Let's Talk Blue Rose

[BryonD]

This is exactly right.

It isn't disinterest that bothers me - it's the passionate rejection, and outright derision of a setting and style that goes against the established norm.

Romantic fantasy isn't new, it's been around the fantasy literary scene for ages. So I think the level of vehement rejection I've seen here, and on other message boards, is pretty telling in regards to how hidebound gamers are about what is, and what is not to be gamer approved.

People don't even blink when Yet Another Realms Knockoff (tm) appears, complete with all the baggage and hoary cliches of 30 years of fantasy gaming tradition - but they line up to mock Blue Rose. And that frustrates me.

Patrick Y.

Well, you are doing an extremely poor job of expressing yourself then.

You claim to be upset by rejection of a setting because it goes against norm, but come off as reflexively and aggressively defensive when a specific setting is not embraced for reasons that have nothign to do with the norm.

If people say they don't like the color yellow, then it would be one thing to try to convince them to like yellow. But to say they are closed minded and repressive against all things non-blue would be a weak and foolish position.

I've been paying attention to this thread because, to date, Steve Kenson has not authored a single product that I did not think was excellent. But reading the specifics has made me completely disinterested in the product itself. But as a disinterested person who sees nothing wrong with the setting but just doesn't care, I see the defenders of BR as coming off as closed minded people unable to conceive of an alternate view.

Like I said, maybe you just are not doing a good job of saying what you mean. But you certainly seem to be ready and eager to prejudge and assault in the ways you seem to be blaming the other side for.

If thats what it takes to like BR, then I don't want to.

 

[Crothian]

But as a disinterested person who sees nothing wrong with the setting but just doesn't care, I see the defenders of BR as coming off as closed minded people unable to conceive of an alternate view.

which is also what the attackers of the setting are doing as well. You really can't blame one side without blaming the other. But the thrtead was desinged to talk about Blue Rose and not attack the setting for being something they just don't like.

 

[Skywalker]

What I would like to find is someone who liked Tribe 8 but disliked Blue Rose or vice versa. Tribe 8 has a real angry feminism vibe and in many ways is similar in BR in how it presents same sex marriages, strong female protaganists, anmistic magic and feminist terminology. Despite that, Tribe 8 doesn't get half the criticism that BR has.

I am wondering whether that is because:

1. The d20 crowd has in general a different opinion than Tribe 8 crowd.
2. Unforgiving angry feminism is more palatable than the softer yet uncompromising feel in BR.
3. Somehow BR built up people's expectations differently.

I suspect it is a combination of 1 and 2.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

But hypocritical misrepresentastions are easy and boring.

Apparently this thread looks very very different from each of our chairs or hyperbole one agrees with seems less extreme as a general rule.

If people say they don't like the color yellow, then it would be one thing to try to convince them to like yellow. But to say they are closed minded and repressive against all things non-blue would be a weak and foolish position.

If people said the color yellow made them want to vomit, I think people would certainly have a strong reaction to that. You seem to be skimming posts or making large allowances for the people you agree with.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

And, lest anyone get a mistaken impression of my tastes, I've read both the first Heralds of Valdemar novel (its name has gone clear out of my head) and "Assassin's Apprentice." While I was not compelled to pick up the sequel to either (although I was more tempted with the assassin book), neither made me feel ill, which is apparently the correct response to romantic fantasy tropes.

Having said that, I think BR could pretty easily be moved gently towards a more middle of the road approach. Tolkein, after all, had his goody two shoes realms, and his realms of pure ebil. In many ways, fantasy (or fantasy settings) that emulate that sort of approach are a fairly classic setting -- with a few (very) notable exceptions, shades of gray are a relatively modern addition to the canon. I'm actually thinking it might be a nice skeleton setting to attach other content to, such as Freeport and Nyambe.

In addition to Earthsea, I could see BR being used to model Narnia, although Narnia's magic ramps up pretty impressively at the top end.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Given the nearly uniformly positive response to BR's system (ignoring the setting and its attendant debate), one has to wonder why 3.*E wasn't built more like this.

Is it that BR's goals aren't ones shared with the design team? I don't think that's it -- I remember the endless 3E preview interviews discussed stripping down the complexity of 2E and making the game a little more natural and obvious.

