NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="MerricB" data-source="post: 446037" data-attributes="member: 3586">Good old Ryan Dancey. One of the people I respect most in the gaming industry.For Magic: the Gathering, WotC have both a Design group and a Development group. The Design group thinks up all the wacky ideas, the Development group makes sure they're balanced.I really think that a process like that is needed for some designers out there. The initial stage of the module's creation... ignore the mechanics. Just write down the encounters and suchlike without worrying about mechanics, or balance, or anything like that. (This is what RJK and EGG are probably best at).The second stage, that of balancing the module and finding the proper rules for each situation, should be handled separately. Possibly by the same designer, but one shouldn't edit it whilst you're still creating. The d20 system requires you to spend longer on this process than in previous editions, but the result is a more balanced piece of work, and more usable out of context.It's no wonder both RJK and EGG don't like the d20 system - it's not their system. The problem is when they project their dislikes onto everyone who plays RPGs. If a great deal of research is done on the subject, then we will know where we stand.I've read Ryan Dancey talking about the research commissioned by WotC before they produced 3E, and it's striking. However, he also mentioned that nowhere enough (any?) follow up research has been done recently. It's a great shame.In any case, because I like a wide variety of systems, I'll get any version of Castle Greyhawk that is released, with the knowledge that I should be able to convert it because Design & Development are different things. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />Cheers!</blockquote>

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