N.E.W. Review

Aardvark892 · Oct 10, 2017

Just in case anyone's interested, I've recently published a blog review of W.O.I.N.'s sci-fi system, N.E.W.

https://wordpress.com/post/dicemechanic.org/259

I'd love any/all opinions or critiques!

Tim

Morrus · Oct 10, 2017

That link just asks me to log into a wordpress account!

Aardvark892 · Oct 13, 2017

Doh! Sorry about that. I'm a doofus. The site is Dicemechanic.org. There's a list of posts on the right of the page, you'll find it listed as "A N.E.W. Hope for Sci-Fi. I'd love input/suggestions/critiques!

daniiren · Oct 14, 2017

You spend a lot of time talking about Traveller and how much you like it, but you don't really talk much about how or why N.E.W. has the potential to surpass Traveller. You mention a few things you like (a good basic mechanic, character creation, etc) but don't really explain why these are better. It would be very easy for someone reading to dismiss your commendations as being without merit as you offer no support for your argument. If this one aspect of N.E.W. is better than Traveller, tell us what the difference is and why the N.E.W. mechanic is superior. I agree with the point you're trying to make, I think WOIN is a well-built system, but without supporting arguments to substantiate your claims I don't think it would carry a lot of weight with people who are undecided or on the other side of the fence. If your primary motivation is just to put your opinion out there then by all means ignore me, but I think the internet as a whole needs more people who are willing to provide support for their arguments.

Also I approve of the pun that is the article title.

Aardvark892 · Oct 14, 2017

daniiren said:
You spend a lot of time talking about Traveller and how much you like it, but you don't really talk much about how or why N.E.W. has the potential to surpass Traveller. You mention a few things you like (a good basic mechanic, character creation, etc) but don't really explain why these are better. It would be very easy for someone reading to dismiss your commendations as being without merit as you offer no support for your argument. If this one aspect of N.E.W. is better than Traveller, tell us what the difference is and why the N.E.W. mechanic is superior. I agree with the point you're trying to make, I think WOIN is a well-built system, but without supporting arguments to substantiate your claims I don't think it would carry a lot of weight with people who are undecided or on the other side of the fence. If your primary motivation is just to put your opinion out there then by all means ignore me, but I think the internet as a whole needs more people who are willing to provide support for their arguments.

Also I approve of the pun that is the article title.

Daniiren, you have made some excellent points. I really appreciate your advice. I'm going to review the post, see if I can clean it up, and hopefully make a much better argument to support the idea. By all means, if you have time, I would love to hear what you have to say about any of my posts.

Aardvark892 · Oct 14, 2017

I've taken Daniiren's advice and added a few new paragraphs, trying to find the right words to explain in more detail why I'm so excited about N.E.W. As always, I'd love the hear any questions/critiques!

daniiren · Oct 15, 2017

(For the lazy, the post in question is here). Having glanced through the extra stuff you added, I think the article stands much better now. One further comment I might make (feel free to take this or leave this) is in the second-last paragraph where you're talking about Traveller's 2d6 +/- modifiers system. A point that may be worth making is that WOIN deals with modifiers more by adding and subtracting dice rather than constants.

Constant modifiers are very old-school, and while many people are doubtless used to them and appreciate the comfort of the familiar, I think the adding/subtracting dice instead is the better system for both players and GMs. D&D 5e went this way with its advantage/disadvantage, and for my 4e game I replaced its modifiers with the Boon/Bane mechanic from Shadow of the Demon Lord. Saying that WOIN uses dice rather than constants may help further convince readers that WOIN is a fresh take on (in this case) sci-fi RPGs and not a rehash of an older system.