Goodman Games

If some players have to re-roll a character funnel and start over at level-0 they don't get those advantages, so the system is already designed to deal with that issue. (Unless you are suggesting that even players whose level-0 characters all died should also get to start at 1st level....) It's fai...

I always thought the "insulting" version of min/maxing was powergaming. There are so many islands of RPG discussion that I don't think one could make a universal dictionary of RPG slang. What's a munchkin? What's a grognard? It's all relative. And I said islands for a reason: http://www.en...

finarvyn wrote:I didn't mean to imply that all books in Appendix N start out the same way.

And that wasn't my point either really. I'm just hoping the game doesn't "need" the 0-1 transition adventure.

but the concept of a group of average guys getting caught up in something bigger than all of them ... and only a few survive to become heroes ... is what the DCC RPG is all about! Really? That's not what Appendix N is all about. In fact, most of Appendix N is about people who sought out adventure. ...

I hope you're right. I just think Goodman is hamstringing themselves early on. Paizo gained a massive amount of good karma by doing an open playtest. I would have loved to see Goodman do the same. Remember, they are going against SOME ill will because Goodman sided with 4e and abandoned 3.5. Now th...

It would be roughly the same, but gold put into status XP would be gold not spendable elsewhere. In otherwords, one would effectively "buy" status. I suppose characters could opt to keep some of the gold for actual spending rather than banking it into status, but that would defeat the pur...

Sure, not the most convenient route. But no worse, IMO, than trying to track down (or improvise) Fudge dice. And that's one of the main reasons I've never bothered to try Fudge. :| You can't do 1-2 = -1, 3-4 = 0, 5-6 = +1 of 4 dice just by looking at them? Actual Fudge dice are entirely unnecessary...

A friend and I always wanted to make an adventure/module called The Dwarven Olympics. You climb down a pit and crawl into a large, round room lit via magic. Several humanoid of various races enter the room from another entry and quickly station themselves around the room with their backs firmly agai...

In other words, for me the additional source material basically killed the setting for me. While the concept of in-depth information sounded attractive, the result of so much information made me feel weighed-down and I no longer enjoyed the game. Once I sold the extra nation books, etc, (and went b...

I've recently pulled out my box of old dusty "monochrome" AD&D modules from TSR and it's amazing how their look compares to modern modules. 1. They are so thin. At first I thought I only had the covers for a couple, so I had to check and the pages were still inside. Many of them are o...

geordie racer wrote:Maybe wearing heavy armour could make you roll a smaller dice type for your MDoA so it's harder to be a swashbuckler in plate, easier with little or no armour.

Or to keep it simple, if unarmoured you get to roll a bigger dice type for MDoA.

I hope one of these makes the final book. Great idea.

The other that's a "must have" is Edgar Rice Burroughs, especially the John Carter series. When I first read this I didn't see it as very relevant to D&D (it's set on Mars!) but the further I got, the more I realized that John Carter is the direct inspiration for the fighter class. Ac...

OD&D references to Chainmail may simply be a bone thrown to the folks who played with the Fantasy Supplement in pre-OD&D days and not actually a reference to the way that OD&D was played. So, the "Chainmail was the original combat system for OD&D" statement may be more of ...

GnomeBoy wrote:Pretty early on we discovered that a map or a grid and movement thereon minimized arguments over who was were and when. It is -- of course -- the right way to play!

Right on. But Chainmail was the original combat system.

The AD&D thief was never quite at the right power level. If you had a DM who never let you get a backstab, you were also only just a step above the MU in combat ability. This was always a tricky thing to DM. Without the thief, D&D combat can be quite abstract and location of the combatants ...

finarvyn wrote:You'll have a tough battle convincing those Pathfinder players to abandon their game, because to them it's the "real" game, but once they get a taste of old-school gaming maybe you'll hook 'em anyway!

Nothing a good game of Paranoia can't cure.

The AD&D thief was never quite at the right power level. If you had a DM who never let you get a backstab, you were also only just a step above the MU in combat ability.

And, like it or not, if it's in the core rulebook there's a good chance that players will see it and know about it. Especially if you have a group that rotates DM's. So, having new monsters in each module helps keep things fresh and unknown. I don't consider this an issue. I can always switch thing...

I forgot to mention that Joseph has a stated intention that all the modules would have original monsters in them -- so I guess in a sense each module will be a mini-MM for the levels the adventure covers... What I like about this (hey, I like something, go figure) is it mirrors the old 1e early mod...

I'm guessing that nothing official has been agreed upon, but I recall Joseph saying that Goodman Games wasn't interested in being the only company to support the game. He was excited about the potential for 3rd party designers and publishers to get onboard. It also depends HEAVILY on how GG license...

Ravenheart87 wrote:Jmucchiello: smathis was talking about a setting he's writing...

If I'd known that.... nevermind.

The reason I felt the encounter charts were important was because they are the primary way I'm conveying the "feel" of the genre to readers. Instead of inundating the reader with tens of thousands of words about theme, mood and atmosphere, I've made charts. There's another thread where th...

Probably because I'm over-thinking them, especially the encounter charts I'm working on now. Also the charts aren't counting against the word count (yet) because they're in a spreadsheet. Gut feeling is there's probably a healthy 1500 words in there (at least). I'll have to gauge the impact of thes...

geordie racer wrote:I found this:

Literary Sources of D&D: Compiled by Aardy R. DeVarque (!)

Link? This needs bookmarking.

Superheroes are reactive: Doc Doom is doing what? Let's stop him. Almost all rpg modules are reactive too. The goblins are raiding the village. Let's stop them. No, Most RPG modules are home invasions. Doing a home invasion is rarely "reactive". Goblin raiders are usually dealt with by &q...