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Post by waysoftheearth on Aug 20, 2023 0:34:18 GMT -6
With the recent OGL fiasco, many authors now need to decide whether there's a viable future publishing platform for their OGL-based games. One option is to switch from the OGL licensed 3.5e SRD to the CC licensed 5e SRD. Many authors (including me) will be wondering how practical that really is. I've been hoping for a while that someone else would have already done this, but if they have I've not yet seen it So, in this topic I'm hoping to post some comparisons between 0e, the 3.5e SRD, and the 5e SRD. Perhaps some of this might end up being helpful...
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Post by waysoftheearth on Aug 18, 2023 6:44:18 GMT -6
Quick update on this one. Last week I received some printed samples in the post. What can I say? Genuine letterpress printed, ink impressed on quality paper stock, is off the charts better than today's lightning press products. It looks better, it feels better. Dang, it even smells better. I have a variety of paper weights in hand and have pretty close to the original 3LBB paper weights nailed down (way nicer than any POD I've ever touched). However, one limitation of the printing technology is: no grey-scale art. It's line art only, baby. But on that one I did get some art printed in my samples pack, and it looks amazing. So crisp. It's not a haze of tiny dots fooling your eye to see something that's not there. A line actually is inked, or it isn't. So the art just looks... sharp. But for all that upside, one must pay a price. It isn't going to be cheap. And right now I am not certain what licensing arrangements DD5 can be published under, if at all, so the whole thing is under a bit of a cloud More to come...
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Post by waysoftheearth on Aug 17, 2023 22:55:44 GMT -6
Any thoughts, or some rule-based limitation I'm not seeing in the case of conventional-army-vs-wizards? CM 3e p30 says: "Wizards can become invisible and remain so until they attack". In other words, an invisible, aerial wizard would become visible the moment he launched his first fireball. Flying and/or hovering in the air presumably eliminates any line of sight issues in targeting the Wizard. No more cover from intervening terrain or troops. GH p14 allows composite bows (and heavy crossbows) 24" range. Assume every hero has one. M&M p26 says the protection from normal missiles spell is effective against: "only those missiles projected by normal (not above normal) men and/or weapons". So, even normal arrows fired by a D&D-hero (or any above normal figure) defeat it. UWA p27 imposes critical hits on flying creatures meaning they can be driven off, shot down, or shot dead by a single missile. CM 3e p32 says: "In order to cast and maintain any spell, a Wizard must be both stationary and undisturbed by attack upon his person." By the book then: 1) If a CM-Wizard were disturbed by any attack upon his person (regardless of its success), any spell(s) being maintained would end. Potentially problematic in the case of a fly spell (albeit fly is not an explicitly listed CM spell, but the same applies to levitate and, presumably, any player added/house ruled spell). 2) While the need to be "stationary" is seemingly at odds with zipping along via a fly spell, it could be read to imply that a flying Wizard can do nothing other than maintain the fly spell. In which case, a fly spell would be more or less limited to flying over obstacles and moving around the battlefield at speed; but no fire balling while busy maintaining a fly spell. 3) In CM, invisibility is an innate Wizard feature rather than a spell. However, in D&D-land invisibility is a spell. Merging the two worlds to play fantasy battles, it is conceivable that an invisibility spell would have to be maintained in the same way as a fly spell. In which case it would be impossible to both fly and be invisible simultaneously. In all, it seems a fairly risky proposition for the wizard, for limited advantage. Effectively, you get one pop-up surprise fireball, then your expensive wizard goes poof.
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Post by waysoftheearth on Jul 21, 2023 20:13:26 GMT -6
Wonderful!
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Post by waysoftheearth on Jul 21, 2023 19:56:04 GMT -6
That helps but we really need is for the d20 SRD to be released as CC-BY. And the situation still wrecks usage of all the OGL open content that was released by authors no longer in business or just plain not around anymore to change the license on that material. To be more specific: what OD&D-related micro publishers really need is the 3.5e SRD released as CC-BY. Oh, I agree, The entire SRD from 3.0/3.5 is the really important doc that needs to be CC. Yes, this is what OD&D-related micro publishers need.
