NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Crazy Jerome" data-source="post: 5656092" data-attributes="member: 54877">I'm less picky about the particulars about exactly how things are accomplished than that those accomplishments are done with certain guidelines. (Exception--want wacky and flavorful magic items somehow.) For example, I agree that classes are required for D&D, but they can be tweaked to matter somewhat more or less. But however they are tweaked, the rest of the system needs to match. These are things that D&D has been sort of spitting at since the start of the 3E design, but still not quite meeting: 1. The character sheet used in play for mechanical purposes should be relatively simple. As a purist, I'd like to say that the acid test is that the sheet should be one page, and not a crammed one either. Otherwise, the game is too fiddly on the mechanics level. Now that doesn't mean you can't have as many pages of description, background, etc. as you want. Those vary by game. And it is ok if you supplement those mechanics with extra pages, cards, notes, etc. such as power cards instead of looking up spells. And because I'm not a purist, I don't even mind an extra sheet or two of book keeping information needed when leveling, but rarely used in moment-to-moment play (e.g. list of all spells my wizard knows). But in play, a person that knows their character well should be able to look at that one page and see most of what they need. Or if you absolutely must, have one page for combat and one for non-combat--even if there is some overlap in content or infrequent flipping between the two. 2. Absolutely agree with Lanefan that the core of the system needs to be hashed out and nailed down in the opening set of rules--and preferably in one book, the PHB. Any rules after that should be modular options. 3. Core pieces of the game need to be detailed with some mechanical rigour, and stick to it. If "feats" are things that are binary abilities that any character can take--that is their mechanical niche--then don't make any feats that don't fit into that niche. If there are other things that keep cropping up that are sort of feats, then either find a different mechanical niche for those, or rework the mechanical definition of feats to handle the extra stuff. Both of those alternatives must happen before the game is released. (See #2 above.)  4. In the core system, everything needs to be at a similar level of abstraction. Modular options can change the level of abstraction--in fact, that is at heart the main reason for having modular pieces that work. But even then, there should be options that work at a given level well together. For example, if you have a core system where skills are things you do, based on ability scores, you might also have a short weapon list where the difference between a battle axe and a long sword is all or nearly all flavor. If you have a modular add-on that makes skills more detailed, you might also have a modular add-on of a longer weapon list with more details that matter. (For tradition sake, you might even have both modular, more detailed options presented in the same book with the core rules. It wouldn't hurt to get people used to options at launch. But those are different issues.) But however it is done, don't make abilities as skills as a very abstract core take on skills, and then get all fiddly with the weapon list as the core take on that.</blockquote>

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