To Services Render

[Dean]

Yeah he's a lawyer. If I get in terrible trouble with the law I plan to somehow find Kaelik and have him solve everything. Cause god damn he's just gotta be good for that kinda money.

[fectin]

At that kind of money, he's likely paying for all his own overhead. It quickly stops being crazy money when it also has to cover your office rental, social security, etc.

[Previn]

Suddenly I have much more empathy for Kaelik and his hate filled posting.



That being said, for those in the know, is the issue of low recompense just the fact that margins are so thin, or are the companies really just putting the screws on pay because they can?

[deaddmwalking]

Most of the people that want to publish an RPG are people that really like RPGs. There are two types of people that want to do that. The first is the kind that have so much money that they can afford to lose lots of money on a vanity project. I'm not even sure any of those folk exist, because with all the talk of 'succubus harem', I'm guessing most of them have thought of something else they could do with their money - like creating a personal D&D-esque theme park.

That just leaves the other type - the kind that have put together as much money as they can afford to lose, and are trying desperately to recoup it. They've got to do everything they can to keep costs to a minimum - unless they had lots of preorders, they may never see profit dollar $1.

KickStarter might be a way to get some quality RPGs made - someone could get money up front and pay real scale to get a good product, but there aren't really any people out there that I'd trust to deliver the product and do it well.

So, yeah, unless you know any philanthropists that think giving the next great RPG to the world is more important than rural-electrification in Africa, I don't see good pay being likely.

It doesn't help that there are people (good people), that are passionate enough to create for free and are just looking for a way to share.

[Mask_De_H]

Suddenly I have much more empathy for Kaelik and his hate filled posting.



That being said, for those in the know, is the issue of low recompense just the fact that margins are so thin, or are the companies really just putting the screws on pay because they can?

I'd assume a bit of both; there's no money in RPGs so you'll have people working for peanuts gladly because they love RPGs, so you can get away with paying people less since it's a passion project.

But back to the OP, unless you're willing and able to drop the scratch to pay a decent wage or you can convince enough of us you have a good enough idea to jump on, you're shit out of luck. This is also ignoring PL's point that we aren't really different than a lot of places, and given the fact that PF and other supplements have popped up like the super clap, we're behind the curve.

[TarkisFlux]

I think it would be much easier to do so if there is a clear direction and perhaps a bunch of written material. Also a clear leader.

As the "supreme overlordproject manager" for the Tome Ref Doc, I think myself qualified to speak on this point. So let's start with...



That does not actually make anything easier.

The direction is clear - merge the SRD with tome material and some errata bits. But how far to take some of this was up for discussion, and that slows things down. Do we do more skill mergers? Errata or split up UMD? Rewrite things for clarity? Even saying we don't want to deal with them now isn't a real answer, because people look forward to the next iteration when they might want to deal with them and so maybe we should start setting up for that now. Even with direction, deciding on scope takes time.

A large portion of the mechanical material that anyone is likely to care about is basically all written, and we could just slap it together and call it done. But we decided to go for a nicer and more consistent formatting plan, and thus a nicer finished work, so we (or maybe I, not sure anymore) wrote some formatting templates for things. These templates are basically awesome going forward because they make adding new things much much easier and consistent (which is why Lokathor adopted them for his own tome compilation work, and that makes me happy even if my project ultimately fails), but mean a small bit of adaption for every class, feat, spell, and race that's already written. And that shit gets boring. We get small bursts of it here and there, but it takes time. And it'd be even slower if it weren't already mostly formatted.

New content that needs to be written content is more exciting in some cases, but still vulnerable. We lost Sigil for multiple weeks to Dark Souls 2 (and he's probably still MIA, but maybe it's something else now) - right after he put up his Leadership changes. That was slated for inclusion if sufficiently well received (in this case, silence probably counts as 'well received' given the Hate/Ignore defaults in IMOI), and it's still stalled.

As for having a leader... unless that leader is paying them they don't have much more than tie-breaking / veto power and occasional discussion ending power. Without pay it's a volunteer project that takes time away from other, almost certainly more immediately fun, things. If you push people too hard, they get resentful of your demands and drop out. If you hold them to their promises and they fail to meet them, they feel guilty about falling behind or failing and then they drop out rather than face it. If you ignore them for too long they drop out by default. "Leading" a project like this means nagging just enough to remind people that you haven't forgotten about them, but not enough to start pushing them out. And also recruiting more people and getting them on the same page, to replace eventual burnout.

So yeah, those things don't work amazingly. Even with those things projects can still move along very slowly. The reasons for this are many, but mostly boil down to "it's a volunteer project and people have other more immediate things to do". Not that I'm complaining, it's just the sort of thing you start to expect after managing volunteer projects for long enough. TRD moves at all though and there haven't been any mutinies, and I'll take that.

What you probably want instead are more people with passion (preferably paired with free time). Whether you love or hate their work Frank, PL, Koumei, and others have written more complete things than most others here. By themselves, with input and bug checking by others sometimes. Because they wanted it done and no one else was going to do it. Passionate people get volunteer stuff done quickly, and often for free as deaddm points out. Everyone else gets it done slowly, if at all, because interest waxes and wanes without the fire of passion behind it.

[Stubbazubba]

I make $140 an hour.

Mother of God. Doing WHAT? I hope it is, as a minimum, incredibly, joylessly soul-crushing or horrifically demeaning because DAMN, that is some fucking money.

If that's what he charges clients, it's actually lower than the national average (assuming U.S.).

[codeGlaze]

I can verify time being a rather significant restraint.
Most of my 'free' time is on a phone or tablet shortly before passing the fuck out.

Although I often completely veer off topic when ever I start fucking with TeX.
Involving the content, still, but attempting to generate it in ways that don't make me want to beat my head against the desk.

[Foxwarrior]

I have no illusions about "fixing" RPGs. That ship has sailed.

What is it that you're doing in the industry, then? Make RPGs be more the same as they are than they were already?

Or did you just mean to object to the pretentiousness of that wording?

[MGuy]

@Tarkis: Are you... Are you suggesting that it is just as hard to have a project with prewritten material, a clear(ish) direction, and a leader (don't care how you spin it) as it is to have a project that has to start from the ground up with not so much as a word written and not even a hint as to someone who will take the reins of wrangling people together?

You don't think that, perhaps, if people have some actual material that they can look over that they would be more attracted to the project? How many people do you think went along with the Tomes project specifically because they saw the Tome material and liked it?

[Aryxbez]

I'm curious as to what you mean by this. 'Addressing the looming climate change crisis'? Or just 'not bogged down by antiquated legacy concepts'? Or something else?

I have no clue what is meant by climate crisis, so it's moreso the latter that you mentioned. Games like D&D are a product of the 80's, and uses fantasy inspirations proper from that era as well. RPG's like that are so far behind, haven't caught up to Hyrule Link, affamed action game heroes, and even MMO's (to point that crappy WoW's Fighter even has more depth than D&D's fighter). Though Fantasy is worst offender of this, other games also share that ilk, and constantly repressing the warrior-type characters (Fighter/Street-Samurai/Even-MMO warrior types misses out on cool stuff). The RPG culture has lot of other baggage that seek to harm the experience, like how much the DM is deemed "God" and able to mess with the players as but pawns to his schemes, needing to power-level to play your concept/matter (D&D, Edge of Empire, Warhammer are examples of this), playing past stereotypes, Optimization =Lucifer & Anti-RPing, and other lame @$$ memes.

Huh... you know 4E already tried the MMO approach and failed, right ?

While it's true that RPG fans are nerdy folks, and thusly large sum do play MMO's, they are not the main source of inspiration, let alone the only one. RPG fans being impressionable folk also cater to other popular media (Skyrim, AC4, Marvel-Cinema, Game of Thrones etc), that they would want emulated in their RPG's.

The reason no one buckled down and helped you write your fantasy heartbreaker is because every fucker here has one.

Fairly true, always seemed these projects aren't really going to anywhere, or seem generic enough to not really offer anything. What I would vaguely hear of a given heartbreaker, they sound rather similar in ideas, which makes me doubt that everyone really has such diverging ideas on how to go about it.

We are just an internet forum. Not a big one, and only even barely an unusual one. We produce just short of nothing of value and there is no particular reason to believe we can produce anything especially amazing.

Have you just not seen what every RPG fan on the internet ever has been churning out for years?

if you REALLY want to make a project with input from the gaming den... why don't you just do that for free right now. Seriously start writing.

It's the general level of quality projects on here have been capable of. The level of knowledge the authors have on here that most forums simply won't have, or will be a split on the knowledgebase. It was because of this quality the Den had, what brought me back to RPG forums, and to care about DMing RPG's in first place.

Given the other places that exist (TheRPGsite,FFG's-Star-Wars sub, RPG.net, Giants In Playground =50/50, Paizo) of mostly terrible, and outdated mannerisms/knowledge, I'd think it naive to put Den as generic. If the Den REALLY was like any of the others, It'd be pointless, a blight on RPG-kind that I would've left, let alone joined in the first place.

While the saying goes to become a writer is to...Write, I don't really feel qualified to the task. Both in that I'd lack the discipline to keep the project going forward, and the level of design knowledge likes of Frank and such have. If I did, I'd take up on your fine suggestion good sir.

but the thing is if I just take a few months off to make something,

Well, would that time/cost table be similar if it was a supplement to a pre-existing game? (A query I ask to everyone else as well)

I am not the Denner you are looking for and I acknowledge that.

I have no illusions about "fixing" RPGs. That ship has sailed.

Why is that? though I did not use you as an example in my main post, it was by no means limiting to them, anyone with good design ideas get my vote. I'm also not sure why you believe we're a "hive-mind" because there are ideas people can agree on.

