Fourth Edition Retro Clone

[Tallifer]

[MENTION=6686908]As for a retro-clone of 4E that is like OSRIC, rebuilding the edition as far as legally possible under OGL, I've tried to start a project called 4SRD but it currently suffers from the problem that I have zero free time to spare. Help is welcome.

I have started adding stuff, but wow it is a lot of work. And I think it will not be difficult to make it OGL, but it will be a lot of drudgery to do so: so far I simply entered a bunch of rules and racial feats, but I was not very careful yet about OGL considerations.

 

[ChainSawHobbit]

Ugh. Sorry about my absence. Most of my time had been taken up by friends, homework, and a crippling Skyrim addiction, not necessarily in that order.

I will get back to work on Magic Sword shortly.

 

[ChainSawHobbit]

You will be exited to know that I am working on setting up a kickstarter campaign at indiegogo.com (I can't do kickstarter.com since I live in Canada). However, I need a video, and a finite release deadline.

First, I think that the beginning of Summer, 2013 is reasonable. That gives us a year, which is enough time, provided we are efficient.

Second, I don't feel confident in making a video myself. Would anyone else be interested?

Third, how much money do you think we need? It would be used primarily - if not entirely - for paying freelance artists and advertising the game. I was thinking $1,000, but that might be a bit lofty ...

 

[Tymophil]

I have begun to work on the adventure. You can find what I have so far Here.

Please tell me what you think.

I think you should AVOID taking the "Keep on the Shadowfell" path... I mean : fight, then fight, then fight, then fight... And finally fight the boss...

It would be better to introduce rules one at a time, stressing how to handle some situations with skill tests , stat test, without such, Skill challenges, traps, sickness, etc.

It would be nice to have also iconic situations, with different ways to handle them : puzzles, traps, curses, investigation, exploration, etc.

For example, it would be nice to have some roleplay scenes with and without skill tests, introducing the "helping another PC action" rule.

 

[MatthewJHanson]

You will be exited to know that I am working on setting up a kickstarter campaign at indiegogo.com.

I use yahoo for all my googling.

 

[The Halfling]

I've been working on something similar for a while now. I've been posting primarily on fourthparty however.

Here s link to my thoughts.

I'm willing to pitch in.

 

[bone_naga]

I'm not sure this is a feasible thing. Mainly because it's my impression that a large number of 4e players use D&Di Compendium and the online CB in regular game play, and I'm not sure building something like the latter for your retroclone would be feasible.

While a lot of 4e players use DDI, a lot of us don't. Also, it wouldn't be that hard to recreate. Use heroforge or CBLoader to create a custom dataset for your system. Set up a site similar to the hyperlinkSRD for 3e to serve as the Compendium for your system.

Regarding the first point I quote, I think there are some broadly-agreed upon problems with fourth edition, but I'm not sure fixing those requires more than a short list of houserules. I could be wrong.

I somewhat agree here, but if you're taking the time to make a retroclone, it's still a good time to fix those problems.

As for the second point I quote, I don't know that substantially speeding up combat is possible without dramatically changing the game. Just my two cents.

This might be tricky. Reducing the number of off-turn actions could help as could reducing hit points, but I don't think it will get back to OD&D speed.