D&D General Has the OGL/WotC debacle motivated you to create your own Fantasy Heartbreaker or homebrew?

[darjr]

Well, yes and no.

I mean always.

I keep toying with a dice less game more along the lines of an improve game.

FKR has been an inspiration.

 

[darjr]

Yes. A little FKR game designed to be used with D&D supplements.

Purchased! That looks awesome!

 

[jdrakeh]

FKR. Hell yeah. I’ll check it out. Thanks.

Purchased! That looks awesome!

Thank you! I hope that you enjoy it!

 

[Benjamin Olson]

Personally I was already halfway there because I just found the 5.5 playtest changes so aimless, underinspired, and "bah... I could do this better".

But a few weeks ago D&D seemed like such an unstoppable juggernaut that I still probably would have sucked it up and thrown those creative energies into developing 5e/5.5 compatible materials vaguely for possible publication. But now I'd say there's a 95% chance I try my hand an making my own damned game system instead.

I don't anticipate much coming of it, but I always spend a certain amount of my time on pie in the sky projects, and "my perfect not 5e" is probably my new one.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Personally, I have no interest in running a game as complex/fiddly as 5E or PF2 without digital support to make my life easier. Fortunately both have it.

But any Fantasy Heartbreaker I made would not.

And if we're looking at simpler rules, other people will do a better job.

Anyway I'd probably write a Sci-Fi Heartbreaker, because I feel like Sci-Fi RPGs are in a much, much worse place than fantasy ones these days, especially Space Opera (I'm going to blame bloody Firefly and the fact that half of Millennials have appalling and incredibly narrow taste in Sci-Fi films for that).

 

[delericho]

No.

I briefly considered it, but then I remembered that every time I've tried to write my own game, with one exception, it has progressed to a certain point and then failed as soon as it got bogged down. The one time I did complete the thing, I almost immediately realized it wasn't a game I wanted to play anyway.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

The one time I did complete the thing, I almost immediately realized it wasn't a game I wanted to play anyway.

I feel this. I got really far once in the '90s with writing an RPG, over a couple of years, and about 75% of the way through I was like "I wouldn't actually want to run this"

EDIT - I feel like I should say what it was lol - it started off as an attempt to build some coherent/sane rules for RIFTS, of a broadly d20-ish kind - but then I also decided RIFTS' setting was wildly overcomplicated and full of idiocy even with better rules so it was a loosely RIFTS-inspired but much tighter setting. Unfortunately the d20-based rules were pretty cumbersome lol and that's what got me to give up!

 

[Aldarc]

There are almost way too many fantasy heartbreakers out there that basically do the same thing as D&D but only slightly different. I'm not sure that the marketplace needs more "D&D but with a minor twist!" IMHO, most heartbreakers are not good at explaining or showcasing why I should pick up their rules that are virtually the same as D&D over another set of rules for another heartbreaker that are virtually the same as D&D.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

There are almost way too many fantasy heartbreakers out there that basically do the same thing as D&D but only slightly different. I'm not sure that the marketplace needs more "D&D but with a minor twist!" IMHO, most heartbreakers are not good at explaining or showcasing why I should pick up their rules that are virtually the same as D&D over another set of rules for another heartbreaker that are virtually the same as D&D.

I mean, dude, if there was a great reason to play them over D&D, they by definition would not be Fantasy Heartbreakers!

I do think at this point we probably have more Fantasy Heartbreakers in actual production (even if just PDF/PoD) with actual material coming out for them than any other era of RPGs. Personally I'd say the truest Fantasy Heartbreakers are the ones which focus on a particular area where D&D has a very strong claim, like dungeon-crawling.

 

[Aldarc]

I mean, dude, if there was a great reason to play them over D&D, they by definition would not be Fantasy Heartbreakers!

Minor quibble here, but it is not about reasons to play a D&D heartbreaker over D&D; instead, it's about playing one D&D heartbreaker over another D&D heartbreaker.