If those in power in companies could be replaced by someone with good design ideologies, and uses other cults of personality to convince the fans to their irrational, and flawed logic, I think "fixing" an RPG is quite doable. So I assume you feel its Illusionary due to how those that could, will do so in more profitable mediums, or simply don't have opportunity to be in power yes?

[PhoneLobster]

You don't think that, perhaps, if people have some actual material that they can look over that they would be more attracted to the project? How many people do you think went along with the Tomes project specifically because they saw the Tome material and liked it?

I'm not even sure it needs to be material people like.

If you want whatever the hell contribution it is the gaming den produces routinely... all you need is material people can point at and talk about. I suspect that even material they don't like could at the very least spark a discussion about how you are doing it wrong with at least some reasonable hope of "suggestions" on new directions or alterations.

It's probably just important to have some material to talk about, then, preferably by creating a more narrowly specific thread to break it up into bite sized discussable chunks. Something like "I just implemented my awesome social mechanic (from this linked thread with the whole system/greater work in progress in) it works like this, yell at me about how it's broken and how I should fix it!".

If you can produce popular enough material you might, at a stretch then have people interested enough to spontaneously generate content for it. But that's unlikely. And further unlikely to result in the specific content you might want for some specific project completion.

And you can do that right now. For free. And if you do want to launch a paid project later, kickstarter or self funded, or whatever. You should FIRST exhaust all your free resources and have as much material as possible to present as proof of viability and funding/worker bait later.

Frankly I see no reason why you would go to kick starter, or waste a cent of your own money, or quit your day job or whatever the idea is, until you (at least) had already got your entire project essentially completed at a draft document level and all that remained for publishing was formatting, illustration and editing.

I'm not sure the leadership model precisely matters, but you need SOMEONE to act as fall back contributor in the event of disagreements, apathy and unfinished work and if you (a non-specific you the reader) are the one who wants a project to actually happen then you are the only person you can really trust in that role.

[Koumei]

I have no clue what is meant by climate crisis,

A relatively modern concern is that, thanks to humans, climate change is occurring much more rapidly than it otherwise would, to the extent that we won't be able to keep up with the changes. But don't worry - Fox News and the PM of Australia both assure us that it's a load of crap!

Game of Thrones etc), that they would want emulated in their RPG's.

There actually is an AD&D2E setting that basically covers Game of Thrones. I can't remember which one it is, but fans refer to it as "FUCKING METAL".

Well, would that time/cost table be similar if it was a supplement to a pre-existing game? (A query I ask to everyone else as well)

In that case, you still need to do the following:
1. Get me to care. In all likelihood, this means it's a supplement to D&D 3.X because that's the system I've adopted and grown to love and all that*. I'd need to like the actual subject matter of the supplement, too, so I suggest not talking about psionics or dwarfs.
2. Accept that I'll occasionally be putting a couple of words in here and there in my lunch breaks or pay me 50K up front so I can tell the government to get fucked for a couple of years and spend a month or whatever working on the project full-time.

Note: the fact is, if it takes even a week and isn't during the holidays, that involves having my payments cut (which lasts 3-6 months), and I'd definitely want that to be worth my while. If you want a one-post thing like I did for Miekle's game, yeah, I could do it over a weekend (or in one sitting) and forget that any money is owed, suddenly going "Holy crap, someone gave me some money, awesome!"

*I don't think you could find a simple splat that is needed and hasn't been done, but if you were taking the bare bones of it and rebuilding from there, you could do something like that idea for "every class has its own mechanics". Frank first described it, then some scholar reposted it as the text accompanying a hentai manga.

[PhoneLobster]

I don't really feel qualified to the task.

So you start out by declaring the gaming den special, largely on the basis of not having repelled your incredibly discerning personal self.

But then your incredibly discerning personal self turns out not to know enough or care enough to actually write (or even try to start to write) the game you apparently want written.

You also top it off with what I would have to say is possibly the closest thing to a blatant "Frank! Write my RPG for me!" request I think I've ever seen in one of these threads.

Well. At least you are offering real money.

But it still looks largely like you just want someone else to fulfill your fanciful RPG wishes by doing all the work for you.

[TarkisFlux]

@Tarkis: Are you... Are you suggesting that it is just as hard to have a project with prewritten material, a clear(ish) direction, and a leader (don't care how you spin it) as it is to have a project that has to start from the ground up with not so much as a word written and not even a hint as to someone who will take the reins of wrangling people together?

Yes, it is.

Not for the same reasons of course. People who care about collecting and refining that material are doing an incremental change. A cosmetic one even. The stuff is written, it's just about putting it in one place and making it internally consistent and coherent. It's a small, if significant, usability adjustment. But the work that you save over just looking in 4 different places and spot tweaking inconsistencies at the table is tiny compared to the work you have to put in to complete the compilation. The payoff is much, much smaller compared to completing a vanity project, even if the potential workload is also smaller. And so the difficulty in motivation and completion remains.

You don't think that, perhaps, if people have some actual material that they can look over that they would be more attracted to the project? How many people do you think went along with the Tomes project specifically because they saw the Tome material and liked it?

This is why new material gets written for it. And why people are willing to put time into compiling it into a completed project. That doesn't make it magically easier to finish, given that the payoff is so much smaller compared to the time investment.

[edit] If you're suggesting that someone put a sample of the current project up to attract more assistance, I would point you to the previous failures of the AwesomeTome to attract that sort of help as evidence of that also not working substantially well. What is already here, either in the old versions or in the forums themselves, is "Good Enough (TM)" for most users.

[MGuy]

Tarkis, the fuck are you on about? Yea it's hard to get people to do things for free but in what world is it 'just as difficult' to get a project with not only 0% work upfront done but no description of a final project. You are comparing 'sprucing up' material that has a clearish goal point and that is actually fairly popular already vs nothing upfront. I think you're confusing'easier' with 'easy'.

[codeGlaze]

Tarkis, the fuck are you on about? Yea it's hard to get people to do things for free but in what world is it 'just as difficult' to get a project with not only 0% work upfront done but no description of a final project. You are comparing 'sprucing up' material that has a clearish goal point and that is actually fairly popular already vs nothing upfront. I think you're confusing'easier' with 'easy'.

Whoa there horsey. Hold your butt for a second.

Tarkis was talking about relatively clear comparisons between two labor-of-love style projects.

His overall point is that when people are working for free on a labor of love there are many pit falls. Using the TRD or even other Tome group projects as an example he was ilkustratjng the many difficulties there are to overcome. A group project like Tomes v2 would be relying on multiple people giving their own free time outside of other priorities, for free.

Therr is a clear analogue, although not perfect, is pretty easy to see. Logical, even.

[TarkisFlux]

I think you're confusing 'easier' with 'easy'.

You made the claim that it would be much easier to complete if you had those things, and I'm telling you it's not. I think you're confusing "easier" with "differently hard".

If your problem is that you don't want to write stuff or you have a creativity block then yes, having a bunch of written material is better than not and makes finishing the project easier. Then your problem is the tedium of doing data entry and 'sprucing things up' killing your motivation, which may or may not be a bigger problem than writing something up yourself that you care more about. You can call that easier for some subset of contributors if you want, but it is not easier in general.

[MGuy]

No, I'm not confusing the two. I very clearly think it's easier to get people on board a project if there is stuff. I think the failure here is in your premise. You presuppose that people are already wanting to work in either case, whether they want to work on something with materials or something without you start off thinking they want to do it. That's not how I'm viewing it and because of that you've yet to actually produce a counter example. Here let me quote myself:

It's not that I believe that people here 'can't work together it's that I believe that they most likely 'won't'. In your analogy you don't give money to every hobo on the street and if we're all hobos wanting to push a project then you don't need to rely on people being 'unreasonably' selfish. You just need people having their own vision and wanting to see that done while believing you are just another hobo asking for their money (time) as has been done before. I don't believe Josh's thoughts are just conjecture either. I've seen project after project generated only to receive luke warm attention at all here and that's about it. The best I've seen is the creation of the wiki (an off site production) people's individual projects (like After Sundown) and the Tomes which was written up pretty much by Frank and K (based on an rpg that was already available and still incomplete). I DO believe that this place could produce something very workable but 'getting people behind it' will be tough. I think it would be much easier to do so if there is a clear direction and perhaps a bunch of written material. Also a clear leader.

If you're trying to say that this is 'not' true then you pointing at your own project with the Tomes doesn't actually contradict anything I've been saying. I can point to my own and other people's attempts to get Denners to get together to do anything at all. All you've got is your Tomes project which just shows that you could much more easily wrangle people to help with. It is obviously easier to get people together if you've got some material they can get into, especially if the material already has some traction. Without that people are less likely to want to help. Sure you can say its hard to complete. Yea, as I said getting people to do stuff for free is always hard, not disputing that, but how likely are they to do anything at all when you start with nothing?

[TarkisFlux]

Here let me quote myself:

It's not that I believe that people here 'can't work together it's that I believe that they most likely 'won't'. In your analogy you don't give money to every hobo on the street and if we're all hobos wanting to push a project then you don't need to rely on people being 'unreasonably' selfish. You just need people having their own vision and wanting to see that done while believing you are just another hobo asking for their money (time) as has been done before. I don't believe Josh's thoughts are just conjecture either. I've seen project after project generated only to receive luke warm attention at all here and that's about it. The best I've seen is the creation of the wiki (an off site production) people's individual projects (like After Sundown) and the Tomes which was written up pretty much by Frank and K (based on an rpg that was already available and still incomplete). I DO believe that this place could produce something very workable but 'getting people behind it' will be tough. I think it would be much easier to do so if there is a clear direction and perhaps a bunch of written material. Also a clear leader.

