Aurumvorax
First Post
Here's the direct link to the 4shared folder so you don't have to go through the website
I'm JB, the creator of FG&G. I've been absent the past month because I'm now a full time student and full time worker. I'm supposed to be paid for school under the GI bill but there have been several delays so I basically work/study 126 hours out of the week to make rent and eat. Turns out my Dreamhost account bill was last month (not this month as I assumed) so my website is down until I see my first check. The website above is HawkWolf's, my editor.
In brief, this is what FG&G is: a simulacrum of 2E. My design goal when I started in 2009 was "Make an OSRIC for AD&D2E." I made the controversial decision to remove all optional rules because I believe 2E had enough problems in the core rules that needed revision before tacking on extra options.
That's not to say I made changes freely! Like OSRIC, simply explaining functions in a different way or a change of formatting worked wonders in explaining what the heck was going on. If I made revisions, it was because the material as written contradicted itself or was an integral part of the gameplay that was totally ignored (creating magic items and abstract flying rules kicked our butts because they're both important but were handwaved in vanilla 2e). To give an example, we had to rewrite some of the magic spheres/schools because between 1e and 2e druids and illusionists got kicked out of some of their important spells. I'm currently writing the optional rules so FG&G will be a very modular project: the base rules include everything (that's not in the blue optional boxes) from the PHB, DMG, and over 100 monsters. It's a massive, 500+ page tome right now and editing the damn thing is slow.
I don't want to make a long post so until I pay my host bill this is what's going on with the project:
1. It's in an unfinished beta form. The "preview" edition contains everything from PHB and DMG minus spells and items. You could technically play the game now as long as you supplement those missing features.
2. HawkWolf is editing the last leg of spells. I didn't realize 2E had 300+ spells until I transcribed them all and he has to comb through them to remove non-open source content. It's long and grueling but I'll be doing items and monsters personally to speed things up.
3. There are several dozen monsters 2E references that I'm missing. This is taking up about half my time right now.
4. I'm doing all the art personally: this is taking up the other half of my time. I settled on the idea that FG&G will look like a survival field guide for beginner adventurers. Imagine a fictional adventurers guild: this would be the book they pass out during initiation. I'm thinking about using a tag-line like "Being a comprehensive guide to adventuring for fun and profit and how to avoid the horrible deaths that await."
5. I'm working on the optional rules in pieces. These were going up on my website until it was taken down. I will have proficiencies finished before the website comes back up (expecting first week of October).
6. The final product will cost $0 in PDF and editable .rtf format. A print-on-demand book complete with art and extra scenarios will be available through Lulu when I get that far.
I'm JB, the creator of FG&G. I've been absent the past month because I'm now a full time student and full time worker. I'm supposed to be paid for school under the GI bill but there have been several delays so I basically work/study 126 hours out of the week to make rent and eat. Turns out my Dreamhost account bill was last month (not this month as I assumed) so my website is down until I see my first check. The website above is HawkWolf's, my editor.
In brief, this is what FG&G is: a simulacrum of 2E. My design goal when I started in 2009 was "Make an OSRIC for AD&D2E." I made the controversial decision to remove all optional rules because I believe 2E had enough problems in the core rules that needed revision before tacking on extra options.
That's not to say I made changes freely! Like OSRIC, simply explaining functions in a different way or a change of formatting worked wonders in explaining what the heck was going on. If I made revisions, it was because the material as written contradicted itself or was an integral part of the gameplay that was totally ignored (creating magic items and abstract flying rules kicked our butts because they're both important but were handwaved in vanilla 2e). To give an example, we had to rewrite some of the magic spheres/schools because between 1e and 2e druids and illusionists got kicked out of some of their important spells. I'm currently writing the optional rules so FG&G will be a very modular project: the base rules include everything (that's not in the blue optional boxes) from the PHB, DMG, and over 100 monsters. It's a massive, 500+ page tome right now and editing the damn thing is slow.
I don't want to make a long post so until I pay my host bill this is what's going on with the project:
1. It's in an unfinished beta form. The "preview" edition contains everything from PHB and DMG minus spells and items. You could technically play the game now as long as you supplement those missing features.
2. HawkWolf is editing the last leg of spells. I didn't realize 2E had 300+ spells until I transcribed them all and he has to comb through them to remove non-open source content. It's long and grueling but I'll be doing items and monsters personally to speed things up.
3. There are several dozen monsters 2E references that I'm missing. This is taking up about half my time right now.
4. I'm doing all the art personally: this is taking up the other half of my time. I settled on the idea that FG&G will look like a survival field guide for beginner adventurers. Imagine a fictional adventurers guild: this would be the book they pass out during initiation. I'm thinking about using a tag-line like "Being a comprehensive guide to adventuring for fun and profit and how to avoid the horrible deaths that await."
5. I'm working on the optional rules in pieces. These were going up on my website until it was taken down. I will have proficiencies finished before the website comes back up (expecting first week of October).
6. The final product will cost $0 in PDF and editable .rtf format. A print-on-demand book complete with art and extra scenarios will be available through Lulu when I get that far.
