Epoch RPG v2 now online!

[sacrosanct]

Thanks to you all for your suggestions on the earlier thread.  I've updated my site (not all links are completed yet, but the important ones are).  I've done some major tweaking with the combat and damage system, and I've also uploaded a version of the rules without pictures and in a much easier font to read, for those that requested it.  I still have to post the updated character sheet, but that's a minor task; you can still go over the rules and use the notebook character sheet (what we all used before premade character sheets were around).

The game is designed for short term adventures; to give you a break from your long running personal campaigns and allow the 'forever GM' (the term I like to use for the guy who always seems to be running the campaign) to get a chance to play for a while.  It is also designed to help get more people into the industry by being less intimidating than a 200 page book of rules.

I still need people to help playtest the rules, and I would love to include your name in the credits when the rules are finalized.  I should have the first Adventure PAK online soon, to help playtest as well.

http://optw.tripod.com/

[Christoffer Lernö]

Thanks for taking the time making a more readable version. There are still issues with the layout, but at least this goes a long way towards readability.

If you want to improve things, you should consider picking a standard serif font like Garamond or even Times New Roman for the main body of text. There are also minor quibbles like rather odd looking table of contents and turning on auto-hyphen would make spaces between words less frequent.

However, let's get into the meat of things: what's the game like?

Let me make an assumption here. You're looking to do something akin to old red box Basic D&D? A lot of things here is reminicient of that game.

First about the world, some of it is pretty funny in what I hope is a deliberately constructed way. "The elves will not tolerate trash or grime in their lands" conjures the image of signs everywhere in the elven capital saying "Littering forbidden by law, Do Not Litter!". Good fun!
The human (or dwarven) sacrifice to appease the volcano god by the dwarves also strikes me as one of those weird details that is quirky enough to be funny without spoiling the setting. The world strikes me as deliberately a little over the top, I hope this is consistent with your intent.

Jumping to the races. First you might want to avoid the name Hobbit. I seem to recall that D&D used halflings for copyright reasons and it might be prudent to follow that example.
Another thing about the Hobbits: where the other races have their stats advantages and disadvantages balancing up, the Hobbits have a total of +1 if you let them cancel against each other. Any reason why?

Stats seem to be fairly standard. You're using 3D10 instead of 3D6, but otherwise it not very dissimilar from the classic three dice roll. Simple and straightforward.

The Guilds then. Well it seems definately be keeping with the setting and such. Maybe skills should be before guilds as a beginning character wouldn't have a guild to begin with.

The skills chapter seems a bit sketchy, especially how percentage chances are awarded and how to make modifiers. This is already beginning to detract from the simplicity of the design since I suppose beginner players would need to read up on these skills before they go ahead and choose some of them?

Combat seemed nifty to begin with but when I look closer the results is actually the same as rolling THAC0 vs AC in D&D. The only thing added is that you see when you hit the armour and when you yourself missed. I don't know if that really warrants all the extra complexity, especially since you say you want a simple game.
Both skills and combat seem to be something of a departure from your goals since here complexity is definately ADDED to the system in comparison to similar systems (such as D&D). It's not that the combat is complex, but it's not straightforward and simple either.

For some reason the actual list for experience awards is missing, so it's a little unclear what gaming you want to encourage.

All in all I would have liked to see something easier to get into than the ancient basic D&D, but I think you're not there yet. At this point the improvement over D&D is the guild system, but in the process you have introduced a lot of new complexity to skills and combat that wasn't there in D&D, complexity that I fear might be totally unnecessary.

I think you could probably cut away a lot of meat from the mechanics without losing much. Some quirks (like dying at 0 hitpoints) seem to be unnecessary D&D legacies in the system too. Consider exorcising such traditionally weak points but stay with the simple design I think you set out to do.

I hope some of this rambing might have been a little helpful.

[Kester Pelagius]

Greetings Pale Fire,

Just a quick comment.

Jumping to the races. First you might want to avoid the name Hobbit. I seem to recall that D&D used halflings for copyright reasons and it might be prudent to follow that example.
Another thing about the Hobbits: where the other races have their stats advantages and disadvantages balancing up, the Hobbits have a total of
+1 if you let them cancel against each other. Any reason why?

Pale Fire is absolutely right.  Don't know how I missed that one, but use of "novel specific" fantasy race names is not advised.  Unless this is strictly meant to be a "freebie" fan produced sort of game.  Otherwise, if you intend to develop the game to be publishable, you will have to be "creative" in re-naming your favorite critters so they don't obviously infringe upon anyone's copyright.

Of course you are free to use most creatures from mythology and legend, so long as you describe them in *your own words* without basing them obviously upon the descriptions found in any *copyrighted* published work like a novel.

Paraphrasing from Bulfinch's or Hamilton's mythology might be alright, so long as you come back later and rewrite what you initially wrote in your own words, using your own slant, etc.

ANYhow, much luck!

(And kudos to Pale Fire for spotting that one!)


Kind Regards,

Kester Pelagius

[sacrosanct]

Must have been on crack with that one.  I originally wanted to put the other race as gnome, not hobbit.  Don't ask me how I missed that as well.  However, with the creatures in the game, I made a point of doing research on the origins of the creatures in actual mythology.  For example, the basilisks in my games are half chicken, half lizard creatures. (similar to the cockatrice of D&D, but every reference to basilisk in literature is of the chicken one.)  The lizard that turns to stone with its gaze is not in mythology that I can find.  Similarly the gorgon in mythology is another name for Medusa, and kolbolds were actually helpful little creatures.  Every description of the creatures in both of my games are either my own creation or described directly from mythology.

However, I will promply replace all references of Hobbit with Gnome, and I agree that skills will be better placed before guilds.  I will also add a brief walk-thru of a sample character generation right after the preface.  This is why it's called a beta version, I guess.

I also hope to actually post the rules to my other, more in-depth game, Aftermath, New Explorations.  I've worked on that game for over a year and it is much more detailed and formatted better.

[sacrosanct]

First about the world, some of it is pretty funny in what I hope is a deliberately constructed way. "The elves will not tolerate trash or grime in their lands" conjures the image of signs everywhere in the elven capital saying "Littering forbidden by law, Do Not Litter!". Good fun!
The human (or dwarven) sacrifice to appease the volcano god by the dwarves also strikes me as one of those weird details that is quirky enough to be funny without spoiling the setting. The world strikes me as deliberately a little over the top, I hope this is consistent with your intent.

Yes, I do want to keep a somewhat light hearted feel to the game.  It makes it more fun that way.

I have also updated the site with other suggestions (hobbit is OUT!) mentioned earlier.

http://optw.tripod.com