WOIN Open-Licensed WOIN Starter Set Coming in 2023

What's OLD is NEW is a toolkit oriented roleplaying game system consisting of three core games--a medieval fantasy game, a modern action game, and a futuristic sci-fi game. Each of these games has been available in hardcover since 2016.

Characters are created and advanced using a life-path system, while actions are adjudicated using a flexible d6 dice-pool game. The game is about as 'crunchy' as 5E, but is very different in execution. You can read more about it on the official website.

What's O.L.D. is N.E.W.

Three roleplaying games. One O.L.D. One N.E.W. One N.O.W.

www.woinrpg.com

This year, 2023, we will be releasing the What's OLD is NEW Starter Set. This boxed set will contain a 32-page rulebook, three short adventures (one for each genre), a pile of pregenerated characters, and more. It will contain all you need to get started with WOIN.

In the aftermath of OGL-gate, we will be ensuring that this flexible game system is fully available to third parties via a robust, truly open, and irrevocable license.

Placeholder image only!​

 

[OTHG]

Starter set always include only a subset of rules. But the full rulebook is still over 300 pages here. Also, you have to take into account that full rulebooks include rules for progressions, off-time, inventory, crafting, etc. Those are almost all stripped in a starter set.

Good point. Oh well.

 

[Jer]

This is great! I like what I've read of WOIN but being able to get it in front of my group of casual players has been challenging. A starter set would be perfect to lead them in! (And I think more RPG companies need to be thinking about that starting experience for new players so thanks for that too!)

Any rough idea on the target price point? I'm now looking for games to recommend as intro games for new players where I used to recommend the D&D starter set. Are you looking at a Pathfinder/Starfinder Beginner Box price, a D&D Starter Set price, or somewhere in between for the physical boxed set? (Physical boxed sets seem to work quite well at getting younger players excited about the game - the D&D starter set and the Starfinder beginner box have both been very useful in that regard. PDFs just don't generate that kind of excitement).

 

[Dungeonosophy]

Looking forward to Simply 6 rpg for ORC as well.

 

[Ramaster]

Hard pass. Thinking you can do 3 radically different settings with the same system is folly. Well, don't get me wrong, you can do it. But not well.

 

[RareBreed]

This is exciting. A 32-page rulebook. I am definitely buying it. These days, when considering the purchase of an RPG, I first look at the page count. If it's one of those 300+ page opuses, I'm probably going to pass unless it's truly special. I honestly don't have the time to do a semester's worth of reading to learn a rule system that is otherwise straightforward and fairly simple. That's why I currently prefer systems like Mothership and Swords & Wizardry. Am I the only one who detests RPG bloat?

I'm with you. Ironically, I like detailed and crunchy games, but nowadays the vast majority of RPG systems is just narrative bloat.

Take for example the recently released Avatar RPG. I haven't played any Powered by the Apocalypse games before, but the rules are buried in paragraph after paragraph of exposition or explanation. And that's supposed to be a "rules lite" system where you just have a bunch of "moves"? I'm finding it weary reading the almost 300 pages of rules, not to mention the character playbooks which describe the moves each type gets. Another example is the Fate Core rulebook; another supposedly rules-lite game where the book is 300 pages and that doesn't even come with a standard setting! Give me a flow chart with precise actions over reading Tolstoy to figure out how to play.

Contrast this with the 1987 game Living Steel RPG from Leading Edge Games. It used the infamous Phoenix Command Combat System that was supposedly insanely difficult (or at least cumbersome). The core book in the 1st edition was just 115 pages (including background fluff). Including the data tables and weapons, the total was 190 pages. The last 75 pages was basically reference material. Once you got the hang of a few key things, combat was nowhere near as bad or slow as people made it out to be (yes, you had to reference several charts, but it wasn't that time consuming). Combats were actually faster than pretty much any game I played, because one hit usually rendered the target out of combat.

I mean, how did we go from the 98 page Call of Cthulhu 2e rulebook, to the 449 page 7e? BRP hasn't changed that much over the years.

 

[Eyes of Nine]

Hard pass. Thinking you can do 3 radically different settings with the same system is folly. Well, don't get me wrong, you can do it. But not well.

Depends on what you mean by same system

GURPS did it quite well, for many definitions of well. No doubt it didn't suit some tables; but certainly suited the many games I played of it

GURPS' core mechanic was fine. Everything else was setting specific imo. I'm assuming WOIN will do similar

 

[payn]

Hmm, worth a look when the KS drops.

 

[Reynard]

Hard pass. Thinking you can do 3 radically different settings with the same system is folly. Well, don't get me wrong, you can do it. But not well.

::laughs in Savage Worlds::

 

[sevenbastard]

If you want to sell me a starter set I have some high standards, like it has to say starter set on it and come in a box.

Looks like you managed to meet them.

 

[Arilyn]

Hard pass. Thinking you can do 3 radically different settings with the same system is folly. Well, don't get me wrong, you can do it. But not well.

WOIN has done it well.