Saving Throw

Sounds like a region to compete with Pan Tang in the Young Kingdoms. Good Luck with this. Make sure it sees the light of day. ST

I don't want to agree with you but I do. ST

I agree with sinisalo in spirit. I don't think you can expect people to understand a contract without putting in in their face occaisionally. Gleemax gives WOTC a perpetual license to use and abuse any postings on their forums and I think it hides the rules - wrong. Removing it might be the realistic thing to do. If you don't remove it you have to make it more prominent just out of courtesy if not legality. I hope as a community we strive for being courteous whenever possible. That said, I think this board would work really well as a center of creative commons creativity. As a compromise, how bout putting a permanent invite prominently on the boards to contribute good ideas to the Creative Commons Wiki! People can do whatever they like with the board postings and whoever chooses, can contribute their ideas when they've talked out the bugs. This lets people posting stuff they may have heard elsewhere rest a little easier. Saving Throw.

My criticisms of Savage Worlds are not all fair. 1) I don't like point buy systems - some people do. New chars can be identical and you don't have enough variation for my tastes. * I should note this approach works very well for "types" lots of soldiers, squads etc... I can understand its appeal for that. 2) I don't feel that you build a very unique character. Your choices are pretty clear but they seem generic to me. - saving throw

Savage worlds is an interesting system. Truthfully, I don't really like it but I find the structure interesting. Over generalizing and stressing what _I_ find interesting: Better abilities use higher die up to d12. An Ogre might swing a d12 - a wizard or child d4. Combat is a challenge situation. (My Fighting Roll against your defense rolls) Fighting skill roll vs Parry - Do I hit you. Damage total vs. Toughness (Con & Armor) - Do I penetrate your armor. Levels are broken up into categories Novice, ...., ...., to Legendary and subdivided at 5exp increments. Guidelines say each session is between 1 and 3 exp. So every other session you go up a small level and get a type of improvement allowed to your category. DM sets the exp return level. For most rolls heroes roll a second 'wild die' (Almost always a D6) this generates your skill roll and your wild die roll. You take the higher number. Dice 'explode' ie... if you get the highest number on the die you roll it again until you don't roll the highest, and then add them. So A physically weak player mage swinging a str appropriate weapon (eg a knife) makes an attack. He likely has a physical fighting attack ability of D4 so he rolls a D4 and a d6. His opponent has a Parry of 7. If he rolls at the top of either die he rolls them again and takes the total. D4's need only 1in4 to roll again. So he rolls: 4,4,4,2 and 5. He keeps the D4 roll (and thanks his stars) 14 hits a parry of 7. Its actually more than 4 above the 7 so he gets an extra d6 damage. His Dagger does (Str+D4) damage. so he rolls 2d4 for the weapon and 1d6 for his excellent attack roll. 2d4 = 3,2 - the dagger 1d6 = 4 - the bonus damage 3+2+4= 9 total attack damage His opponent has a Constitution of 6 and leather armor. Con/2 +1 for armor = 4 This is subtracted from the damage attack leaving 5 penetrating damage. The opponent is allowed a toughness roll to overcome the damage. He must roll over the total damage with his con die. d6 = 5 - no luck Opponent takes 5 damage. 1damage is stunned 2 damage is wounded 3 damage is mortally wounded. 5 damage - he's dead. Sigurd - guess that's long but I think its right.

But I think WOTC's experiment "One System To Rule Them All" will have a lasting impact on the expectations of the market. There has never been a better time for a universal system. I hope its along the lines of the GPL or the creative commons. ST

I think its a good idea. What you might temper it with is some sort reminder to include copyright info if you don't want to CC. Maybe a copyright status in the player profile. You can default it anyway you like. Saving Throw

The point is that new good and innovative games compete with old good and innovative games as never before. Because we are talking about enjoyment not physics a game can only hope to capture the attention of the reader - there is no objective "improvement" or "better game". I mean no disrespect but 'Rats' seems like much the same draw as Bunnies and Burrows did after Watership Down. I wish you continued faith and success in your product. As a product (not an object of faith) however it competes in a way that early D&D never had to. If you are a small operation you will have lower costs and more profits. Stay small and you can play nice because you have little to lose. Saving Throw

I absolutely agree. I see the Indie movement will be the drive for a shared system. Without a common game system to work from (Lingua Franca) players will have to learn a new system for every little game - too much work. If the small publishers want to compete with big systems they'll need one of their own - a shared game mechanic. Saving Throw

