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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Asmor" data-source="post: 1553813" data-attributes="member: 1154">What's with all the hating on the books? I think it's WotC's job to provide us with rules, not setting. I could really care less that Lord Kookamunga, feeling slighted by King Albrect of Dandelion Mountain, slaughtered an entire kingdom in the year 438 Q.X. I can get great ideas for settings and games and characters quite literally anywhere. Movies, TV, video games, books, magazines, newspapers, walking down the street, sitting and thinking for 10 seconds, sleeping, showering, tieing my shoes in the morning, whatever. I buy RPG books because I want to see systems for making my vision into, er, reality, as it were. Have you ever tried writing a complete roleplaying game from scratch? It's pretty damn difficult, and takes far more time than I'm willing to invest. On very rare occasions they hit upon an idea that strikes my fancy... Actually, I think Planescape, and Sigil, is the only published setting I've ever looked at and immediately felt drawn to. And you know what? I didn't get into it from the Planescape book. Hell, I didn't even play D&D back then. I got hooked from the videogame Planescape: Torment (which, incidentally, was far more like an interactive story than a video game. You gained ludicrous amounts of XP, quite possibly more than from combat, by going through dialogs and paying attention and asking the right questions. Sure, it was all scripted, but it was amazingly detailed and flavorful and they really let you play it however you want, whether a dastardly villain only in it for the gold or a saint who thought helping others was its own reward, or somewhere in between. Hell, it was even possible to beat the final boss of the game through dialog!). I later bought the Planescape setting PDF from Wizard's website and enjoyed the read quite thoroughly, despite the fact that any rules information in there was totally useless to me.Flavor can be taken from anywhere, what makes RPGs RPGs IS the rule system. That's all there is to it. If it weren't for the rules, you'd just be sitting around playing make believe (which, and here comes another flagrant digression, can actually be quite enjoyable... I remember in seventh grade me and several friends would play and switch who was the "GM" and there were no rules involved at all. We just said what we did, the GM told us what happened, and that was that. All you roleplaying purists should probably give that a try, it might be right up your alley, and you'll never have to worry about one of those nasty min maxers again)EDIT: Oh, and just as an aside, will someone please show me an example of any game at all that includes characters but is not a role playing game? Whether you're playing the role of a thimble determined to build a hotel on Boardwalk or a lone fighter pilot in deep space just trying to survive against a veritable sea of ever-splintering asteroids with just your booster and your blaster, every game that has any sort of character is a role playing game. Even the people who decide they want to play the role of "Optimal Long-Sword Fighter the Brave" are still playing a role, just not the role you want them to be playing.</blockquote>

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