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The OFFICIAL FtA! Q&A
RPGPundit:
Hello all.
This thread is the official thread for Questions and Answers regarding the new Forward... to Adventure! RPG.
You guys put up the questions, I'll give the answers.
RPGPundit
jdrakeh:
Q: How is FtA different from D&D in the terms of the game experience that it provides? I gather that there is some kind of narrative "build it as you go" approach but woefully little information about what this approach consists of has been released to date.
Q: How is FtA different from Donjon in terms of the game experience that it provides? Again, assuming that allusions to a "build it as you go" approach have been genuine, how does this approach differ from that in Clinton Nixon's Donjon?
Q: What features of FtA would you consider to be "unique" or, else, rarely exercised in game design?
Q: Was this laid out in a word processing program? That may seem extraordinarily petty but it's a valid concern. If I'm going to pay money for something, I'd prefer that its production values be several steps above "free rpg" and the cover does not give me confidence that this is the case.
Silverlion:
What is actual play like?
Do you have a link? (that describes system elements as well as the dialog of participants)
Skyrock:
Q: I noticed a lot of NetHack references in the blurb (wraith corpse eating, shop-lifting, Gnomish mines etc.) Is this just for the blurb, or will I find a lot of annotations to this classic CRPG in FtA itself?
Q: The stunt thing in addition to movement and combat during the combat round sounds unusual. What's up with this one? What can I do with stunts, and what purpose do they have in the system?
Q: Are there any dump stats like Charisma that most PCs can safely ignore, or was it a high priority that every attribute has at least a small substantial use for everyone?
Q: I heard there're rules to generate dungeons, including room layout, monsters, traps, treasure and what else belongs to it. Does that mean that I can just pick up the dungeon tables and wing an adventure without any prep, or is it just meant to fill smaller gaps on-the-fly?
RPGPundit:
--- Quote from: jdrakeh ---Q: How is FtA different from D&D in the terms of the game experience that it provides? I gather that there is some kind of narrative "build it as you go" approach but woefully little information about what this approach consists of has been released to date.
--- End quote ---
FtA! Can certainly be played in a "build it as you go" sense at least for the dungeon elements (it has a complete random dungeon generator in the book). There's very little actual setting material in the book, there's no preset setting, though some of the rules elements assume a certain kind of generic fantasy setting with certain gonzo elements.. so you get glimpses of the SORT of settings you could use for FtA! in the descriptions of things like races, the magic system, and magic items.
The main way FtA! differs from the current incarnation of D&D is that it is made for MUCH faster character design and getting right into play. Characters are more archetypal, which makes them less developed mechanically speaking but makes it easier to get right into the game. It has much more of an "old school" feel to it.
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Q: How is FtA different from Donjon in terms of the game experience that it provides? Again, assuming that allusions to a "build it as you go" approach have been genuine, how does this approach differ from that in Clinton Nixon's Donjon?
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I have never actually read Donjon, only read about it, so I'm not sure I'm qualified to answer that question fully, but from what I have read I would suppose that FtA! is much closer to a traditional old-school game than Donjon.
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Q: What features of FtA would you consider to be "unique" or, else, rarely exercised in game design?
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The combat system is collective, as far as I can think of only Tunnels & Trolls used that system before.
Other than that most of the other elements of the game system are extremely derivative, but not from any single source. The game is not meant to be special because it does something really new and different, but because it epitomizes the stuff a lot of people liked about "old school" gonzo-style gaming.
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Q: Was this laid out in a word processing program? That may seem extraordinarily petty but it's a valid concern. If I'm going to pay money for something, I'd prefer that its production values be several steps above "free rpg" and the cover does not give me confidence that this is the case.
--- End quote ---
The layout was done by Clash and he'd have to answer that for you. As it stands, the cover (and much of the style of the interior layout) is something of an homage to the old-school garage-RPGs designed by small press companies in the 70s and early 80s; but organized in a way that I think is far more practical and easier to read through than most of those games ever were.
The production values of the game are on par with Flying Mice's other games; so if you've seen Starcluster, In Harm's Way, or Cold Space you'll have an idea of how its done. I didn't do any of the actual layout beyond the writing of the rules themselves... so I chose which chapters went where, but beyond that it was all Clash.
RPGPundit
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