Recent content by Pat

Ben Lehman is running a "Pay What You Want Sale" for a bunch of his games, including Polaris (Indie Game of the Year 2005) and Bliss Stage: Ben Lehman’s Pay What You Want Game Sale Deeper in the Game

A reprint of the original Dungeons & Dragons 3-Volume Set. The 20-volume hardcover set of Dragon magazine mentioned earlier in the thread also sounds nice, though I suspect it would have to at least 40 books (to make the individual volumes as thin as a typical encyclopedia).

Hope you feel better. I'm no expert, but I don't believe so. PI isn't the issue. The reason most authors of retro-clones use the OGL isn't to copy rules or even chunks of text, but to allow the use of unique D&Disms. This includes names of monsters and spells like bulettes and creeping doom...

I've been following your thread over at DF. Glad you decided to keep the For Gold and Glory name. But was this a typo? Doing away with the OGL would be difficult.

"Little Brown Book[let]s". A reference to the components of the original D&D 3-Volume Set (Men & Magic, Monsters & Treasure, and Underworld & Wilderness Adventures).

Assuming it's 21-44 and the second printing/edition, you're missing the weapons chart, rules for shooting and hand to hand, a combat example, misc rules (falling, security systems, human and animal guards, fencing, etc), designing an environment, and a few of the optional rules (fame and...

Another game with retro credentials: Fire & Sword: An evolution of the BRP system by Ray Turney, one of the designers of the original RuneQuest RPG. Also inspired by Pendragon, as well as other games.

Watch out for the PDF version on Lulu -- it's missing the Master Tables (I don't know about the print version). The version on OneBookShelf (by another publisher) does have the Master Tables included.

A few more non-D&D clones: DoubleZero is a clone of Victory Games' James Bond 007 RPG. The SRD was released in 2007, but doesn't seem to be accessible anymore. Mostly public domain. 4c is a clone of the original (aka classic) Marvel Super Heroes RPG (the so-called FASERIP system). It was paid...

Even a 2nd or 3rd level character can achieve that against standard peasant levies or even professional infantry. Details: Assumptions: For simplicity, let's say the melee resolves into a series of fights where the knight charges a group. Knights attack first (reach), and if a soldier or miltia...

Very nice. Max skill rank for a 4th level character is actually 7 (level +3, which explains why characters get quadruple skill points at 1st level). Ability scores of 13 across the board isn't slightly above average in 3.5; it's exceptional (15 points higher than the standard NPC using point...

I can't agree with that, even vaguely. The appendix in GURPS 3E Revised and the contents of both the compendia were either GM guidelines, optional rules, or dealt with fringe or obscure cases. I managed to use Transhuman Space (the version without the custom version of GURPS Lite included) and...

The revised third edition of GURPS didn't actually change any rules, text or even layout (one of the design principles was not to invalidate any previous page references); the only change was the removal of the 16-page adventure "Caravan to Ein Arris" and its replacement with miscellanea like...

Sorry, but your examples are incorrect. GURPS 3E came out the year before AD&D 2E (1988), and there wasn't another edition until after D&D 3.5 was released (2004). That makes 16 years between GURPS 3E and 4E. I wouldn't be surprised if there were other examples of regularly printed games that...

I'll help.