FantasyCraft not stand-alone?!

[Crafty_Pat]

This does not take into account all 8 Spellbound volumes (one per class & school), Origin of the Species (Greek or any of its cousins), and any additional supplements.

Which are all compatible but not required.

[Crafty_Pat]

I assumed Wyrmstone was just a setting in the FC book? Is it it's own stand-alone book?

The Wyrmstone crew have a Powered by Spycraft license, so they could produce a book if they wanted to, but my understanding is that they're going to use the license for their wiki, which is the heart of their campaign. As I understand it, their plan is that all you'll need to play Wyrmstone is Spycraft 2.0 and FC.

[Maldroth]

I'm almost offended you were comparing the Crafty & WOTC mindsets saying they are similar for game design & marketing.

Hmm if you may have mistook my comments if it seemed I was suggesting that Crafty was trying to be like WotC and maximize book profit potential. Certainly wasn't my intention and just wanted to clear that up. No hard feelings.

[Desertpuma]

None taken. ... I just believe that Crafty & WOTC operate on a different set of principles when it comes to game design & pleasing their fanbase.

[Gentry]

The Wyrmstone crew have a Powered by Spycraft license, so they could produce a book if they wanted to, but my understanding is that they're going to use the license for their wiki, which is the heart of their campaign. As I understand it, their plan is that all you'll need to play Wyrmstone is Spycraft 2.0 and FC.

And that is still the plan.  We the Wyrmstone creators are looking to keep stuff online.  We've toyed with the idea of downloadable "almanacs" that would be annual "lock-ins" of the state of the campaign world (for people who want to take the campaign reference material to cons electronically and don't trust the presence/reliability/pricing of a hotel's hotspot), but ultimately the goal and the watchword is Community--so it stays open and online. 

[TheAuldGrump]

Hmmm, I will make a prediction: While the first edition of FantasyCraft will require the use of Spycraft the second edition will be stand alone - encapsulating Spycraft's own development as a D20 product and being reforged as a stand alone OGL game.

The Auld Grump

[Slippery_jim_digris]

Hmmm, I will make a prediction: While the first edition of FantasyCraft will require the use of Spycraft the second edition will be stand alone - encapsulating Spycraft's own development as a D20 product and being reforged as a stand alone OGL game.

The Auld Grump

I concur, from the noise over at ENworld and what I read here I think, if there is a second edition, Crafty probable should go that route in order to attract those who are just over the boundry. The players that want to try FantasyCraft but don't want to buy into SpyCraft. I also would like to see SpyCraft Player's Book. The the parts from SpyCraft that the player needs, Character generation, Skills and Feats. Gear, maybe, but I think it could go without.

James Bolivar DiGris

[Desertpuma]

I do not think a second edition of FC will be made, if at all, within the next few years. ...

[Morganti]

My assumption for next base book.
Crafty Core Rules, all the tools you need to play just about any genre, with base supplements for Espionage in the Fantasy, Modern, and Future worlds as the base line, then branching off into settings that fit

~D~

[spinningdice]

"Crafty Games Core Rulebook"
Will it ever be a reality.
Personally I'd see it as a much stripped down version of Spycraft, to make it both more generic and easier to digest.  In a theoretical CGCR I'd strip down gear, strip down to 6(ish) classes, remove certain Dramatic Conflicts (i.e. Hacking - while cool not really suitable for a lot of games, even modern ones) and rip out most of the campaign notes/qualities.

Then splatter liberally with setting books that add in the missing bits.

[Krensky]

If you remove the campaign qualities and notes, you massively reduce the value of the book as a 'generic' rules set, because those are what you use to make the rules fit the setting.

GURPS, d6, and Silhouette all have enough stuff in them to let you start running in most genres or settings.  Admittedly the source books add alot to them, but the basic book should give you enough stuff to start off.  That means introducing the campaign quality concept and providing examples of them in use via the setting notes.

Of course, this comes back to my main question... why?  Spycraft, even if renamed will probably always be associated with the modern action genre.  It does it well.  I, and apparently Crafty, thinks it can do fantasy, near future, mythos horror, and what not well too.

But that doesn't mean it should try and follow GURPS or any other generic system into the land of... um... generic systems.  Not even a great rules system does everything well (GURPS Supers) and there are some overall poor systems that work great when using the right setting (Deadlands comes to mind).  There is no One True Gaming System.  Different systems work well for different things.  A lot of what I've done recently is SC1.5 and 2.  I ran a d6 Star Wars game for years, and if I do Star Wars or similar space opera again, I'll probably dust those books off because it works and feels right.  The near future mecha/space war series I ran for some friends in IRC used Mekton Z (Interlock) because it worked and felt right.  I played in a historical feudal Japan game using L5R.  I ran long standing Saturday morning pickup game for kids at a local game store using Toon because it... well you get the idea.  Spycraft works and feels right for the Stargate and the fantasy setting I'm working on.

I think turning SC2 into the Generic Crafty System or whatever is unneeded.  A 2.5 or 3 edition MIGHT look at how to make it more widely useful by including some more low and high tech weapons, including some for of powers system, a tech level scale/mechanic, and rewriting some stuff to make it clear the explanation of an ability is a special effect, (all that matters is a high level snoop can search a building without being there).  The problem is that either something needs to get cut, or the book goes to 600 pages and costs $60.  Still a good value for the money if used, but I and most gamers I know have tons of books on our shelves bough because they looked nifty, have been read, and will never really be played.  $60 for that is hard to swallow, and there are at least four systems out there right now that are just as functional and nifty when used right as SC2 is, but have decades more time in the market.  To succeed there, Spycraft would have to emulate those systems ot some degree.  And that would change and diminish what it is.

[/opinionated, rambling rant]

[Golden Dragon]

I would add another ground to avoid a generic, core rulebook: blandness. At least with the Spycraft rulebook, I go in thinking espionage, and that gives me something to apply the rules to. This inspiration for imagination makes the rulebook a better read. It gives extra relevance to the character options given. It gives us a starting point.

I, too, am a mild GURPS fan, just because it does so much. But their new core books can be quite dry. They are reference tomes, and do a good job of that. But that also means that I find they do much less to fire the imagination.

[Krensky]

The other thing is, a 'true' generic system generally needs to be more or less classless and skill based then any d20 game is.

[Golden Dragon]

The other thing is, a 'true' generic system generally needs to be more or less classless and skill based then any d20 game is.

I think that d20 can do this, it's just that no implementation to date has yet to do it. I love my icosahedral dice. That's one of the reasons I like d20.

But you are right that there are limitations to a class-based system. I've seen a lot of prestige classes with one or two cool abilities, but I otherwise did not like the class. After repetition, I start to see why class-less, skill-based, point-buy systems exist. Can I buy that ability without the unwanted baggage? Or better yet: why must what I want always be bundled?

[spinningdice]

Maybe I've been kinda spoilt by the new Savage Worlds Explorers Edition, I look at that book and wonder why we can't have something similar for every system, a tiny little core book but still with all the rules you need.