If you're trying to say that this is 'not' true then you pointing at your own project with the Tomes doesn't actually contradict anything I've been saying. I can point to my own and other people's attempts to get Denners to get together to do anything at all. All you've got is your Tomes project which just shows that you could much more easily wrangle people to help with. It is obviously easier to get people together if you've got some material they can get into, especially if the material already has some traction. Without that people are less likely to want to help. Sure you can say its hard to complete. Yea, as I said getting people to do stuff for free is always hard, not disputing that, but how likely are they to do anything at all when you start with nothing?

I may have been confusing your argument about getting people at all behind it for an argument about completion, since you were talking about actually producing something at the end of it. If that is all you're arguing... I don't have anything to say about it. People make their own things more readily than they make someone else's things, whether they're bolting on to projects that they like (like Tome material) or updates to games like the current BIWA thread or weird things like Equality World. That just seemed like such a trivial point that it didn't need to be discussed. But sure, getting people behind things with content is easier than not. Keeping them there is harder was my point, and only intended to address what I thought was your completion argument.

For what it's worth the previous incarnation of the AwesomeTome saw Aktariel asking for help repeatedly, and only really receive it from Utterfail (who now goes by Sigil). And it got taken up by Aktariel after Surgo stopped updating it. Who took it up after someone else stopped updating it. I didn't wrangle anything together in the current iteration. People were talking about doing it again and I got tired of it being a mess and offered and was taken up. And half of the people who offered to assist with it haven't actually done that. But if you want to count having 4ish contributors for this project and 2 for the last a win for , feel free.

[Neurosis]

I have no illusions about "fixing" RPGs. That ship has sailed.

What is it that you're doing in the industry, then? Make RPGs be more the same as they are than they were already?

Or did you just mean to object to the pretentiousness of that wording?

No, I'm just trying to make good games on my own. I recognize that I can't change the vast majority of games being made, or replace what majority of people are playing with my personal flavor.

The forces of brand loyalty are far too strong for that. 90% of people that game are firmly in the "we only play X Edition" mindset. I've learned that from time spent in the trenches working booths at conventions.

So I guess I would say...more the latter than the former.

And I should clarify that I when I said "fixing RPGs" I was saying "fixing RPGs (taken as a cohesive whole) is impossible" not "fixing any of the RPGs out there" is impossible".

Why is that? though I did not use you as an example in my main post, it was by no means limiting to them, anyone with good design ideas get my vote. I'm also not sure why you believe we're a "hive-mind" because there are ideas people can agree on.

If those in power in companies could be replaced by someone with good design ideologies, and uses other cults of personality to convince the fans to their irrational, and flawed logic, I think "fixing" an RPG is quite doable. So I assume you feel its Illusionary due to how those that could, will do so in more profitable mediums, or simply don't have opportunity to be in power yes?

I was using the term "hive-mind" somewhat facetiously. All I meant, seriously, is that many of my opinions go against the grain of the Den consensus (Con-Den-sus?) to the degree that there is one. Of course, then again, many of my opinions go right with the grain. I think that D&D 3.5 is the most playable professionally published edition of D&D, I think SR4 is the most playable professionally published version of Shadowrun, and so on, but there's just as many ideas I commonly see floated here (i.e. "virtually every RPG is a power/wish-fulfillment fantasy at heart") that I vehemently disagree with.

Anyway, generally there are so many reasons that "fixing" RPGs is impossible that it is exhausting to even think about getting into it. Let's just start with the simple fact that I very much doubt you can get any ten gamers to decisively agree what is "broken" about any given game.

Looking at your OP more closely and trying to be nice about it, what exactly are you looking for us to do? If the Den did come together and released a game, what game would you want that to be? Tome and Dragons, the complete self-contained fantasy heartbreaker? After Sunset, the less-terrible-production-values version? What, exactly?

Or what RPG already out there in the industry, specifically, are we fixing?

I think that some people on the Den could definitely get together and make a game and release it, though much blood, sweat, and tears and bitter arguments. I just don't see how that leads to really helping the RPG industry or what any of the steps in between would be. And even assuming that that game was, in some objective sense, virtuous and good, I don't see how it could have a broad enough marketing campaign to really make a splash or build enough buzz to register. I mean, I certainly am still in the process of trying to figure out how to do that shit for my company's products.

[silva]

Let's just start with the simple fact that I very much doubt you can get any ten gamers to decisively agree what is "broken" about any given game.

I think this truth bothers a lot of people around here.

[OgreBattle]

TGD has already been tremendously useful for me in just taking notes from design discussions. Here's a thread I started before where I just shared the notes I took:

http://www.tgdmb.com/viewtopic.php?p=376307

Here's some of the writings from The Den that I've found useful in designing games. They're mostly for a d20 type game:

Math that Just Works

So when 4e came down the pipe, one of the things they promised that the math would "just work". And of course, we now know that was a lie, but it was a good lie, because it turned out to be what a lot of people wanted to hear. Because frankly, doing the math to check to see whether a particular giant spider is going to eat the party or get taken down is hard. And it's also time consuming, and not really what most DMs want to do. What they really want is to be able to grab a monster from the monster book and use it as-is according to the level guidelines and know that the PCs are going to have a kind of tough time and still come out on top. And that in turn gives Mister Cavern more time to worry about shit like NPC personalities, maps, backstory, clues, and world interaction. And that's good, because that other stuff is really important and the game can't necessarily help Mister Cavern deal with it, save by freeing up their time spent on other stuff.

Now, unfortunately your system has to be used by actual humans, and humans kind of suck at arithmetic and risk assessment. The average human simply stalls out when asked to do repeated math functions - even if they are simple addition. And players will be straight up confused when their character doesn't live through something that they had a 90% chance of living through... even after attempting it ten times in a row. So with that in mind, here are some math don'ts:

• Don't use fractions. I once had this alternate save system where people added 2/5 or 3/5 to their saves each level so that good and bad save progressions would add up - it was mathematically kind of pretty but it was a complete cluster fuck. As Mister Cavern I had to redo everyone's save bonuses every level. People just couldn't wrap their heads around adding .4s to things at all. So I don't give a fuck how nice the math comes out adding some kind of fraction to things, just don't do it. Whole numbers only unless you want players to look at you like lost lambs every time they have to interact with the numbers.
• Always use linear addition. For various reasons it is sometimes necessary to have a big bonus at the beginning of a progression and then a more measured bonus after that. It may be tempting to add these bonuses in some kind of logarithmic fashion or to have bonuses add up to arbitrary values that are then cross referenced to a table or to add half of subsequent bonuses or whatever. Do not succumb to this temptation, because that kind of shit paralyzes people. Players have enough problems adding 4 and 3, the moment you ask them to add 5 and half of 4 they are drooling vegetables.
• Don't let numbers get too large. It is a fact of mathematics that numbers raised to an exponent have the same relation as numbers that are lowered by the same exponent. That you could have perfectly identical mathematical relationships between levels by constantly raising things to the same exponent. And that shit works just fine in a computer game. But humans lose track of numbers when they get big. Dong repeated subtraction from a 3 digit number is hard for people, and doing repeated subtraction from a 4 digit number might as well be pushing Sisyphus's rock. Sometime try watching a Mister Cavern deal with an epic level Solo against a group of PCs, it's hilarious, yet also faintly sad.

But while that is fascinating in its way, it merely shaves an infinite number of possible numeric progressions off of an even larger infinite number of possible numeric progressions. To get farther, one has to make positive assertions as well as negative one. Here are some:

• The numbers have to start large enough that they can get smaller. Player characters can't really start in the AD&D "single hit die" crowd, because it is sometimes game mechanically relevant for there to be children or cats. Basically this means that a first level character who begins life with less than 10 hit points or so feels ridiculous in the face of potential hazards that are supposed to be substantially weaker than they are (like familiars or poisonous snakes).
• Numbers actually shouldn't diverge very much as levels continue to rise. This is not to say that an 8th level character has to take shit from a 4th level character, but that two 8th level rogues need to have fairly similar abilities with lock opening for an "8th level lock" to have much meaning.
• Numbers should be pretty tight at 1st level too. The entire RNG is only 20 points long, so the days of a Halfling Rogue getting +5 for Dex, +5 for Skill Training, +2 for Racial Bonus and +3 for Skill Focus at 1st level while a Dwarven Fighter gets a -1 Dex modifier to the same task really has to end. Any task that players within the same party are expected to all perform, need to be relatively tight in total bonus one to another.
• Any ability gained at any level needs to be competitive at the level they have it. Which in turn means that abilities need to either go obsolete or stay numerically competitive in a predictable fashion.
• And finally, characters need to be different one from another. Despite the fact that them diverging much is what makes the game fall apart and the math stop "just working" - it is precisely the existence of the difference at all that makes one character feel different from another. Players seriously do want their characters to have a different Sneaking bonus than another character.

That's something of a tall order actually, although there are still infinite numbers of potential things that could fit that.

But there's another thing about level appropriate challenges that is only tangentially about the math. People fucking hate it when you tell them that a Level 8 character should be climbing a DC 23 wall. They have no problem at all being told that an Ice Wall is DC 23 Wall and is appropriate for an 8th level character. The 4e difficulty system would have offended people even if it had provided usable DCs, simply because the presentation of those DCs was offensive. Difficulties need to be task oriented rather than level oriented or no tasks you compete will ever feel at all meaningful.

-Username17

Scaling bonuses in a level based system:

I'm still surprised no-one was dumb enough to make some kind of "Make a (skill) check instead of an attack roll!" (bonus points for Diplomancy) Feat/feature. I mean, we already have skills for saves (Samurai getting Concentration for Ref saves), though the impact of that tends to not be too bad, skills as spellcasting power (True Naming/Epic Spellcasting, precisely as bad as anyone should be able to predict) and the occasional weird thing like Perform checks for damage (no-one actually gives a shit in this instance).

