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Message: <blockquote data-quote="woodelf" data-source="post: 1463583" data-attributes="member: 10201">Then why do you want a statblock at all? For any system?I'm confused. If you love the Citybooks for having minimal crunch and thus maximal useful value and consider non-RPG materials the "ultimate example" of useful stuff for RPGs, why would you prefer a product with statblocks?I think we actually have very similar opinions on the matter, and just different solutions to it. I, too, don't want to take a lot of time doing up statblocks. And part of why i love the Citybooks (and at least the early Slayers' Guides), is, just as you say, that the crunch is such a miniscule portion of the content. My solution, however, isn't to look for game products with ready-to-go statblocks to save me time. My solution is to look for game systems where statblocks are less effort. Precisely the pain-in-the-ass nature of doing up stats for NPCs and monsters and magic items, and so on, is what has migrated me to mostly running games like Fudge and OtE and the like. Games where i can stat up any character or object almost as quickly as i can describe it: He's a Great swordsman with Fair social skills, Poor wealth, and a Terrible self esteem. There, i'm done, ready to play. Oh, and i didn't mean to say that the Citybooks are good because of their generic nature, per se. Rather, i think they're good because they convey almost all the information in a mechanics-free way, which is merely a side-effect of being generic--the not-at-all-generic setting supplements for The Dying Earth RPG are the same way, simply due to the style of writing they want, and the nature of the Dying Earth mechanics. I also like the fact that they don't "waste" a lot of space on stats, but, again, a non-generic supplement could match that, especially if for a system that is less crunchy. Within the D20 System world, the best examples i can think of are the Slayers' Guides: Gnolls, frex, really only has 3pp out of 32 that wouldn't be useful if you used it with a completely different system.So, if i read you rightly, the only significant point of disagreement we have is that i don't want much space devoted to crunch even if that crunch would be for my game system of choice. And, if you haven't already tried and rejected them, may a strongly suggest that it sounds like you'd be happier with a less-crunchy system than D20 System. There're RPGs out there that are no more crunchy than the Citybooks. That's the ultimate in providing value by reducing statblock-generation time: make the statblocks simpler.</blockquote>

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