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Post by waysoftheearth on Jul 20, 2023 17:39:29 GMT -6
Not wanting to derail this topic, can someone point me to the licensing info for this new S&W edition?
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Post by waysoftheearth on Jul 20, 2023 17:15:36 GMT -6
They do that stuff to keep the company relevant, not the product.
That's exactly why they can/will swap D&D out for a digital-only-micro-transaction-platform-with-D&D-label-slapped-on: they're switching out the product to keep the company relevant.
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Post by waysoftheearth on Jul 20, 2023 16:34:57 GMT -6
I still appreciate that they have kept D&D alive and relevant, they pretty much resuscitated it at one point. They have not kept D&D alive. It's US, the players and the fans, that have kept D&D alive, and will continue to keep D&D alive. We are D&D.
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Post by waysoftheearth on Jul 17, 2023 18:02:28 GMT -6
I used to have a huge WarMaster collection with (i think?) every army including the rare metal wood elves and kislev, and two (plus a few extras?) BFA sets. Alas, I sold it all off around 8-10 years ago as part of an effort to narrow my hobbying down to fewer areas i could focus more on. I never really had reliable WarMaster opponents, so... it didn't make the cut
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Post by waysoftheearth on Jul 16, 2023 18:28:10 GMT -6
Now with a lens of trying to include PCs in mass combat, that's where games like swords & spells, Chainmail, and Battlesystem were poised to solve but in practice have always come up short. Usually too fiddly to actually represent hundreds or thousands of troops AND your PCs in a meaningful way for a campaign mass battle in an evening session. This.
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Post by waysoftheearth on Jul 16, 2023 6:17:56 GMT -6
Maybe someone here can help me locate/identify an indy product.
I'm pretty sure I read about on these boards, maybe around 6 months ago or so, but possibly I may have read it was somewhere else. Still, I have half a notion that it may have been written by a member here. I believe the product (at least what was being discussed) was--or included--a medieval European setting, possibly for D&D or one of its imitators. The thing I remember most clearly (and what I wanted to read more about) was a discussion about the game treatment of nationalities; Germans were good at engineering, Italians were deeply religious, and so on.
It's not a lot to go on, but does that ring any bells with anyone?
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Post by waysoftheearth on Jul 16, 2023 5:53:30 GMT -6
Fantasy Triumph!, the spiritual successor to HotT. Clearer than DBA, with the additional features of free on-line army lists (for historical armies, but easily converted to fantasy) and battle cards (army-specific modifications like ambush, special units, etc.). I'd be interested to take a closer look at Triumph, but not US$20 for a PDF (!) interested. Is there a cheaper, no frills PDF or starter version?
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Post by waysoftheearth on Jul 16, 2023 0:16:54 GMT -6
Yes; DR is essentially the same game as LR1. It adds a few decorative names/descriptions for unit types and some fantasy qualities (cleric, slayer, flying, undead, venomous, etc.) but the main addition is the changing the number of individual figures in a unit into more abstract unit "strength" so that, for example, a unit of 12 men from LR would become a strength 12 unit in DR which can then be represented by 12 men or 4 ogres or a single giant, or any arbitrary combination of fantastic figures that total 12 "strength". It also includes magic, albeit it's pretty basic. There's a short list (10?) of included spells with one line summaries, mostly just enhancing/affecting other elements of the game mechanics (i.e., prevent movement, prevent missile fire, cause a courage test, auto succeed on next courage test, etc.). Inventing your own spells by player agreement prior to play is suggested.
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Post by waysoftheearth on Jul 15, 2023 16:46:16 GMT -6
For me, DBA is still the go to system in wargaming, with derivatives like DBF and HOTT qualifying in the fantasy genre.
The game is deeply rooted in historical research with rules that are straight forward yet richly nuanced, it is fast playing, command/control and the "action economy" is elegantly managed, troop type differences are expressed in outcomes table rather than by stats/stat inflation, and there is a meaningful sense of generalship without arduous fiddling with casualties, book-keeping, or calculations.
Still a wonderful game IMHO, and the gold standard to which I invariably end up comparing other games.
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Post by waysoftheearth on Jul 15, 2023 16:31:56 GMT -6
We're really enjoying Lion Rampant 2nd edition. It's got some rules for fantasy units, not just historical ones. It's a pretty easy-to-learn generic game which plays fast and is a lot of fun. There's also Dragon Rampant, which is a pretty straight-forward adaption specifically for fantasy battles. I have both games, but alas no opponent I'd love to try it out one of these days.
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Post by waysoftheearth on Jul 15, 2023 3:38:21 GMT -6
Swords & Spells Warriors of Mars?
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Post by waysoftheearth on Jul 15, 2023 3:33:09 GMT -6
It depends a lot on what your criteria for "best" are. Commercial revenue, years in production, tables at cons, most players, most fan sites, best miniatures support, fastest battle play, best campaign rules, best genre support, best giant robots, etc. There are many different lenses one could view the field through. I think it's fair to say we're looking at a pretty narrow list here. Here's just a few of the popular contenders.... ageofminiatures.com/best-skirmish-games/www.wargamer.com/best-miniature-wargameswww.dicebreaker.com/mechanics/skirmish/best-games/best-skirmish-games-wargaming
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Post by waysoftheearth on Jul 15, 2023 2:37:23 GMT -6
what about steppe, marsh, coast, river, arable/farmed, city? And not to forget ocean, archipelago, undersea and more fantastic wilderness such as cloudscape, asteroid belts, astral, ethereal, near-space, necropolis, hellscapes, and so on?
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Post by waysoftheearth on Jul 14, 2023 2:39:24 GMT -6
Hey smubee great to hear from you Here's something i've been ruminating on for a while, but never tested in actual play: Instead of having a fixed armor class, suppose for a moment that (mostly for players and major NPCs) AC is more a dynamic resource, like HP. Each player writes down AC and HP on their character sheet. Each time a player (with AC better than 9) gets hit, they can actively decide whether their armor ablates the hit. If the player decides to "use" armor to ablate a hit, the player suffers no damage but instead reduces AC by 1 notch. This continues until armor is completely beaten out, and then players will have to take hp damage instead. The player strategy element of this is that the player can choose to take the low hp hits as damage, and ablate the high hp hits with a limited armor resource. Essentially, it adds an extra option and element of resource management for the fighters. Which some players will like, others less so. A natural side effect of this is that armor will get "worn out" as it soaks hits, and so then require replacement or repair during between adventure town time. The latter is probably best handled as an abstract cost... perhaps 50% of whatever a new piece of armor would cost? The ref might rule than no armor can be reduced by more than half, or below AC 8, or whatever. The ref might get fancy and rule that armor (i.e., excluding shields or helms) can't ablate more damage than it has armor pips remaining; any excess damage being passed thru to the wearer. The ref might rule that a 6 hp hit is a head hit and can only be ablated if a helmet is worn, and perhaps then only one time. Just a half-baked idea that I'd be interested to test some time...
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Post by waysoftheearth on Jul 11, 2023 6:35:26 GMT -6
What remains mind boggling to me is how it is possible to take as input what is, arguably, one of the greatest fictions ever written, then so comprehensively rewrite it for screen, and then claim it is somehow representative of the original story.
It would, perhaps, have been more appropriate to have sold it as a fan-fiction adaptation (and lengthy expansion) of the Hobbit, as written by Fran Walsh, Philippa Boyens, P. Jackson, and Guillermo del Toro. The four of whom apparently know how to write the best stories about Hobbits! (not withstanding theirs was more about Thorin than the actual Hobbit).
Yes, I am still mortally wounded by it... prolly nothing can be done about it.
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Post by waysoftheearth on Jul 10, 2023 21:15:51 GMT -6
But the films of The Hobbit trilogy? Terrible! And each one is worse than the one before. I could not believe the cosmological amount of junk in the last movie of that trilogy. I saw the first one with high hopes, but was lukewarm on it. Somewhat reluctantly, i eventually saw the second one. That was so catastrophic that i didn't bother myself with the last one.
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Post by waysoftheearth on Jul 9, 2023 7:15:08 GMT -6
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Post by waysoftheearth on Jul 6, 2023 5:28:03 GMT -6
Presumably that's the 5e SRD? If so, then... not particularly useful to 3e SRD-based publications (including virtually all the TSR-era clones).
Or do you mean they released the 3e SRD as well? That would be good news.
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Post by waysoftheearth on Jul 6, 2023 3:08:01 GMT -6
The OGL fiasco just backfired in a way they never expected, ... Fortunately it worked out I don't see how anyone would continue to invest effort in anything OGL-based today. The OGL was torpedoed... as far as I know there is no longer any trustworthy legal umbrella over 3e-based fan work. That isn't a good outlook for anyone who was previously a small-fry, indy, OGL/OSR publisher. I'd be interested to understand what "it worked out" was intended to mean?
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Post by waysoftheearth on Jun 30, 2023 0:22:41 GMT -6
Just suggesting that a lot of ambiguity could easily have been avoided by specifying when melee continues; either this turn or next turn. Two additional words is all that would have been required, either way.
Yes, there are a couple of specific circumstances were melee clearly continues in the same turn, as discussed up thread.
The possibility of an intentional change is also discussed near the beginning of this topic. Part of the issue is, how many readers these days would have first read the Domesday version and then recognised it as an intentional change? Probably very few indeed.
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Post by waysoftheearth on Jun 29, 2023 19:17:32 GMT -6
Going back to the Domesday Book version of the game, there are no Fatigue rules. However, the original text that would become the post melee morale rules explains turns versus rounds: "The melee will usually last only one round. After the attacker has inflicted casualties and the defender has done likewise, the survivors on each side will be counted. Each player will then roll a die and multiply the number of survivors in their force by the number rolled. The player with the higher total is the winner. However, if there is less than a ten point spread between the two totals the melee will continue next turn, and on all subsequent turns until a sufficient difference in totals is arrived at." It the continues with what happens to the loser, "The loser of the melee will retreat his troops one normal move, backs to the enemy..." Starting with Chainmail 1e, Post Melee Morale rules, step 4, "0-19 difference — melee continues", sadly was missing the part that explains when melee continues, which according to the original rules states: "the melee will continue next turn, and on all subsequent turns until a sufficient difference in totals is arrived at." Gawds. It surely wouldn't have been difficult to include melee continues next turn in CM!
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Post by waysoftheearth on Jun 28, 2023 5:57:56 GMT -6
Pity those AD&D reprints are so unusable thou. The paper quality is so thin and hard, and the surface so shiny! that it makes the 6 point text waaay harder to read. My eyes can't deal with it, and I'm not even properly old yet. This pretty much makes them collector items rather than usable gaming material for me. I don't have the reprint, but B2 is of course eternal
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Post by waysoftheearth on Jun 26, 2023 18:47:24 GMT -6
It's recombining words that others have previously written in new combinations that address the input criteria/requirements. Is this different or the same as what a human author does when they write something "new"?
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Post by waysoftheearth on Jun 25, 2023 16:50:17 GMT -6
All that treasure the players got used to belong to someone... maybe they come back to reclaim what is rightfully theirs?
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Post by waysoftheearth on Jun 24, 2023 20:59:33 GMT -6
Perhaps try the enemy NPC party? These can be among the most challenging enemies cos they can have all the options and strategies available to the players themselves (and then some).
A couple of complications are that it can be time consuming to generate all the details of enemy PCs, and should the players win out they end up collecting the enemy PCs' gear which only makes the players more potent! But there are plausible mitigations to both.
E.g., use pre-gen'd bad guys. From memory, there is a really detailed evil NPC party in the finale of the A1-4 against the slave lords AD&D series that could be tweaked/re-purposed without much effort. There's also the Rogues Gallery and probably a few other, similar compilations.
Magic accumulation can also be managed... e.g., enforcing expendable and limited charge items, having magic items that are only magical for specific conditions/purposes, Drow magic items that lose their magic properties in direct sunlight, etc. All doable.
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