So I needed a quick game to test some ideas in B/X last night, and what did I reach for?
Basic Fantasy.
It is an interesting choice, given that I have the incredible Old School Essentials (Classic and Advanced) right here at hand. Given that OSE is a more modular system, why did I go with the equally great Basic Fantasy?
One, my OSE books are the all-in-ones, as the broken-apart modular books were sold out when I bought - so if I use OSE as a base reference system, I am pulling in the whole book and having to keep that open as I flip through and make tweaks to things in my game development. I know, just print out the OSE basic rules sections and go, unencumbered by the rest. I didn't have time to print and staple, plus I had one thing at hand that made using Basic Fantasy really quick and easy.
The spiral-bound book of Basic Fantasy from Lulu.
Oh yes, lay flat, open, and stay right there where I put you. The game doesn't need to support both ascending AC and descending, so the monster stat blocks are dirt simple. Add to that, the D&D 3.5 style ascending target number roll over is the norm and the entire system is unified and going in one direction. OSE is a reorganization of B/X rules and must retain some cruft to maintain compatibility, while Basic Fantasy is more of a stripped-down game built-from the ground up to emulate the old-school experience using modern mechanics.
There are also some incredible rules summaries for BFRPG you can download and print, and have 90% of the core game in a tight, 20-page booklet. This helps hacking greatly, and I am not flipping through books to find what I need.
I was also looking around and spotted this over on the BFRPG blog:
In the 2E era of the “world’s most popular role-playing game,” one of the things that began to appear in great numbers were so-called splatbooks: rulebooks containing supplementary classes, races, items, spells, and so on, put out by the same publisher who created the original rules. The 3E and later eras of that game continued this tradition. Players would buy these splatbooks because they appealed to them, naturally, and then they would show up at a game session and tell the GM “I want to play THIS.” If the race or class didn’t fit well with the GM’s world, he or she was naturally permitted by the application of Rule Zero to say “No, sorry, I’m not allowing that in my world.” But just because the GM could do so did not mean that he or she would… the player might say, “But, but, this is official!” and the GM would feel pressured into allowing it. 3E and later books had, if anything, even more power over the GM, since that game sharply curtailed Rule Zero.
Now, to be fair OSE Classic and Advanced are "finite rules sets" like Basic Fantasy, but with Basic Fantasy the concept of limiting choice is built-in as a game feature. None of the expanded material on the website will be added to an advanced version or published as an official add-on book. The base book "is the game."
The entire game-design episode highlighted some interesting points behind why I like and play each game. Old School Essentials? That is my SNES/NES, a complete retro game system that plays all my favorite games, and it has all the classic feel, looks, art, and the essential experience of the classic games built in. Everything is here, the controllers, the cartridges, the cords connecting the controllers to the console that we trip over, the reset button, the push buttons, levers, and doors on the consoles, and lots of cool stuff that isn't really important to playing the game but it is important that it be there because it is a part of the core experience of the NES/SNES and yes, even B/X emulation.
Basic Fantasy? My Unix shell script, command line, bust out Emacs and Vi to hack together a nightly running process core stripped-down experience that gets me a roleplaying game without anything else in the way. Some operating systems have all sorts of cool usability features built-in, file previews, message centers, and lots of cool extras designed to create an ideal experience of using a computer - as envisioned by teams of usability experience engineers.
Basic Fantasy has the look and feel of the classic B/X experience, but many parts that do not need to be there, or would complicate the core idea, have been tossed out. Compatibility options, like ascending and descending AC both supported? Gone. The feeling we have to support everything added in AD&D? Gone. Extra spells, races, and classes? Gone. Again, Old School Essentials Classic Fantasy is a lot like this experience, and tightly presented - but it is still emulation rather than a stripped down "on the metal" game.
Oh and I still love my NES and SNES mind you, just like I love Old School Essentials. This is never about "what game is best?" Everyone should make up their mind for themselves and never be pressured. This is an examination of using games as tools for hacking and development, and just one choice that one person made and the factors that played into that decision. Having downloadable rules summaries, and oddly enough, a spiral-bound book were key factors in me choosing what game to pick up and begin developing with.
It is not really about nice stitch-bound books with bookmarks - and I love those dearly. Here, it is more "can I have the rules in a format that is the easiest for me to use?" Also, can I download and print resources that reformat the rules into very usable summaries?
This is, in essence, a format requirement driving ease of development.
Which makes me sorely regret missing out on the split volume books for Old School Essentials.
So if I am hacking and testing new game systems, I will reach for my spiral bound copy of Basic Fantasy and start building systems and scribbling notes all over my print outs. If I want to take these scripts and make them compatible with other systems, I can port them in and add all the options these games expect us to have, along with supporting the unique mechanics and quirks of each game.
And oh yeah, my game design blew up horribly, because great design is really hard. Just because you can roll dice to see what happens next, doesn't mean you always should. More on this later, but be wary of letting the dice rule your narrative. For the atomic tests, such as, "do I hit?" Yes, use the dice. But for more story-like concepts? Be careful trying to make a set of polyhedral dice your masters, and trying to "program" an experience off random dice rolls.
Imagination always comes first.
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