Bugbears & Borderlands OPEN early access

[Sacrosanct]

I'm sure you've all heard about the Hasbro debacle. Not going to discuss it here, only to say like many other publishers, regardless of what Hasbro does, I'm stripping out SRD content from some of my products. B&B will be an OPEN system. Depending on what ORC looks like, I may go with that. Either way, it's going to be a license for what the OGL was intended for: free use forever.

Bugbears&Borderlands was released fairly recently, using the OGL and designed as a stepping stone to 5e. A truly basic version of 5e, as if Tom Moldvay were in charge of creating a basic version. What does it look like now without the SRD? Some changes, of course.
The scope of the project remains: keep it simple, keep it easy to learn and teach, and keep it familiar with what most folks might recognize (don't have to learn a completely different system).

At the below hyperlink, you can get an advanced view of what Bugbears&Borderlands OPEN looks like. I know it's not ideal, and it would be great if we could just continue support for B&B using the OGL going forward. But if not, so many people expressed how much they enjoyed B&B so I want to keep supporting that.

For those who backed this project already got this link, and for those who bought physical books during the kickstarter will get links to at-cost POD versions of this when it's finalized. Note that it isn't finalized yet, so there may be some balance issues to be ironed out (if you find something, let me know!). And I'm commissioning new art to replace some of the art as it appears in the draft.

Changes

• Race is renamed to Ancestry
• Saving Throws have been removed. Everything is a skill check now
• Spellcasting has moved from D&D spell slots to a spell point system (you can boost spells by expending more spell points into them)
• Additional pages of helpful information for new players and GMs
• Characters and Monsters have Heroic and Villain Points, respectively. These are used to either reroll a dice, or force another to reroll their dice.
• Characters and many monsters have what is called a Desperation Trait. This is a feature that is active when you are below half of your maximum health.
• Revised experience point system
• Monsters are level based, and not CR based.

Dropbox link here. I don't know if this is the first product to be revised taking out the SRD or not, but it's got to be one of the early ones to do so.

 

[Aldarc]

Also, here is an actual play of B&B that I found on YouTube for those interested:

 

[Sacrosanct]

Also, here is an actual play of B&B that I found on YouTube for those interested:

I can't tell you how amazing that is. I am very tickled (and humbled) to see someone doing a livestream of one of my games

Last weekend I GM'd for a couple 7 years olds, and sometimes kids are the best. During their first encounter, they saw a ruined tower and spied a group of kobolds making came within. Rather than sneak up like an adult would, the warrior said he wanted to do somersaults all the way down to it! There goes stealth lol.

And when the same warrior landed the killing blow to a stone golem final boss, and I described how his hammer smashed the statue to bits, his first response was to yell "I do the floss" and stood up and began flossing The squeals of laughter were the best part.

 

[Sacrosanct]

The link in the OP has been updated with a revised version (some minor corrections and removal of SRD terms). Feedback is greatly appreciated.

 

[Greggy C]

I don't see how you can release that without an OGL, its large chunks of spells and magic items just copied from D&D.
Maybe you can get away with individual ones, but just copying tons of them? Dangerous.
And you forgot to rename your new abilities from the standard D&D ones on the character sheet...

 

[Sacrosanct]

I don't see how you can release that without an OGL, its large chunks of spells and magic items just copied from D&D.
Maybe you can get away with individual ones, but just copying tons of them? Dangerous.

This isn't really true. The ones that had risk have been renamed, the mechanics are different, they are presented differently, and they have different features.

And you forgot to rename your new abilities from the standard D&D ones on the character sheet...

This is a draft. I'm sure there are some areas that haven't been renamed yet. The character sheet files are obviously one of them. That will be corrected.

 

[aramis erak]

At the below hyperlink, you can get an advanced view of what Bugbears&Borderlands OPEN looks like. I know it's not ideal, and it would be great if we could just continue support for B&B using the OGL going forward. But if not, so many people expressed how much they enjoyed B&B so I want to keep supporting that.

Nice layout. Not doing a deep read right now, but a quick skim looks decent. I do like your rename of rogue/thief