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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Scurvy_Platypus" data-source="post: 5505559" data-attributes="member: 43283">Heh. No worries. I mean, I spend an awful lot of time thinking about this sort of stuff too; I don't have the luxury of claiming game designer status to justify it either. I'm just an involved hobbyist.I mean, right now I'm working on an SRD project which I need to complete because it's the skeleton for a revised set of rules that is what I really want to do; parallel to that is another project focused on SRD monsters, a hack of a d12-based dicepool system, some thinking about a whole different system that relies on a d20 roll and degrees of success, as well as thinking some about japanese rpgs and what they're doing, and work on a couple of other projects that aren't far enough along for me to feel comfortable really talking about them.I'm a huge believer in the idea "System matters". Game systems reward certain behaviours overtly and implicitly, so thinking about what it is you want out of a game and the setting you're pairing with it (whether it's a homebrew or commercial setting, completely independent of whether or not it's the system that actually came with the rules being used) is something that kicks around in my head quite a bit.For example, if you want a "tactical" focused game that doesn't rely on miniatures (like D&D), there's "Fate" (used in Spirit of the Century and the Dresden Files rpg, among others) which is pretty tactical and focuses on getting your bonuses lined up.Another one that's different from both is "Spellbound Kingdoms" which looks to be quite good for doing a "Thief"-styled game (as in the videogame series) or even Assassin's Creed perhaps. It's approach to tactical play is that there are weapon styles and the option you pick allows certain maneuvers; it includes sheets so it's easy to "slide" along the sheet and know what you can/can't do. Where the real trick comes in, is figuring out what your foe is going to do and either having a counter ready for it or trying to change things so that it plays to your character's strength.Ok, that's a decent enough premise. Not like you need my approval or anything, just saying it make sense to me. <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=":)" />Makes sense. I'm one of those folks that looks at a character sheet first; if it looks to complicated/messy or I can't figure out what's happening with a character by just looking at the sheet? I don't even bother picking up the game. *shrug* Some folks might not think that's fair, but it's how I roll these days. One thing I find interesting is that almost no character sheets explicitly contain information on where to look for what they're referencing. For example, "Skills" doesn't say what page the skill descriptions start, or the various powers you slap down don't have a place to list where said power actually is in a book. I think that's a huge mistake, especially given the amount of things that need to be kept track of in something like D&D.Oooooook. I think I get what you're saying... it's that system mastery thing you're talking about, right? By which I mean, earlier editions were less complex in terms of:1. The amount of rules overall2. The difficulty in understanding the application of a particular rule3. When new rules were introduced.When 3.x hit the scene, there was a fundamental shift in design. First, a huge number of rules showed up. Second, while some of the amount of rules was geared towards trying to provide a tool _in case a GM wanted a specific rule instead of relying on their own understanding_, not all of the rules were geared for that. In fact, system mastery was explicitly introduced, relying on Magic as a source of inspiration for interacting/manipulating the rules at different levels of skill. And of course third, 3.x just dumps the whole thing in your lap and walks away, leaving you to sort it out. Later supplements might expand slightly or modify them, but there really is/was no option for increasing the complexity of the game as your experience with it grew. Nah, that's fine. I tend to blog that way: a message in a bottle chucked out to sea and then waiting to see if anyone comes back.One thing that I think would be interesting, would be to sit down with the BECMI books and rewrite 3.x that way. By which I mean, not as a single tome (which is what the Rules Cyclopedia was) but actually as a series of several books. Each one intended to cover not just levels, but additional rules as well. One thing that immediately occurs is how limited D&D is these days; previous editions had provisions for characters doing something more than killing and looting. The whole running a kingdom and trying to become a god. Now, it's just kill kill kill your way along and eventually you sort of stumble into godhood.But that would be a fundamentally different design than what the majority of gamers are after: simple game with optional added complexity being introduced.</blockquote>

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