Quote from: Haffrung;1086756I disagree with the notion that a desire for published adventures and settings really only became a thing with 3E. The early TSR adventures like Keep on the Borderlands, Hommlet, White Plume Mountain, the Giant-Drow series, etc. not only sold bazillions of copies, they became the touchstones for people sharing their experiences with D&D even decades later.

That's just it. I'm not saying that published modules came into vogue during 3.0. I'm saying that those of us that came before I *mistakenly* assumed did away with using them. I know when 2e landed I was far more into regional splatbooks that gave me some basic scaffolding to create my own stuff (which I was doing in 1e already - but 2e really went for it).

When 3e came about - I honestly didn't give a flying nut about modules (I still mostly don't). But I disagree that those modules became touchstones with everyone like me in particular. I've played/run all those modules to *death* and I frankly have little to say about them other than that's what I cut my teeth on in terms of figuring out a lot of elements of design I'd use later. But I'll go a bit further below...

Quote from: Haffrung;1086756If you and I play strictly homebrews, what do we really have to share when we talk about our roleplaying experiences? Not much. If we've both played the Temple of Elemental Evil, we probably have a lot to talk about. And that's not new. Even when people who haven't played D&D since 1984 talk to other players, they'll often rattle off the adventures they played to see if there's common ground. "Did you play Expedition to the Barrier Peaks? Man, that was awesome when you got lasers."

See? For me - while we may be doing entirely different things individually, *I* don't have deep discussions about old-school modules much beyond what you just wrote, unless that's the specific topic we're discussing. Instead I look at those modules as varying examples of how I learned to GM through various problems presented - which is unique for every GM and their respective group. I *assume* most GM's that have been gaming since that era have run through those modules a bajillion times - which may not even be true. Because I'm more interested in what GM's are doing now, with the presumption of those experiences under their belt (if applicable) And sure! we can talk specifically about those modules and our experiences, but for me that's like talking about our first girlfriends in junior high/high-school (if applicable)... which frankly holds very little interest to me unless it's for some specific reason.

Mind you - I'm *wrong* about those assumptions as it pertains to the marketing of Fantasycraft. But I feel that Fantasycraft is a system designed for GM's that operate like I do. They want a toolbox. Not a pre-fab boxset with someone else's ideas all laid out. Its for GM's that wanna really dig deep in the mud of their setting (or convert from some established setting) and fine-tune the mechanics to fit your conceits.

And that's an extreme minority of GMs out there that want to do that. As the sales of Fantasycraft attest to. (But it's not the only reason).

Quote from: Apparition;1086770If it makes you feel any better, reading your posts on Fantasy Craft made me want to take a gander at it even though I intensely dislike the medieval fantasy genre.  I bought the entire line in PDF and the core rulebook in print about a month ago, but I've spent most of my free time in Paragon City the past few weeks so I haven't taken a look at it yet.

Yeah I've been kicking butt in Paragon too... heheheh. Well post up your thoughts on FC when you give it a read-through!

@tenbones: You mentioned it in the old thread you linked earlier, but I have to ask: Exactly what page does this "new GM cheat sheet" exist on? I found one that has a vague "you don't have to use them all if you don't want to", but not one that explicitly recommends what rules to start with, as alluded to in this post.

Quote from: tenbones;772910Everything else is modular subsystems that the GM has to illustrate what is/isn't in play. Even the book itself recommends that you not use *everything* all at once, and gives you a cheat sheet of what you should use if you're new to running it, and that dramatically reduces the complexity factor to something far below standard Pathfinder and its crazy bullshit.

Quote from: tenbones;1086779That's just it. I'm not saying that published modules came into vogue during 3.0. I'm saying that those of us that came before I *mistakenly* assumed did away with using them. I know when 2e landed I was far more into regional splatbooks that gave me some basic scaffolding to create my own stuff (which I was doing in 1e already - but 2e really went for it).

When 3e came about - I honestly didn't give a flying nut about modules (I still mostly don't). But I disagree that those modules became touchstones with everyone like me in particular. I've played/run all those modules to *death* and I frankly have little to say about them other than that's what I cut my teeth on in terms of figuring out a lot of elements of design I'd use later. But I'll go a bit further below...



