Could we start seeing more system-lite products?

[Korgoth]

Robert Conley's new Points of Light from Goodman Games is a nice system-light product, 4 mini settings in 48pp, the only stats are things like "Fighter 8", making it useable with any edition of D&D.

Yes, this is an excellent product. It's nice that you can use it equally well with any edition of D&D.

 

[jmucchiello]

it will of course then be up to the DM to make it work in their system.

Problem is most people buy pre-made adventures to save time. If they DM still has to stat out the encounter, no time is saved. To the 3-4 people who respond "I don't buy pre-made adventures for the stat blocks" or "I always rewrite the stats anyway" remember this thread is pre-selecting folks who want system-lite products. The folks who need the stat blocks saw system-lite in the title and decided this thread is not for them.

In any case, it is my understanding that system-lite products tend to sell less well than fully statted products unless the product already has an audience. Thus, GR can do statless Freeport products since Freeport already has an established audience.

 

[Jack99]

Problem is most people buy pre-made adventures to save time. If they DM still has to stat out the encounter, no time is saved. To the 3-4 people who respond "I don't buy pre-made adventures for the stat blocks" or "I always rewrite the stats anyway" remember this thread is pre-selecting folks who want system-lite products. The folks who need the stat blocks saw system-lite in the title and decided this thread is not for them.

Are you sure about this? My impression is that a lot of DM's buy adventures simply for the inspiration.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Problem is most people buy pre-made adventures to save time. If they DM still has to stat out the encounter, no time is saved. To the 3-4 people who respond "I don't buy pre-made adventures for the stat blocks" or "I always rewrite the stats anyway" remember this thread is pre-selecting folks who want system-lite products. The folks who need the stat blocks saw system-lite in the title and decided this thread is not for them.

In any case, it is my understanding that system-lite products tend to sell less well than fully statted products unless the product already has an audience. Thus, GR can do statless Freeport products since Freeport already has an established audience.

I thought we would play the Dungeon and Paizo adventure paths because they removed most of the work, but:
All 3 currently running adventure paths are being converted to 4E.

Maybe that's edition-dependent, but I wouldn't be surprised that finding good, elaborate adventure plots is one of the major goals for people that buy adventures. Of course, there are probably other goals, but probably also for another group of people...

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Anybody here read the Knights of the Dinner Table comic book?

Besides the (hilarious) comic strips, reviews and so forth, there are usually several pages of system-light material.

 

[S'mon]

Problem is most people buy pre-made adventures to save time. If they DM still has to stat out the encounter, no time is saved. To the 3-4 people who respond "I don't buy pre-made adventures for the stat blocks" or "I always rewrite the stats anyway" remember this thread is pre-selecting folks who want system-lite products. The folks who need the stat blocks saw system-lite in the title and decided this thread is not for them.

In any case, it is my understanding that system-lite products tend to sell less well than fully statted products unless the product already has an audience. Thus, GR can do statless Freeport products since Freeport already has an established audience.

Personally I find that making sense of a page-long 3e stat block takes me longer than doing up my own, and my own is far less likely to be horribly overpowered or underpowered. That's not a problem in prior editions, OTOH in prior editions stat blocks were 1 line and took moments to create anyway.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Personally I find that making sense of a page-long 3e stat block takes me longer than doing up my own, and my own is far less likely to be horribly overpowered or underpowered. That's not a problem in prior editions, OTOH in prior editions stat blocks were 1 line and took moments to create anyway.

I think one-line would be too short - doesn't look like there are many interesting abilities to play with. But page-long was too much. I like the 4e stat-blocks so far (the "worst" seem to take half a page, but many are 1/8th of a page).

So I think, if system-less is not an option, system-lite and 3E might actually be a good approach? Assuming the stat-blocks are good enough.

Regarding adventures and encounters, I think editions can influence them a lot - 4E encounter areas and monster numbers are larger than 3E and benefit a lot from terrain features. If you lock yourself down to one system, you might end with boring or unplayable encounters.

 

[Glyfair]

I think one-line would be too short - doesn't look like there are many interesting abilities to play with. But page-long was too much. I like the 4e stat-blocks so far (the "worst" seem to take half a page, but many are 1/8th of a page).

Remember that most monsters were assumed not to be customized in earlier editions. If you had a statblock for a shambling mound you didn't need to list the abilities, you assumed the DM had the MM for that. You just gave the one variable, hit points, and then the basics for combat (AC, "level" or THAC0, damage and speed) and maybe the names of the special abilities.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Remember that most monsters were assumed not to be customized in earlier editions. If you had a statblock for a shambling mound you didn't need to list the abilities, you assumed the DM had the MM for that. You just gave the one variable, hit points, and then the basics for combat (AC, "level" or THAC0, damage and speed) and maybe the names of the special abilities.

Well, these informations wouldn't be really useful for running the monster in either 3E or 4E. Though if you really assume the MM is available, just name the monster. And for system-less, this is certainly perfectly fine.

 

[Crothian]

Problem is most people buy pre-made adventures to save time. If they DM still has to stat out the encounter, no time is saved.

Time is saved. It is faster to write stat blocks then to write the adventure and the stat blocks.