Save or Die vs BFRPG

[Solomoriah]

So yesterday I Googled Basic Fantasy RPG, as I sometimes do, looking for reviews that I haven't seen. I pretty much always reply to them, good or bad, and I'm constantly gratified that there are more good than bad reviews.

Having said that, yesterday I discovered the Save or Die podcast for the first time. I discovered it by way of a discussion on the OSRGaming.org forum, where they mentioned that the host of Save or Die doesn't consider BFRPG a retro-clone because we're "based on the D20 3.5 SRD."

Gah. We had a prominent statement to that effect for years on the site home page, mainly to cover my behind and the behinds of our contributors. We're "based" on the SRD for legal coverage, and that's pretty much it. There's a trickle of SRD text here and there, mostly in monster and spell descriptions; very little else was of use to me.

So I signed up and tried to send a PM to Lord Nikon, but you can't send PMs there until you've participated on the forum first. Fine, I thought, I'll post a reply in the two-year-old thread that led me there in the first place. But now I have to wait for a moderator to approve my post... a long post with historical and technical details that I didn't make a copy of, or I'd post it here too.

Gah, again.

I'm just venting. As of right now, my post is not approved and I have not received either email or PM to tell me it's been declined, so I'm assuming they haven't gotten to it yet. But it's bugging the freakin' nine hells out of me.

... when is the last time you saw me cuss? That's how irritated I am.

[Dimirag]

I guess that some people made the association of "AB and ascending AC = 3.X". I've seen BFRPG treated as a d20 game on a couple of sites.

That's the problem when you treat a game based on one of its mechanics instead of its target and origin, and the rest of the rules.

[Solomoriah]

It's ONE mechanic. Hellsfire, we have the five classic saving throws... they seem to like S&W fine, and S&W just has one. Mind you, I like S&W just fine too, and I would never call their "clone-ness" into question. It's the principle of the thing.

[Gold]

I wouldn't worry about that too much. Don't get frustrated because expressing your frustration won't win them over. The "vs" title is starting off provocative rather than diplomatic.

I listen to Save Or Die podcast. I have listened to every episode. It's pretty good. You would probably get a better idea how to engage with them by listening to 5 or 10 episodes of theirs. If you want them to read & review BFRPG it's reasonable to expect you consume their free product as well.

I'm also a BFRPG player and advocate.

I'm also a podcaster myself, though not in the games industry.

With the above credentials, I feel qualified to comment.

First of all, of course you're right, and they are incorrect in thinking that BFRPG is not old school or B/X D&D-ish enough for their podcast. They've spent some time on the podcast talking about other products that are less D&D-ish than BF. They've also later stated that they regretted the tangents and were re-focusing the topics to be more pure to D&D and to box out coverage of clones that are more vaguely related. Feel gratified that you're right, but don't feel bitter that they are wrong about BFRPG fitting their format.

Second, SOD is inconsequential to the success and betterment of BFRPG. Chris you simply should not worry about this. Take my advice and "Gah" about 3rd edition Core Rules printing, Field guides, and our other discussion about character sheets, and don't spend a second of frustration on what a podcast says. 99% of potential BFRPG players don't listen to SOD, probably less than 0.001% of D&D players listen to any podcasts whatsoever. Besides that, the biggest area of new players for BFRPG is people who haven't played RPG's at all yet (AKA "normal people", or "Normal Man" on the AB charts), and they are certainly not hardcore enough for listening to SOD.

Third point, there are diplomatic and nice ways to reach out to SOD podcast & explain your position & explain your game & to change their view of BFRPG. I've got a feeling that a long & historical post on OSR forum won't really help with the diplomacy. Nor any attempt to argue that Ascending AC is not a disqualifier for old-schoolness. A short, polite and punchy email to their Letters To The Podcast would probably be more effective. Enumerate several of the ways BFRPG is identical or parallel to D&D, rather than arguing why Ascending AC or AB is not a flaw. That way they might read the Letter on their podcast, even if they verbally disagree.

