I figured I'd start this thread to prevent this one from getting too derailed:)

I had FC for a while, read it, thought it amazing, never did anything with it and then sold it off.

I felt that the rules, while heavy, were so lovingly crafted and well put together.

This is probably a better place to ask.  Does anyone actually play a campaign of FantasyCraft?

So, as far as I understand, it is basically a heavily house ruled 3E variant? Is that a fair description?

Quote from: Larsdangly;772546So, as far as I understand, it is basically a heavily house ruled 3E variant? Is that a fair description?

It's been a while since I've read it, and keep in mind that I've never played it.  That being said- to me, it was so far removed from what I think of 3rd and so well scrubbed and polished, it would be unfair to call it a 3e variant.  But I'm sure there's folks here who are better able to make the call than I.

Quote from: Larsdangly;772546So, as far as I understand, it is basically a heavily house ruled 3E variant? Is that a fair description?

In broad strokes yes. All the mods (campaign traits) are just developer approved houserules. Big differences would be the magic system is spell point based, divine magic is path based and healing is a wizard thing and clerics have very few spells but they always work. Armor as DR, a wounds/vitality system and a great downtime subsystem that I will port to 5e if they don't have something already in the PHB/DMG.

It looks like 3x but everything works subtlely different moreso then 3.5--->Pathfinder it's a loose varient at best.

Only got as far as character generation, which featured this amazing smorgasbord of options but looks like a lot of work. There are rules for playing a dragon (Drake, technically, but really a friggin' dragon) or giant, which I find awesome.

Another one of these games that I'd love to try but looks like a ton of work on the GM's side.

Quote from: Marleycat;772554In broad strokes yes. All the mods (campaign traits) are just developer approved houserules. Big differences would be the magic system is spell point based, divine magic is path based and healing is a wizard thing and clerics have very few spells but they always work. Armor as DR, a wounds/vitality system and a great downtime subsystem that I will port to 5e if they don't have something already in the PHB/DMG.

It looks like 3x but everything works subtlely different moreso then 3.5--->Pathfinder it's a loose varient at best.

I'm most interested in hearing about the downtime subsystem, as I'm currently writing up my own for a 5E campaign setting I'm working on. Mine is basically an adaptation of ideas from En Garde! to D&D. What did FC do? Anyone have an inside track on what the PHB or DMG for 5E might do?

It's like a d20 version of GURPs. At least, it makes my head hurt like GURPS.

So many rules.

Quote from: Larsdangly;772625I'm most interested in hearing about the downtime subsystem, as I'm currently writing up my own for a 5E campaign setting I'm working on. Mine is basically an adaptation of ideas from En Garde! to D&D. What did FC do? Anyone have an inside track on what the PHB or DMG for 5E might do?

In broad strokes it's linked to reputation and renown which is linked to anything from level,  lifestyle, background, class, ability scores..... I will dig out my FC book tomorrow and try to specify further.

Quote from: RunningLaser;772543I figured I'd start this thread to prevent this one from getting too derailed:)

I had FC for a while, read it, thought it amazing, never did anything with it and then sold it off.

I felt that the rules, while heavy, were so lovingly crafted and well put together.

I had the same experience. I bought it, read it, loved some of the ideas, and finally said, "this is way too much", and sold it off. I have a lot of respect for how they put the nuts and bolts of that game together, but it wasn't for me, ultimately.

I've read the rulebook a couple of times and GM'd it once. There are interesting ideas in it, but I disagreed with a lot of the core conceits of its design. Too much focus on the character building minigame, and too much metagame stuff.

On the first, I'm a bit suspicious of games where the focus is on the player finding an optimization strategy and then building the character around it, instead of coming up with a character they want to play as a concept and then writing that up as game rules. In the first printing they also go out of their way to deliberately punish certain races taking certain classes or specialties, which is genuinely puzzling (its like "Dragon or walking tree PCs are fine, but your desire to be an elf Adventurer disgusts me.").

On the metagaming front, there's the scene editing via action point expenditure, feats that only operate vs. 'special' characters', different rules for chargen PCs and NPCs, the cheating death rules, feats letting you reroll the GMs random treasure rolls). Behind the scenes, there's a lot of auto-scaling and a few recommendations that the GM build NPCs and monsters specifically to counter the PCs - for instance, the example NPC is built with higher movement rate since he's supposed to get away.

