4DVENTURE!

[Bill Whitmore]

My favorite systems and some limitations of them.

1> Hero. Hero is one of the orginal 'generic systems. I played Fantasy Hero way back, since we were all so fond of Champions. I even ran a 4th ed FH game for a few years. Despite this, running FH feels a bit like running Fantasy Superheroes. A valid genre perhaps, but not really a Fantasy Game, as most people envision it. The freedom tends to make players ask for unusual races and characters more often, and makes the group a bit more bizarre. I loved my FH game, but it was not a true fantasy game.
I also ran a historical game and tried to use FH. It still didn't work really well, because it's just not what the game was designed to do. The game flourishes when you have the freedom to do the bizarre, and it's strength is the breadth of character concepts avaiable..restrict them and you weaken the game.

They should have just called Hero, Superheroes.  That's where I saw it's strongest elements.  I played in one Superhero game with this and it was awesome the options that were available.  But I tried making some "normal" characters and I just didn't find them that interesting.  Without the capability to utilize the abiltiies to shoot fire from your eyes the system kind of fell flat.

But I must say that the system generated one of my favorite characters of all time, SUPERNOVA MAN.  He was basically a completely ordinary person who had but one power.   The ability to go Super Nova and basically destroy the planet and everything on it...including himself. 

4> Deadlands (pre d20)..I loved this game system. The world needed some tweaking, but I loved adding 'cards' to a western game, and the initative systems, and a few other doo dads. Magic was just plane FUN to use. I'd never run Deadlands with another system, and I'd never use the deadlands system for another game. It's perfect for what it does, useless for everything else.

Oh yea, I forgot about Deadlands.  My favorite Initiative and Spellcasting systems ever.  It was a unique system that A) worked and B) fit incredibly well with the setting.

I didn't like the character creation much, however, as play balance was skewed horribly.  Don't get me wrong, making a character was fun, but I saw a big swing in power levels after making a few.

[Forcegypsy]

Color me surprised?

I like Saga. 4th edition essentially a year away? We'll see.

[agent oni]

My question is what will Crafty do with 4th ed.  Will we see a SC 2.5 incorporating the updated OGL or something along the line of Back to Basics?

[Bill Whitmore]

My question is what will Crafty do with 4th ed.  Will we see a SC 2.5 incorporating the updated OGL or something along the line of Back to Basics?

I am in hopes that they won't do anything.  Spycraft is a solid rules set as it stands.  I would be disappointed if they rearranged their game to conform to the new game.

[Toccata]

My question is what will Crafty do with 4th ed.  Will we see a SC 2.5 incorporating the updated OGL or something along the line of Back to Basics?

I doubt it. Spycraft--even 2.0--is based on OGL for 3.0 rather than 3.5. I don't see any reason why they'd suddenly change now.

[ThunderMonkey]

I don't think they will, unless they see something they would define as "really cool" and try to incorporate it into the current rules.

[NezMaster]

My question is what will Crafty do with 4th ed.  Will we see a SC 2.5 incorporating the updated OGL or something along the line of Back to Basics?

tbhere won't be an 'updated OGL' That's the whole point. Hasbro is trying to escape the whole OGL mess.

[agent oni]

My question is what will Crafty do with 4th ed.  Will we see a SC 2.5 incorporating the updated OGL or something along the line of Back to Basics?

tbhere won't be an 'updated OGL' That's the whole point. Hasbro is trying to escape the whole OGL mess.

Yes there will be.  It is fact.

[spinningdice]

Info seems vague - it says they will continue to update the SRD, but it doesn't explicitly say that it will cover 4th Ed stuff...

[XRay]

Here is a post about it from a WotC employee.

http://forums.gleemax.com/showpost.php?p=13443309&postcount=59

This is the thread

http://forums.gleemax.com/showthread.php?t=905801

[Gentry]

I hereby decry 4th edition as silly.  Just throwing that out there. 

[Toccata]

I'm finally getting around to watching the announcement footage and I have one big question.

Why in the world is the Dungeon Master Guide being published two months after the Player's Handbook, and more importantly a month after the Monster Manual?!

I don't see how either of them could be all that useful without it...

[Mister Andersen]

Yeah, that puzzled me too

[TheAuldGrump]

Hmmm, of the books the Dungeon Masters Guide is the one you least need for running games. The parts that I have used most often are those describing experience, treasure (especially magic items), and designing adventures. Entire weeks go by where I run games without once cracking the book open.

I can design and run games with just the PHB and the MM just fine.

The Auld Grump

[agent oni]

I'm finally getting around to watching the announcement footage and I have one big question.

Why in the world is the Dungeon Master Guide being published two months after the Player's Handbook, and more importantly a month after the Monster Manual?!

I don't see how either of them could be all that useful without it...

We'll have to see when the Player's guide comes out.  I suspect that the DM's Guide is not as essential as was in 3.x.  Before, the DM's Guide held the full XP chart but I suspect, if SWSE is any indication, that they simplified the XP system too.  The full mechanics of magic items can wait too since the PHB will probably contain a small selection of magical items.