The internet is changing game publishing in a big way. PDFs dont go away the way print publications do. I have a boatload of old print RPGs.... Powers & Perils, Bunnies & Burrows, Tunnels & Trolls.... it was a very special time. All of them are print and I'm the only one that will 'benefit' from them. If I leave the market I take my games with me and new games dont have to compete against the old. PDFs are different. They take up virtually no space, labour or upkeep. They can be sold as cheaply as you can transfer any file. Today a new game competes with every previous pdf that has never left the market. I think the results are a general depression in the sale price of RPGs. In many cases there is always a 'free' option available to players. To turn players from the free option companies have to lower their prices or raise their hype. In that sense we are seeing the Twilight of the old market. The D20 license sped up this process. It reduced the market value (We are not talking quality in any of this) of every game that wasn't D20. It generated hype for itself mostly by making it easier for people to publish in the one system with clear legal and publishing guidelines. It soaked up a lot of talent. Just look at Monte Cook - who wrote some great Role Master modules - and consider that every one of his fans recently Ptolus etc... has been a supporter of D20. Had he continued to write for a competing company Ptolus might be a Rolemaster or Runequest project. With its marketing clout it tied up paper distribution channels - Chapters\Indigo by me has almost no non WOTC RPG products - and starved other game companies. I think the market wants to move to a 'lingua franca' for role playing games. The Pen & Paper role playing market has shrunk, especially considering the game market has grown (Think computer games here). A shared language for adventures so that you can enjoy them like novels. Good adventures will still sell but competition is more fierce. Even its profits from this successful strategy have not made it content. I think fundamentally that WOTC is too demanding for the shrinking market. Some say this was TSRs flaw too. It needs to generate new sales every month to sustain itself but most players won't buy new books every month and the number of players doesn't grow fast enough. I don't think most purchasers (You dear reader are not necessarily included in this) have read their gaming publications very closely at all. The average RPGer would get more out of staying home with his old books than going out to buy more. So the market leader sees a decline in sales & profitability. The competitors are pinched for market space if they don't publish D20 material. Faced with a uniform market, I think players start to think of RPG gaming as vanilla. So what is a sustainable business model for RPGs? What is tenacious enough that it will keep producing material for ever and ever? I think the new model demands a very stripped down almost non profit approach. There is almost no money in game publishing because games are a luxury that few people will pay for especially given so many free options. Rather than Wizards of the Coast we have a new Strategic Review. Publishing has never been cheaper. People have never been more connected and shared authorship has never been more easy. The internet sets new rules and find new players. The new market demands a lingua franca. That was to be D20, I think it should be anything else. It needs to be something that no one company controls. Anyway, Thats my .02 This is off the cuff so its a little disorganized (I apologize)

From the BRP Central Rules, when you register. #2

I really think its tremendously cool that the posts here are released with the Creative Commons license. 1. Can I suggest you sticky a link to the actual license you're using? 2. Do you know what Chaosium's feeling is on the license for secondary and potentially derivative works? - Saving Throw

Hello, I've been gaming now for over 25 years but not intensely. (I can't believe its been that long.) I've played every version of D&D. I've really loved Cthulu (it also had this magnificent box for keeping characters and stuff in). I've Loved Runequest (after all where else do you get the hit location tables that they left out of BRP! in COC!) I loved the magic in Stormbringer The tables in DragonQuest and Powers & Perils. The setting in Harn. "Realism has its place." The sense of the old gods in Palladium. The sense of the new tech in Rifts. I liked Hobbit and Centaur partnerships in Thieves Guild. The detail in Rolemaster. The speed in Paranoia. The coolness of Traveler. "You mean I muster out with a scout ship!" The wealth of modules in D&D and D20. In short, I've really liked a number of games. It is a pleasure to find a group of people that isn't talking endlessly about 4th ed D&D! I really like the terms of use for the website. I think the Creative Commons License is wonderful. I'd love to collaborate on something special. I have never been disappointed by a Chaosium product. Even if I never actually used the product (Dreamlands, Cthulhu by Lamplight and some others) I've always enjoyed reading them. These days I do my gaming over the net with Fantasy Grounds: Fantasy Grounds :: The Virtual Tabletop for Pen & Paper Roleplaying Games I believe that RPGs are all structured story telling and I'd like to see them become like Folk Song, part of our common heritage. - Saving Throw