One thing I would be interested in are guidelines for making one's own setting. And taming magic so that one has a 'colour' of magic to work with and they can borrow spells from another if they learn the other spell. The one thing that I hear from people that run the game offline is how they have no way of knowing what spell will be cast and in that way spellcasters can derail a game. I use a form of spells that are broken down into colours inspired more by the old MUD Archmage, now called The Reincarnation, over the Warhammer 'Winds of Magick'. This way you have your various spellcasting classes simply by them choosing a colour, which is a specialty. For example a Red/Chaos Wizard isn't going to heal, although a Green/Druid might. (I know BoL druids are mostly psychotic, yet I am asking you all to work with me here). In this manner a simple system is tagged onto the rules without overcomplicating anything or making too much crunch.

I'm with The Git on this, as BoL (rather than Everywhen with all options added) seems not to need trimming down. However, I also find myself agreeing that I'm up for providing feedback and would be happy to try it out.

Actually I can see one practical use for it - in running 'flashback' scenes with a younger/less experienced version of an established character. Umm...need to see what you have to give an opinion, so count me in.

I like the idea of no boons and flaws. I don’t like feats and with the right players it’s fine but I like the idea of using hero points to achieve a “heroic “ result or maneuver, rather than feats. I think one edition talks about losing a permanent hero point for every boon, maybe add a flaw for every boon also? The more the player just plays instead of looking at their character sheet for options seems like the way I would go. But the players I have aren’t like my old friends group. Those guys all had their own copies of the rule books and owned a bunch of modules, read Dragon magazine, read the various novels when they came out and were really into playing the game. Unfortunately I don’t have players like that anymore.

Pit Fighter: I believe Simon is trying to get the document down to 6 or so pages. I’m of the opinion that 7 to 8 pages might be better if it includes a short few sentences on design choices at the start and some explanations (only one or two sentences) where required in the body of rules itself.
 
Almuric701: I agree that for this stripped-down version of BoL that Boons & Flaws had to go. (Personally, I like Boons & Flaws for standard BoL games, as the inform character – I don’t see them in the same way as D&D Feats.)
 
I agree that the way many people approach rpgs has changed over the years. I think a stripped-down version of BoL might appeal to some types of newbies. Definitely an approach of ‘rulings not rules’ will be needed with something so basic – and you can’t get more old school than that!
 
I’m still hoping to run a playtest of the rules in a city-based game sometime this week, having run a wilderness game previously. If you haven’t seen the thread yet where I give my thoughts on the first playtest check out the ‘Barbarians of Legend (BoL)’ thread under the section ‘Other genres, same rules’ in the sub-forum, ‘Dicey Tales, Dogs of War, Honor + Intrigue, etc to be discussed here’.

Simon: I was just about to ask you what was the intended audience for Barbarians of Legend, so thanks for the above heads up.

Last edited by Gruntfuttock (2/21/2024 3:13 am)

Gruntfuttock wrote:

Pit Fighter: I believe Simon is trying to get the document down to 6 or so pages. I’m of the opinion that 7 to 8 pages might be better if it includes a short few sentences on design choices at the start and some explanations (only one or two sentences) where required in the body of rules itself.
 

There's definitely room for cuts and I'd probably recommend that game background/theory/attributions as well as setting info be limited to a single page with a focus on the rules if it's that page count restricted.  I've made my own minimalist ruleset in the past but it was very abstracted and fit into that page count (never published though as it's still just text in a document).   I'm not sure that level of abstraction or close to it would work for a BoL style game but I admittedly could be tunnel vision'ing.