The Problem of Class Proliferation

[Joe the Rat]

Soon, precious, soon.

Ominous. What do you have planned?

Setting up a pbp game with some of the extra race supplements in play.
Like all of them, more or less.

[SmootRK]

Setting up a pbp game with some of the extra race supplements in play.
Like all of them, more or less.

That can get wacky!

[xav++]

OOOOOOHHHH I want in!

[SmootRK]

Just saying:

http://www.dragonsfoot.org/forums/viewt ... 11&t=58271

[Cloaker]

As a newbie here at BFRPG but an oldbie playing for 29 years, my two coin is this;

1) The rise of Class Proliferation past Advanced (I'm looking at you UA and every wretched kit/splatbook/feat mechanic since) to me just seems like how powergaming and min/maxing got the sick foothold at the expense of you know, ROLEPLAYING. Wanna be a druid? Fine, spellcraft or choose woodie type spells. Fancy yourself an Illusionist? The spells can be made! Desire to be a bloodthirsty Barbarian? Buy an axe and roleplay a short temper. It's more about the characterization than HD, special abilities or custom bonuses in my book.

2) If the intent to to foster an open contribution format for an open source system, I get that. But I guess what drew me here was the fact that this system is SIMPLE and easy for me to keep up with. Until last year, it had been 22 years since I played B/X. Yet I had become so disenchanted with the "evolution" of the genre I dreaded attempting to learn anything past 3.5... the miniature focused gaming of They Who Shall Not Be Named But Need Perpetual Income killed my "Product of Your Imagination" feeling for me. So I wanted to return to roots--as we all have here obviously--and be able to DM my kid without being a RPG Neurosurgeon in the process. The AC ascending conversion I can remember easy. The monsters HD to attack bonus 1-7 is cake, never need to slow down gaming (I lost my DM screen for the first time today!) My kid is playing a 4th level Fighter who has two Paladin abilities (lay on hands and immune to disease/poisons) earned through Heroic deeds spanning 20+ sessions and 18 months. Didn't need any optional class for that. He ROLEPLAYED earning these abilities.


And I guess the final word I can throw in is Finality of a product. It is even easier learning something when you know that it is the Final Incarnation With Nothing More To Be Added Ever. Maybe that's why Rules Cyclopedia style is so attractive--it encapsulated everything with a "This is the last edition of it" mentality. Gospel is much easier to have faith in when you know the Bible ain't gonna change....

Three coin, as it were...

[SmootRK]

I have no problem with those who want a minimalistic game. I just simply have the wisdom to know that all do not share that mentality, and that it is folly to attempt to force views upon the population.

I like that I have best of both worlds with BFRPG, a minimalistic rule set (yet robust to deal with most fantasy roleplaying situations), and yet options available to make the game work in the manner I desire.

I mentioned this on a thread on dragonsfoot, where different retro-clones were being discussed, that I like BFRPG because it has its optional material available in a piecemeal manner, where one can pick and choose various options to achieve the desired game style one wants. Other such retros (or even the name-sake games) often offer such supplemental material in bulk... the Unearthed Arcana (UA) for instance, where the assumption is that one "should" utilize the whole book offered.
BFRPG gets me the happy medium between absolute minimalism in gaming (such as the S&W style of gaming generally advocates) and the more "Advanced" style one gets with OSRIC type rules or LL+AEC has... though the LL+ advanced options comes closest to what I like. But, some of the other Retros (or original game enthusiasts) have a mentality that only strict emulation or near exact copy of the rules is the way to do things.... BFRPG has some "grown up" mentality, where one can acknowledge that some advances coming from post 'original' games are actually innovative and quite usable in old-school ways.

I actually also advocate for a very basic style of play, especially in the beginning of such gaming, only incorporating various optional materials in when they truly enhance the campaign (and no more)... doing such in a very piece by piece manner to avoid overload and over-complication. Even my own house-rules do not necessarily incorporate every little piece of material that I have personally written.

But that last part said, I am an enabling sort of Game Master, meaning I try to accommodate the desire of players. Somebody wants to play a light and fast fighter (who is not a thief), then I make the Gladiator/Duelist class which makes this possible (as a standard Fighter played without wearing much armor and using a short sword is just inferior to an otherwise normally played sword-n-board fighter (all other factors equal)). Player just loves World of Warcraft Horde... well I pull him in with available race of Bisren (directly inspired by Tauren), or I allow use of Monsters as Races Supplement to get Orcs or Goblins in the pool of available races. Class and Race are among the easiest ways to placate such player desires... but again, do so carefully and piecemeal to maintain control.

[Hywaywolf]

There is not a single gaming group out there that doesn't use houserules even if its just something minor. All these supplements are all just houserules made public and worked over to maintain a single published style.

[SmootRK]

Just saying:

http://www.dragonsfoot.org/forums/viewt ... 11&t=58271

btw, I posted this link just to demonstrate that among likely old schoolers, about 2/3 prefer some degree of expanded class options... some wanting expansive lists of classes, others wanting just a few extra options, but overwhelmingly the choice is for more than the basic four options.

[dymondy2k]

I did want to say that my favorite thing about BFRPG is its simplicity combined with the bolt-on supplements that make your game what you want it to be.

[shadowmane]

I did want to say that my favorite thing about BFRPG is its simplicity combined with the bolt-on supplements that make your game what you want it to be.

I like that too. I had one son that wanted to play a Knight. I made him play a fighter until level 3, then switched him over to a knight. Another son chose to play a thief, but then started doing really well as the ranged attacker. I switched him from thief to ranger at 3rd level and it fit very well. I did it using one, and only one supplement, which was beautiful. I only had to print 3 pages to keep up with it all.