Deconstructing class abilities for purchase with XP

[woodelf]

[raises hand] I do!

Ok, not for the firearms rules in particular, but I have for example expressed my frustration about the panoply of incompatible naval rulebooks out there. (Ok, not exactly about the *availability* of alternative rules, rather about the missed opportunity to converge towards a set of "best practices" rules.) And so has my DM, and a number of other players in our current sea-based campaign, as well a number of people I've talked with online.
[snip]
Actually, from WotC's point of view, the whole point of the OGL was that they thought it would let them sell more core books.

But I think a lot of us were hoping that it would have the same effect as what the Open Software movement is aiming to accomplish: public discussion and improvement of the system as a whole. Alternative rules get proposed, bad rules get thrown out, people settle on a subset of "best practices" and continue to build on those.

Instead we see an explosion of more rules, more feats, more prestige classes, more everything... and no sign of consolidation and standardisation whatsoever. No wonder the d20 industry seems to be going through a slump right now.

That's in part because we're still pretty much in the 1st generation of ogl-licensed RPG products. The *next* stage, which i think we're just starting to get to, is where those many rulesets get culled down to the best versions, or evolutionary/combinatory advances based on them are made. It's always gonna move slower than software evolution, because of the medium: RPGs take longer to find the errors, and books take longer to produce and circulate than code (in terms of production issues, once the creative work is done). Secondly, the RPG market is smaller than the, say, Linux market, so there're fewer brains working on the problem, and less market demand for a good solution. Finally, most open-content RPG development is taking place under the WotC OGL, which misses a couple of very important steps in actually facilitating RPG development/evolution. Namely, there's no requirement to make your work open (beyond the derivative parts), and no requirement to make it easy/practical for others to use your work (such as providing it in digital format).

So, if i want to reuse something, my choices are to ask the original producer for the OGC in digital format (so far, pretty poor response in that department, IME); scan&OCR the material, and then trim out the PI, sometimes following fairly ambiguous guidelines on what is OGC and/or PI (and i don't own a scanner); or retype the material, editing out the non-OGC and PI as i go. For most bits of OGC, i can invent it faster than i can type it up. So, i'm not gonna save any time if i have to retype someone else's OGC, over just inventing my own new rules. And that's before we consider issues of changes i want to make. If i'm not using the existing OGC verbatim, whether due to changes in the tone of the writing, or the actual content embodied, i've now got extra work after i have the verbatim transcription (which will be the situation if i use OCR), or i have to change it on the fly as i go. So, for me at least, there is no savings in time, and little-to-no-savings in effort. So why should i do it? Give me digital copy of OGC, and i'll gladly reuse it. But if i'm gonna have to retype it anyway, i may as well just reinvent it, too--no more effort, and i don't have to worry baout unintentionally infringing someone's copyright.

Oh, finally, there's another powerful force working against the adoption of "best practices" in the D20 System arena: D&D. So long as D&D isn't participating in the feedback loop, anybody who wants to innovate has to ask themselves which is more important: better rules, or more D&D-compatible rules? Similarly, a 3rd party doesn't want to be compatible with the best d20 System rules out there, they want to be compatible with the current-D&D version of D20 System

 

[woodelf]

My issue with the BESM point-buy system is that they DIDN'T deconstruct the classes. If you read through their book, you discover that they ended up adding a LOT of 'points' to some classes in order for these classes to be 'balanced' with wizards and sorcerers according to their point-buy system.

If they had really deconstructed the classes completely, then the point values would have added up and wouldn't have required massive retooling of the fighter, barbarian and so on to fit within their point-buy system.

Well, their contention is that the existing classes aren't balanced, and that some of them actually need some extra points to make them balanced. I tend to agree with the general assertion, if not the specific point values they came up with. In short, i think the extra points are a valid fix to an existing problem, not a kludge for a bad conversion.

 

[SSquirrel]

In teh thread link I included on the last page, we've actively been working on developing a system like this. When DrSpunj first started deconstructing everything tho, the Fighter was one who always seemed to get the short end of the stick. ALso he was trying to make sure that you got something at early every level so itw asn't just "tweak 4 numbers, roll your hit points, next!". This has the Fighter now getting a feat at every level.

Crazy you say? Look at the system. It actually works pretty decently. The system has changed several times to its most recent incarnation. I haven't seen Sigil's work yet, but it sounds like we independently arrived at similar conclusions with many things and have similar things happening. BESM may have added to other classes (Cleric is actually the strongest class if you deconstruct...possibly 3.5 Druid too) to bring them to balance, but that was likely the correct thing to do.

Hagen

 

[SpiralBound]

Clarifications are GOOD!!

I'm sorry if I came across as sarcastic, and I apologize to Sigil if he had the impression I was attacking him directly. I don't think I was being particularly critical of Sigil in the part you quoted. Just pointing out that two minds are often better than one, and there's almost always *something* you can learn from looking how someone else approached the same problem, even if it's only identifying a niche where the other product is lacking.

...