Oh, crap like True20 and E20 work like that.

Awesome. Because to quote the girl in that comic, Math is haaaaaard.

Besides, it involves showing up Mearls and those other useless twats. And spite is basically the driving force for 70% of all stuff produced on the Den.

True. In fact, let's make this math needlessly complicated so as to demonstrate how not that hard this actually is.

OK, the first thing you have to do is figure out what stats do to your skill numbers. The obvious answer of course, is "nothing". And indeed to just jettison stats altogether as a bad job. A character who is skilled in sneaking can have the level of that skill determine what level they sneak at, and there is no compelling reason why being good at archery should change the value of your skill level. Attributes could be quite profitably dropped completely from the system to b replaced by feat-like things or they could be left only as defaults, that are completely replaced by larger skill modifiers for trained characters.

But let's say for the moment that we're going with an AD&Desque model, where attributes exist, but the bonuses they provide are in fact quite small. Maybe +1 or +2 to various tests, like the old days and disregarding great strength. Maybe this is done with attribute tags (where you would either have "strong" or you would not, but you wouldn't have an actual strength score). But you could also do it seriously old school, where having a Dexterity of 15+ gave you a +1 modifier. These days I'm honestly leaning towards the tag system because it better incorporates access to Herculean and Hulk strength levels - for fuck's sake a genuine strong man has a strength of like thirty something according to the lift rules in Essentials.

Anyway, it's not super important. Because one way or the other you're basically either getting a +1 or +2 bonus or you aren't for being strong or fast of some shit. Thereafter, you have proficiencies that negate a -4 penalty, and you have focuses, that provide a +3 bonus. Other than that, it's all your level bonus. And yes, that means that the difference between someone who is untrained and someone who is fully tweaked out in training will be nine points. And that's most of the RNG. But more importantly, it since Proficiencies are very easy to get and people will usually consider something they lack proficiency in to be something they "can't do" the real difference between someone who invested heavily in doing something and someone who is doing something because their main schticks are inoperable for whatever reason is going to be "only" 5 points. And yeah, that's still a lot. And it's going to get even worse because players are going to get their grubby hands on +2 equipment bonuses eventually, but hopefully by that time characters should have enough focused abilities to be usually doing something that their character "does" and the numbers are going to narrow to +4 for a character with super strength and a magic sword vs. a character with neither.

So anyway, mostly to show that we can, we're going to split level progressions into three categories:

• Highly level dependent stuff rises at +2/level. Athletics and Macguyvering advance like this.
• Moderately level dependent stuff rises at +1/level. Attacks and Perception advance like this.
• Minimally level dependent stuff rises at +1/ 2 levels. Diplomancy and Craft advance like this.

This is because there is some stuff that you really want to be able to say "I'm too high level for this shit, I win" and other stuff that you want to be to some degree able to interact with lower level types as if they were the same species as you.

So we're starting with default assumptions of Defenses in the 10 range, modified for level and possibly with those stat bonuses. Meaning that at first level you swing a sword and your bonus is going to be between +1 and +6, and your target has a defense DC between 11 and 13. At 10th level, you'll likely have magic weapons and protection, and your attack bonus will be between +15 and +17, while your defense DC will be between 22 and 24. So you can't quite tell 1st level enemies to completely fuck off until the double digits of level.

So here are some Athletics DCs:

Challenge	DC	Is Easy For Level	Is Hard For Level
Climb Tree	8	1	-
Climb Stone Wall	18	6	1
Climb Smooth Stone	20	7	2
Climb Doom Tree	30	12	7
Climb Blood Fountain	35	14	9
Climb Rain	40	16	11

Meanwhile, Diplomancy is almost completely situation dependent at all levels. Being a silver tongued character with a Dipomancy Focus has you walk in with a +5, and by level 10 you have a +10. DCs basically don't really need to move, you just encounter things with the -5 to talking "Hellspawn" trait now and then at 10th level and call it a day.

Now the part where things go apeshit is damage and hit points. This shit is hard, because it's not just a level treadmill with DCs and bonuses chasing each other Red Queen style at some rate or another. Instead, you're trying to keep the damage roll relevant (rolling a d8 +25 is lame sauce, and even 2d4+1 the roll scarcely matters at all if your enemies have 10 hit points). And you're trying to keep the number of attacks per target manageable. And you're trying to keep the numbers getting bigger, and you're putting more enemies on the table and dumping bigger area attacks, and so on.

So while it's tempting to just give everyone a static pile of hit points and add your level to attack damage and subtract it from incoming damage, that's probably not what people want. It is actually desirable for the relative amount of damage that a monster "of your level" inflicts on you drops as you go up in level. Not nearly as much as in 4e of course, because we'll eventually have to go to bed and eat food and just don't have time to wait for 4e fights to finish.

So here is an example of a projection of potential PC toughness against the damage output from a level appropriate minion, skirmisher, or elite. The idea is that Skirmishers have a high damage output relative to their toughness, so players would be encouraged to engage skirmishers first. Elites would be doing the most damage, but since they would be the toughest by more, you'd still be encouraged to attack them after you took out the Minions.

Level	Hit Points (Min/Max)	DR (Min/Max)	Minion	Skirmisher	Elite
1	11/13	0/4	1-6	1-10	4-11
2	13/17	1/7	2-7	2-11	5-12
3	16/22	1/7	2-9	3-13	6-16
4	20/28	2/8	3-10	4-14	8-18
5	25/35	2/8	4-10	4-18	9-23
6	31/43	3/9	5-11	5-19	11-25
7	38/52	3/9	4-13	6-21	13-27
8	46/62	4/10	5-14	7-22	15-29
9	55/73	6/10	5-14	8-28	17-32
10	65/85	7/11	6-15	9-29	19-34
11	76/98	7/11	7-17	10-35	21-41
12	88/112	8/12	8-18	11-36	24-44
13	101/127	8/12	8-20	14-39	27-47
14	115/143	9/13	9-21	15-40	28-54
15	130/160	9/13	10-25	16-46	31-57
16	146/178	10/14	11-26	17-47	34-60
17	163/197	10/14	11-26	18-53	36-67
18	181/217	11/15	12-27	20-55	39-70
19	200/238	11/15	13-33	21-61	44-75
20	220/260	12/16	14-34	25-65	50-81

Now, clearly you're looking at a progression where the number of enemies on the table has to increase over time, because their damage output falls comparatively to PC defenses. A 1st level cloth wearer could seriously drop in two lucky hits from minions, but the same character could take max damage from minions nine times in a row and not fall at 20th level. So the unit of threat stops being counted in individual minions and even ends up in 10 minion packages that you might be clearing out with firestorm attacks or whatever at 20th.

All the numeric inputs are essentially arbitrary and require regression, and dare I say it - playtesting. But that's the kind of place you'd start.

-Username17

Steps of designing an RPG

Well first you need an action resolution system, then you need challenges, and then you need PCs. I'd say it's roughly that order. Sections of the PCs may be part of your writeup for action resolution (resource management, skills, action declaration, etc.), so there are definitely parts of the PC end that you can be productively working on before you get into the monsters. And many of the monster abilities are going to be PC abilities as well, which means you can get a two-for-one there.

But yeah, I think the constant consideration about whether a Barbarian should have +3 attack or +4 in the absence of minotaurs for them to be attacking is rather pointless and leads to poor decisions. This sort of methodology is what leads us to 20 level Monk classes that give all kinds of weird abilities every level but never actually get the ability to contribute meaningfully in a single level appropriate challenge at any level at all.

-Username17

Resource management & Class

One of the things a class based system lets you do is to have different classes have different resource management systems. This pretty much requires that the classes be segregated, because otherwise you end up like Iron Heroes where everyone has like 8 flavors of tokens and it's a giant pain in the ass. And it probably wouldn't be balanced anyway, like trying to multiclass 3e Psions and Wizards.

Different players are going to be attracted to resource management systems that are more or less complex. And that's OK. I've been thinking about how 4th edition was supposed to include a series of classes that all had different refresh mechanics and noone had spells per day and that sounds kind of awesome.

For example, you could have:

The Assassin

"He is a man who would be greatly improved by death."


Precision
An Assassin's special maneuvers require delicate placement and precise timing. In order to gain the precision required they must spend a certain amount of time aiming, plotting, and gauging possibilities. The action is called "plotting", and can be of variable length. An Assassin may spend a minor, move, or full-round action plotting to build up precision against a single specific target they can see (or otherwise perceive), after which they may use any of their maneuvers that have that much precision minimum or less. The plotting action can be combined with drawing or loading a weapon, but not with moving. Crossbows and poison use are popular among Assassins in no small part because they can spend a move action plotting while still loading their weapon. An Assassin who targets any other creature than the target of their plot loses any built-up precision. If an Assassin has precision against a target and that target leaves their line of sight, all the precision is lost.

The Berserker

"If we let things terrify us, life will not be worth living."

Fury
A Berserker fights by drawing upon deep reserves of strength, which are chaneled through pain, fear, and rage. As the Berserker takes damage or attacks foes, they gain fury. The Berserker can then spend their fury to activate their abilities. Fury is physically exhausting, and whenever a Berserker gains even one point of fury they will become fatigued five minutes later, whether they still have that fury or not.

Cleric

"I speak for powers that be. If thou resistesth me, thou resisteth them."

