Post by mythmere on Jun 13, 2008 21:34:55 GMT -6
I've just posted the following on my S&W Blog. Feel free to comment here, but your ideas may get a wider audience on the blog.
The post:
As I’ve been working on the newest draft of S&W, it becoming increasingly clear that producing a true White-Box Retro Clone will make the result incompatible with the design goal of a Rosetta Stone, and that if I want to meet these design goals I will have to release both the GH-scale (by GH, I mean supplement 1) Rosetta Stone game and the WB-scale Retro-clone. The reason is simple, and I’ve already suggested it by using the word “scale” to describe the two original games. It simply isn’t possible to use the same numbers for the two systems because the power scale of monsters in the WB game cuts off flat at a very early point. Giants inflict 2HD of damage, and giants (or dragons) are about the top of the scale - even dragons only inflict 1d6 damage. The GH system offers a much more extended upward curve in monster power, and there simply isn’t room in the WB power scale to accommodate much of the detail that followed upon the introduction of the GH system.
Although the WB contains the basic structure of the game (levels, xp, vancian spells, etc), it isn’t until Supplement 1 that the power curve becomes a “root language” for what comes afterward. It is also at this point that 0e becomes similar, in many respects, to 1e.
So, when looking at the various drafts of S&W, the WB gamers had the legitimate observation that S&W resembled a 1e prototype. GH gamers, I think, saw their retro-clone in the second version I posted. The first version truly was 1e-lite, and that got fixed.
So, where do I go from here? I’ve decided that (since the writing is already done) I’ll release the GH-version; since I promised to release a WB-version, I might as well go ahead and do the work required to finish that out. There will be two games. Questions remain. Are they “Basic” and “Advanced” versions of the same game? I think not. If I couldn’t make them compatible enough to work together, it would be untrue to bill them as the same game, and would do nothing but cause confusion later on. So I need another name for a game. As yet, I don’t know which game will get which name. Second question: I believe that a magazine or other “flagship” series of game materials is required for the healthy development of a retro-clone. If there are two games, will there be two magazines? No: I barely have enough time to run one magazine, and I’m not too comfortable with how much work even that will represent.
On the other hand, I think the magazine has enough room to cover multiple games. It was always my plan to include other retro-clones in the magazine when S&W was planned as a rosetta stone for all of them. But that’s easy, of course. If the “flagship” game is compatible with everything, then producing the magazine for all of the games isn’t any different from producing a magazine for one game. Adding the WB game into the mix actually throws in a game with, if not a different set of rules, a completely different set of meanings to the numbers. Can the magazine handle that? I think so, although I’m not completely certain. New monsters written for the GH-style game are going to be very hard to integrate with the WB power scale. For instance: a single dragon in a dungeon will require more GH-style 3rd level characters to kill than it would require WB-style 3rd level characters to kill. Can the magazine handle two formats under the same tent? Well, yes. Can it do it without showing favoritism to one game? That’s where the answer isn’t so clear.
I’m going to adopt a Darwinian answer to the riddle. I’ll start the magazine just as a general 0e zine and juggle both formats for rules-specific contributions. If the WB community doesn’t generate enough authors to preserve itself as a viable portion of the magazine, then obviously the format will swing toward the GH community (yes, they’re the same community — I’m just talking about the number format). Likewise, if the material is all coming in with d6 HD monsters that make one attack and max out at 2d6 damage for the toughest monsters — then the GH style’s coverage will necessarily dwindle. Since the GH-style is the rosetta stone that can draw OSRIC and LL articles, I think the real question is whether the WB coverage will survive or whether someone else will pick it up and become the central figure in S&W White Box.
Hey, that’s a possibility, calling them S&W White Box, and S&W GH Edition. I’ll have to think about that, but if anyone’s got good suggestions for a second game name, post away.
So that’s the working plan right now, to produce two games and unify them in the magazine, which would still make it an 0e magazine, just one that admits that there are two very different “scales” in two versioons of the game.
