A Comment on the "Companion"/Advanced Question
Posted: Thu May 11, 2017 5:10 pm
I've been asked a bunch of times about creating a compilation of supplements as a "Companion" book, providing more "Advanced" play, and I think you all know why I'm against that as an official publication.
EDIT 2/12/2019: I'm finding a lot of people who DON'T know why I'm against an "Advanced" rulebook or an official "Companion" supplement... so here it is: If I were to publish a combined supplement, classes, races, spells, etc. all together in some form, and put it on the Downloads page, it would acquire an air of being "official." I don't want that. I don't want an "official" way to play an "advanced" version of the game. I want GMs to feel completely free to use, or ignore, whatever supplements make them happy. I also like that the narrowly-focused supplements we have now allow GMs to announce games like this: "I'm running BFRPG, with Druids, Half-Humans, Rangers and Paladins, and Thief Options." Easy. Everyone now knows what supplements they need to have on hand to join your game, and there is no need for anyone to mark up a book... "let's see, we're using this, and this, but not that or that..."
... and now, back to my original post:
But I realized my players have to shuffle a lot of paper sometimes to keep up with the different supplements I am using, so I decided to create my own "house rules" document containing the supplementary material I'm using.
It goes like this:
Gnomes
Half Humans
Assassins
Druids
Illusionists
Paladins
Rangers
Scouts
(most of) Thief Options
(some of) Magic-User Options
New Spells
(most of) Combat Options
Sentient Weapons
I think that's all of it. Anyway, I laid it out in a similar fashion to the Core Rules, and right now it weighs in at 41 numbered pages (plus title page and TOC).
41 pages. That's it. Plus 2 pages, as I noted, but two of those numbered pages are the OGL, so it's still kind of a wash.
The answer to the "Companion Question" is: It's barely big enough to print... not really worth buying.
EDIT 2/12/2019: I'm finding a lot of people who DON'T know why I'm against an "Advanced" rulebook or an official "Companion" supplement... so here it is: If I were to publish a combined supplement, classes, races, spells, etc. all together in some form, and put it on the Downloads page, it would acquire an air of being "official." I don't want that. I don't want an "official" way to play an "advanced" version of the game. I want GMs to feel completely free to use, or ignore, whatever supplements make them happy. I also like that the narrowly-focused supplements we have now allow GMs to announce games like this: "I'm running BFRPG, with Druids, Half-Humans, Rangers and Paladins, and Thief Options." Easy. Everyone now knows what supplements they need to have on hand to join your game, and there is no need for anyone to mark up a book... "let's see, we're using this, and this, but not that or that..."
... and now, back to my original post:
But I realized my players have to shuffle a lot of paper sometimes to keep up with the different supplements I am using, so I decided to create my own "house rules" document containing the supplementary material I'm using.
It goes like this:
Gnomes
Half Humans
Assassins
Druids
Illusionists
Paladins
Rangers
Scouts
(most of) Thief Options
(some of) Magic-User Options
New Spells
(most of) Combat Options
Sentient Weapons
I think that's all of it. Anyway, I laid it out in a similar fashion to the Core Rules, and right now it weighs in at 41 numbered pages (plus title page and TOC).
41 pages. That's it. Plus 2 pages, as I noted, but two of those numbered pages are the OGL, so it's still kind of a wash.
The answer to the "Companion Question" is: It's barely big enough to print... not really worth buying.