Anyone check out Radiance RPG yet?

Design question: Why did you choose to go with the +1/2 level to attack and defense? Seems like without that you'd have a nice "bounded accuracy" system?

On the character sheet is a space for "Background", but there are no backgrounds described in the book. Is this meant to refer to a townie profession (if a PC takes one)? Or is it something in the expansion or GM's book?

AncientSpirits said:

Also, though PCs have many abilities in total at high levels, they tend to focus on the higher tier abilities right away in a combat and only have a handful of those to pick from.

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That makes sense. As I was studying the character sheet I couldn't help but feel some graphical division between passive abilities and active vitality point abilities would help make high level characters run smoother for new players.

Quickleaf said:

Design question: Why did you choose to go with the +1/2 level to attack and defense? Seems like without that you'd have a nice "bounded accuracy" system?

On the character sheet is a space for "Background", but there are no backgrounds described in the book. Is this meant to refer to a townie profession (if a PC takes one)? Or is it something in the expansion or GM's book?


That makes sense. As I was studying the character sheet I couldn't help but feel some graphical division between passive abilities and active vitality point abilities would help make high level characters run smoother for new players.

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I used the +1/2 rubric because
-- It gave a familiar experience numerically. Creatures have saves, hit points, etc that feel similar to D&D and other d20 games.
-- Also, I wanted to mute the power curve of high versus low level for a grittier feel rather than a heroes feel. I still has a heroic feel overall, but not as much as it would otherwise.

The background is for pure flavor. As it sits in the "Theme" area, and the themes do suggest various backgrounds, a player could write in one of those backgrounds there.

As the pub date for the Masters Guide grows close, I'm so debating a way to mark monster abilities to indicate which ones are active combat options. Maybe even just a line of some kind separating them might be make running monsters quicker. And yes, for PCs, a way to separate out active versus passive would be nice nice abilities are generally one or the other, not both. Great observation!

In terms of running high level PCs, honestly, I suggest printing out pages of the PDF: the race page, 2 class pages, theme page, and deity page. Then highlight one's abilities and put a red dot (or whatever) by the action options. That's what our group does .

It's a very impressive product, but not quite my cup of tea. But I couldn't help noticing you kinda screwed up the OGL, section 15.

In the player's guide, you have

Open Game License
v 1.0 Copyright 2000, Wizards of the Coast, Inc.; Authors
Jonathan Tweet, Monte Cook, Skip Williams, Rich Baker,
Andy Collins, David Noonan, Rich Redman, Bruce R.
Cordell, based on original material by E. Gary Gygax and
Dave Arneson. All written content herein is considered
open game content.
Legal

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You're supposed to list every product used (or as I read it, the Section 15 of every product used), then add an entry for your product.

Instead, you seem to be combining the OGL entry for the OGL itself with that of the SRD document. The OGL is the license itself, the SRD is the rules released by the license.

It should be:

Open Game License v 1.0a Copyright 2000, Wizards of the Coast, Inc.

System Reference Document Copyright 2000-2003, Wizards of the Coast, Inc.; Authors Jonathan Tweet, Monte Cook, Skip Williams, Rich Baker, Andy Collins, David Noonan, Rich Redman, Bruce R. Cordell, John D. Rateliff, Thomas Reid, James Wyatt, based on original material by E. Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson.

Radiance Player's Guide Copyright 2012 Radiance House

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You could put the author in if you want, you don't have to.

You also need to indicate which content is open

trancejeremy said:

It's a very impressive product, but not quite my cup of tea. But I couldn't help noticing you kinda screwed up the OGL, section 15.

In the player's guide, you have



You're supposed to list every product used (or as I read it, the Section 15 of every product used), then add an entry for your product.

Instead, you seem to be combining the OGL entry for the OGL itself with that of the SRD document. The OGL is the license itself, the SRD is the rules released by the license.

It should be:



You could put the author in if you want, you don't have to.

You also need to indicate which content is open

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Uh, thanks. I did what I've always done for various products going back to 2007. For this project, I didn't use anything except the SRD and material in the public domain, except maybe the grippli, now that I think about it. I could spell those two out, though adding that to the product's website is easiest.

BTW, I already indicate what content is open. As you quote me, it says: "All written content herein is considered open game content."

I realize that might sound unbelievable to some folks, but that was part of the point of a philanthropic project.

Also, folks are free to visit page 2, which has more copyright information.

We're starting to use the Radiance system for the D&D-style campaign I'm running. Had been using C&C with a bunch of house rules, but we're going to see how things roll with Radiance.

Coverting the characters was a snap, except for one player who has a Yeti Brawler. I ended up letting him pick abilities from the Goliath race and using monk class, minus the alignment restriction.

The players are liking the extra crunch and abilities. I'm glad they're happy, but not sure about the extra work I'll be taking on as DM...

