Microlite20 : the smallest thing in gaming

[Pilsnerquest]

I think it would be 1 for 1, 1 point derived from the magic check roll = 1 point damage but don't quote me on that.

rycanada - I added "Rank20 rycanada" to the Realms of Renown OGL. If you don't want it their let me know. I also didn't know if you had a copyright date so I put down 2007.

Does anyone know a good source of OGL artwork? I'd like to drop a picture or two onto the Realms guidline pages to give them some life.


Pilsnerquest

 

[greywulf]

Wow, the Open Ended Magic looks very solid the way all the pieces have been put together. Nothin left to do now but play.

Thanks! I agree entirely - this isn't a system for inexperienced gamers. I find that when it comes to new players there's a fine balance needed between enough rules, and too many. D&D gets it pretty spot on in that regard. An experienced gamer can handle more rules (splat books, Rolemaster, etc) or less. M20 falls into the latter camp

(In the second example with Norris, I may have missed something but it looks like Norris got 1 extra point too many compared to his final magic roll result.)

He gets 1 point for every 5, or part thereof (good word, thereof). He succeeded the check by 16 points, so that gives him 4 points to play with. When I wrote this the first time, I put him at just 3 points then had to revise it, so it tripped me up too

Hope that helps!

WSmith, good point about ultramicrolite20. I'll revise it to cover that. I'd say 1 point into damage = 1 hit.

EDIT: Damage for uM20 is now in there.

 

[Ry]

rycanada - I added "Rank20 rycanada" to the Realms of Renown OGL. If you don't want it their let me know. I also didn't know if you had a copyright date so I put down 2007.
Does anyone know a good source of OGL artwork? I'd like to drop a picture or two onto the Realms guidline pages to give them some life.

I'm going to be releasing another version of Rank20 under the OGL sometime soon - that version will be closer to the ultralite things we've discussed here. Rank20's copyright is 2006, the first PDF is floating around somewhere.

As for "OGL Artwork" I'm still convinced that your best bet is public domain images. It's the only way to be sure you're not going to run into copyright issues later. There's various online sources for it - but it takes a lot of sifting through to find what you want.

 

[Ry]

Do you limit the type of spell this can be done with in your games?. I could see my rule-bending crew trying to have their caster concentrate on their ball of fire spell to keep dealing massive damage round after round while giving me their inncoent "its in your rules" looks.

I would put (instant) next to the damage and healing effects. If a player wants damage over time or healing over time, add a new line like "1 hit / 1d6 per round" with a bigger penalty (or point cost, if you're By5s). Finally, every round I would give monsters a new save.

 

[greywulf]

I would put (instant) next to the damage and healing effects. If a player wants damage over time or healing over time, add a new line like "1 hit / 1d6 per round" with a bigger penalty (or point cost, if you're By5s). Finally, every round I would give monsters a new save.

Hmmmmmm..... shhh, I'm thinking.

If it's physical damage directly targeted at them then it's rolled against their AC which is a one-off effect anyhow unless a duration is paid for. I probably need to make that clear in the rules though.

If it's against an object (like the campfire example given) then using concentration to (say) keep the fire flaming is fair. If the poor mooks can't take the hint not to go near the flaming object after one round, they deserve the damage

If the object is on a person's body (darn you spellcasters trying to target a fireball on someone's belt buckle) then it uses their AC as the DC - it's ducking, diving and trying to get out of the way with the owner. That came out the wrong way round, but I'm sure you get the idea.

Using AC as DC. I'm sure there's a rock group name in there somewhere, but I just can't see it.

 

[Bert the Ogre]

Hmmmmmm..... shhh, I'm thinking.

If it's physical damage directly targeted at them then it's rolled against their AC which is a one-off effect anyhow unless a duration is paid for. I probably need to make that clear in the rules though.

If it's against an object (like the campfire example given) then using concentration to (say) keep the fire flaming is fair. If the poor mooks can't take the hint not to go near the flaming object after one round, they deserve the damage

If the object is on a person's body (darn you spellcasters trying to target a fireball on someone's belt buckle) then it uses their AC as the DC - it's ducking, diving and trying to get out of the way with the owner. That came out the wrong way round, but I'm sure you get the idea.

Using AC as DC. I'm sure there's a rock group name in there somewhere, but I just can't see it.

Um, Metallica?

 

[Pilsnerquest]

rycanada was right about public domain fantasy artwork, it takes a lot of sifting through all kinds of ... stuff. I finally gave up on public domain for the day and then I lucked out at Larry Elmore's website. In the Q&A on his web site he allows for use of his images if credit is given to himself and a link to his web site is furnished. Non-commercial use no doubt. So I spiffed up the Realms of Renown document, thanks to my favorite D&D artist ever, and found it a home here...

Realms of Renown

Pictures are definitely worth a thousand words.

Something greywolf mentioned a couple of posts up above about experienced gamers and being able to handle the amount of rules and such has me thinking it may be time to start expanding rule-sets. Not with more rules but rather a semblance of introduction. Something smooth like the old red box intro's where you were fed a little at a time through a small mock adventure. I've noticed how much I've left unexplained because of the likelyhood that the person has pretty significant gaming experience and will pick it up.


Pilsnerquest

 

[Ry]

I've got something like this; a much-expanded version with intro sections, proper explanations, etc. The thing is, it's written for Rank20's precursor, Legends of the Last Age, which uses 2d6 instead of 1d20 as a mechanic, and a starting Rank of 2 (1 if you're a kid). It's trivial for me to provide the entire thing in Rank20 terms, but I'm torn because I'd like to release my work under a more permissive license than the OGL (i.e. public domain or creative commons).

 

[greywulf]

Oddly enough I'm shifting my brain into gear to come up with a full, fluff contained pdf with an intro, examples, details, etc. Stay tuned on this one. If anyone wants to contribute, I'll be posting the text in the Macropedia over the next few weeks. Feel free to correct and clarify where you feel it's needed and all help gratefully received

This is the Macropedia pdf with page layout, the Core Rules at the front and all those lovely House Rules categorized and collated for your game fiddling pleasure. This is also where the campaign setting and a few adventures will live too - all with your permission and full credit given, of course.

Just to clarify - The Core Rules pdf itself will always be minimal to the point of downright terse. I'm going to shift from the existing Core Rules to Kensanata's Revised Core Rules as the "official" ones with the release of the pdf as they're more clearly written than my iniviate brainstorm ladened text.

Sometimes even lesser minds think alike too, eh?

 

[Ry]

'wulf, I wouldn't mind providing some of the expanded Legends system under a Creative Commons attribution-only license (i.e., I give up all rights except the requirement that I be cited for my contribution). You could then copy and paste sections of my rules, change the language, make it into a commercial product, whatever - as long as I was listed somewhere in the product's credits. I wouldn't have any rights to the derivative work, but others could later take my work (from my original source) and do what they wanted with it without running afoul of microlite20's copyright.

Dig?