|
Post by badger2305 on Dec 9, 2007 9:46:47 GMT -6
Tsk, tsk, Badger. You're pushing the edge here. While we all appreciate the long list, the most interesting list would be the short one. I've read hundreds of fantasy and science fiction books, but what is most interesting is the books that had the biggest impact on you.... Hey, you asked... That's the list. Really. I read and continue to read very fast. Ask any of my friends. You should have seen the list of books and authors that didn't make it on my list. It's pretty long. That having been said, if I were pushed, I would have to say that it was the anthologies that had the biggest impact (at least in retrospect). The chance to read many different authors under one cover provided contrast that got me thinking more than just the sweeping epic trilogies and series. Those were...comfort food, so to speak. Hmmm.
|
|
|
Post by badger2305 on Dec 8, 2007 21:48:27 GMT -6
Here's a list of the authors with the biggest influence on my early days playing D&D: - JRR Tolkien: the Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit, but also The Tolkien Reader, which included "Farmer Giles of Ham" and the "Homecoming of Beorhtnoth Beorhthelm's son" among others.
- Poul Anderson: Three Hearts and Three Lions, The High Crusade, The Broken Sword, just to name a few.
- Ursula K. Le Guin: the Earthsea Trilogy (yes, I know more got added later.
- Fletcher Pratt and L. Sprague de Camp: The Incomplete Enchanter as well as The Well of the Unicorn.
- Robert E. Howard: Conan, Kull, Solomon Kane, you name it.
- Diane Duane: The Door Into Fire. Entirely different take on elementals (among other things).
- Fritz Leiber: Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser series. Thieves, done right.
- Clark Ashton Smith: for sheer strangeness, you can't get better than Clark Ashton Smith. Some of my best ideas about arcane magic and Things Adventurers Were Not Meant to Know came from Smith.
- Lin Carter's The Year's Best Fantasy Series and Flashing Swords anthologies, and Andrew Offutt's Swords Against Darkness anthologies. Got introduced to all sorts of authors this way.
Okay, that's more than five or six. Even so, these are the books that I have fond memories of from when I was a kid. ;D
|
|
|
Post by badger2305 on Dec 10, 2007 9:26:31 GMT -6
When have you been in a game that clearly was no longer D&D by your own idiosyncratic standards? It's taken me years of fumbling around in the darkness to realize it, but I've eventually come to realize what are the non-negotiables for me when it comes to defining a D&D game. They are: 1. "Pulp fantasy" inspirations: I say "pulp fantasy" rather than "sword & sorcery," because my personal take is that D&D's "genre" is in fact very broad yet still with boundaries. Those boundaries, while fuzzy, more or less encompass the types of fantasy/science fiction authors who graced the pages of pulp magazines in the 30s, 40s, and 50s. There's a lot of fuzziness, as I say, but I'd argue that, once a putative game of " D&D" strays too far beyond this style of fantasy, it loses its essential " D&D-ness" and becomes something else. This makes sense to me. As I've said elsewhere here, high fantasy definitely has a place in D&D, for me. I definitely agree with that. The addition of non-combat proficiencies in AD&D 1e felt tacked on, and I never really liked it. Ahh, now we part company. I started playing D&D before Gary published the Vancian magic explanation in SR#7, as did my other gaming friends, and our inspirations were The Incomplete Enchanter and The Broken Sword and Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser, with Ningauble and Sheelba, and others. So the Vancian explanation was interesting, but never had any primacy with a lot of us. Not too surprisingly, C&S and Runequest and Tekumel all seemed pretty cool when they came along. Your mileage may vary. What an interesting perspective! The worlds I played in ranged all over the map on this issue. One was set in England during the reign of Edward III, and you were human. That was it. Another had fairly complete equality between humans and demi-humans; going somewhere that was racially homogeneous was weird. Those were probably the extremes, but the emphasis on humanity was never consistently an issue, so far as I can recall from my early days of gaming. This is a great discussion! I really appreciate seeing all these different viewpoints and recollections and reactions.
|
|
|
Post by badger2305 on Dec 20, 2007 0:09:03 GMT -6
Something I came up with a long time ago is: "rules exist to adjudicate situations that the referee is not confident he can reasonably adjudicate himself." (or she and herself; you get the idea.) Put another way, the only rules you need are the ones that are a reference for how you want to play - everything else is up to you and your players.
