Recent content by Thomas Shey

It was the only case I'd hit, so it was startling at the time.

Or its just really, really hard to do.

I'd suggest that's going to primarily be an issue of players who are much more interested in the personalities and interactions than the capabilities; GLs sometimes have some areas they're a bit better at than other members, but there's just not a big gap in their power or even flexibility.

I think that requires a particular definition of "cover the whole range" to be true. I suspect for a lot of people, "does a decent to good job at everything" is fine, all the more if you don't think there's any system that covers Specific Genre or Setting X great (which I think is true about a...

I think that a lot of responses that add up to "generic systems really aren't" maybe kind of denying premise for the thread. It essentially declares the question meaningless out of the gate.

First time I heard that I have to admit I had a serious "Wait, what?!" moment.

I think assuming every system only devolves into pass/fail with no meaningful nuance in the output beyond that, nor any relavant ability to put your thumb on the scale (if you're doing either of those--both seem possible) is a premise I don't accept. I guess I had too many years with a system...

Just a note that "light and nimble", while a virtue, is not always so much a virtue it trumps everything else. Its a common mistake of people fond of light systems to project their own priorities on others here.

And though obscure, "Black Blade" the song about Stormbringer co-written by Michael Moorcock.

Hero, just in its basic manuevers, has at least five come to mind (Haymakers, Move-Bys, Move Throughs, Block and Dodge). And I'm probably forgetting some latter-day ones.

I tend to consider both desireable if you're going to have a really full-featured system, honestly. My gold standard here was alwasy the Hero System combat manuevers; some anyone could use just by being able to operate in combat, some you had to access by acquiring aka learning the particular...

Its one of those things where what you value is going to reflect how you feel there. Personally, Backgrounds were one of the things I least appreciated about the system (in the end I never ended up finding the Icon dice particular natural or useful either, honestly).

Because the Background system is so detached from the rest of the system, it wouldn't be difficult to port over another D20 game's skill system if you wanted to. You just need to remember that the scale is slightly compressed because of the 1-10 level, and that occasionally skills are going to...

Tell me about it. The shapelessness of OD&D combat--and thus the non-GM-dependent elements that could make playing a fighter interesting--were one of the big things that drove me out of it. Yeah, the way advancement and capability was handled was radically different, and that's ignoring...

Probably not for a couple reasons. 1. 13th Age is very loosey-goosey in handling movement; D&D 4e was very much not, as controlling positioning and forcing your opponent into bad positions was a big part of the combat loop. 2. You'd probably see a lot more interactions with setting elements...