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<blockquote data-quote="Hussar" data-source="post: 7714977" data-attributes="member: 22779">Really?&nbsp; In your experience every player at the table buys a PHB?&nbsp; The majority of the time?&nbsp; That certainly hasn't been my experience, nor is it the commonly recounted experiences of pretty much every industry individual for years.&nbsp; &quot;Only GM's buy books&quot; has been a truism since day 1.&nbsp; Heck, it took 2e before you saw game publishers shift to start specifically targeting players over GM's.&nbsp; Prior, in virtually every RPG system, you had you core game, and then every supplement was geared towards the GM.And, IMO, I'd say it wasn't until d20 and 3e that we saw consistent targeting of players.&nbsp; Even in 2e, the overwhelming number of supplements were still geared towards DM's.&nbsp; Sure, you had the Complete guides, but, for every Complete Guide, you had setting books, monster books, and adventures in at least equal numbers.&nbsp; So, yeah, I'll stand by the idea that the notion that &quot;games should be free&quot; is hardly a new thing for RPG's.&nbsp; Is that actually simpler though?&nbsp; I've never found proficiency based games to be any simpler than a class based one.&nbsp; I've actually seen far more complicated skill based systems - HERO, GURPS, Rolemaster - than D&amp;D.&nbsp; I guess the question in my mind is, what do you mean by simple vs complex?&nbsp; A class system where you have virtually no choices at any given level, like Basic/Expert D&amp;D for example, would seem to be a fair bit simpler than a system where you have to make choices every level for what gains your character makes.&nbsp; Which would seem to have several implications further down the line.&nbsp; For example, in a skill based system, adventure design gets a bit trickier because you cannot presume what the group will have.&nbsp; Whereas in a class system, so long as a given class is present, you can make all sorts of assumptions.&nbsp; The more common the class, the more you can make that presumption.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Hussar, post: 7714977, member: 22779"] Really? In your experience every player at the table buys a PHB? The majority of the time? That certainly hasn't been my experience, nor is it the commonly recounted experiences of pretty much every industry individual for years. "Only GM's buy books" has been a truism since day 1. Heck, it took 2e before you saw game publishers shift to start specifically targeting players over GM's. Prior, in virtually every RPG system, you had you core game, and then every supplement was geared towards the GM. And, IMO, I'd say it wasn't until d20 and 3e that we saw consistent targeting of players. Even in 2e, the overwhelming number of supplements were still geared towards DM's. Sure, you had the Complete guides, but, for every Complete Guide, you had setting books, monster books, and adventures in at least equal numbers. So, yeah, I'll stand by the idea that the notion that "games should be free" is hardly a new thing for RPG's. Is that actually simpler though? I've never found proficiency based games to be any simpler than a class based one. I've actually seen far more complicated skill based systems - HERO, GURPS, Rolemaster - than D&D. I guess the question in my mind is, what do you mean by simple vs complex? A class system where you have virtually no choices at any given level, like Basic/Expert D&D for example, would seem to be a fair bit simpler than a system where you have to make choices every level for what gains your character makes. Which would seem to have several implications further down the line. For example, in a skill based system, adventure design gets a bit trickier because you cannot presume what the group will have. Whereas in a class system, so long as a given class is present, you can make all sorts of assumptions. The more common the class, the more you can make that presumption. [/QUOTE]

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