HalWhitewyrm
First Post
I publish a line of PDFs called Liber Sodalitas (or see them at RPGNow.com), presenting each a generic fantasy organization, along with crunch. Up to now I've been happy leaving the details very vague, thus allowing individual GMs to adapt to their game worlds based on the story I provide, but lately I've been pondering perhaps including some sort of organization stat block as well.
My personal favorite is the Guild Stat Block used in Dragon magazine, but unfortunately that is closed content, so I cannot use it. After reading through various options, I have narrowed it down to two choices, mainly because they allow me to provide some stats without over-detailing. These are the Organizations rules from OGL Horror (also found in Ronin Arts' 13 Conspiracies or Creative Mountain Games' Variant Rules Pack 01), or the organization rules found in FFG's Path of... books.
While I like the OGL Horror rules a lot, they are written for a modern era, and take advantage of modern features; it would take some tweaking to fit them to a fantasy genre where, for example, Occult is not necessarily an Org. Ability Score, or it's not as easy to requisition info/equipment. FFG's rules are tailored for fantasy settings, but involve levels of advancement, either using the Lessons, or using ranks, and not all organizations fit into this model. I'd personally prefer to present the crunch, suggest how to introduce it, and leave the GM to decide how exactly, rather than to thell him/her, X feat can only be acquired at Journeyman level, or as Lesson 3 (with XYZ xp cost, etc.), which I feel is me intruding upon the GM's domain and thus limiting my market.
So I figured I'd ask for your opinions on the matter. For a fantasy organization, which set of stats do you think works better, OGL Horror, FFG's Path of..., or perhaps even leaving them with no stats at all so the GM can do whatever he/she wishes to do?
Thanks in advance for your thoughts.
My personal favorite is the Guild Stat Block used in Dragon magazine, but unfortunately that is closed content, so I cannot use it. After reading through various options, I have narrowed it down to two choices, mainly because they allow me to provide some stats without over-detailing. These are the Organizations rules from OGL Horror (also found in Ronin Arts' 13 Conspiracies or Creative Mountain Games' Variant Rules Pack 01), or the organization rules found in FFG's Path of... books.
While I like the OGL Horror rules a lot, they are written for a modern era, and take advantage of modern features; it would take some tweaking to fit them to a fantasy genre where, for example, Occult is not necessarily an Org. Ability Score, or it's not as easy to requisition info/equipment. FFG's rules are tailored for fantasy settings, but involve levels of advancement, either using the Lessons, or using ranks, and not all organizations fit into this model. I'd personally prefer to present the crunch, suggest how to introduce it, and leave the GM to decide how exactly, rather than to thell him/her, X feat can only be acquired at Journeyman level, or as Lesson 3 (with XYZ xp cost, etc.), which I feel is me intruding upon the GM's domain and thus limiting my market.
So I figured I'd ask for your opinions on the matter. For a fantasy organization, which set of stats do you think works better, OGL Horror, FFG's Path of..., or perhaps even leaving them with no stats at all so the GM can do whatever he/she wishes to do?
Thanks in advance for your thoughts.
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