See? For me - while we may be doing entirely different things individually, *I* don't have deep discussions about old-school modules much beyond what you just wrote, unless that's the specific topic we're discussing. Instead I look at those modules as varying examples of how I learned to GM through various problems presented - which is unique for every GM and their respective group. I *assume* most GM's that have been gaming since that era have run through those modules a bajillion times - which may not even be true. Because I'm more interested in what GM's are doing now, with the presumption of those experiences under their belt (if applicable) And sure! we can talk specifically about those modules and our experiences, but for me that's like talking about our first girlfriends in junior high/high-school (if applicable)... which frankly holds very little interest to me unless it's for some specific reason.

Mind you - I'm *wrong* about those assumptions as it pertains to the marketing of Fantasycraft. But I feel that Fantasycraft is a system designed for GM's that operate like I do. They want a toolbox. Not a pre-fab boxset with someone else's ideas all laid out. Its for GM's that wanna really dig deep in the mud of their setting (or convert from some established setting) and fine-tune the mechanics to fit your conceits.

And that's an extreme minority of GMs out there that want to do that. As the sales of Fantasycraft attest to. (But it's not the only reason).

Actually, I love the idea of a toolbox full of ideas; but I am running away from 3rd Edition levels of complexity.  I am creating my own conglomerate of DW, D&D 5E, PF PT, White Box FMAG, and ICRPG.  This is just in the form of my own personal DM's Guide, and will most likely never be published.  I am just borrowing / stealing good ideas from the creativity of others.

Y'know, is there anything stopping those with FantasyCraft system mastery from putting out their own Adventure Modules? :confused:

If it is the sine qua non of 3.x, and PF is about to let go of the brass ring for PF2, it seems like an opportunity akin to OSR. But then what do we call it? Middle School Renaissance? MSR? Can we find an excuse to add a P at the end, so we can get MSRP?

I've been a fan of the Crafty systems ever since they had the Stargate license. I'm currently playing in a FantasyCraft campaign, and it's been fun.

We're currently playing a Pathfinder campaign using FantasyCraft rules.

I don't find it overly crunchy, though I am not playing a mage.

My martial artist doctor character works well enough.

Quote from: Broken Twin;1086799@tenbones: You mentioned it in the old thread you linked earlier, but I have to ask: Exactly what page does this "new GM cheat sheet" exist on? I found one that has a vague "you don't have to use them all if you don't want to", but not one that explicitly recommends what rules to start with, as alluded to in this post.

It's just a small sidebar in the GMing section (which is a very well done section and modular in concept itself. Some of the stuff I don't use, but there's good advice in there for everyone) - around page 357ish or so. In the "How to Run Fantasycraft" section.

Basically it's telling you the integral parts of combat - how to get used to it. Then incorporate the other subsystems as you desire. One of the most fantastic things in FC is the Monster scaler. You can literally create a monster, or use an established monster on the fly, and scale it up or down to fit your needs - even in the middle of combat. For a GM that is new to the system (or new to GMing period) this is a great way to fix the problem with people cleaving to the Challenge Rating bullshit of D&D. You can fix your encounters if you over/under-tuned the fight because you were in "CR-is-King" mode.

Old school GM's didn't have CR. It's a bullshit myth. What I like about FC is you can use they monster creator to do some ingenious things one one handy table to really keep your PC's on their toes and guessing. "Did that Orc just vomit acid on me?"

Quote from: Opaopajr;1086907Y'know, is there anything stopping those with FantasyCraft system mastery from putting out their own Adventure Modules? :confused:

If it is the sine qua non of 3.x, and PF is about to let go of the brass ring for PF2, it seems like an opportunity akin to OSR. But then what do we call it? Middle School Renaissance? MSR? Can we find an excuse to add a P at the end, so we can get MSRP?

Nope. But it's like a lot of good alternatives to anything popular. Sometimes there simply is not enough support to escape the gravity well.

Case in point: who is going to write adventures to support a system very few people play for actual publication? FC fans already do it, there's the FC Adventurers Companion (which is AWESOME - a must have if you're going to use Fantasycraft), and it has a bunch of mini-settings and adventures in there. Heck most 3.x/PF content can be *converted* with relative ease by any Fantasycraft GM, but you know... those are Tiger-striped unicorns.

That's one of the real issues - getting GM's out there to push it and use it. I'm not sure there will ever be enough of a fanbase of 3.x to ditch 5e AND PF2 to go back to 3.x mode. Most of 3.x is mechanically broken. The only versions I'd ever recommend: M&M3.0, Fantasycraft, and True 20. All the rest is broken junk.