Patience
A Cleric's magic is drawn from sources mystical and ancient. They may be gods or vestiges of ideals and titans long forgotten. But whatever the source, it is a source that does not have limitless patience for a Cleric's requests for aid. Whenever a Clerical prayer invokes a magical effect, that prayer cannot be used for a certain amount of time afterward. The patience limit is different for different prayers, and how recently one prayer has been used does not affect how long another one will become unusable after it is next called upon.

The Druid

"When we have learned to listen to trees, to mountains, to the sky itself, we will have learned to listen to ourselves."

Spirits
Druids have special relationships with totemic spirits. Each spirit represents some totemic ideal such as "Oak" or "Thunder". When a Druid calls to the spirits as a minor action, one of them will answer. Which one answers is randomly determined from among those that the Druid has a pact with each call. Each spirit has powers that it makes available to the Druid until the beginning of the Druid's next turn. As a Druid rises in level, the powers that each totem spirit provide are enhanced.

The Elementalist

"There is not anything that returns to nothing, but all things dissolved into their elements."

Channeling
Every Elementalist draws power from two elements, but the strength of their connection to these forces ebbs and flows. The process of attempting to get as much elemental power as possible is called channeling. Each turn, an Elementalist may spend a minor action to channel, and in doing so rolls one die for each of their elements (either rolled in sequence or rolling dice of two different colors to represent the two elements). At first level, those dice are d4s, but as Elementalists become more powerful they roll larger dice. An Elementalist rolls a d6 for each element at level 3, a d8 for each element at level 5, a d10 for each element at level 7, and a d12 for each element at level 9. Powers within an element are ordered and can be activated only if the Elementalist has channeled enough power in that element on that round. If an Elementalist of Fire and Air channels a 2 for Fire and a 3 for Air, they may activate an Air power of rank 3 or less and activate a Fire power of rank 1 or 2.

If an Elementalist elects not to channel on a turn, they may still use rank 1 powers of their elements. Elementalists may channel while they are not in combat, and by taking ten rounds to channel, may guaranty a maximum result, allowing them to use any power available to them given time.

The Elements
Understanding the ways of magic and the formation of the universe is notoriously difficult and is often considered to be amongst the "big questions" that will never truly be answered. At different times in history, schools of thought have pinned the number of elements at four or five, differing markedly as to what those were. Current magical theory includes space for seven elements, merely collecting all the non-overlapping elements from the magical books of fallen empires and ancient cities. There is no reason to believe that future elementalists will not discover more.

The Enchanter

"There are those who call me..."

Discharge
An Enchanters magic is imbued into objects or people over a period of several minutes. While a spell is charged into something it provides an ongoing benefit. A charged sword might make the wielder slightly stronger or a charged belt might make the wielder slightly tougher, for example. When an enchanter sets up a charge, they choose a buff effect and a spell effect. At a later point in time, an Enchanter may discharge their spell into something in line of sight of the charged item by spending a standard action while they are within line of sight of the charge (both the Enchanter and the target must be in line of sight of the charged item, but they need not be in line of sight of each other). When the spell is discharged, it takes effect but the item is no longer charged and no longer provides any special benefit. As an Enchanter goes up in level, the number of charges they may have going simultaneously increases.

The Hero

"The people who we fight have heroes of their own. Let's hope ours are better."


Feats
A Hero's feats can be used at any time, any number of times, and in any order. Any feat the Hero has learned can be used at will.

The Illusionist

"Of course it's an illusion. What good does that knowledge do you?"

Spell Preparation
An Illusionist can prepare a number of spells into their spell slots by spending five minutes with a spell book getting their tricks ready. Each spell can be used once before the next time the Illusionist prepares spells.

The Marshal

"Victory requires no explanation. Defeat allows none."

Tide of Battle
A Marshal is at their best when they see an opportunity and seize it. During the swirl of melee or the clashing of arms, it is virtually impossible to predict what opportunities might arise. Maybe an ogre will stumble out of position, allowing an ally to slip behind it if the opening is called to their attention, maybe an ally will be in harm's way of the ogre's hammer unless a timely warning is called out. A Marshal could give any orders, shout any warnings, offer the most fascile of advice. But the actual battle orders that will make a difference are entirely situational. Each turn of a battle (or other perilous situation where initiative has been rolled), a Marshal's player will randomly generate which Battle Orders are potentially useful that round at the beginning of their turn. At first level, generate a Warning, one Tactic, and one War Cry each turn. A higher level Marshal has more options at their disposal each turn. Outside of combats, Marshals may not use their Battle Orders, though they may still use Strategems.

The Monk

"We do not rise to the level of our expectations. We fall to the level of our training."


Styles
Consumate martial artists, Monks practice many forms and have several fighting styles available to them. Each style a Monk knows has associated maneuvers within it that can be used once while the style is being used. At the start of battle, a Monk may begin fighting in a specific style as a free action in their first turn, but thereafter changing or adopting a style is a full round action. A Monk is free to "change" their style into the same fighting style they were already using in order to be able to reuse maneuvers in the same combat - this represents the character adjusting their fighting style to match their opponents' adapting to the moves they've already used. Monks are fully capable of using their fighting styles outside of combat if they want to use their combat maneuvers in another context.

The Necromancer

"Life flows through all things. Where it flowed in the past, it can flow again."


Essence
A Necromancer powers their magic and imbues their minions with their own life essence. Any minion or magical power has a minimum amount of essence to function at all. If insufficient essence is placed into a power it cannot be activated and its ongoing effects are nullified until sufficient essence is placed into it again. If a necromantic minion has insufficient essence to power it, it cannot act until it gets enough essence again and is helpless in the meantime. Essence beyond the minimum can be assigned to powers and minions up to a maximum total increase in any one equal to the Necromancer's level. The Necromancer's pool can be redistributed once per round as a minor action. As a Necromancer rises in level, they have a larger pool of essence to distribute. When the Necromancer is wounded (half hit points), they lose a quarter of their essence, which if they have already allocated their essence is lost from the Necromancer's powers and minions. Lost essence returns (unallocated) if they are no longer wounded. If a Necromancer is incapacitated (zero hit points) or killed, they lose another quarter of their essence. Any minions still active after a Necromancer is slain go on an uncontrolled rampage.

The Paladin

"Courage is the greatest virtue. It allows you to stand up for all the others."


Inspiration
Paladins often throw themselves into battle with nary a heed to the consequences, because they have a purpose which is larger than they are. Though a Paladin can use their abilities an unlimited number of times per day, they have a limited number of abilities that are "ready" at any given time. Further, the Paladin relies upon the flash of divine or fanatical inspiration in battle and does not have full control over what abilities can be used at any given moment. The Paladin can change what maneuvers they have readied with five minutes of prayer and planning, but each round the Paladin randomly determines which abilities are "available" from among their readied abilities. The abilities are determined randomly at the beginning of the Paladin's turn, and continue to be available until the beginning of the character's next turn.

The Psion

"In the long run, the sword is always beaten by the mind."


Power
A Psion has a number of power points which rises as they go up in level. Manifesting a psionic discipline costs a number of power points. More potent disciplines cost more and weaker disciplines cost less. Some psionic disciplines can be manifested to a greater effect in exchange for a higher psionic point cost. For example: every target past the first affected by Nightmare World increases the power point cost. A Psion regains power points over time (1/10th of their total every minute).

The Rogue

"You have taken the bait. This is already over."

Catches
A Rogue's tricks require susceptible targets. While there is no specific limit to how often a Rogue can use their abilities, each trick has a set of requirements for when it can be used at all. These requirements are collectively called catches. If a trick's catches have been fulfilled, that ability can be used. Some tricks have multiple catches connected by "and" or "or". These are importantly different! For example: the fundamental trick "Sneak Attack" that all Rogue's have has as its catches that the proposed target must be either be flanked or impaired or be unable to detect the Rogue. If any of these three conditions are met, the Rogue can use Sneak Attack against that target. On the other hand, the defensive trick "Misdirection" has as its catches that the Rogue be threatening an enemy and be being attacked by a different enemy. In order to use Misdirection, the Rogue must fulfill both catches at the same time.

Sorcerer

"All things are linked."

Backlash
When a Sorcerer casts spells they risk being hurt by backlash. Every Sorcerer spell has a backlash number, and when a Sorcerer casts it they roll their resistance. Every point their resistance roll falls short of the backlash number, the Sorcerer takes a point of damage. Some of a Sorcerer's spells can be cast for greater effect in exchange for a higher backlash number. For example: every additional target past the first adds to the risked backlash of Chain Lightning.

The Warlock

"Everyone knows that power has a price. But I know what that price is."

Price
A Warlock's most powerful magic drains their own life energy in order to use it. A Warlock can use their cantrips and minor invocations without fear, but to use their major arcana requires that they pay a price. The prices of each major arcana are listed

The Wizard

"It's only real magic if it's still magic after you've seen how it is done."

Spell Memorization
A Wizard has a number of spell slots that they can fill with individual spells by spending an hour pouring over their spellbook. Once a spell is memorized into one of their spell slots, it can be cast an unlimited number of times until the next time the Wizard memorizes spells.

Now you have 17 different resource management systems. Some are pretty similar to one another, and others are really different. But 17 is a number you could potentially give an honest playtest to. Maybe you'd skimp on it, but it's certainly possible. But if you had people pick two? Now you're talking 272 different resource management system overlaps to think about (136 if we're doing AD&D-style multiclassing and the "order" doesn't matter). There's no fucking way you're going to be able to playtest all that shit. I mean, just on first principles I would expect the Berserker to synergize really well with the Cleric's Patience (pray until the spirits don't want to hear from you and then spend the fury you've built up on beating the crap out of people until your prayers come back online) and the Hero to synergize really well with the Elementalist (gamble on a good channeling roll and if it doesn't work out, default to a guaranteed feat effect). But without playtesting I couldn't begin to tell you which is better to layer in as the "dominant" class.