It might be that BR does away with sacred cows like 3-18 stats, the standard D&D classes and so on, along with a new magic system.

Or maybe it's just that BR's development required seeing the 3E system, and living with it. Making the change directly to a BR-style system from 2E might well have been too radical for a direct reimagining.

 

[MoogleEmpMog]

Given the nearly uniformly positive response to BR's system (ignoring the setting and its attendant debate), one has to wonder why 3.*E wasn't built more like this.

Well, in 3.x's defense, I'm very interested in the Blue Rose system but not necessarily to the exclusion of 3.x. Although I might revise my opinion when I actually get a good long look at the system, I'm not prepared to declare it flatly better than D&D 3.5, still less than d20 Modern.

Also, 3.x has a proven track record of being popular, whereas Blue Rose doesn't (at least, not yet). Popularity on ENWorld does not always translate into universal appeal.

For that matter, a somewhat less elegant and significantly more detailed system, Conan the Roleplaying Game, is, to the best of my knowledge, the most successful and widespread d20 variant on the market.

While I find both Conan and what I've seen of Blue Rose better in some respects than 3.x D&D, I wouldn't scrap the latter for either of the former.

Is it that BR's goals aren't ones shared with the design team? I don't think that's it -- I remember the endless 3E preview interviews discussed stripping down the complexity of 2E and making the game a little more natural and obvious.

And the 3e team did make the game more natural and obvious than 2e. They may have reached a level of nature and obviousness that appeals to the largest contingent of gamers. Then again, they may have erred in one direction or the other, or have made other compromises in the sake of nature and obviousness. Blue Rose may do the same.

It might be that BR does away with sacred cows like 3-18 stats, the standard D&D classes and so on, along with a new magic system.

I'm certainly 100% in favor of all three of these changes.

Although, I do prefer the gobs and gobs of base and prestige classes system to the 1-6 very flexible base classes system.

Or maybe it's just that BR's development required seeing the 3E system, and living with it. Making the change directly to a BR-style system from 2E might well have been too radical for a direct reimagining.

I think this is part of it, but not in the way you mean.

d20 introduced a level of consistency (and a focus on balance) that D&D never had before, and other RPGs had to a lesser extent. I'm not even sure if SilCore was as elegant then as a stripped-down d20 is now, as I only have its rulebooks since the post-d20 revision.

Without the incredible amount of work that went into developing and hammering out the original d20 system, the more refined Blue Rose system probably would have been whole levels of development away.

 

[MoogleEmpMog]

In many ways, fantasy (or fantasy settings) that emulate that sort of approach are a fairly classic setting -- with a few (very) notable exceptions, shades of gray are a relatively modern addition to the canon.

If you consider the entire sword and sorcery genre, which predates the Lord of the Rings and modern Epic Fantasy and constituted by far the largest branch of fantasy prior to the '60s, a "few" exceptions, then yes, shades of gray are a modern addition to the canon.

 

[Nomad4life]

QUICK UPDATE:



I’ve come to decide that I -really- like the “alignment” system in the BR rpg… I like how each character has a light AND dark nature, and that certain aspects of each are drawn out under different circumstances… Very cool!



One thing that bothers me: Are there any stats for non-heroic “regular” characters in this game? If so, could someone point them out to me? I find it somewhat odd that "bandits" are mentioned as a serious problem at several points, yet I can’t find any stat-block for one. If I made one myself, I would have to give the bandit “heroic” levels of something, since that’s all I’ve got to work with… And do I use the standard 6-point spread for normal characters? In other words, more “human” antagonists would have been nice... Of course, this is from someone unfamiliar with the normal romantic fantasy setting- maybe human antagonists are uncommon in them? Or regular people for that matter?

 

[drothgery]

Given the nearly uniformly positive response to BR's system (ignoring the setting and its attendant debate), one has to wonder why 3.*E wasn't built more like this.

...

It might be that BR does away with sacred cows like 3-18 stats, the standard D&D classes and so on, along with a new magic system.

I think this is probably the biggest one. There are a lot of things I wouldn't change if I were in charge of 4e, but would change if I were creating a new fantasy RPG from scratch (or by revising and building on existing system like d20). Blue Rose implements many of the changes I'd make (I think I'd do magic differently, along the lines of XPH psionics, but I've never been all that fond of feats-and-skills magic systems) if I were starting from scratch.