As a principle of play, it has allowed me to run games with no printed rules and no dice - a kind of interactive storytelling, because of the level of trust (or "contract") between all of us. I don't do that very often, but it also runs right alongside the idea that if you can't remember a rule, just make a decision and go on - you can look it up later, if you want. But you can also decide to do it differently, and if that is seen as a fair way to do things - keep going and don't look back.
|
|
|
Post by badger2305 on Mar 23, 2008 9:34:57 GMT -6
Midgard. Another British wargame campaign with role-playing elements. It was written up very briefly in White Dwarf; Hartley Patterson was one of the people involved in this.
|
|
|
Post by badger2305 on Mar 19, 2008 11:36:52 GMT -6
Hey, all six of us (males) in my High School 2e AD&D group had long hair worn in ponytails, and half of them wore all black all the time. I still chortle when I think about it. I’m not advocating beating up girly boys or anything like that, but since when is it not cool to poke fun at them? Did you like it when you were teased? I doubt it. It seems to me that it would be a good idea to apply the Golden Rule, and to try and refrain from it. I've been guilty in the past of making fun of other groups of people, but as I've gotten older, I've begun to feel differently about it. From an academic perspective, I'm also troubled by teasing, and I don't mean the gentle kind between friends. Teasing can be a form of bullying, and bullying can lead to violence. Here's a link: usgovinfo.about.com/cs/healthmedical/a/bullying.htmI could go into the academic literature about this, but I frankly don't want to get any further in this debate. I know there are people out there who do not believe this stuff, but when we can trace connections between teasing, bullying, and violence, it's enough for me to think twice about this stuff.
|
|
|
Post by badger2305 on Mar 18, 2008 22:56:20 GMT -6
Ha! I was at my local game/comic store one day when this androgynous teenage kid comes mincing ( And I do meen mincing) up to me as I was looking through the used section. This yutz says, "remember the good old days of Second Edition?" I was so torn between laughing my arse off, and telling him to bugger offwith a smack to the head, that I just stood there stunned. I remember when you had to be able to read , do math on the fly, and consult six different tables just play first edition as many of us did. I'll say one thing for D&D mk.XXX, it did simplify things down. In doing so the game lost much of its spirit. So I'll stick with OD&D for obvious reasons. By the way, I'm happy to say I'm old enough to be that kids father, but even happier I'm not! And here I thought gaming was a place for misfits to finally not get bugged for being who they were. Sorry, Thorswulf, but I've known too many "androgynous" teen kids who got beat up for not being "manly" enough - and no kid deserves that. I appreciate the anachronistic turn of your tale, but I don't see the need to make fun of how the kid looked or acted.
|
|
|
Post by badger2305 on Mar 18, 2008 16:21:58 GMT -6
I was at my local game shop today and the owner and I got talking o D&D ( imagine that ) wich led to talk of the new edition ( you gonna waste money it ? I don't know yet ). when this punk kid came up to us and told us pull our head from a dark place ( this is the clean version ) and start playing 3.5 then buy 4th because wotc says to . I wish people would either teach their kids manners or keep them home . anyone else get this kinda for being old school ? It's interesting that you should mention this. One of the members of my former gaming group ("former" only in that I'm working on my doctorate, and have set gaming aside for a bit) adopted a rather odd attitude when I ran an OD&D one-shot awhile ago: he treated it like we were all kids again. He acted like he was a kid again, making smart-aleck remarks, and not taking the game very seriously. At the time, I was taken aback - then I realized that since he got his start on Basic D&D, the surface similarity made him react to it as if it were a "kid's game." Which it wasn't but he didn't know that. This suggests that we might do well to remember that you catch more flies with honey instead of vinegar. If we want others to appreciate the original game, we need to show people what makes us like it so much. Which means taking the time to explain it to them, especially when they have a "new=best" attitude. Sure, we won't convince them all - but we might make some converts, and we definitely will feel better for having taken the high road. Remember - they don't really know what they are talking about, so we need to educate them. (Or so it seems to me)
|
|
|
Post by badger2305 on Mar 15, 2008 11:46:55 GMT -6
I'm vastly equivocal about dwarven women and beards.
