
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Post by Finarvyn on Jan 19, 2009 7:24:41 GMT -6
As it turned out, three decades of playing means that one can almost do without a book! Very true. A DM screen is usually enough for me. Just a list of monsters, attack charts, treasures, and we're off. ;D
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Jan 19, 2009 9:02:58 GMT -6
Same here. You gentlemen did one heck of a smash-up job with this. Absolutely fantastic!
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Post by akrasia on Jan 19, 2009 15:35:46 GMT -6
The WB rulebook is a work of art! I can hardly wait until the 'core' rules receive the same treatment.
The covers of both versions of S&W are amazing. Hands-down the best FRPG covers in the past decade IMO.
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Post by verhaden on Jan 22, 2009 16:46:12 GMT -6
I think the whitebox edition looks pretty spiffy! Good job, all! I do have one quibble, though... On page 13, top of the right hand column, there is a table of movement rates. An unencumbered human or elf has a movement rate of 12. That's fine, but the text immediately above the table describes this as: "...in terms of feet per combat round." Surely that should be "tens of feet", shouldn't it? (Sorry; I was a proofreader professionally for two years and it kinda stuck with me.) Other than that, though, I love it and may well run it for people (so I can leave my original books at home where they'll be safe!) Going off what the core rules had to say on the subject. Feet are correct. We could have went with inches, but that might have been too close for comfort legally. I personally use 10 second combat rounds and 1" = 5 ft
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Post by coffee on Jan 22, 2009 17:25:49 GMT -6
I checked with the core rules and it's clearer there. But it still comes down to this: In combat, you can move 12 feet -- max.
In OD&D, on the other hand, an unencumbered human can move 120 feet.
I guess I just don't get it.
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Post by dwayanu on Jan 22, 2009 17:26:42 GMT -6
By "core rules," I assume you mean something other than the LBBs. Or is there a nuance there I've missed all these years?
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Post by coffee on Jan 22, 2009 17:44:51 GMT -6
By "core rules," I assume you mean something other than the LBBs. Or is there a nuance there I've missed all these years? I'm talking about the core rules of the Swords and Wizardry retroclone.
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Post by verhaden on Jan 22, 2009 17:53:09 GMT -6
Beauty of house rules. Change the length of combat encounters or change the distance used. Text in the book now strongly suggests that each individual referee change these to suit their own style of play.
I would have loved to do the layout for Mythmere's 1:1 duplication of the 3 LBB's. But that's never going to happen. And to even get this far, some things have to be different. Could SW: Whitebox have been more explicit?
Fin's draft that he first sent me actually included no comments on movement and scale. He just had the numbers in the table. I suggested that, since new players might be encountering the book, maybe some definition was in order.
So I copied over some text from the Core Rules and ran with it.
Maybe it would have been better if I just left a comment like "It's up to each Referee to determine bla bla bla." and let the rest stand on its own.
Hrm.
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mythmere
Level 5 Thaumaturgist
Posts: 293
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Post by mythmere on Jan 23, 2009 10:20:43 GMT -6
Movement rate is one of the legal "tricks" involved, where the retro-clone's rules state something that's marginally different from the original, but where the difference is invisible in a module. A movement rate of "12" in a S&W module will be accurately and appropriately interpreted by someone using the 0e rulebooks, even though it would be (somewhat) differently interpreted by someone using the S&W rulebooks. It provides a strong safe harbor for the module author - and promoting legal creation of 0e supplements and modules is one of the major goals, here.
The major such change is in the single saving throw category of S&W; it's up to individual gamers whether the alterations in S&W make it "not 0e," but that hasn't been a response I've seen almost at all. The main criticism I've heard is that I should have picked one AC method or the other, instead of making them alternate options (and the reason for that is to open up materials from C&C and BFRPG as potential sources of usable supplemental material).
Cheers!
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Post by dwayanu on Jan 23, 2009 13:13:46 GMT -6
That's interesting. I wouldn't think the "trick" of a different interpretation in your text would make any difference, but of course I'm not a lawyer! The matter seems to me alarmingly close to (indeed, I can see no objective difference from) recognizing ownership of an idea rather than merely copyright of specific text.
Were the principle to be firmly established, it would be dreadful for historical games. In fact, the move allowances in D&D go back to Chainmail -- which was in turn repeating conventional wisdom widely held throughout the hobby and derived from ancient sources.
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mythmere
Level 5 Thaumaturgist
Posts: 293
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Post by mythmere on Jan 23, 2009 15:00:47 GMT -6
That's interesting. I wouldn't think the "trick" of a different interpretation in your text would make any difference, but of course I'm not a lawyer! The matter seems to me alarmingly close to (indeed, I can see no objective difference from) recognizing ownership of an idea rather than merely copyright of specific text. I think you're reading that in the opposite direction I meant it - the "trick" isn't to give S&W something that it owns, the "trick" is to create a distinction so that someone ELSE can't claim that THEY own the 12 inch movement rate (as combined with blah, blah). By making the movement rate into a pure number instead of one linked to the original "inches," that argument becomes irrelevant. It's not a way of asserting ownership, it's a way of making sure someone else can't.
