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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Scurvy_Platypus" data-source="post: 5525710" data-attributes="member: 43283">Oh and a sort of addendum for both 1Mac and joela...I think one of the things to do in order to sell an effects based thing for folks that like the usual D&D style? Hide it.No, I don't mean lie about using it or something I like. I mean just flat out don't say anything. Don't have the spells, powers, or whatever obviously constructed: Blast 3d6 (Fire) or whatever. Present it in the default fashion. Such and such a power, duration of x, effect of y, save z. Whatever. Take all your construction and move it behind the curtain.At the end of the day, the players aren't _really_ going to care about _how_ the abilities have come about. They're gonna care about what those abilities are, whether they're cool or not, how effective they are, and making sure they have cool abilities so they don't have to sit on the sidelines while Bob hogs the glory light.The only people that are really going to care about how the abilities are made are A)you the GM and B)Any other GM that would like to use a system like that themselves.Oh sure, there's the theoretical C) Player that would like to construct his own abilities. But person C is probably a GM themselves or they'd like to try and convince their GM to go along with the idea; and honestly, we know that most GMs (us included) are inherently suspicious of anything created by someone other than ourselves. Especially if it came from the internet.So cook up your variant, steal like a mofo from as many sources as you want, and figure out a way to be able to consistently balance it. And keep the magic behind the curtain. We tend to lose our sense of wonder when we figure out how an illusionist does their trick, even though we desperately want (or think we want) to know. Same deal with the mechanics; once you whip the curtain back, folks are just going to go at it from a mechanical perspective.Just my own thoughts; I'm sure other folks'll disagree with me and that's fine too.</blockquote>

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