Saturday, April 14, 2012

Now that we think about it, maybe that Gygax guy was on to something after all

Sweet, sweet logo
Not to be snarky, but this may be the most surprising Fantasy Heartbreakers in the history of RPGs. Yeap, Jonathan Tweet’s 13th Age — which I must say has a truly delicious type treatment used for the logo — could quite possibly the most ludicrous idea I’ve seen in some time. Yes, that’s right, the 2 masterminds of 3.X and 4.0 (oh yes gentle reader, Rob Heinsoo the genius behind 4.wtvr is along for the ride) are now applying their formidable design chops to bring you their own version of Gary’s game.

“Our goal with 13th Age is to recapture the free-wheeling style of old-school gaming by creating a game with more soul and fewer technical details.”

Uh huh.

You can read more pearls of wisdom from the designers HERE.


Isn’t this the same guy who was telling us how BAD D&D was before himself, Montus Cookus Maximus and that other dude ripped the soul out of our game? Remember how “problematic all those saving throws” were? And of course, AC and thAC0 were so totally screwed up that no one even played D&D anymore. And perhaps the most egregious of sins, the one that absolutely HAD to be stomped out. I’m looking at you Mr Long Sword with your d12 for damage vs Lg targets. Don't stop me, I'm on a roll here.

Oh well. I wish these 2 OSR Converts well with their little game. Perhaps they have enough name recognition among the younger set of fans that this OSR game will bring in some new blood. I expect that it will certainly be a snazzy-looking product, but I think I’ll hold out for Monte’s Ptolus Whitebox Edition.

Bitter Vet Rant OFF.

5 comments:

  1. Aside from the obvious irony here, do we really need yet another D&D ruleset?

    ReplyDelete
  2. Well, if it were someone like Frank Mentzer or one of the other TSR guys sure, I could see it maybe, but AFAIC, these are 2 of the guys who are principally responsible for Edition Wars. Prior to 3.X, except for a very small handful of malcontents, Edition Wars really didn't exist. That's because for the most part, the 2E stuff was very easy to convert on-the-fly for folks playing 1E, B/X, or wtvr.

    OTOH, maybe these guys have an existing fan base who think their stuff is cool and might be more receptive to old school play via this product.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Watch for it on kickstarter...

    rollseyes

    ReplyDelete
  4. So this is the guy we have to blame for 4ed..

    ReplyDelete
  5. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete