Tuesday, March 27, 2012

To 20-side or Not to 20-side?

The original SBRPG system was strictly a 3d6 system, we loved the bell curve, we used d6's for everything, and it was meant to be a RPG you could play with the spare parts out of a Monopoly set. Part of the appeal of the game was that you could put together a game anywhere, out of anything, six-sided dice, paper bags, pencils, rulers, and paper ripped out of your printer.

I have some ideas about making SBRPG 2.0 compatible with the old-school 20-sided games and the huge amount of material out there. I don't want to craft another old-school clone, there's plenty, I love them, and they do what they do incredibly. There is room for a generic, story-based system, written along the lines of an old-school game, and semi-compatible with monsters, spells, and worlds of old-school gaming. Take the best parts of SBRPG 1.0, and make a story-based, old-school world creation game out of all of it.

It is a tough thought, and I love our 3d6 system, but the whole point of writing a 2.0 system is to do something new, take a new look at things, and think different. It's not going to be a dungeon game clone, but it could be an interesting alt-take on the whole old-school movement in a new direction. Keep what's familiar, allow people to play with old-school monsters and magi, and let people experience things in a new and cool way.

A thought struck me, if SBRPG is all about 'create your own stuff', then why port in the old stuff from the old-school games? It does violate our 1.0 manifesto, but it is cool, and a whole new take on things. Maybe letting some old-school stuff port in would open a couple doors for new players, give them something to start with, and give them a base to imagine what could be. It could be parts of the manifesto were too absolute and restrictive, and it is time for a little more openness.

Times change, but who knows?

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