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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 5229199" data-attributes="member: 4937">TerraDave: I feel your pain, but if I were a designer, I'd read something like that and feel like you'd told me nothing.  I have no idea what would please you, and no idea where to start.  What does that all mean?Some of that seems to me to be contridictory desires.  On the other hand, you don't want 'baroque mechanics', but you want a system that resolves 'maneuvers, powers, and stunts'.  That to me is like asking for no subsystems and subsystems at the same time.   The same thing holds true if you want 'things to change'.  If you want to bring about mechanical change over time at all, it means having somewhat 'baroque mechanics' in some form.  Change comes about from non-linearity, and that means either non-linear tables, complex math, or subsystems.  Any of them can add time to conflict resolution, but IMO the more baroque the mechanics are the less complexity they add in the long run.  Tables are extremely baroque, but they can be memorized and as long as they don't do multiple cross-references and can be kept handy are quick look ups.   Sub-systems are even more baroque because its like changing rulesets when you change situations, but they also can be learned over time and more importantly they don't universally impinge on the system. Honestly, looking at your whole list, it strikes me that you'd be most happy with a cleaned up, streamlined version of 1st edition.   The post strikes me as somewhat motivated by nostalgia.   If its not just somewhat motivated by such, and if in fact that's all it is, let me tell you that your nostalgia while understable is misplaced.  I loved playing/running 1e, but there were so many times it just made me want to pull my hair out I'd never play it without a huge rewrite.  I'd rather rewrite 3e.  I suppose I could just make an original game, but the amount of work involved is daunting, and frankly I'm not sure where I'd start and don't have a clear picture of what it should look like in the end.</blockquote>

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