Why Race=Class Kicks Ass

I've stayed away from RPG.net's forums section for the most part, since there is rarely anything on Classic D&D.  Lot's of 3e and 4e, but that doesn't help me much.  I do check in once in a while though, and stumble on some fairly interesting threads, including one this I found this evening where folks are discussing the merits of Race=Class.  You know: Humans get to be Clerics, Fighters, Magic-Users and Thieves, but Dwarves are Dwarves, Elves are Elves and Halflings are Halflings.  That's it.  No Dwarven Clerics. No Elven Thieves.

Philotomy Jurament, of the fantastic Philotomy's OD&D Musings had this to say:

I think the Class concept is useful for modeling typical PCs. I don't think it's useful for modeling the way the fantasy world operates. Thus, the archetypical Elf adventurer is a F/MU, but that doesn't mean that all elves in the world are defined in terms of the Elf class. Similarly, the (Human) Cleric class is an archetypical adventuring holy-man/crusader: the kind of warrior-priest that is likely to adventure. That doesn't mean that all holy men or priests are defined in terms of the Cleric class, and it certainly doesn't mean that non-humans don't have holy men or priests of their own (it's just that they're not Clerics).

 And further along, I found this from Yakk:

Give me a game with Dwarven Battleragers, Dwarven Runepriests and Dwarven Stonemages as the three Dwarven classes. Human Wizards, Human Fighters, Human Clerics and Human Thieves. Elven Spellblades, Elven Bards and Elven Archers. Halfling Scouts and Halfling Blades. Gnomish Tinkerers, Gnomish Illusionists, Gnomish Stouthearts.

 That pretty much sums up the whole thing for me.  Your typical demi-human racial adventurer fits that races particular view of what a hero should embody.  Each class is an archetype. Just like the 4 human classes are archetypes of what we humans see as heroes. If one wants to make additional class options for the demi-human races found in their campaign, by all means do so.  But take the time to make their choices unique to that race. After all, don't they deserve it?

I've already got my notes on Dwarven Runepriests (Runecasters, actually), but I need to work on some of those others. Anyone got some ideas of the others to share?

On Dragons and Ogres

I've recently begun playing in a quasi-Dragonlance campaign - run under the awesome B/X rules - and it has gotten me thinking about a few things within that setting.  Back in the day, that is late 80-s to early 90's, I devoured Dragonlance stuff.  Read the first two trilogies, had a couple of the modules, and being so long ago, I assumed I had forgotten most of it.  Well, guess what?  As I am playing the game, an amazing amount of the material is coming back to me.  Now, I don't intend to pull too much into Trevail, but these old memories have got the juices flowing, and there are some things to consider.

Remember this lovely "lady"? Takhisis, Goddess of the Evil Dragons.  Five chromatic heads of total bad-assness.  Now, she's not a Dragonlance original, no, but I was reminded about her.  Totally got to be used, in some form anyway.  Which brings us to dragons in general.

I believe that dragons have to be something special, and powerful.  Not just another monster to be slain without too much effort.  They are ancient, one of the first Great Races.  I also don't want them pigeon-holed by their stats in the rules.  Alignments are right out the door, to start.  Any dragon, as with any human, or elf, can be of any alignment - they are individuals of an intelligent race. That gold dragon may be controlling the local thieves guild, or advising the local priest of the Great God of All That Is Good.  You never know.  Same thing goes for the red dragon next village up the road. They come in all colors- chromatic, metallic, jeweled - and you'll have to take your chances with each one.

How about these guys here? They're the Irda - which I don't actually know much about, setting wise.  I do know they are "High Ogres", magical ones.  Are they good? Evil? Not sure, don't care. She doesn't look evil to me, but him? I plan on using these guys as my Ogre-Magi instead of those crazy Japanese ones in AD&D. How that works out I can't say yet, but I'm gonna have some fun with them, I can tell.

What else does Dragonlance have to offer Trevail?  How about intelligent minotaurs?  Not likely, doesn't work for me.  Kender? Gully dwarves? Not a chance. I do like the elven cultures - Silvanesti, Qualinesti, Kagonesti.  Maybe some bits there to work with. Draconians? Possibly.  Towers of High Sorcery?  In some form, yes. Between those and the idea of the White Tower and the Aes Sedai from Jordan's Wheel of Time, I definitely want magic somewhat controlled - at least in parts of the game world.

It seems like it's been a long time since I had any time to think about Trevail and what I want to do here.  Real life does have a tendency to rear it's ugly head, but lately I've been  thinking about it again and making some notes.  I'm pulling things together to start up a PbP game again, and got some inspiration for some things over at retrocyberpunk, too.  Time to actually write some stuff up and not spend so much time reading other peoples ideas.  Ya think?

Housekeeping!

Been a loooong time since I posted anything, but the ol' wheels are always turning, have no fear.  I've been busy researching cyberpunk, reading alot, and jotting down ideas.

To keep things tidy, I've created a second blog Retro-Cyberpunk, which will be the home of my musings for cyber74 (the straight-cyberpunk S&W supplement) and ultimately, Mages & Megacorps (the full-blown Shadowrun game).  I decided to keep Kingdoms in Trevail for it's original purpose - D&D musings, and development of my gameworld.  Keep in mind that by "D&D" I mean straight fantasy.  It will include tidbits for BECMI/RC D&D and Swords & Wizardry, I imagine.

While I've spent alot of time doign cyberpunk reading, I also have been reading some world-building and sandbox campaign creation stuff, so there are ideas brewing on both fronts.  It seems there are too few hours in the day, but I do intend to occasionally post to both blogs.