Quote from: tenbones;1086721It's because I made the mistake of assuming that GM's should/could/would be "into" building their own setting/sandbox adventures - I never really realized how much the new generation of players that came into the hobby during 3.0 needed/relied on them.

It always been this way starting with Judges Guild, the TSR Modules, and Dragon Magazine. Referees that roll their own always been in the minority.

One other major difference between Fantasycraft and Pathfinder it was always clear what was open content in Pathfinder with the Pathfinder Reference Document. Fantasycraft as far as I know never had an SRD and the open content declaration was flawed as it declared many important elements as product identity like all the names of spells.

part of the OGL declaration on page 386, 2nd edition

Quoteincluding but not limited to capitalized names, monster names, magic item names, spell names, organization names, Faction names, project names, characters, monsters, magic items, spells, historic events, and organizations;

Quote from: estar;1086933It always been this way starting with Judges Guild, the TSR Modules, and Dragon Magazine. Referees that roll their own always been in the minority.

Yeah. I guess that was my bubble.

Quote from: estar;1086933One other major difference between Fantasycraft and Pathfinder it was always clear what was open content in Pathfinder with the Pathfinder Reference Document. Fantasycraft as far as I know never had an SRD and the open content declaration was flawed as it declared many important elements as product identity like all the names of spells.

part of the OGL declaration on page 386, 2nd edition

As I understand it - if you followed the OGL rules you could probably create a Fantasycraft SRD with no problem. It would be a lot of work though. The inertia of it all is probably enough to ward off all but the biggest die-hards.

Quote from: tenbones;1086943As I understand it - if you followed the OGL rules you could probably create a Fantasycraft SRD with no problem. It would be a lot of work though. The inertia of it all is probably enough to ward off all but the biggest die-hards.

Yup, my view is that every RPG is comprised of two major elements, the mechanics which describes how the "physics" (used very loosely here) work, and the stuff which are useful elements to get a campaign going with the game. For example list of spells or monsters consistent with the mechanics.

If you omit the stuff like Crafty Games did, then now you basically your open content is now at the toolkit level like GURPS or Hero System. So any publisher has to build their own "stuff" to get any use out of it.

If the publisher just interested in adventures, or tweaking a handful of things then they are out luck.

I took a serious look at FantasyCraft back when I was doing the Majestic Wilderlands but the flawed open content took it out of the running.

Quote from: estar;1086951Yup, my view is that every RPG is comprised of two major elements, the mechanics which describes how the "physics" (used very loosely here) work, and the stuff which are useful elements to get a campaign going with the game. For example list of spells or monsters consistent with the mechanics.

If you omit the stuff like Crafty Games did, then now you basically your open content is now at the toolkit level like GURPS or Hero System. So any publisher has to build their own "stuff" to get any use out of it.

If the publisher just interested in adventures, or tweaking a handful of things then they are out luck.

I took a serious look at FantasyCraft back when I was doing the Majestic Wilderlands but the flawed open content took it out of the running.

That is heartbreaking. I would love to see Majestic Wilderlands on the FC engine... there is a lot about FC that makes me sigh. I'm not alone.

Quote from: estar;1086933It always been this way starting with Judges Guild, the TSR Modules, and Dragon Magazine. Referees that roll their own always been in the minority.

GMs who never use published adventures have always been a small minority. So have GMS who only use published adventures. The vast majority of DMs have always done both. Which is why these sorts of polarized discussions - GMs who use published adventures vs GMs who don't - have never reflected reality.

Quote from: tenbones;1086964That is heartbreaking. I would love to see Majestic Wilderlands on the FC engine... there is a lot about FC that makes me sigh. I'm not alone.

It never too late. Look at Fudge and Fate. If you have any pull with Crafty Games tell them to release a decent SRD.

Quote from: Haffrung;1086969Which is why these sorts of polarized discussions - GMs who use published adventures vs GMs who don't - have never reflected reality.

I concur, I stated numerous times that the default reality is that most RPG campaigns are hybrids. Whether it rules, supplements, adventures, or settings.

The only constant is that a referee or group is going to run the campaign in the way they see fit. For some that means everything a publisher releases is the gold standard.  For others it core book only everything else is DiY. However for most it about whatever interests them and what they have time for.