And we haven't even gotten to the "what if we also include slightly different versions for monsters?" question. I mean, if Lurkers also run tricks that have catches to activate, that's pretty much a Rogue. But presumably they'll have different actual abilities so when the it comes down to brass tacks the fact that you might want to be a Doppleganger Berserker or a Night Hag Cleric is another 34 combinations to consider. And another 34 to consider when you mix Controllers with classes because you wanted to be a Vampire Rogue or a Succubus Paladin (even if Controllers use an essentially similar cool-down mechanic to the Cleric).

Probably the best way to do it is to have the sub-class give everything on the same simple resource system no matter what the subclass actually is. And yeah, that means that if you sub-Necromancer you don't actually get to supercharge your skeletons. Because if you mix-n-match actual resource management systems for multiclass characters you're stuck with quadratic growth of fundamental resource management systems, and that's just too complicated to really playtest.

-Username17

Multiclassing method: Subclasses

The issue where all Paladin/Warriors play exactly the same is a big issue. You would not want it to work like that. But the way to add in character differences is to put choices into the main class, not choices into the sub class. Because you're already committing yourself to choosing a subclass off a list of classes that is 10 or more options long. If you have even two or three choices per subclass, that's a huge increase in dumpster diving for what is essentially a minor part of your character.

Let's say you're a Paladin. If you have three choices to pick from for your class, that's 3 choices. And now you pick a subclass. Let's say that we're dealing with the PHB classes and there are "only" 11 classes to choose from. That means you have ten choices for subclass. But if you had three choices per subclass, that would actually be thirty options to dumpster dive through. Variations in subclass ability options are a very much worse rate of return on actual character effect for the amount of options you have to read.

Solving Power schedule conflicts in Hero/Paragon/Epic tier systems

If prestige classes are shared like that it seems like the "Multiclassing & power schedule" problem would come up

It absolutely would. But just like the discussions about subclassing, it's a solvable problem. It actually has several additional solutions available because it happens simultaneously with a tier shift.

• No Combat Maneuvers. In this version, becoming an Archmage or an Angel Knight or a Black Doge or whatever simply doesn't give you new combat actions at all. It comes with movement, defense, investigative, and mass-battle abilities that keep you relevant in the paragonal environment, but you still use your Hero Feats or your Paladin Prayers as normal.
• Extremely Limited Use Supermoves. in this version, when you become a Thunder Lord or a Fist of Hell you get access to supermoves that are used so rarely that the underlying equation of what proportion your superior and inferior moves are used doesn't effectively change.
• Paragon Abilities Replace Heroic Tier Abilities. In this version, you absolutely don't worry about whether the Paragon Tier classes "synergize" with the Heroic Tier classes or not, because the expectation is that the abilities you get from being a Word Bearer or War Mind are so dramatically superior to anything you could buy with Fury or Psionic Power Points that the expectation is that you simply won't use the Heroic Tier abilities.
• Paragon Abilities All Use Same Resource System. In this version, whether you're a Winter Bringer or a Gaea's Avenger you still get the same resource management system for your Paragon Tier Combat abilities. And then each base class transitions the same way every time, and so becomes an incredibly tractable balance problem. If you can manage the transition of Necromancer to Demigod, you'll have managed the transition of Necromancer to Shadow Master at the same time.

And then again, you could jolly well have the Paragon and Heroic powers running simultaneously on different power schedules and just accept that a lot of combinations would be markedly better or worse than the norm. It's late in the campaign almost by definition, so you expect a fair amount of Elothar-style spot fixes for characters to be being employed.

-Username17

10 levels of Same Game Tests

imagine that you decided to set some basic limits (flying archers by level 5, incorporeal enemies at level 6, instant death powers at level 7). And you make characters that can deal with those things. But now you make up a Same Game Test for the first ten levels of simple combat encounters:

• Battles of Level 1
• 20 Giant Spiders/Giant Rats/Snakes in a pit
• 5 Orc or Elf Warriors
• 2 Gnolls
• 10 Goblin Thugs
• 10 Zombies/Skeletons
• 5 Pixies
• 2 Worgs
• 1 Ogre
• 2 Fire Imps
• 5 Enfields

• Battles of Level 2
• A single Amphitere on the wing
• 20 giant bats
• 10 claw demons
• Swarm of bees.
• One huge Scorpion
• 10 hungry Ghouls
• 20 Vampire Thralls
• 2 Dryads
• 5 Lizardfolk soldiers
• One Giant Crab

• Battles of Level 3
• A Gargoyle comes to life.
• 2 Bears.
• 2 Alphyns
• One Ergentyne
• Five Mamuna
• A Werewolf
• 10 Tengu bandits
• 20 Brownies
• 5 Wererats
• 20 Plague Zombies

• Battles of Level 4
• A Minotaur in a confined space.
• 5 Wights
• Five Hippogryphs in flight
• Two Cockatrices
• Five Calopus
• A Vampire
• A plague of Locusts
• 20 Fang Demons
• 2 Lamias
• A Mandragora

• Battles of Level 5
• 2 Cave Bears
• 5 Harpy Archers
• 20 Red Caps
• 5 Mummies
• 2 Gamelyons
• A Cerberus Hound
• A Hydra
• 5 Griffins in flight
• A Manticore in flight
• A Troll.

• Battles of Level 6
• One Wraith in a confined space
• A horde of shadows (20) come to life and attack.
• Two Basilisks
• 5 Hill Giants
• A Hellwasp Swarm
• 5 Fu Dogs
• 2 Land Sharks
• 2 Succubi
• 5 Byakhee
• A Wyvern

• Battles of Level 7
• A spectral wizard.
• 2 Gorgons
• 5 Medusa Archers
• 5 Stone Giants
• 2 Galla
• A Golem in a confined space
• 20 Will-o-Wisps
• 2 Rakshasa
• 2 Nymphs
• One Tatzlwurm

• Battles of Level 8
• One Chimera
• One Beholder
• 10 Opinicus
• 5 Nightmares
• 5 Storm Demons
• One Naga in a confined space.
• One Vampire Lord
• 2 Erinyes
• 2 Kirin
• 20 Troglodytes in the tunnels

• Battles of Level 9
• 10 Salamanders
• One Mummy Pharaoh in a confined space.
• A Phoenix
• 2 Cthonians in the tunnels
• 2 Mind Flayers
• 1 Dragon Turtle
• 2 Asura
• 1 Death Cloud
• 5 Frost Giants
• 1 Geryon

• Battles of Level 10
• A proper Dragon
• 5 Fire Giants
• One Balrog-like Demon
• One Lich
• 20 Chaos Beasts
• 10 Serpent Fiends
• 2 Catoblepas
• 10 Elder Things
• One Kraken
• 5 Nightmare Beasts

OK, so we note that things work out that after level 6 or so the PCs can just go ahead and be flying archers themselves, because encounters that can be beaten automatically by levitation kiting are gone from the second half of the list. That's good. But we also notice that we have a bunch of other breakpoints:

• At level 3, monsters appear which require special weaponry to kill (like, but not not exclusively the Werewolf). We also have diseases (Werewolves again, but also plague zombies).
• While actual "death" isn't being handed out until the Gorgon's death breath at level 7, we're still dealing with petrification at level 6 (basilisk), paralysis at level 4 (cockatrice), and various charms and dominates in between. While not "dead", the character is still at the very least removed from battle by these effects.
• The fucking swarm of bees is in there at level 2. Sure, it's a not-terribly impressive real-world threat and probably belongs at first or second level, but it's essentially immune to be being killed with a sword, meaning that warrior types have to be able to do something meaningful with fire and smoke at level two.

So noticing that sort of thing, you're probably going to have to go back and adjust things. And that's just the combats. There's two other important considerations: challenges and missions. A challenge is something like: what if there's a locked door or a magical glyph or a river of lava or a damaged bridge between you and the goal? The mission itself is whatever the goal actually is. And these are much harder to assign levels to and much more important to do so.

Let's take the mission of "go to the bowels of the Dungeon of Doom and retrieve the sword of Clan MacGuffin". Sounds reasonable enough, right? I mean, you could put something like that at pretty much any level, depending on what the Dungeon and the Sword do. But in D&D, that "mission" expires at ninth level. Literally at ninth level the Wizard knows scry and teleport, and the party can accomplish the entire mission in downtime without really dealing with any part of the Dungeon of Doom except maybe the traps or guardians that are literally in the room with the sword in it at the very end. It's not much of a "mission" at that point, it's really more of a challenge. So if you've put anything even remotely like that at level 9 or 10, the whole Scry & Teleport setup has to be jettisoned or moved up.

Or let's consider the mission "go to the bottom of the sea and stop the Sahuagin from sacrificing princess Plot Device to the hungry maw and unleashing the Kraken". If you intend to actually release the Kraken at some point, that mission presumably goes to level 10, but if you don't, or the players can reasonably expect to call on sea elf allies to fight the Kraken with them, then that mission could be placed at any level. Thing is: you have to be able to actually go to the bottom of the sea and be able to effectively fight there (meaning that you have to be able to defeat enemies after your bows and fire have been effectively removed) at whatever level it is placed. And that's going to require a much bigger set of tweaks to character capabilities than the individual battles.