Thoughts? Ideas? Comments?
Matt
The post:
As I’ve been working on the newest draft of S&W, it becoming increasingly clear that producing a true White-Box Retro Clone will make the result incompatible with the design goal of a Rosetta Stone, and that if I want to meet these design goals I will have to release both the GH-scale (by GH, I mean supplement 1) Rosetta Stone game and the WB-scale Retro-clone. The reason is simple, and I’ve already suggested it by using the word “scale” to describe the two original games. It simply isn’t possible to use the same numbers for the two systems because the power scale of monsters in the WB game cuts off flat at a very early point. Giants inflict 2HD of damage, and giants (or dragons) are about the top of the scale - even dragons only inflict 1d6 damage. The GH system offers a much more extended upward curve in monster power, and there simply isn’t room in the WB power scale to accommodate much of the detail that followed upon the introduction of the GH system.
Although the WB contains the basic structure of the game (levels, xp, vancian spells, etc), it isn’t until Supplement 1 that the power curve becomes a “root language” for what comes afterward. It is also at this point that 0e becomes similar, in many respects, to 1e.
So, when looking at the various drafts of S&W, the WB gamers had the legitimate observation that S&W resembled a 1e prototype. GH gamers, I think, saw their retro-clone in the second version I posted. The first version truly was 1e-lite, and that got fixed.
So, where do I go from here? I’ve decided that (since the writing is already done) I’ll release the GH-version; since I promised to release a WB-version, I might as well go ahead and do the work required to finish that out. There will be two games. Questions remain. Are they “Basic” and “Advanced” versions of the same game? I think not. If I couldn’t make them compatible enough to work together, it would be untrue to bill them as the same game, and would do nothing but cause confusion later on. So I need another name for a game. As yet, I don’t know which game will get which name. Second question: I believe that a magazine or other “flagship” series of game materials is required for the healthy development of a retro-clone. If there are two games, will there be two magazines? No: I barely have enough time to run one magazine, and I’m not too comfortable with how much work even that will represent.
On the other hand, I think the magazine has enough room to cover multiple games. It was always my plan to include other retro-clones in the magazine when S&W was planned as a rosetta stone for all of them. But that’s easy, of course. If the “flagship” game is compatible with everything, then producing the magazine for all of the games isn’t any different from producing a magazine for one game. Adding the WB game into the mix actually throws in a game with, if not a different set of rules, a completely different set of meanings to the numbers. Can the magazine handle that? I think so, although I’m not completely certain. New monsters written for the GH-style game are going to be very hard to integrate with the WB power scale. For instance: a single dragon in a dungeon will require more GH-style 3rd level characters to kill than it would require WB-style 3rd level characters to kill. Can the magazine handle two formats under the same tent? Well, yes. Can it do it without showing favoritism to one game? That’s where the answer isn’t so clear.
I’m going to adopt a Darwinian answer to the riddle. I’ll start the magazine just as a general 0e zine and juggle both formats for rules-specific contributions. If the WB community doesn’t generate enough authors to preserve itself as a viable portion of the magazine, then obviously the format will swing toward the GH community (yes, they’re the same community — I’m just talking about the number format). Likewise, if the material is all coming in with d6 HD monsters that make one attack and max out at 2d6 damage for the toughest monsters — then the GH style’s coverage will necessarily dwindle. Since the GH-style is the rosetta stone that can draw OSRIC and LL articles, I think the real question is whether the WB coverage will survive or whether someone else will pick it up and become the central figure in S&W White Box.
Hey, that’s a possibility, calling them S&W White Box, and S&W GH Edition. I’ll have to think about that, but if anyone’s got good suggestions for a second game name, post away.
So that’s the working plan right now, to produce two games and unify them in the magazine, which would still make it an 0e magazine, just one that admits that there are two very different “scales” in two versioons of the game.
Thoughts? Ideas? Comments?
Matt