I must admit I've rather liked the idea that dwarves mine themselves out of the living rock, rather than engage in all of that messy reproduction stuff that humans do. But if there are to be dwarven women, then beards? Hmmm. (I know this must sound odd coming from a guy who has no trouble imagining Shen or Ahoggya on Tekumel.)
|
|
|
Post by badger2305 on Mar 6, 2008 8:31:09 GMT -6
First level. I can speak from personal experience as a player in this regard. I joined a group where the others pcs were already 3rd level. My first level pc's kept dying and dying, but when one finally made it to 2nd it felt like a great accomplishment and that character survived for the rest of the campaign. This was in a AD&D2 game, but i think it applies to OD&D as well. The real and constant threat of pc death is what makes an adventure exciting and success rewarding. There has to risk of death and severe consequences when it happens. If you get to start back up without going down to 0 xp, then you cheapen the risks. I agree with you 110%. One of the biggest problems I've seen with later editions of D&D, particularly 3.14159ed., is that generating characters takes so long that players get overly invested in their characters from the very beginning. So character death is seen as a hindrance to game play, rather than as a part of it. There's also another issue that if it takes a long time to generate a character, there's less room for that character to develop and mature over time. Sometimes the character you roll up changes and becomes a different person than you first imagined him or her, as you go adventuring. That's a good thing, or so I would think. The strength of OD&D in this regard is the lack of excessive detail at the beginning; roll some dice and let's keep going!
|
|
|
Post by badger2305 on Mar 5, 2008 7:59:15 GMT -6
I am saddened by Gary's death, though I had been aware he was in poor health. My thoughts and prayers are with his family and loved ones.
I very much endorse the idea of celebrating Gary's life and achievements. Introduce someone new to gaming, host a gaming session at your home or nearby college or FLGS, gather friends and tell your favorite gaming stories. It's what he would want us to do, I feel.
|
|
|
Post by badger2305 on Feb 16, 2008 11:39:01 GMT -6
I believe I have close to a full run of Little Wars. It's a decidedly historical wargamer magazine, or so I recall. I'd have to go back and look, but I suspect there might have been some Chainmail articles, and maybe some useful historical information, but there was a pretty clear line between LW and TD, until the merger.
|
|
|
Post by badger2305 on Feb 14, 2008 16:12:44 GMT -6
I think it was issue #22 that was the merger of The Dragon and Little Wars; you might use that as a marker of when things shifted to AD&D.
However, there is Larry Schick's excellent home-brew pantheon that shows up in issue #23 or #25 (somewhere around there). It's a tough call.
|
|
|
Post by badger2305 on Feb 16, 2008 11:33:57 GMT -6
I would be curious to know what material from White Dwarf is the BEST stuff. (I have the CD archive, but haven't taken much time to look through the PDFs.) Also, to duplicate a question often asked about Dragon magazine, does anyone know at which issue WD switched over from OD&D to AD&D (also which issue WD switched over to GW stuff...). There was a CD archive of White Dwarf? I missed that. Is it still available?
|
|
|
Post by badger2305 on Apr 4, 2008 23:16:01 GMT -6
In my campaign I try to downplay alignment for most characters/NPCs. Law and Chaos have less to do with gods than with how a person looks at life, right vs. wrong, and destiny. In my game, the only characters required to have an alignment are clerics and (if they are used) paladins. Clerics must follow the mores of either Law or Chaos, depending on what path their chosen deity is linked to. As guardians of Man and civilization, Paladins are servants of Law, plain and simple. Since only gods that are considered to be relatively benevolent appoint paladins, it is generally a good idea for paladins to also exhibit behavior that would be considered "good." All other characters may choose to align themselves with Law or Chaos, but most people are too concerned with surviving, raising a family, and making a living to worry much about such weighty concepts as Law and Chaos and the implications behind them. Doc I like this. One of the debates that got tiresome a long time ago was how much did your alignment force you to behave a particular way. Keeping it as a "higher issue" allows greater freedom on the part of the players (and the referee). Have an exalt for this.
|
|
|
Post by badger2305 on Jan 21, 2008 13:03:01 GMT -6
Carjack - good point about too much background material making players feel like they shouldn't touch it. Worse is the GM who is overly protective of his material (which is an easy slip to make). Frank This is an interesting point. If you don't spend a lot of time on it, you don't get as attached to it as you created it. In other words, you leave room for others to encounter it and then you can collectively figure it out. More fun for the players and more fun for you (if you can trust that things will work out). I'm definitely leaning towards the 1-2 page handout, probably with a half-page sketch map of "the world" included - and have a more detailed map to show players the immediate surroundings of where their characters are. Even with this in mind, what else would you include in that handout?
|
|
|
Post by badger2305 on Jan 21, 2008 11:09:21 GMT -6
So how do you all present the background for your campaign? I don't want to burden my players with fifty pages of intricate background they won't read, but I abhor the "okay, so you are in a tavern, and a barfight breaks out..." (and you then all become the best of friends...)