I think you know the statement "Bad publicity is better than no publicity" so you can imagine, if they read a letter on the podcast that is from the creator of BFRPG briefly explaining how BFRPG is old-school and similar to the D&D they play & you invite SOD listeners to try your game for free... that's positive... even if the hosts answer the letter by saying "This has Ascending AC and mentions the SRD and we hate it" or whatever they might say. You might manage to entice them to try BFRPG again or to read the rulebook, which will show them it's nearly the same as their type of D&D game. Again based on my experience listening to their podcast, they do read letters on the air, particularly if you ask a question in the letter rather than a counter-argument. Your letter could basically state "Hi I'm the author of the game, here is where you can get a free copy to review. The game is like a re-write of D&D from the 1980's. We briefly used the SRD for legal protection reasons but it is not the inspiration for BF. B/X or BECMI D&D is the inspiration. 7 things that are exactly like D&D are: 4 races, 4 classes, names of the 6 saving throws, simple equipment list, fast character creation, and we even used old-school fonts in the book and black-and-white art for that familiar OSR feeling! For that reason I would like to invite you to check out BFRPG again. My question to SOD is: _______ "

Perhaps I can do something similar with a Letter from a listener.

They've got so many topics & much material to cover as it is. If anything I think they are mainly trying to carve out a narrow focus & niche, on D&D, which is advisable for a podcast as a way to maintain & grow listenership.

There are numerous other podcasts we can reach out to & schedule interviews for you, Chris, if you want to pro-actively engage in marketing in this way. If podcast coverage is a thing you care about, ask me and I'll help you with it.

Thoughts from,
GM Gold

[Dimirag]

In Spain there's a retro-clone "La Marca del Este", which I thinks has been translated and is available in the US.
Its basically a B/X clone with little to no mods, and IIRC it was created due to old gamers saying that, to them, an OSRPG have to had descending AC, its like for some reason the AC is the ruler of the categories.

I found BFRPG via some free RPG pages, and most of them said it was a d20/3.X game (which I dislike) I give it a shot and discovered that BF has the same d20 feel like saying an apple pie is a fruit....

[Solomoriah]

I found BFRPG via some free RPG pages, and most of them said it was a d20/3.X game (which I dislike) I give it a shot and discovered that BF has the same d20 feel like saying an apple pie is a fruit....

I've noticed a lot of people claiming that BFRPG is just "D20 Lite." Most "D20 Lite" games take the SRD and strip it down, removing complication but keeping things like the Core Mechanic (and if there was ever a false god needing to be torn down, the Core Mechanic is it). BFRPG started out as a pair of articles I wrote initially for Footprints, Dragonsfoot's e-zine. Seriously. I presented a "5% Principle" combat table for BX-type games, which became the basis for the table in BFRPG, and I wrote an article (that I don't remember actually submitting) splitting up race and class for those same games. When I got the fool idea to create BFRPG, there really weren't any others, not like now when everyone and his dog has a retro-clone of his own. I took those two articles and created a document containing nothing but headings for the sections and subsections I planned to write... sections and subsections that mirrored the classic game I planned to emulate.

I wrote a heck of a lot of it myself (more than half, possibly more than 3/4), and I received a lot of help from others as well. Along the way I borrowed something like a dozen monster descriptions from the C&C Monster Support document (which was pure OGC) and some spell description text from the d20 SRD. I don't recall using much more than that.

But when I got ready to publish it, indeed even when I released that very first incomplete document, I was mortally afraid of being sued. So as a sort of camouflage, I made sure to emphasize the SRD connection in early advertisements and discussions.

It's amazing how something like that follows you... but if I had it to do over again, I'd probably chicken out just the same.

[Solomoriah]

Oh, and by the way, Gold, I didn't approach it the same way on the OSRgaming.org forum that I did here. You all are my friends... I can vent to you. There, I'm a visitor, and I behave appropriately. Certainly, people from that forum might wander in here and see me venting, and if they do, they can speak their minds. I can handle it.

I suppose it is reasonable to conclude that their podcast is of marginal interest to our overall goal of ruling the world... if that were my goal. My goal, it seems, is to be understood.

[lars_alexander]

Chris, you showed courage and wits when you wrote Basic Fantasy.

And the players who enjoy your Basic Fantasy today are many.

Concerning Save or Die, you rolled a natural 20.

[Solomoriah]

Thanks, Lars.

... so when are we going to see that next German edition???

[lars_alexander]

I worked on it the last two days. I've nearly finished proof-reading, and editing. I might upload the file tonight, if I manage to find the Attack Bonus table again, which seems to have disappeared.
I'll upgrade to R81 this week, so the next German edition will be based on R81.