Quote from: DavetheLost;987813So this runs on a 3.x+ D&D chassis? No thanks then, I'm out.  What I've seen of 5e doesn't appeal either, too much of what I didn't like about 3.x still in the game.

I'll stick with my old games and my retro clones.

You and me both, brother, although I'm still scratching my head and wondering what the point is of many retro-clones when the original is quite easy to obtain for very little money.

Quote from: Dumarest;987837You and me both, brother, although I'm still scratching my head and wondering what the point is of many retro-clones when the original is quite easy to obtain for very little money.

It's simple, really.  People don't want to give WoTC their money, but they still want their Retro D&D fix.  WoTC is the most evil company in the world, doncha know!  They killed TSR!  And stole their Baby Boi, D&D.

I wish I were kidding.

Is meant to be stand alone but flaky if isn't and isn't complete either

Quote from: Dumarest;987837You and me both, brother, although I'm still scratching my head and wondering what the point is of many retro-clones when the original is quite easy to obtain for very little money.

I believe the argument is something along the lines of: 'While the attempts at completely re-writing D&D 'to make it better' were fool's errands, that doesn't mean that the game was perfect and infallible. Why, it had ! So, since we are rejecting WotC's rewrites of the system, we can always make those tweeks we wanted old-style D&D to have in the first place.'

The whole thing is a grand rabbit hole of hair-splitting (hare-splitting?). D&D is/was great, why do they feel they had to change it? That's completely unnecessary and ruined the whole experience! I'm going back to play my old version, just with these changes which are completely necessary and enhance the experience.

I think it makes sense when there are modification to fit a new setting. Isn't that what Lamentations of the Flame Princess is? I think that's the 19th C horror one, right? But if you're going to be adventuring in Greyhawk, might as well just use the original books.

I'm of absolutely two minds on it. There are things in TSR D&D that I think truly don't work (level limits as balance for demihuman benefits, as my go-to example) that I do in fact change in my house rules. If (and I mean if) you do not have a copy of the rules to begin with (and there are a lot of us who no longer have our original books), why not buy a version with the changes you were going to make anyways already included? As to the likelihood of a retroclone with houserules that perfectly match the houserules you'd be making--yeah, pretty unlikely. But that's probably why there are so many out there.

They are selling it as a complete and stand alone game. It isn't, clearly. It even talks about a bunch of antagonist factions. Instead of the silly legacy rules, which could have just been done as a download from the website, they could have put in some stats. Really poor.

The person running this website is a racist who publicly advocates genocidal practices.

I am deleting my content.

I recommend you do the same.

Quote from: Willie the Duck;987930I'm of absolutely two minds on it. There are things in TSR D&D that I think truly don't work (level limits as balance for demihuman benefits, as my go-to example) that I do in fact change in my house rules. If (and I mean if) you do not have a copy of the rules to begin with (and there are a lot of us who no longer have our original books), why not buy a version with the changes you were going to make anyways already included? As to the likelihood of a retroclone with houserules that perfectly match the houserules you'd be making--yeah, pretty unlikely. But that's probably why there are so many out there.

Agree.  This is a (partly) hidden aspect of the popularity of 5E--not using it as a finished product but as a launching point for whatever your house rules happen to be.  My version of 5E at the table is definitely drifted towards a Rules Cyclopedia version with level limits ripped out, race as class changed, ascending AC, etc.  For various reasons (including but not limited to players having a copy of the rules), I find it easier to get there starting from 5E than RC.  Now that I've seen 5E, if the secret gaming police took it away from me tomorrow, I could easily get to a similar spot starting from RC.

Same. I've also found that using 5e lets me bring in the kind of players who do not hang around on boards, are not invested in any OSR/modern games rivalry, do not care about your baggage or mine, but do want to play 'D&D' and do not feel the need to build a character out of feats and prestige classes and AEDU powers and whatever else. If I pull out RC, they will say, "what, didn't I hear they released new editions since then that gets rid of [race as class/racial level limits/unusable thief ability percentages/whatever-their-particular-gripe-is]?" And instead of going into the pitfalls of 3e-4e, I can instead whip out 5e and play it w/o feats, with rolled stats, and with nominal multiclassing, splats, or power creep, and get a good 85-90% of the BECMI game I wanted.

Oh. Right. Starfinder thread. Um, yeah. Not the target audience.

Quote from: Justin Alexander;988008While I think pre-statted NPCs are among the most valuable tools you can give to a GM (which is why we have so many of them in the Infinity RPG), I don't really buy the argument that they're required in order to have a complete game. Does the core book include the rules for creating NPCs?

Not so far as I can tell, just rules for player characters so youd have to use those

Quote from: Dumarest;987837You and me both, brother, although I'm still scratching my head and wondering what the point is of many retro-clones when the original is quite easy to obtain for very little money.

Because when the whole retro-clone thing started, the original was NOT easy to obtain cheap. There were no legal PDFs for the longest time and certainly nothing printed unless you looked on e-bay, where prices were absurd. (Prices on e-bay are still absurd, particularly since you CAN buy legal PDFs cheap now.)

- - - - -

As to STARFINDER, I've picked it up and thumbed through it several times but not bought it. I really want to like it, but I didn't have a great experience with PATHFINDER and I'm sure that I would buy it, read it, never use it. I would prefer to have some sort of "5E Space" that could be played through an Adventurer's League format because then my local game store would actually sanction it and I could play there.

There was a flicker of interest when somebody advertised an 'absurdist' supplement for the game - as I like absurdist sci-fi. But, honestly, having skirted through what the rules are like it's really not to my tastes and doesn't fulfil any particular niche for me at all (being a Traveller fan). It's really just a product for Pathfinder fans, which is admittedly a large fanbase compared to most, but's not really got any wider application. I think it'll last three years.

Quote from: finarvyn;988187Because when the whole retro-clone thing started, the original was NOT easy to obtain cheap. There were no legal PDFs for the longest time and certainly nothing printed unless you looked on e-bay, where prices were absurd. (Prices on e-bay are still absurd, particularly since you CAN buy legal PDFs cheap now.)

I'm going to have to disagree with you there because I constantly see old copies of Basic and AD&D for sale cheap, and have seen them for sale cheap everywhere from used book stores to garage sales for ages.

Edit: Also, the used shelf at the local game store used to have at least a dozen old copies of various editions and supplements for them, as well as old copies of Dragon and Rifter and various other magazines; I don't know if they are still there as I haven't been inside in probably 18 months. I bought extra copies of Basic, Expert, and Companion for $2 to $3 per book.

Quote from: Dumarest;988222I'm going to have to disagree with you there because I constantly see old copies of Basic and AD&D for sale cheap, and have seen them for sale cheap everywhere from used book stores to garage sales for ages.

Edit: Also, the used shelf at the local game store used to have at least a dozen old copies of various editions and supplements for them, as well as old copies of Dragon and Rifter and various other magazines; I don't know if they are still there as I haven't been inside in probably 18 months. I bought extra copies of Basic, Expert, and Companion for $2 to $3 per book.

Your experience is not indicative of the gaming world.  And neither are mine.