So that's the story for now, intrepid readers!  If you are here for the cyberpunk goodies, please hop over to the new place and become a follower there, and I hope you find something one place or the other that you enjoy!

See you in 2010!

Designation of Open Gaming Content

Throughout the upcoming months, I will be using this blog as an avenue for the introduction of rules and information pertaining to the development of my Cyberpunk retro-clone.

That content will be clearly designated as Open Game Content, and therefore released under the terms of the Open Game License, Version 1.0a as detailed below.

OPEN GAME CONTENT

Open Game Content may only be Used under and in terms of the Open Game License Version 1.0a (OGL).

This entire work is designated as Open Game Content under the OGL, with the exception of the trademarks “Mages & Megacorps,” “M&M,” and “Feral Heifer Games,” and with the exception of all artwork. These trademarks, and the Trade Dress of this work (font, layout, style of artwork, etc.) are reserved as Product Identity.

OPEN GAME LICENSE Version 1.0a

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15. COPYRIGHT NOTICE

Open Game License v 1.0a Copyright 2000, Wizards of the Coast, Inc.

System Reference Document Copyright 2000-2003, Wizards of the Coast, Inc.; Authors Jonathan Tweet, Monte Cook, Skip Williams, Rich Baker, Andy Collins, David Noonan, Rich Redman, Bruce R. Cordell, John D. Rateliff, Thomas Reid, James Wyatt, based on original material by E. Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson.

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END OF LICENSE

Another crazy idea I don't have time for...

I hate it when I get an idea in my head and it WON'T GO AWAY. I always loved the idea of Shadowrun - and yes, I know a lot of people hate it just as much, if not more. But for me, the meshing of fantasy - magic & monsters, elves & dwarves - with cyberpunk - guns, cyborgs and virtual reality - just ROCKS. I played a bit on and off while in college. We were playing mostly 2nd Ed. AD&D and needed a break, so switched to Shadowrun for variety. We loved it, but the rules? Meh. Too much a change from what we were used to, I guess.

So now we fast-forward to 2009 and The Rise of the Retro-clones. The OSR is in full swing. I've fallen back to Classic D&D rather than the newer, more complex versions, and play around with Swords & Wizardry, too. Did I mention in an earlier post how much I love the simple elegance of S&W? I did, didn't I.

This is when the bug bites me. The OSR doesn't have a cyberpunk clone yet. Maybe it doesn't need one, but there it is. Obviously, somebody needs to write that puppy - so I'm stepping up. It will be a looooong process, I know, but I think it will be fun (mostly) and worth while in the long run.

Using Swords & Wizardry White Box Edition as my base, I need to first write a cyberpunk variation on the ruleset. Some of the things that need to be worked up include guns, cybernetics, computer hacking stuff, and some basic vehicle rules. For inspiration and research, I'm slowly working through the original - Cyberpunk 2020 - as well as Shadowrun (2nd Ed), GURPS Cyberpunk and even a bit of d20 Modern. I'm re-reading some William Gibson, too. Oh yeah, and watching Blade Runner at some point.


THEN, after the basic Cyberpunk/Modern rules are done, I'll need to put all that back together with the fantasy of base S&W. For the proper Shadowrun feel, I'll need to add in some additional new magic rules - most importantly Astral Space and a drain-based spell casting system.

So there it is. It will be a long, tedious process but I think it can be done. S&W has proven itself to be adaptable to other genres - look at Mike "MikeD" Davison's Ruins & Ronin, David "grubman" Bezio's X-plorers or Michael "chgowiz" Shorten's The Seige Perilous - Ultima RPG. There are also "in the works" things (poke around S&W's forums page) for a superheros conversion (Hideouts & Hoodlums), Westerns (Fantasy Wild West) and pulp science fiction (Anacreon Zeta). Some projects are further along than others, sure, but they still show the flexibility of the system.

Wish me luck! I'll be posting bits here and at the S&W forums for comments and vetting.

If anyone cares to comment, I'll initially ask one question. How should these rules be released? I see three options to choose from.
1) Offer the generic cyberpunk supplement (no magic or fantasy elements) first. It will be compatible with S&W, obviously, so people can add the bits they like from it into whatever modern or cyberpunk-esque game they want to run. Then follow that with the "full" Shadowrun clone version.
2) Offer it as a cyberpunk supplement and put in the magic rules in as optional, in an appendix or something.
3) Just go all out and do the thing as SR right from the start, with the fantasy fully integrated. People who don't want the magic bits can still use what they do like.

S&W: Cyberpunk first, or go right to Mages & Megacorps? Thoughts?

ROCK THE VOTE - OSR STYLE, BABY!!

Voting for the ENnies opened up today and some great FREE OSR stuff has made the list of nominations.

Get out there and drop a white ball for Swords and Wizardry as "Best Free RPG Product", and both Mythmere Games (Swords & Wizardry) and Goblinoid Games (Labyrinth Lord and Mutant Future) for "Best Publisher".

You can vote for more than one choice in a category, so don't be shy.


The OSR needs YOU!

EDIT: Got a Silver!! Congrats to Mythmere and everyone else involved.

Another S&W Index Card Character Sheet

It seems that putting your "old school" character sheets onto index cards is all the rage nowadays. I think it's a great idea, what with them being so "stat light" and have seen some great ones.

In particular, my version was inspired by le bulette's and made use of the graphic elements in a full-sized sheet by Thomas Denmark at Original Edition Fantasy. Thanks again for letting me use those!

You can find the PDF here. And the editable Photoshop (psd) file is here. Help yourself if it's of any interest to you.

UPDATED 11/10/10 to add the master file and update the PDF link.