It's just that his early "willfull ignorance" comment struck a very sensitive nerve in me, because it goes directly against the direction in which I had hoped (perhaps naively) the field would be moving. I definitely understand the economics of being a "small" author and the impossibility of keeping on top of *everything* that has been published. And those I think are excellent reasons for him not having been aware of BESM or other point-based systems out there.

Guess I'm more exasperated with the OGL itself and the publishing model it has engendered than with Sigil personally. It has certainly caused me to become a lot more ambivalent on whether the OGL in its current implementation should be considered a good thing in the long term for the gaming community as a whole.

Thank you for clarifing you position on this. I had been beginning to get the impression that you weren't as unilaterally against Sigil specifically as I had originally thought after reading more of your posts in this thread. Your last post confirms this growing opinion. I retract any accusations. It's obvious to me now that your comments, while directed at Sigil, were more a commentary on "the current state of affairs" within D20, OGL and the publishing community that is growing up around it. I don't agree with everything that you've said in this thread, but I no longer view you as belligerent.

I do however share some of your exasperation with the unfortunate conditions of OGL publishing. However, I feel that the fact of it occuring is less a failing of the OGL and more a symptom of the deplorable condition of the legalities of intellectual property in general. If publishers (of D20 material, software, movie plot lines, or anything else for that matter) weren't so vulnerable to being sued by one another then this wouldn't be an issue. Taking someone to court over something has been perverted from something that you do to protect yourself when you are legitimately and intentionally being victimized, and turned into a "god given right" to sue every and any one whom you can profit from suing. It's even become a form of self-promotion in some cases!

While this isn't the only factor at play here as Woodelf has adroitly illustrated, I do feel that it is a significant one and to remove this consideration will require a lot of changes outside of the RPG world entirely before we'll see a trickle down effect here.

 

[SpiralBound]

I can see how some people wouldn't like these rules. It does beg the question - if I use this, and the Elements of Magic, which I also intend to pick up - am I playing D&D any more?

Well, no actually. You would still be playing D20 though. All be it a version which is SERIOUSLY deviated from the SRD, but technically still very much D20. After all, the same stats are being used, the same combat and action resolution system, BAB, Melee & Ranged attack rolls are still the same, the same skills, feat, and special abilities systems are still being used, and so on. Yes, it would be very different in many areas of the structure of the system, but overall it's still D20.

As for the "look and feel" of it all, well that's IMHO more under the control of the people playing the game than the rules. I'm not saying that the rules don't contribute to the look and feel, but what kind of setting, characters, campaign, and playing style you use has a dramatically greater influencing power than the specifics of the rules.

 

[woodelf]

I would say that's intentionally taking a literal interpretation of what was writtn which you and everyone else know to be not what was intended in order to defeat the argument by not really adressing it's actual point.

I would presume the actual point to have been - d20 and OGL should build on past work where possible and where that work has gained community acceptance and or is of exceptional quality - and thus should be further promoted.

MnM for example, has gained a large level of community acceptance.
Way of the Which makes changes to Relics and Ritual's Ritual system that is of exceptional quality - and should be further promoted and incorporated despite obscurity and because it also follows a pre-existing chain.

4ctF is largely unknown, if I've heard of it, it's only been in odd reference here and there - it does not even appear to have a small clique speaking for it's exceptional quality (if it has such).

MnM and 4ctF are however for supers, so there is no logic in incorporating them into a fantasy suppliment - though there might be logic in taking selective elements.

BESM d20 is light to moderately known, with several cliques that do speak for it, and of exceptional quality in the overall whole, though like anything there are problematic details.

BESM d20 handles the cinematic action genre, and its elements can be incorporated into product of that nature. If that product takes an anime theme this is even more so. BESM tri-stat was not just an anime system (Ghost Dog and SaS), and it remains to be seen if the same can be said for BESM d20. It is however, as stated before, Cinematic. All anime really means is the art style...

Not quite. BESM Tri-Stat is "just" an Anime system. It's a specific instantiation of Tri-Stat, and differs markedly from the SaS and Ghost Dog instantiations of Tri-Stat. It just happens that BESM was the first Tri-Stat game, and many (but not all) of the innovations to Tri-Stat over the years were in BESM first. And, as befits the "Hero Lite" label sometimes applied to it, it can be used for other things, and frequently was--though GoO is trying to get people to use the purpose-built Tri-Stat dX for that, instead. BESM D20 is, likewise, intended to be specifically an Anime system built upon a more general system (D20 System) which, just like Tri-Stat, has been used to handle all sorts of different styles in its various instantiations. So, while i'm sure BESM D20 can handle a breadth of styles, just like BESM Tri-Stat can, that's quite different from it being specifically designed to do so. Tri-Stat is the outgrowth of the original BESM, just as D20 System is the outgrowth of D&D3E, so the proper analogy is saying that D20 System can be used for a broad range of games, rather than that specifically BESM D20 can be. Not saying it can't be [frankly, i consider it on the ever-growing list of D20 System instantiations that are considerably superior to the D20SRD], just that your analogies and comparisons don't support it.