[Fantasy Concepts] What would you want to see in a Fantasy Concepts Revised?

[Flynn]

From the product description:

Fantasy Concepts is a D20-based Open Gaming system that implements the latest in streamlined D20 game mechanics to bring a new level of versatility and creativity to your fantasy roleplaying experience. The Fantasy Concepts Campaign Resource offers: a streamlined skill system with a reduced skill list for ease of game play and character advancement; a new combat system aimed at a rapid resolution of conflicts without losing any of the fun; seven races and six character classes that utilize talent paths for character development; twenty-nine talent paths containing 128 talents to help customize your character; over 100 feats that offer flexibility and diversity in support of your character concept; an action point system that is fully integrated with the rest of Fantasy Concepts; simple conversion details that allow you to use the spells and monsters from your other D20-based Open Gaming systems; and much more. This illustrated 108-page PDF is bookmarked for ease of use.

It follows the D20 Modern/SW Saga paradigm of classes with alternating feat or talent selection at each level, and utilizes a 20 level class for each of six main character types. There are a lot of options, allowing you to pursue a wide diversity of character concepts as your character grows. The magic system as presented is similar to the system described in Legends of Sorcery or Grim Tales. Resource management for non "at-will" abilities is handled through the expenditure of action points to activate abilities, and action points refresh with each session.

There are way too many differences to capture specifically, but if you are familiar with SW Saga, you should be able to get a good picture of the game from the above information.

In terms of feedback and possible future development, in response to Inferno's question earlier, I was actually expecting to hear something akin to the following:

* Alternate magic systems (based on spell points, spell slots and/or skills and feats)
* An actual bestiary
* An actual spell list, instead of using pre-existing spells
* More character races
* More talent paths
* More feats
* Changes to the system to allow the use of AC separate from Reflex (ala 4E, instead of the AC/Reflex combination of SW Saga)
* The possible development of a system that captures what people thought 4E would be like, when all we had was SW Saga as our model

And that kind of thing.

I definitely hope to hear more, as I am curious as to what people have done with the system, and where they want to take it, if they want to take it anywhere beyond what it currently provides.

Hope This Helps,
Flynn

 

[Scurvy_Platypus]

Ah, well.... hmmm... right now, the first thing that springs to mind would be something talking about how incorporating Trailblazer's fixes to 3.5 would interact with Fantasy Concepts. Also, talking about how to take some of the things seen in Pathfinder SRD (class abilities) looks when taken to the Feat/Talent system.

There's not a lot of "cross-compatible" stuff between d20 Modern and 3.x. FC sorta blends them, but there's not really a whole lot of information on how to take Your Favorite 3.x Bit and shift it into an FC framework.

The alternative magic systems would be nice because magic under the S&S style is generally a Bad Idea. But to be honest, it's something we've had for 30 years. There's constantly talk about playing a "low magic" game, a "grim-n-gritty" game and so forth. I think having a supplement talking about how to tweak FC into a more generic framework in order to run a variety of games would be really cool.

An actual bestiary... sorta. I can see how doing a bestiary could be a fair amount of work, but having a sampling of things would be handy. Sort of a "here's some simple critter conversions" as well as some more complicated ones.

Like dragons for example.

I'm right now working on a blended thing using FC as base. Apparently I've got some odd tastes, so FC doesn't quite hit everything for me; but it's a righteous foundation to use I think.

I guess part of what I've been trying to get at with some of my previous posts is showing how FC can handle stuff from other sources. Folks have spent a fair amount of money out there on various books and would like to be able to keep using them. Like for example, WotC books.

How can you use a class or race from book [x] with FC? You can't obviously call it out, but in the case of some classes there's OGL versions available and you've got things like Slaves to the Moon which talks about Lycanthropes. So being able to take something like Slaves of the Moon and show how to take a tough race and skip the stupid LA stuff by converting abilities of the critter into a Feat/Talent path would be handy.

Or even simply taking something like the the Minotaur, Sprites, and Ogre Mage from the SRD and run them through the Talent/Feat system so that players have a choice of how much they want to invest in being characters with kickass critter powers to augment their character levels or simply a critter that's taken a different path.

What about pulling in something like the Psionics system? It's OGL, a fair number of folks consider it to be a good replacement for a point-based magic system. Maybe show how to pull it into FC and then demonstrate how it can be reskinned to do magic. You don't have to give an entire conversion of the SRD spell list, just grab some spells from each level (maybe 1 from each level for each of the SRD magic classes?) and do a reskin. That'll help provide the guidance that's needed for folks to start messing with stuff and take it on their own.

Dreamscarred Press seems to be well regarded on the psionics front and a fair amount of their stuff seems to be Open Content. Hijacking a psionic class or two into the FC framework shouldn't be too bad and it allows for individuals like myself to punch up the "wah000" factor if we want and you don't feel like doing it yourself.

Sorry if I'm dominating this, but I'd had a lot of hope for FC when it was put out and there seems to have been an echoing silence despite a lot of work and a solid-seeming base. I think being able to leverage other products might help FC gain more traction and help solve some of the "how do I fix..." sort of things going on.

 

[joela]

not an update

Errr...sorta.

Flynn went through a ton of books and pulled all the OGC content that seemed to have inspired various Star Wars Saga rules and then compiled them together with an eye towards doing S&S style fantasy games.

Trailblazer and FC sort of tackle a number of the same problems, but from very different directions. I wouldn't say they're mutually exclusive, but blending them together could be challenging. Not impossible, just... a bit of work.

Thanks!

What'd I'd actually like to see is an adventure using the system. Creatures are fully statted, equipment, special rules are explained to deal with certain scenes, etc. Putting a system through its paces is a very eye-opening experience for both GMs and players.