The games two aspects (shared storytelling game and rules-heavy 3-dot-x-thing) don't seem like they work together - the chargen system gives the PCs stuff then the GM builds a counter-scenario so that whatever the players did is neutralized. You hear a lot from fans about how balanced the system is, but I'm not convinced thus far, that this isn't purely due to deliberate GM intervention of this kind, which seems like its a bit illusionistic and a huge waste of everyone's time.

Bought it.
It just starts.. in a very heavy character gen process.
I felt lost. Sold it on.

Quote from: tzunder;772790Bought it.
It just starts.. in a very heavy character gen process.
I felt lost. Sold it on.

Awesome avatar. Uninfortunately my book is in deep storage currently.

I ran it for about a year, and played in it for 18 months.  It is truly "d20 D&D realized" - the problem with 3.5 is that all the complexity didn't really make the game more fun, it just got in the way.  Fantasycraft had amazing complexity, but the complexity was awesome.  It made all the different types of warrior possible (sword & board, spear & board, polearm, dagger wielder, etc) and flavorful.  It is just really an amazingly well thought-out system, and probably one of my favorite single-book RPGs ever.

However, it is just too damn complex for us.  Combat takes forever, and I've found that's just a deal killer these days.  Character complexity is too damn high, requiring forever to capture your PC.  If they had come out with Spellcraft, *maybe* we'd still be playing it, but they just release stuff too slowly, which is a shame.

So, if you love the complexity of d20 (or Hero System, or something similar), but found the mechanics to be wanting, Fantasycraft is awesome.

I really see 5E as "Fantasy Craft Lite", which hopefully is exactly what I want.

I'm the mild dissenter about the "complexity" factor.

It definitely reads as complex. But it certainly is not more complex than Pathfinder. Fantasy Craft packs so much into one single book that it seems overwhelming if you think having a PHB, DMG, Unearthed Arcana - all in one book is overwhelming. I fail to see how having them as separate tomes makes a game *less* complex.

Chargen in FC numerically is complex in the number of possibilities presented in one book with the realization that there are so many *good* choices to make at each step, that in 3.x/PF - many of the choices are just shit so it's easier to navigate.

Ultimately - FC is still, point-buy Stats. Pick a Race*, Pick a Specialty*, Pick a Class, Choose Proficiencies and Skills.

* = Modify stats/saves as needed.

Everything 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.

Where FC raises the bar of entry is in the GM's chair. Ain't gonna lie - Fantasy Craft is *not* for a noob GM. I'd argue even a mediocre GM will have problems. If you're gonna use FC you need to know what kinda world you're going to run and how it operates. That's why campaign condition "feats" exist. This is because there is no in-game setting, but you can *easily* use the ruleset over almost any traditional (or non-traditional) gameworld.

But it means you, as the GM have to understand upfront which rules are in play and your PC's understand what that means.

If you run Fantasy Craft as a straight up Pathfinder analog in Golarion - it plays a LOT better because PC's are exactly what players want them to be. You don't have worry about systemic issues like

• No more LF/QM
• No more 15-minute adventuring days
• Non-casters being shitty(er) at their concept
• Itemization-AS-game-balance
• No more Stat-dumping
• Divine Magic being a re-skin of Arcane magic
• Feat Trees and Feat Taxes

What you DO get playing it straight up:

• Classes need multiple stats
• Stats matter across the board for all classes (unless you want a shitty stat)
• Magic items scale with characters
• Social/non-adventuring rules to govern downtime. Which can lead to as much RP as you want.
• Differentiation between Arcane and Divine magic
• Feats that are balanced against *everything else*. There are no bad Feats
• Monster generation tables that allow you to scale *any* monster on the fly. Or create one whole of cloth - at a glance. Want to scale a Kobold to 18th level? No problem. Takes you seconds
• Item creation systems that allow you scale the loot you hand out.
• ALMOST everything is optional

that said - there is a flexibility with this system that a GM can do quite a lot with. I personally don't like d20 sci-fi class based systems, but there are people who use the FC creation systems to do pretty much everything under the sun.

All that said - 5e is shaping up, by appearances to be kinda FC-lite. And that ain't a bad thing imo.