(no subject)

[gothwalk]

I've been thinking some about why I like D&D better than other RPGs. Eventually, I came to a conclusion - the separation of game and setting. I want to develop my own game worlds, and I can't think of any other game that isn't tied in to a particular setting - except GURPS, where try as I might, I don't like the rules that much. I quite like the World of Darkness ruleset, if it wasn't tied up with the damn World of Darkness, which has setting-itis in a bad way. Traveller and Alternity have enough development room that you don't have to touch on the setting, and might someday be cool. But I'm looking forward to the d20 Modern book coming out - that will allow me to develop a whole lot of things under familiar rules, in any setting I choose.

Comments

[gothwalk.livejournal.com]

It was improved with 3rd Ed, but didn't arrive - the notion that people would develop their own worlds has been integral to D&D all along. There's one significant step backwards in 3rd Ed, in that the Greyhawk deities were included in the PHB.

But the modularisation of the ruleset is a great help - someday soon, we're going to see sections of rules for different parts of the game which all stand independently, and can be snapped together to form rulesets that are internally balanced and have aspects in common, but are different. You'd choose standard combat, Drew's magic system, Piratecat's classes, Monte's skills and feats, and that'd be one game. You could sub in Bruce Cordell's psionics system for the magic system - or add it - and get a different game.

[(Anonymous)]

I suspect they left the Greyhawk deities in because clerics are the only class which can't be divorced from a culture. Everyone else can, to a greater or lesser extent, exist in a sort of conceptual vacuum. Clerics have to worship someone - making clerics agents of anonymous "good" or "evil" robs the class of meaning.

Or something.

Gar