This isn't the same as house rules or rules modifications, but the actual background - kingdoms, religions, where the bad guys are, etc. Have any of you had success with stuff that's written? What did you do and how did it work?
|
|
|
Post by badger2305 on Jan 1, 2008 23:15:51 GMT -6
I also resolve to take my old school game collection to local conventions and try to become known as The Old School Guy (tm). Don't know if I'll get a campaign out of it, but I might open some peoples' minds... That's a very good New Years' resolution! Have an exalt for that!
|
|
|
Post by badger2305 on Jan 1, 2008 12:34:11 GMT -6
I actually made my resolutions in November, but basically they are: - clean my house - fix my finances - get into shape - write a novel I threw out an two dumpsters of garbage from my basement last week, so that is off to a good start. Finances, after I get the house clean I am going to counselling. I've dropped 11 pounds since the summer (from 187 to 176) - target is 170. The book is outlined. So all four are off to some sort of a start Good for you! That losing weight thing can be difficult - but keep at it. My regular nurse told me she was proud of me because I had lost 30 pounds - and had kept it off two years later.
|
|
|
Post by badger2305 on Dec 31, 2007 15:51:00 GMT -6
Just wanted to wish everybody a very safe and happy new Year, and a wonderful 2008. Here's to a year full of gaming with your mates and carving out exciting new game worlds where a simple man with a sword can win himself an empire. Have fun and hug a prootwaddle*, Doc *(And if you know what a prootwaddle is, you're definitely an old school gamer.) Could. Not. Resist. Failed my saving throw... Prootwaddle - aren't they a kind of single-legged humanoid type, with a really big foot (almost a duckfoot, but bigger)? Happy New Year!
|
|
|
Post by badger2305 on Dec 31, 2007 11:31:21 GMT -6
Yeah, the FLGS has a lot of games going (several of which I have been invited to join) but my work schedule of 9:30 AM to 6:00 PM (MST, -7 GMT) gets in the way, thus my pursuit of online games. Is there a local college? Community College? Community center? - Local colleges and universities often have student centers that are open until moderately late (10:30pm - midnight), which allows for a decent gaming session if you start by 7pm. I did that for several years in high school and college, and it worked out even when I had a job that took me until 6pm.
- Community colleges also have student centers, and the after-work nature of some classes may make it possible to use space there. In the case of any educational institution, you may need to find the gaming club, or help set one up, to reserve space. This is usually not very difficult; posting flyers at the FLGS for students at said institution can bring about some results.
- Community centers are often open until moderately late (10pm), or for a nominal rental fee. This is sometimes true of libraries, as well. Reserving a meeting room for gaming, especially if you say it's open to others to join you (they don't have to play in your game but they can certainly play their own), is often pretty simple.
See, I like gaming spaces outside of my home because I can get away from all of the distractions of home: cleaning, phone calls, other things going on, etc. so the idea of an outside gaming space works for me. Your mileage may vary. Good luck!
|
|
|
Post by badger2305 on Dec 31, 2007 13:46:28 GMT -6
But the constant comment I heard was that OD&D was a "skeletal" and, given that we have more developed versions of the game (such as Holmes or Moldvay or even Mentzer), why go back to the original? Why not simply use the insights I'd derived from the original and apply them to later, more developed rules? Because if you come up with your own ways of doing things, it becomes your own game. It seems to me that there's an assumption lurking around the edges, that "published" somehow equates to "the settled or best standard" - that later versions of the rules came up with the "better" way of doing things, when I don't think that follows at all. These later systems may be more familiar, but they may not do what YOU want. In fact, the appeal of OD&D is that you can work your way towards a game that you want to play - in a sense, hand-crafted, not mass produced - especially if that game is different from what others have done. What I hear from your after-action report is that your players are NOT that familiar with old school games; they've merely included them in their existing filters of more modern ways of playing (and are thus still thinking inside the box). All of that having been said, there are well and good reasons why referees took the three brown booklets and began to come up with house rules, back in 1974 through 1977-78. Arduin is an example of this, so is (in its way) T&T, and so are things like Dungeons and Beavers (IIRC the CalTech gaming mods) - so don't mistake their concern as completely off. Take it, rather, as encouragement to come up with the old school game you always wanted to play. Okay, that's probably a full silver's worth of unasked-for advice, but I hope you understand.