For Radiance rpg to really succeed, IMHO, it needs to be very modifiable with different editions and varying play styles... no doubt more layers will be revealed in the Master's guide.

Robyo said:

We're starting to use the Radiance system for the D&D-style campaign I'm running. Had been using C&C with a bunch of house rules, but we're going to see how things roll with Radiance.

Coverting the characters was a snap, except for one player who has a Yeti Brawler. I ended up letting him pick abilities from the Goliath race and using monk class, minus the alignment restriction.

The players are liking the extra crunch and abilities. I'm glad they're happy, but not sure about the extra work I'll be taking on as DM...

For Radiance rpg to really succeed, IMHO, it needs to be very modifiable with different editions and varying play styles... no doubt more layers will be revealed in the Master's guide.

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Nice to hear your players got behind the change. I've emailed the rules to my group, and I'm bringing them on my tablet to our friday game night to gauge everyone's reaction. Everything I've read and the great responses from [MENTION=55778]AncientSpirits[/MENTION] (whom I am assuming is the author Dario Nardi) make me think it would be an easy game to GM and play. Plus I really enjoy Dario's writing, there's enough there that familiar so that the new stuff really pops out nicely, and is surprisingly good.

I made a dummy 10th level PC as a mockup of one player's character, and managed to squeeze everything legibly onto one page! That's amazing for a high level D&D-type character!

Robyo said:

We're starting to use the Radiance system for the D&D-style campaign I'm running. Had been using C&C with a bunch of house rules, but we're going to see how things roll with Radiance.

Coverting the characters was a snap, except for one player who has a Yeti Brawler. I ended up letting him pick abilities from the Goliath race and using monk class, minus the alignment restriction.

The players are liking the extra crunch and abilities. I'm glad they're happy, but not sure about the extra work I'll be taking on as DM...

For Radiance rpg to really succeed, IMHO, it needs to be very modifiable with different editions and varying play styles... no doubt more layers will be revealed in the Master's guide.

Click to expand...

Thanks for sharing your experience. Hmm, a brawler: a barbarian/monk hybrid. There is still some room in the Expansion Kit for another class and race. I imagine some folks would like to play a wookie, gorilla-man, or such, which also fit with the yeti. I'm warming up to the idea!

As for GMing, here are some suggestions:
-- Utilize townies/alders. They add a lot of variety and are easy to use.
-- Note key pages numbers for breaking/entering, hazards, town encounters, etc. (And the Masters Guide with have a GM's screen with set of pages to print with all the essentials on them.)
-- Traps are covered under the Mechanics skill. (And the Masters Guide will have a bunch of premade traps).
-- Utilize the monster folio. And you're welcome to message me if you need a particular monster that isn't in there.
-- Make a matrix that has the PCs' basic info including their saves. Since saves are passive like in 4E, you will be rolling the saves.

About longterm success, at this point, I'm still shocked (in a good way) that so many folks are downloading it and even playing it. Fortunately, it comes with a lot of options and has a mathematical foundation that allows a lot of new and custom stuff. For example, in the Masters Guide, each monster entry comes with a line that modifies vitality and damage such that the monster is the same level but plays very different (quick play, but more more dangerous). And there are many ways to use faith points, to substitute out the themes for some other rewards such as troops in a military campaign, and so forth. I'm just starting to get my head around it all myself!

I downloaded it the other day and looking it over I definitely like what I see.

My only real critique is how skills work.

While characters will certainly have the skills common to their class/profession it doesn't look like it's possible to be very good at skills outside your class focus.

In 3.5 (and in Pathfinder) it was possible to specialize in skills outside the class's focus if you want to.

I know this can mitigated a lot for Humans but what about other races?

VanceMadrox said:

I downloaded it the other day and looking it over I definitely like what I see.

My only real critique is how skills work.

While characters will certainly have the skills common to their class/profession it doesn't look like it's possible to be very good at skills outside your class focus.

In 3.5 (and in Pathfinder) it was possible to specialize in skills outside the class's focus if you want to.

I know this can mitigated a lot for Humans but what about other races?

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A lot of other races have different amount of skills, look at Tengu, Slith or Rakasha for example. Classes have easy multiclass options to dabble in as multiclassing isn't all the difficult to get. Also many of the themes have many ways to gain skill points in something else. See Specialist and Dilettante in particular.

Basically the main way to get skill points outside of your class is the themes, only a few don't have the option to gain skill points as awards.

Also do remember for skills there is no such thing as being untrained and you may always take 10 unless you are combat. Not to mention Hard DCs begin at DC 30 so once you have a couple of abilities in your skill you become quite good at that already.

Ok I hadn't looked too in depth at themes, that does make me feel a bit better.

Still overall while I like what I see I'm not convinced to run it over E6 or E8 Pathfinder.

Definitely some neat ideas though.