First of all, thanks for all the feedback from last week's post. Even though there was only one message posted, I received several other responses. Universally (except for James), everyone thinks we should go with the "all three terrains" option, so that's what I'll do!
This week's quandary is the rules. Games needs rules, so I need to start deciding the game system that I'm going to use for this campaign.
The first step is to identify what I want in a game:
- Free-ish: I want this campaign to be accessible to new players, and I don't want them to go out and spend money on a game. They should be able to freely and legally download enough of the rules to play. It doesn't have to be the full ruleset, just enough for them to have access to the information that they would need during play. That means, for example, that GURPS would be acceptable because it has a free version (GURPS Lite) that players can download for free.
- Fantasy: This is a fantasy game, so I want the rules to have baked-in support for things like magic.
- Resource Management: In my mind, resource management is a huge part of a game about exploration. The players get to make meaningful choices about how much food and other supplies to take with them, and how many hirelings to hire.
- Familiarity: I want to know the rules. It's so much easier to run a game when you're not trying to learn it at the same time.
- Short: I don't want to wade through 400 pages of rules.
- Fast character creation: Because I'm encouraging new players, and the open table, and I expect character mortality, I want the process of making a new character to be quick and easy.
- Simple game play: I don't want a tabletop miniatures tactical battle game.
So I considered a lot of rules, and these are the ones that made it to the "short list."
| Game | Notes |
|---|---|
| Basic Fantasy | Kind of a clone of basic D&D but with some more modern sensibilities. Doesn't have alignment, and uses the stupid saving throw categories from the original game. At least it does ascending armor class. |
| Legends of the Ancient World | This is a sharp little game. It's kind of like a very stripped down version of The Fantasy Trip. One down side is that it's actually written for solo "choose you own adventure" type books, and not tabletop role-playing, but I think it could work. It also doesn't include travels rules, but I think those will be easy enough to write. |
| Tunnels & Trolls | While it's not a free game, there is a stripped down free version, and the PDF of the earlier versions are pretty cheap (1st Edition, 4th, and 5th). |
| TunnelQuest | Another sharp little game. This was my introduction to "only the players roll in combat." The magic system is a little wonky, but other than that, I like it. |
| Warrior, Rogue & Mage | A nice little rules light game that runs with a concept that I've been thinking about (though it did it years before I thought about it). |
| White Box: Fantastic Medieval Adventure Game | Another clone of OD&D. Nice and simple. |
How about it? Do any of these make sense? Should I use my own game instead? Is there another one that I haven't thought of?
Not being as savvy with the various rulesets from tabletop RPGs, I don't have a lot in the way of commenting on comparing the provided list. That being said, I've been following your Clout RPG blog (http://www.cloutrpg.com/), and I like the mechanics and concepts that you've got going there. It takes care of a lot of what you were looking for, being free, short rules, along with magic system which fits this world and intuitive character creation. The only think I'm not sure of is the travel/resource aspect, but like you said, that can be written in.
ReplyDeleteI had, of course, thought of Clout. The reason I dismissed it is because Clout is meant for more of a "story telling" type game. Normally Clout would handle something like overland travel with just a die roll. For this game, I want it "grittier," and I think that would actually clash with Clout's simplicity.
DeleteI'll think about it more, though. Thanks for the suggestion.