Knave 2 from Ben of Questing Beast. Update: Backerkit store is open.

[Eyes of Nine]

The signup for the kickstarter has over 4 thousand followers. That seems really good, is it?

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Link

Yes, and now one more

May not be a million seller, but I bet it hits half a mil

 

[overgeeked]

Good luck, Ben. Best of luck with it.

 

[overgeeked]

The gear giveth, and the gear taketh away.

This is also an aspect of Index Card RPG. I’m not always keen on the Christmas tree effect of character progression, but when it’s done well, i.e. sort of balanced and can be taken away if not, I like it.

 

[TwoSix]

This is also an aspect of Index Card RPG. I’m not always keen on the Christmas tree effect of character progression, but when it’s done well, i.e. sort of balanced and can be taken away if not, I like it.

I like Knave and its hacks for this type of play better because of its fantasy specificity; I don't genre-hop enough to find ICRPG's universal approach as appealing. (Just personal preference, of course.)

 

[Dreamscape]

And it was expressed by weight (stones, as I recall), not slots, which was what I was referring to as the modern aspect of Knave (and Shadowdark, which likely got the idea from Knave).

Yes, I was responding to the second half of your post where you said:

And it's funny to me that the most prominent voice for OSR nowadays has a system that is modern in so many ways. The slot encumbrance system and the-gear-makes-the-character system both hearken back to video games, rather than what anything Gygax or Arneson would have recognized.

I may have been mistaken if that part was also talking about encumbrance (i.e. "how much can my character carry?")?

Anyway, old D&D used coins as an encumbrance measurement (and an optional simplified system of unarmoured, armoured, and/or carrying treasure). Coins were just a measure of weight, though it might be argued that it would have been easier to say a sword weighs 6 lbs instead of 60 coins (and both would have been wrong).

Slots are also an old system, however. RuneQuest used "things" which were effectively the same as slots (a sword was "1 thing" encumbrance). Fighting Fantasy allowed heroes 10 items plus weapon and armour, again effectively the same as slots. Tracking weight is tedious which is why most games (including D&D) soon developed simplified systems. Slots are just a way of saying "an average item weighs this much, and you can carry this many average items", although most also give lip service to bulk being a consideration.

I avoid using "first used" whenever I talk about RPG mechanics, because I inevitably find an earlier example as soon as I do. There's remarkably little new in RPG mechanics, other than the particular combination in a game - Shadowdark being an excellent example.

 

[Dreamscape]

I'm judging the game by Ben's last YouTube development log, as I'm not on his Patreon where he apparently updates more regularly. What I'm hoping is that it doesn't get too much larger than 1E (obviously it will be larger than 2 pages!). I like these tiny systems for what they are, I don't really want them expanded to the size of The Black Hack 2E or Swords & Wizardry or Shadowdark - what I call 'full-size' OSR games.

 

[Aldarc]

This is also an aspect of Index Card RPG. I’m not always keen on the Christmas tree effect of character progression, but when it’s done well, i.e. sort of balanced and can be taken away if not, I like it.

I like Knave and its hacks for this type of play better because of its fantasy specificity; I don't genre-hop enough to find ICRPG's universal approach as appealing. (Just personal preference, of course.)

ICRPG Master Edition kinda moves away from item-based progression for more things like feats and special abilities that are distinct from your loot. I'm not sure if the game is better as a result. It's different. I think that I would have preferred more loot-based progression for a game like ICRPG though maybe with a minimal set of starter abilities.

 

[darjr]

Yea depends on book size etc. I bought the version 1 in pdf yesterday and am reading it. The stat generation is kinda genius.

 

[darjr]

Oh! The Questing Beast Patreon has a draft!

 

[Dreamscape]

Oh! The Questing Beast Patreon has a draft!

How many pages is it? I'm a little concerned that it's getting quite big.