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Post by dwayanu on Jan 23, 2009 17:10:54 GMT -6
No, what I mean is that you seem to be granting WotC ownership of the concept that 1" in a game represents 10 feet or 10 yards in an imagined situation.
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mythmere
Level 5 Thaumaturgist
Posts: 293
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Post by mythmere on Jan 23, 2009 17:33:52 GMT -6
No, what I mean is that you seem to be granting WotC ownership of the concept that 1" in a game represents 10 feet or 10 yards in an imagined situation. Ah, I see. No, it's to break any perceived pattern of "you use this, plus this, plus this, etc." No single one of them is necessarily copyrightable, but at some point the totality of it could be perceived as a violation (depending on the details, etc). I won't go into the stultifying details...
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Post by dwayanu on Jan 23, 2009 19:14:47 GMT -6
I think the "White Box" name in particular raises unmet expectations. When material for use with a "clone" game looks identical to material for an old game, the notion of the clone's somehow enabling publication does not seem to me to hold up. Reproduction of vast swathes of material from the rule books is contrary to my own sense of "old school" style in adventures and other supplements. When conformity with a "clone" such as WB actually makes it harder to present, say, an OD&D Magic-User in a module, then that aspect is even more obscure.
As we've seen with OSRIC, though, a clone can also provide a more accessible way for new players to learn an old game. In that case, it is rather to the point that what's presented is the old game, not merely a superficially similar but new one differing in a host of basic details. Otherwise, what's being promoted is the new game itself. Some utterly unnecessary revisions in OSRIC 2 (e.g., statements regarding other planes than the Prime Material) have been noted elsewhere, and anyone attempting to discuss OD&D rules on the basis of S&W (especially WB) is likely to run into considerable misunderstanding.
There certainly are many general concepts in common -- just as there are among OD&D, Second Edition AD&D, and Palladium Fantasy Role Playing!
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Post by cadriel on Jan 27, 2009 11:29:29 GMT -6
I have to say, I appreciate the work done for S&W: White Box. But...I've got a couple of problems with the game.
Perhaps my biggest problem with both editions of Swords & Wizardry is that what are, IMO, some of the most important rules are left out entirely. None of the guidelines for dungeon exploration - secret doors, wandering monsters, listening, opening stuck doors, falling in traps - are there. That's a shame, and I hope a future revision will correct this - these rules, made open gaming content by several other retro-clones, are the ones I use constantly through the course of a game. These are solid, simple guidelines. Everything's done on a d6 and the numbers are easy to remember. Sure, prospective referees picking up S&W could improvise them, but these are the light, simple core of the dungeoneering rules and I think it's a shame to deprive new players stumbling upon S&W of the simple and thoroughly old school basic rules.
Aside from that, I don't like that the "rules text" have assimilated some game-significant chunks of house rules, while other house rules are clearly marked as such. Now, I do like some of the things that are changed - I actually have come to like how saving throws are handled and will probably be using them in my own games. But there are mechanical changes that change things I'm not interested in changing - for instance, the "standard ability bonus" based on Con hit point bonus changes the Dexterity to-hit bonus, which I don't care for. And I won't be using a Strength bonus as outlined here. I really dislike how prime requisite bonuses were altered as well. Within classes, I'm not big on how turning was handled for Clerics - the whole "T" category is gone, which I don't like. And for Fighting-Men I am probably going to go with Dave Arneson's suggestion that they get to attack another opponent when they kill the previous one, which gets rid of the whole "Combat Machine" thing. (The last probably should've just been a house rule). And the Fighting-Man chart cuts out most HD bonuses; again, I'm not a big fan.
Now, none of these things are all that big on their own. But put together, they make Chapter 1 and Chapter 2 much too divergent from how I play to use the Lulu.com print of WB that I ordered as the core rule set for my game. It's still an excellent book, and I may use it as a replacement for handing around M&M for equipment and spells, but I was hoping I would be able to make a complete jump, and I'm disappointed that I can't. What I'll probably do is whip up a document that gives all the statistic and class information, along with my combat matrix (different than WB) and give copies of that out instead of using S&W: WB.
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mythmere
Level 5 Thaumaturgist
Posts: 293
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Post by mythmere on Jan 27, 2009 19:57:35 GMT -6
I was hoping I would be able to make a complete jump, and I'm disappointed that I can't. What I'll probably do is whip up a document that gives all the statistic and class information, along with my combat matrix (different than WB) and give copies of that out instead of using S&W: WB. The knowledge that lots of people won't agree with the various interpretations is the reason we posted up a .doc version as well; even someone who basically HATED the way we did lots of things can still use the already-typed-in text of what he does like, plus his replacement text, and voila: a full set of house rules for what he does like. Just add some art from the net, fold 'em over into booklets and staple the middle.
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