Does Anyone Care? (Cosmere RPG)

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I was surprised to see quite a few events of the Avatar RPG in the event-db of GenCon of last year, but aside from that I have never seen it come up in any of the circles I'm in; same with the Cosmere RPG.

Were those company sponsored events, or regular GMs doing it?

 

[Parmandur]

the biggest mistake 2024 made in my book was to not have one, sacrificed on the altar of misguided compatibility

D&D has history and precedent they really honestly need to adhere to: even if I think the Plotweaver "Magic as Skill Test" is simply better, WotC literally couldn't adapt it and ditch Vancian casting.

why do they have classes at all, rather than going skill based?

So, technically they don't, there are not "Classes" in full D&D terms, it is a Career based system with each Path being a set of Talent (Feat) trees. The Skill and Talent progression are unified, so a Level 5 Character will have the right number of Skills for a Level 5 character (including Spell and Weapon Skills), so balance is achieved by a DM providing characters with ppropriate Skill tests for everyone at the table. My character may be able to fly or set things on fire magically, but the seasoned Diplomat my buddy plays is more useful during a tense treaty negotiation. In fact, mathematically their usefulness is calculated and used the same way.

This means the main character of the Stormlight Archives, who is triple classed in this system, is not at a disadvantage compared to a more focused build.

The designers Brotherwise Games hired were mainly Fantasy Flight Gamed vets, and the influence of FFG Warhammer RPG, Star Wars and Genysys but without the funny dice is apparent.

 

[Parmandur]

It'll be like back when they announced GoT. I was all Oh. My. God. A Game of Thrones tv show?!?!?! My friends were all, what's that? lol

"I WAS INTO IT BEFORE IT WAS COOL!"

 

[mamba]

D&D has history and precedent they really honestly need yo adhere to: even if I think the Plotweaver "Magic as Skill Trdt" is simply better, WotC literally couldn't adapt it and fitch Vancian casting.

I wasn't thinking of going all the way to ditching Vancian, but to synchronize subclass progression and gain subclass features at the same level, etc.

 

[Parmandur]

I wasn't thinking of going all the way to ditching Vancian, but to synchronize subclass progression and gain subclass features at the same level, etc.

Juat moving the Subclass progression around doesn't quite accomplish fixing the Classes. D&D cannot, probably should not, do this sort of root and branch redesign.

What makes this particular system stand out from other rethinking of D&D style game, however is...how closely it adheres to core d20 mechanics as far as the average player is concerned. No funny narrative dice, no cards, no complex rolling charts...it all just works for players like 5E D&D...just consistently for all actions.

 

[SteveC]

the biggest mistake 2024 made in my book was to not have one, sacrificed on the altar of misguided compatibility

why do they have classes at all, rather than going skill based?

the biggest mistake 2024 made in my book was to not have one, sacrificed on the altar of misguided compatibility

why do they have classes at all, rather than going skill based?

I think they sort of have ditched classes. You have levels, and then each level you can pick a talent from different talent trees. Each tree has an entry talent but then several options in a tree to work off of. From what I understand, the designer was one of the designers for FFG Star Wars, so it's sort of like that. How does it work in practice? I know I played a fair amount of FFG Star Wars, and I had characters who mixed and matched talents, but since the ones later on in the tree were better, it was sort of a race to the bottom.

But I don't think you need to play that way. I don't know enough about the system to know if it's the "optimal" character build or not.

 

[mamba]

Juat moving the Aubclasa progression around doesn't quite accomplish fixing the Classes.

no, it takes more than that, but it would have been a step in the right direction, yet they did not even take that one, unfortunately

What makes this particular system stand out from other rethinking of D&D style game, however is...how closely it adheres to core d20 mechanics as far as the average player is concerned. No funny narrative dice, no cards, no complex rolling charts...

good, I do not really want any of that anyway

Will wait and see what others have to say, would be more interested in the generic version, so have some time… for now Shadow of the Demon Lord / Weird Wizard fill the ‘D&D 6e’ niche just fine for me

 

[Autumnal]

Could people please do a little more spelling checking? Several messages have been genuinely incomprehensible thanks to having no solid idea what key words might be.

 

[Parmandur]

Could people please do a little more spelling checking? Several messages have been genuinely incomprehensible thanks to having no solid idea what key words might be.

Apologies, I typed most of these quickly during work breaks, I've done a pass on all my posts.

 

[Autumnal]

Much thanks! And, um, it’s not like I’m a stranger to imperfect posting, let us say.