|
|
|
Post by badger2305 on Dec 31, 2007 0:10:58 GMT -6
THE UGLY The lack of a "task" system. I tried very hard to get my players to think about character actions in a non-mechanical way but it didn't work very well. They felt that, when they tried something for which the chance of success was not guaranteed or whose results were subject to doubt, that there ought to be dice rolls. Personally, I like the random element in D&D, so I had no objection to the idea in principle. Unfortunately, it proved difficult to find a resolution system that, in my players' opinion, gave appropriate weight to things like their class, their level, their abilities, their race, etc. In short, they felt that the obvious systems you could derive just from the three OD&D books were too random, to the point of being arbitrary. This bled a lot of the fun out of several otherwise fun moments in the game. All in all, I'm left a little disheartened. My players were trying very hard to get in the right frame of mind. They were quite willing to take what I presented them with for granted and run with it. In fact, they were very good at that. It was only when either the OD&D rules provided no guides or models from which to extrapolate that other versions of D&D were discussed and offered as alternatives. Great to hear that they played and (mostly) enjoyed the game. But here's my 2 coppers on the "task system" discussion: you all might be thinking too hard about it. This kind of discussion was rampant in the earliest days of gaming, leading to a LOT of house rules on things, sometimes quite elaborate systems for figuring things out, and most of them completely incompatible with each other. But really, there's no need for anything other than your own judgment as the referee, and a simple roll of the dice. Some people prefer a percentile roll, others prefer a d20 - whatever works. Were I in your shoes, I would've nipped in the bud discussions of later game systems. Make the players THINK about what their characters were attempting, and then make 'em argue and ROLE-PLAY for the rationale about why being a fighter, or a dwarf, or having a background in engineering would make a difference. Then set a percentage and roll. Part of the fun in the original game system was simply running the game as you saw fit, and building up that sense of TRUST among your players that you will give them a fair shake in your estimate of the odds. The entire elephantitis of rules comes about when that trust isn't there, which is one reason why we've got $40 hardcovers masquerading as "rules". Again, just my two coppers.
|
|
|
Post by badger2305 on Dec 31, 2007 18:36:52 GMT -6
Brust is a gamer? Wow, you'd think that there would have been a Jhereg rpg out a long time ago by now. I'd have played it. But then, I'm the guy who loves assassins Doc I played in his Dragaera campaign when I was MUCH younger and far more brash. It was a very very different gaming experience. Steve developed Dragaera on his own, but was inspired by Adrian Thornley's world of Piara (spelling?). There are about three scenes in Jhereg that had their origin in gaming sessions I was present for (probably more than that, but I wasn't always there).
|
|
|
Post by badger2305 on Dec 31, 2007 15:54:41 GMT -6
Lessee... Off the top of my head? - Steve Brust
- Pamela Dean
- Patricia Wrede
- George R.R. Martin
- John M. Ford (but that's a gimme and I still miss Mike)
...interestingly enough, not Joel Rosenberg. Joel knows about gaming, but never really expressed a lot of interest in it, at least since he moved to Minneapolis. There's more, but that's a quick off the top of my head.
|
|
|
Post by badger2305 on Jan 1, 2008 23:14:45 GMT -6
I must politely disagree on your point #1, Finarvyn. I see no need to limit Old School gaming to those that stood the test of time. Something that no one remembers can still be chock full of the the good stuff. Bunnies & Burrows is an excellent example of this. Original game and then, MUCH later, the GURPS version. That's it, as far as I know. But B&B is definitely old school. Oh, heck, so is Space Quest, or Starships and Spacemen, or practically anything from FGU. Come to think of it, B&B was originally from FGU.
|
|
|
Post by badger2305 on Dec 20, 2007 0:51:54 GMT -6
Hobbits and halflings. Halflings and hobbits.
