Feeling Lost?

[TerraDave]

Someone has to say it

You know, its sounds like you might be looking for 4th edition.

 

[Rakin]

You know, its sounds like you might be looking for 4th edition.

Ha, can't/won't get in that argument here.

 

[Philotomy Jurament]

For most of my fantasy gaming, I prefer the D&D model with classes (no skills) and levels, and a steadily advancing power-curve for PCs and for challenges. However, I also enjoy skill-based gaming without the big power-curve.

I gravitated to OD&D(1974) for my D&D-type gaming and Lejendary Adventure for skill-based fantasy (although I like the Chaosium version of Runequest, too).

 

[Rakin]

Hey Phil, nice to see a comment.

I have to admit, I read through your OD&D page, a while back when you posted it on TLG, and I liked the things you had to say, and found some of the comments in tune of things I like as well.

I would imagine if I had enough time in my life to be interested in more than one system at a time, I'd be inclined to try that next.

 

[GreatLemur]

(spells are in quotes because they're called Extraordinary Activations in LA. )

Oh, wow. That's just hilarious. Oh, Gary...

I think I'll check it out, though, if only for the sake of new Gygax monsters.

 

[Rakin]

Oh, wow. That's just hilarious. Oh, Gary...

I think I'll check it out, though, if only for the sake of new Gygax monsters.

Cool, make sure you check out the leprechaun! Great stuff.

 

[RFisher]

I want to say I agree with you here, and I remember having that feeling as well at times (not many mind you!) but I can't for the life of me remember why. Got any examples?

Let's see...working from memory...

The adjustments to your attributes (basic wha-cha-ma-call-its) from abilities are kind of pointless. They're kind of interesting flavor, but there's very few cases in which they actually mean very much, because the bonus they give you is well within the slop of your initial choices for those scores. It's just extra complication for a small amount of flavor.

I also think it would've made it simpler if the one attribute that's on a different scale were kept on the same scale & the division postponed until you use it.

If any of that makes any sense. Those are the first things that came to mind.

I admit I'm not that old, only 26, so I'm not an old time gamer (but this doesn't stop me from loving to game one bit, or heck, means I can't spot something that is in tune with something I know I want out of a game) so I might be a little behind on old news. Aka this sentence confuses me.

I don't think there's any old news to be had. I get the impression that for some people in my group, Gygax's name on something is more of a red-flag than a commendation. We all have things like that. (There are certain names that will cause me the same sort of reaction when seen on a RPG product.) Well justified or not.

In fact, I kind of felt that way about Gygax myself after my experience with Mythus. (^_^)

Confused again, the only errata I can find on LA is on Lejendary.com and from what I can tell those changes got put into the Essentials, minus maybe the movement table. Perhaps there is more that I don't know about.

When I first got Essentials, I posted a long list of errata to a thread on the LA forums. Others joining in as well. The horrendous editing problems--no big deal. I only documented them to try to help the trolls out. The places where the rules were unclear--not much of a big deal either. It's a Gygax game; figure out what works for your group. Though it would be nice to know what the intention was.

But there were big things--like entire spell (...er...activation) descriptions missing. That's the kind of thing I really expect the publisher to address. Every time I've bothered to check the LA board or the trolls' site to see if they'd addressed them, I never found anything. I eventually gave up.

Which may very well keep me from bothering to pick up the "full" TLG version of LA whenever it appears.

I any case, I'm glad to see someone else interested in the game. Have you had a chance to go through a session of LA yet? Or just read over the material? What about was it about LA that attracted you to it?

No. I haven't even had a chance to run the quick start. I keep putting it out there as an option, but I've not gotten any bites yet. There's plenty of other stuff on my "to play" list, so I haven't really made an effort, though.

BTW, I also picked up a second-hand copy of The Abduction of Good King Despot on Gary's recommendation, which I think would make a fine LA one-off.

We already have DM's, GM's and Referee's. Why do we need LM's?

We have PC's, why do we need Avatars?

Amen. I don't think Gary did the game any favors in this regard. But, hey, we all have our quirks. This is another reason, however, that I'd rather create a stripped down version; I could change some things to more standard jargon so that we don't have to waste time making fun of so many the non-standard terms. (Which my group--including me--could not avoid.)

 

[Aus_Snow]

Glad to hear you found a game that works for you. Sounds like just the kind of thing that wouldn't suit me and mine, but hey, there's something for everyone.

I found True20 worked in a similar way: to relieve some of the same feelings, to re-ignite the love of roleplaying. . . and, funnily enough, to allow me see the good points of 3e all over again.

Strange how it goes, eh?

 

[GrumpyOldMan]

Gary put a bunch of new terminology into the game for 2 reasons. One being after being burned with Dangerous Journies from TSR on copy write issues, I'm sure he doesn't want to receive the same fate with LA from WOTC.

I picked up Dangerous Journeys in a store when it first came out (I am old, and grumpy) flicked through the rules and got extremely confused extremely quickly. Then I figured out that HP = Heroic Persona (which = PC to me). When I found the section on Dweomercraeft Castings, (that’s spells to me) I put the thing down. Your argument is flawed, because the great EGG put a bunch of new terminology into Dangerous Journeys too. That wasn’t why he was sued.

From DnD through Tunnels & Trolls, RuneQuest, Traveller, Villains & Vigilantes (where did I dredge that one up from), Warhammer Fantasy Roleplaying and too many more to mention certain terms are pretty constant.

This is from the introduction to the (very obscure) HârnMaster rules system:
We have tried to keep obscure abbreviations to a minimum, but the following occur with some regularity throughout the rules:
FRP - Fantasy Role-Playing
GM - Gamemaster
NPC - Non-Player Character
PC - Player Character
These are pretty universal among RPG’s, especially among fantasy games. No-one gets sued for using them.

Next and the main reason is because he knew many would do what they do when picking up the game (and who can blame them!) is compare it and see how it's not D&D, then discard it because it seems broken. The new terminology is supposed to help new players get into the mind set that this is a brand new game, and that it is different than his previous works on such a larger scale that it needs to be thought of as such.

Well, when picking up the game I’d be much more likely to discard it because I don’t understand the jargon. ABC = Activity Block Count = (as far as I can tell - combat round)

 

[GrumpyOldMan]

.... I don't think Gary did the game any favors in this regard. But, hey, we all have our quirks. This is another reason, however, that I'd rather create a stripped down version; I could change some things to more standard jargon so that we don't have to waste time making fun of so many the non-standard terms. (Which my group--including me--could not avoid.)

With my lot, I'd never get past the Ilfs!

"Ilfs? ILFs - what are they extremelly camp elves?"

"Ooooh Bona, I'm an Ilf!"