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Message: <blockquote data-quote="innerdude" data-source="post: 8279897" data-attributes="member: 85870">So this thread is inspired by a particular system I picked up in the last year, and am totally enthralled with most of the core mechanics, but find myself baffled around some of the design decisions and the implied setting. The system in question: Spellbound KingdomsThe reasons I love the mechanics:<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">It's very clearly taking inspiration from the best parts of Savage Worlds, but with a few twists. It's a die-step system with exploding dice, but much, much less swingy. You don't simply re-roll and add when a dice explodes, you grab another die of the next largest size, roll the larger die, but still keep the highest result of the two. There's literally ZERO adding of modifiers. It's all die-step, explode to toss an additional die, with an advantage/disadvantage mechanic to roll more or less dice---but there's never any numeric addition. Whatever dice you rolled, find the highest number, done.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">It uses a free-form skill system, largely based on "whatever fits your character background, you get advantage on that roll."</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">The combat system is the most unique I've ever seen. It uses maneuver charts to give characters their available attack and defense rolls for any given action round. It's a fast, tactical way to represent combat styles, creates a fun tension in trying to plot/outthink your opponent. It's somehow both gamist AND simulationist in a way that's never been done. Once you see it, it's highly compelling.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">There's built in social combat, mass battle, and "shadow war" mechanics, built using the same principles as the baseline core, and it looks excellent.</li> </ul>As a baseline core mechanic, it's utterly brilliant. It's like Frank Brunner, the author, took the cool things I loved about Savage Worlds, found a unique way to create engaging combat without having to have a million feats and modifiers, and threw in a strong dose of narrative flair.But . . . .<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Character progression is class/level based. And like, nngh, mehhhh, ungh, grrr, WHHHHHYYYYYY? Whhhhyyyyy? Why in the world would you marry a brilliant, innovative core game mechanic to an anachronistic straitjacket of character progression?</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">The setting itself, while cool, is so far removed from anything remotely resembling "traditional" fantasy, that it had zero hope of reaching any sort of critical mass of mainstream adoption, investment by third parties, or word of mouth.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">However many people were interested in it in the first place (not many, based on the kickstarter performance), a lot of that small number were probably like me and found themselves thinking, "Well, I would LOVE to play this game, but I'll probably have to just ignore 90% of the setting, quickly write up a few 'traditional' races, tweak the spell combat styles, ignore the combat styles/magic archetypes that just don't fit, and maybe, just maybe pray it holds together."</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">The interior layout of the book is quite obviously the work of an amateur. Typography is inconsistent, layouts and spacing are inconsistent, the page border art is literally two squiggly vector art lines with a gradient and bevel effect.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">And if the layout isn't enough of a problem, rather than just accepting that paying for art is expensive and  shrinking page count to reduce costs, Brunner instead chose to scour the internet for free/public domain images of 15th, 16th, 17th, 18th century  art, but apparently didn't realize just how high resolution those images need to be to actually look good in print. So the book ends up being this weird mish-mash of a few pieces of commissioned art that are actually good, but sidelined by the inconsistent typography, and further marred by the blurry, low-resolution public domain images that  really don't have any business being there in the first place.  It's not overwhelmingly bad, but it's bad enough that I've seriously considered throwing it into Affinity Publisher, giving it my own dash of spit, polish, and shine, handing it back to Frank and saying, "Here, you can have this free of charge, if you want it."</li> </ul>All of it together is enough to make me ask myself, "Who was the intended market for this game?" Certainly not D&D players; they're not going to take a second look, as it's too far removed from what they know (even if you did try to throw them a bone with the class/level thing). It's clearly not for world builder GMs, because the implied setting is so ingrained that it's nigh impossible to create your own vision of it that isn't just a different coat of paint. It's clearly not for hardcore combat tacticians, because it's supposed to be highly fluid, theater of the mind combat with just enough tactics inspired by the combat maneuver system to keep it interesting. It's not really a full-on "narrative" system; it has quite a few nods to narrative / scene based mechanics, but the core itself is still fairly traditional process-sim. Now don't get me wrong, there's absolutely nothing wrong about having an artist pursue a passion project for its own sake. And clearly, this is a work of passion for Frank Brunner. And it's not exactly a "heartbreaker," as it's not really trying to be D&D, or White Wolf, or a revision of Fate, or anything like that.But it was one of those things where I thought, "You've made this incredible core system with tremendous promise. And you've clearly made it class/level based because you're trying to appeal to the D&D market. But if that's the case, why did you make the baseline setting so far away from mainstream fantasy? If you're going to give this weird nod to 'traditional' D&D mechanics using class/level, why not also do the same and make the baseline setting more 'mainstream' to gain traction? It's not like you can't release your own setting material as a supplement later!"On a certain level, I look at the core mechanic and think, "Why didn't this thing get more traction in the market???" And then I look at all the mitigating factors and go, "Oh. Yeah. That's why."</blockquote>

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