-Username17

10 levels of adventure challenges

Just as you need to write out not only your monster fights of each supported level, you also really do need to fill in your missions and challenges for each level. You can start with the template:

• Challenges of Level
• Your path is blocked by a
• The trap that is vexing you is a
• You want their help, but they want a
• The information you want is known by a
• The target is obscured by a
• The treasure is behind a
• The door is sealed by a
• To undue the curse you need a
• The clue is in a
• You're trying to track a

• Missions of Level
• Destroy the
• Find the
• Explore the
• Rescue the
• Slay the
• Defeat the
• Solve the mystery of the
• Secure the aid of the
• Defend yourselves from the
• Travel to the

And fill that out for each level. This is the part where a lot of proposed characters are revealed to be basically BMX Bandit to be honest. I mean, if your challenge involves the door being sealed by a time distortion or the way being blocked by the vastness of space, what the fucking fuck is a "swordsman" supposed to do?

Best designed monsters in D&D3e (and why)
http://tgdmb.com/viewtopic.php?t=53456&view=next

Here's a summary:

Schleiermacher's likes
-Manticore
-Displacer Beast
- Phase Spider
-Chimera
-Griffon
-Wyvern
-Rakshasa
"They have a good hit die which makes their HD/CR ratios pretty sane, they tend to be intelligent enough to use tactics even if bestial, and they generally have a clear schtick without having any glaring achilles heels. They have supernatural powers which are effective and, even more importantly, distinctive, without just having a slew of spell-like abilities for every occasion."

-Fire/Frost Giant, interesting subtypes
-Ogre, sweet spot of brutishness
"Tactically versatile due to intelligence"

Schleiermacher's dislikes
-Dragon, Outsider "Good at too many things"
-Undead, Fey, "crappy racial hitdice"
-Trolls, Hill Giants "pointless at their level"


Koumei's Likes
-Wyvern: does what you want a dragon to do without being overly complicated, templates well
-Small animated objects for annoyance
-Giant Crabs " :3"

Franktrollman's Dislikes
-Phase Spiders "Always ambush you with fatal poison that often misses, feels like a coin flip, would prefer poison to immobilize to set in tension instead of instant death"
-Fire/Frost/Stone giants "not atrocious, but lacking tactical depth for their level"
-Shadows, Trolls "Fucktarded"


Franktrollman's Likes:
-Hill Giant "beefy, strong in melee, threat at ranged
-Manticore, Chimera, Wyvern
-Willowhisp, chain devil, ettin
-Many CR 6-7 monsters are well designed
-Hullathoin (CR 15, FF) It has a lot of abilities and is actually pretty much a whole combat by itself. Between its minions and its AoEs, it can challenge a whole party, but it doesn't have the kinds of titanic numbers or instant death attacks that would make it roll over individual characters. Can work as a normal challenge at 15th level or as a major villain for a party of 11th level or higher.
-Battlebriar (CR 15, MM3) It's a big dumb brute. It has abilities that allow it to attack and threaten several characters at once. It has the numbers and immunities to stand up to a round or two of late game combat. Its real problem is that it lacks a weapon that can attack an enemy at any great distance, requiring it to show up inside some sort of greenhouse set piece or something.
-Eldritch Giant (CR 15, MM3) It's a Giant, of Huge Size. It does tolerable piles of damage, and has a fuck tonne of hit points. Nothing really interesting there. But unlike lower level Giants, it's not just bigger than the ones that come earlier, it has some tricks. At-will greater dispelling and magic missile allow it to bypass a surprising number of anti-Giant tactics, and having a big Will Save lets it bypass a bunch more. It's a Giant that is an actually different tactical puzzle, which makes it totally unlike any of the Giants from Stone to Cloud. Unfortunately, "Eldritch Giant" is a stupid name.


Ancient History's Likes
-Myconids

Wotmaniac's Likes
-Bulette (with a really nice presentation: http://fc02.deviantart.net/fs39/f/2008/ ... temare.png )
-Greenvise "I've had success with all manners of plant creatures
-Swarms


Angelfromanotherpin's Likes
-Hill Giant with Tome Spheres as his frost/fire equivalents

Maxus's Likes
-Kyton
-Black Stag http://www.planewalker.com/040101/black-stag

Virgil's Likes
White dragon
Bloodseeker
Lurking Lizard

What Evocation should look like:

In the conversion from AD&D to 3e D&D, the amount of hit points and energy resistance that creatures have has increased literally exponentially. And damage output from Evocations has not kept up in the slightest. And while we could plausibly attempt to push the envelope and pump up damage output to match, that would only be an arms race that no one would win.

Evocations in 3rd edition rules are primarily spells which serve to devastate low level opposition or to slowly but surely chip away at the defenses of opponents that pose reasonable threats. These are sometimes valid tactics, but they are not valid tactics to use one's highest level spells to accomplish. It takes a lot of magic missiles to bring down a Shadow, meaning that there is frankly no way that any Wizard is going to have enough spell slots to dedicate to doing that to make it a viable way to eventually beat such an opponent.

So here's the solution: reduce the spell level of these underperforming evocation spells. Since they scale in damage to your level, nothing actually bad happens if you get these spells early. Even a dozen or more levels early is perfectly fine because the damage scales to something level appropriate at low level. A polar ray cast by a 1st level character does just 1d6 of damage - half the damage that the same character could achieve by purchasing a vial of alchemist frost and throwing it at a target (same to-hit roll as well at any kind of close range).

So here's what the Evocation list should look like:

Evocation Cantrips

* Burning Hands
* Dancing Lights
* Light
* Magic Missile
* Shocking Grasp


Evocation 1st Level Spells

* Fireball
* Floating Disk
* Gust of Wind
* Lightning Bolt
* Polar Ray
* Sending


Evocation 2nd Level Spells

* Chain Lightning
* Cone of Cold
* Continual Flame
* Darkness
* Daylight
* Flaming Sphere (this spell badly needs to be better than it is, but that's another subject)
* Scorching Ray
* Shatter


Evocation 3rd Level Spells

* Delayed Blast Fireball
* Ice Storm
* Shout
* Tiny Hut
* Wall of Fire
* Wind Wall


Evocation 4th Level Spells

* Fire Shield
* Interposing Hand
* Resilient Sphere
* Wall of Ice

Evocation 5th Level Spells

* Forceful Hand
* Freezing Sphere
* Mage Sword
* Sunburst
* Wall of Force


Evocation 6th Level Spells

* Contingency
* Grasping Hand
* Shout, Greater


Evocation 7th Level Spells

* Clenched Fist
* Force Cage
* Prismatic Spray



Evocation 8th Level Spells

* Crushing Hand
* Meteor Swarm
* Telekinetic Sphere


Evocation 9th Level Spells

* 9th level Spells must be written for this discipline. Seriously, timestop? Shapechange? Wail of the Banshee? Astral Projection? Shades? Weird? Most disciplines have two game defining, god-fighting spells to choose from at 9th level. Evocation hasn't been given anything remotely decent for their top tier, so new, mountain leveling spells must be written for Evokers to have.

There. It's pretty much completely backwards compatible, but nonetheless puts Evokers in at being able to do something legitimately valuable - Killing Fools.

And no, having unlimited magic missiles or shocking grasps is not ungamebalanced at 1st level, or any level. Magic Missile tops out in damage at level 9, when it does 17.5 damage against any opponent who doesn't have concealment, cover, or spell resistance. But at level 9, a Rogue is literally inflicting 17.5 points of sneak attack damage with every single attack. And that's not total damage for the round, that's just the extra damage from a sneak attack. He still gets to do his weapon damage, and make his other attacks for that round. Shocking Grasp is very likely to hit, and it does a d8+1 damage. A Longsword in the hands of a Fighter is also very likely to hit and does a d8+4. While the shocking grasp is quite likely to have a better chance of hitting an orc warrior than the longsword is, it is also much more likely to do insufficient damage to drop the orc. Indeed, the Orc Warrior out of the SRD is more likely to drop in one attack from the 1st level Fighter than he from the 1st level Wizard - even factoring in the discrepancy in hit chances.

And no, casting fireballs at 1st level isn't unbalanced either. At 1st level it only does a d6 of fire damage, it's barely worth doing against many opponents. It certainly isn't putting color spray out of a job.

Combat/Noncombat Roles & Class Design

that there's two important things that characters need to do:

1. Be useful in combat.
2. Be useful out of combat.

All characters need that, but there's no blindingly important reason why a class based system should require that you get your usefulness in combat and out of combat from the same source.

You have your heroes who are "smiths" or "sailors" or have some other skilled position, and they go off and solve non-combat problems with their skills. And sometimes these peoples are wizards, and sometimes they are warriors, and that's OK.

When you go up in level, you should really be getting two classes instead of one. One can be your combat schtick, and the other can be your noncombat schtick. That way the number of classes which need to be in the game can go down, while the number of characters which can be represented can go up.

For example: Let's say that you have 6 basic combat schticks:

Warrior/Brawler (specializes in large damage, either reliably or explosively)
Archer/Wizard (specializes in ranged attacks, either reliably or explosively)
Brute/Dodger (specializes in defense, either reliably or explosively)

And then you had 4 non-combat schticks:

Specialist (MacGivers stuff)
Healer (fixes party members)
Diviner (gathers information)
Diplomat (achieves social results)

That's 10 classes, which is one less than the PHB currently has. But on the other hand, it actually creates 24 different 1st level character archetypes - which is more than double the current value.