I'm torn. On one hand, I think hobbits are pretty cool - I mean, I grew up reading The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, and my copy of Foster's A Guide to Middle-Earth got dog-eared as I read it and re-read it. And I played my fair share of hobbits in different games. Never did understand kender, but didn't read much DL either. But I think there's room for other kinds of wee folk.
It seems to me that despite the different portrayal of hobbits in Fineous Fingers and elsewhere, hobbits are pretty firmly rooted in The Shire. This isn't a bad thing, but it does mean as a referee that I might want to have a completely different take on "the little people" - whatever that might mean. It would be more work, but it would also be a fresh canvas.
In the end, I'm still thinking about them. Just as I think about the elves and other races. Hmm, hmm, hmmm....
|
|
|
Post by badger2305 on Dec 16, 2007 8:38:08 GMT -6
It's interesting to follow the discussion on this thread. I've ended up thinking a lot about the sort of game I want to run. After some thinking, I've drawn a line at Dragon #10 or so - I want to make use of stuff up until then, and probably not much after that.
Why Dragon #10? Well, that would have been about the end of 1977, which would be when AD&D started to appear, with the Monster Manual. In a way, I'm interested in running a more "tricked-out" OD&D, rather than just the first three Little Brown Books. There were a lot of campaigns that made use of all sorts of stuff - from all sorts of sources - at that time, and uniformity wasn't a strong suit.
I suspect that part of the appeal of AD&D 1st ed. was that it seemed to provide some uniformity while retain all that ramped-up goodness. Not too many people realized that came at a price of losing some creative freedom....
|
|
|
Post by badger2305 on Dec 15, 2007 13:17:51 GMT -6
Maybe the trick is to limit the scope of what you plan on doing. Like, running a Stargate game based only on the movie, or running a B5 game set prior to the series (thus limiting the amount of 'history' that has to be digested, etc.). (snip)I think that when you limit the scope in that fashion, you not only make the background research load lighter on yourself, you also add a unique element of yourself to the project artistically: you are the one who chooses the scope, so even though the world is someone else's, you are the one who defined the limits. So you do get to add in your personality after all. If there is an established timeline to the world, you can even allow yourself to diverge from it and take the whole thing off in another direction entirely. If you are familiar with the universe of "Star Fleet Battles", that's a perfect example. TFG's license was for certain elements of the Original Series (and I think the cartoon show) only, so they just took off and developed their own world from it. For example, you could run a Star Wars game based only on the original movie and the Holiday Special. YES. That is what you should do. This is almost precisely what I decided to do when I set up a Star Trek campaign. I wanted something that would start in-between The Wrath of Khan and The Search for Spock. I had my own ideas on how things would develop in the ST universe after that, and they did not necessarily match what Berman, Brannon and Braga had in mind. Unfortunately, my players at the time thought Star Trek was really The Next Generation, and thought The Original Series setting was too corny and campy (a distinction that was lost on me, from what I could see of the later series ;D). So I still have that campaign in the development queue, waiting for a decent opportunity to run it with a like-minded set of players.
|
|
|
Post by badger2305 on Dec 15, 2007 9:50:52 GMT -6
It's interesting that you brought this up. I was thinking something very similar when we were talking elsewhere on the board about fighter sub-classes. I went back through and noticed that in my last D&D campaign (3e, FWIW) I had assembled a fairly lengthy list of potential classes for players to pick from, and I now saw them in a completely different light. I found I had about three broad "sets" of classes: - One set consisted of classes that I had no idea if they would fit in my campaign, but sounded interesting. These were often "prestige" classes, and included classes such as Lightbringer, Sensate, Justiciar, etc. It was pretty clear upon reflection that they were simply not going to make it in my next OD&D campaign.
- Another set consisted of classes and sub-classes that were essentially occupations, rather than real distinct classes: Merchant, Mariner, Noble, etc. And they didn't make that much sense as classes or sub-classes - it seemed like I was parsing real classes into fiddly sub-categories, or including things that were "jobs" and not anything more heroic than that. Again, probably not in my next campaign.
- ...which left me with a much shorter list of classes, and a decidedly different take on the entire idea of classes than when I last really thought about it.
Much of this I blame on the accretion of material over the past three decades that players and refs shovel into their games without thinking about it. And the 3.14159e "splatbooks" only make it worse (probably like the class extension books for 2e, but I sat 2e out). There's another set of comments about too much world background material, too, but that can wait for now...
|
|