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Message: <blockquote data-quote="woodelf" data-source="post: 724320" data-attributes="member: 10201">So in broad strokes, just how badly do you "need" another book to play B5? just for the "forbidden content"?  Or are the combat rules, say, given only in terms of alterations to the "base" mechanics?  In the latter case, i might just give this one a pass, even if it's well-done.  Just as i did with Farscape.  Well, ok, i don't think Farscape was well-done, and had it been, i might've gotten a copy.  But, even then, my to-buy list for RPGs exceeds my disposable income by roughly 2 orders of magnitude, so even just falling slightly short of "great" can prevent me from buying something. Actually, to make a specific point with Farscape, here's why i didn't buy it:1: no non-rules content that a dedicated fan of the series wouldn't already know.  Sure, it had an episode guide, descriptions of races/cultures, and descriptions of locations.  But every bit of that i already knew, because i've seen every episode of Farscape (in some cases several times), and read all the official extras online.  2: Then it had a bunch of lackluster crunchy bits. Now, i'm not much of a fan of D20, but i'm perfectly willing to play a good D20 game. Farscape isn't that.  It was a fairly poor use of D20, overall, with just a few gems here and there.3: Too damn much of the content in the crunchy-bits sections.  If the rules aren't stunning, i can theoretically use the setting material with the rules of my choice.  But it's much more effort to convert from D20 to Fudge or Story Engine than it is to convert from prose to Fudge or Story Engine (or even CORPS, for that matter).  In short, one should be able to read a setting-centric RPG without reading a single word of the mechanics, and still know just as much abou the setting.  Or, put another way, the mechanical representations should be fully redundant with the narrative descriptions, rather than complementary.  And this has nothing to do with my love, or lack thereof, of any particular system.  With my most-favoritest system in the world, i'd still rather be able to read it without referring to the crunchy bits--i'll look at those *after* i've decided i care abou a particular bit, and want to see the mechanical side.  Same complaint i have about most GURPS books (dependent on the mechanical portions to convey the data).Back to the question of completeness, here's my situation:I own exactly one D20 book (one of the first Slayers' Guides), and have no real intention of getting more--most just don't appeal to me.  Now, i'm a pretty savvy and experienced RPer, active in online communities and familiar with lots of RPGs.  I know the "forbidden basics" of D&D3E (rolling stats and leveling).  And i've even played in a D&D3E game for a couple years (thus solidifying my decision not to buy any of the books, or run the game).  For that matter, i've had to fill in the gaps in more than a few published RPGs over the years--unintential gaps, i might add.So, will i be able to sit down with the B5 RPG and create characters and run a game?  Or am i going to have to print out several dozen pages from the D20SRD?  Or will even that be insufficient?</blockquote>

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