Here's how the current classes fit into this conceptually:

Barbarian (Brute/diviner - the only important noncombat ability that Barbarians are allowed in D&D is their information gathering)
Bard (Archer/Diplomat - these guys don't normally get a meaningful combat schtick, but conceptually they are supposed to be able to conribute meaningfully from a distance)
Cleric (Warrior/Healer)
Druid (These guys can do everything, but conceptually they are supposed to be Wizard/Healers or Brawler/Healers)
Fighter (Warrior/ Just about anything you want - these guys aren't normally given a non-combat schtick, which is part of why they suck so bad)
Monk (Dodger/Diviner - the only vaguely useful thing I've ever seen done with a Monk was as a dedicated Scout)
Paladin (Brute/Healer)
Ranger (Warrior/Diviner - their scouting and tracking abilities are good)
Rogue (Brawler/Specialist or Brawler/Diplomat)
Sorcerer (Wizard/Anything - these guys have no non-combat schtick to begin with. Conceptually they should be Wizard/Diplomats).
Wizard (Wizard/Diviners)

And that leaves a lot of room, especially among the brutes and dodgers of the world. If I want a character who specializes in not getting hit and healing people, shouldn't there be a class for that?

And now there can be.

Modifiers and the RNG (and how not to fall off)

Notes on the Random Number Generator:

So one of the most important things to do is to keep things from getting pushed off the Random Number Generator. That means among other things that bonuses shouldn't scale. It alsmo means that untyped bonuses have to go. All the bonuses should be defined at the beginning.

Things like:
Bonuses
Positional Advantage
Surprise
Magic Weapon
High Morale
-----
Penalties
Positional Weakness
Light Cover
Heavy Cover
Near Total Cover
Low Morale
Difficult Targetting
Very Difficult Targetting
Medium Range
Long Range
Extreme Range[/list]

Ability Scores

A variance of 0 - +10 in modifier is too much. That's like the whole RNG. Also, the prospect of getting things to randomly generate abilities still has value. I find it generates more interesting characters than Point Buy right through the inherent unfairness.

Essentially what this means is that on 3d6, one in 54 ability scores generates the maximum bonus. That would be one out of 9 characters having max bonus on something. On 4d6, pick 3 it's one ability score in 17, on 3d6 reroll 1s it's one ability score in 31.

As to whether you should generate your ability modifiers and then only write those down or not - that depends entirely upon whether you're going to have ability damage or not.

Effects should all end at the same time in any given turn

Just the fact that the Bard has an attack that dazes until the end of his next turn and a buff that lasts until the beginning of his next turn makes me say "Do Not Want". That right there is a deal breaker.

For example, character A takes his turn in round 1. Character B then stuns character A. Since Character A has already acted in Round 1 should he be stunned in Round 2?

In a different fight, Character B goes first and stuns Character A in round 1. Since A has not yet acted, he can miss his turn in Round 1 and should be able to act normally in Round 2.

What mechanic (especially around an end-of-turn status update) would work for this situation?

• You have an "upkeep" phase (I do not care what it is called) at the end of your turn.
• The Stun condition makes the target skip all their phases except the Upkeep Phase during their turn.
• The one turn Stun ends on a 1+ during the Upkeep Phase.

Net result: you stun the dude. He loses his next turn, then his Stun is over. The end.

-Username17

What kind of Monster Roles should there be?

The difference between an Ogre and a Fire Giant is pretty minimal as far as actual abilities go. If you just made an Ogre Fighter and gave him some armor and a decent weapon, he'd look an awful lot like a Fire Giant both socially and game mechanically. Certainly his combat participation would follow pretty much the exact same script. They have reach, they do a lot of damage, they have a lot of hit points, and they have mediocre saves.

But it got me thinking, what actual roles should exist?

The 4e stuff has me puzzled. I honestly can't tell the difference between a Brute, a Skirmisher, and a Soldier. They all run up and hit things, it doesn't even fucking matter. The Artillery and the Lurker seem pretty similar to me as well. The Controller stands out, as does the Leader. But the Leader isn't even defined as a role, it's supposedly a template you put on other roles. Totally bizarre thought process here.

Things that I don't want to see:

• Any role based on "getting hate" because that's totally retarded. I can see a place for monsters that get more dangerous if you leave them alone, and I can see a place for monsters whose damage output is disproportionate to their defenses, but having monsters (or characters) whose supposed contribution to the battle is that other enemies spend attacks on them is retarded.
• Any role based on Metagame concerns.
• Any monster role designed specifically to hose a player role or vice versa.

So anyway, a very simple schema might start off with the basic designations:

• Imp (-5/-15)
• Speed Bump (-10/+0)
• Grunt (-5/-5)
• Glass Cannon (+5/-5)
• NPC (+0/+0)
• Meat Wall (-5/+5)
• Boss (+5/+5)

And something that of course springs immediately to mind is the fact that these numbers are reducible. That is to say that a Grunt Monster advances a power level and becomes an NPC, and an NPC advances and becomes a Boss. Similarly, advance an Imp a few power levels and he's a glass cannon.

So really there's 3 states of enemy:

Offensive Enemies: These are enemies which have an offensive output substantially higher than their defenses. This inherently makes them high priority targets because the amount of enemy offense you can negate per unit of player offense spent is very high.

Balanced Enemies: These enemies have offensive outs roughly balanced with their own defenses. This makes them medium priority targets because the amount of offense you spend to drop them is roughly commensurate with the offense for Team Monster that you eiminate by doing so.

Defensive Enemies: These are enemies which have an offensive and defensive output which are unbalanced in favor of the defenses. This makes them very low priority inherently because they take a long time to get rid of relative to the amount of threat they pose. Defensive enemies often will be unable to accomplish much unless and until other enemies have already come in and softened targets up for them.

Different power levels relative to the PCs push that up and down into various territories. A Defensive enemy above player level, for example, is extremely harsh since he will require positional advantage and such for the PCs to even be able to harm it at all. But a Defensive enemy below the party level is in the same position relative to the PCs - has to pretty much wait for other enemies to damage the PCs before he poses much of any threat. Todays evil fairy (glass cannon) is tomorrow's Imp.

Within those categories however, it seems to me that there is room for roles based on combat actions and depth. Here's the first division:

• One Trick Ponies: Many monsters honestly just want to have one thing they do and have them just spam that. They should have one attack tactic and one defensive vulnerability because they are expendable monsters and that's how they roll. A Cockatrice is a deadly deadly chicken (offense specced), a Salamander is a deadly and resilient lizard (balanced), but both of them basically just have one attack (death breath or fire burst) and spam it incessantly. Any monster that just runs up and hits things like a golem would fit into this category.
• Short Entry Monsters: Many monsters do about three things, and mix it up here and there. Most 4e monsters fit into this category or fall a little short. The standard would be to have two tactically different maneuvers and a use-limited super move.
• Complex Monsters: Sometimes, especially for named characters and major villains, it is nice for a enemy to have the kind of depth one would ask a player character to have. Lots of different abilities, use limitations on many of them. When facing killer clowns or major demons you should expect them to be pulling weird shit every round, and they should deliver.

Now, given those divisions, a monster can further be divided into what it is that it actually does. Monsters that pile up damage with their actions play somewhat differently than monsters who pile up control effects to assist other monsters.

-Username17

My on-and-off heartbreaker project is based around the good ideas those old threads fleshed out

As for making money/saving the industry, tRPG's will eventually be a hit in mainland China. Tabletop cafes spring up left and right (though few make it) and the middle class like to read a lot anyways. But there's no way to enter that market unless you are a Chinese company (Yoka in particular) because whatever a foreigner do, the natives can copy it and distribute it better.

So RPG design is a hobby.

[TheFlatline]

I'd like to illustrate the degeneration of this thread into an argument as a prime reason why creating a financed, professional product off of the forum's musings is probably never going to happen.

[Aryxbez]

Let's just start with the simple fact that I very much doubt you can get any ten gamers to decisively agree what is "broken" about any given game.

Well, most RPG fans don't really know what they want, or what they think they do, is contradictory and just being irrational. Usually that's what damn good RPG designers can be for, help move forward good rules into the industry, and then use some cult-speak to get the RPG masses on board (especially if make it sound like it's their idea, or accomplish what they want deep down).

Looking at your OP more closely and trying to be nice about it, what exactly are you looking for us to do? If the Den did come together and released a game, what game would you want that to be?

Or what RPG already out there in the industry, specifically, are we fixing?

It'd definitely be a Fantasy Heartbreaker, given that genre is quite the foundation of all these RPG problems, and most in need I believe. Though it wouldn't necessarily be taking existing [Tome], but working ground up with the designs discussed (though taking ideas from it is natural as of writing styles of people here I'm sure).

I don't see how it could have a broad enough marketing campaign to really make a splash or build enough buzz to register.

Whole bit of marketing is certainly one of the major doorstoppers to this effort happening ever. However, getting it out there would be satisfactory to me, and would ideally flock over time through various forums and such. Apparently [Tome] at some point hit those /TG internets or whatever. Otherwise yeah, insufficient Marketing means won't revitalize the industry, nor bring in immediate fans. Personally, I'd be rather joyous to finally have a well designed game that's caught up with the times, and do what I could to spread its knowledge to those ignorant of a superior experience that means more fun for everyone involved.

But it still looks largely like you just want someone else to fulfill your fanciful RPG wishes by doing all the work for you.

Fair enough. However such designers have the capability to make worthwhile change and progress. They have ideas that I wouldn't likely have thought of, keep discussion going, or think of design in ways I do not. If what I could come up in a year, others could do in a day, it'd make sense to relegate the task to someone who's 365 times faster (or whatever the multiplier, doesn't matter). It seems like in scope to those more competent my efforts...wouldn't really go anywhere worthwhile.

On an incredible Sidenote, this is going to sound stupid, but has there been a thread that's listed All what would need to be fixed going into a new Fantasy Heartbreaker? I know we've had threads on what rules would "fix" D&D, or make it better, but unsure of the scope of the work all needed to be done, and such like a list I think would help. Despite that yeah, it's bit of a broad statement, because entire threads on certain subjects can be made on individual subjects. I have a bit of an idea, and kinda made a small list of my own, but would find worth in seeing what I would've missed.