Barebones Fantasy

[capmarvel]

I gather from a search that some of you have played (and enjoyed) Barebones Fantasy (I have as well).

Just curious why you might pick C&C for a fantasy game as opposed to Barebones (or vise versa). Does it depend on your mood, or experience of your players, or what exactly?

Not that C&C is "hard" by any means, but I do enjoy the relative simplicity of Barebones. So, what can you do with one that you can't with the other?

[Treebore]

I gather from a search that some of you have played (and enjoyed) Barebones Fantasy (I have as well).

Just curious why you might pick C&C for a fantasy game as opposed to Barebones (or vise versa). Does it depend on your mood, or experience of your players, or what exactly?

Not that C&C is "hard" by any means, but I do enjoy the relative simplicity of Barebones. So, what can you do with one that you can't with the other?

Mainly because of two reasons. First, C&C is far more of a "Rosetta Stone" than Barebones is for all the editions of D&D I like to use stuff from. Second, I now know C&C so well, that I don't really need to look anything up anymore, except to be "sure", and some times I've even been wrong. So I figure why bother with another system, when I have mastered one so completely that I am able to do whatever I wish with it?

A third reason would be how easy I find it to add House Rules to C&C to do exactly what I want to do. At first it was a challenge, to alter rules from other systems to work within the SIEGE system, but now I find it to be pretty darn easy, while keeping it all within the simplicity of the SIEGE mechanic. So those are the 3 biggest reasons I stick with C&C over others.

[alcyone]

I actually haven't done anything in Barebones Fantasy besides create characters. I run C&C and D&D and OSR type games when I want to instantly convey the D&D world and assumptions everyone I play with is familiar with. Also, when I want to run D&D modules and use materials made for them, it's just easier.

My interest in Barebones Fantasy is mainly that it would be neat to play D&D with Star Frontiers rules. It looks pretty fun. There are many fewer spells, so that might be boring for some people, though I think it's expected that the player will customize their effects to match their character. I think though it's an easy system to learn and play, the GM will have a little more work fleshing it out for their setting. Like many fantasy games, I think if you walked in while a bunch of people were playing it, it'd take you a minute to realize it wasn't D&D. If you were to run D&D modules with it, I think you'd need to plan on some up front work converting.

I'd say this stuff does very much depend on my mood and what I am burned out on at the moment or catches my interest. The experience of my players should hopefully not be too big a hurdle, I don't play many games anymore that require too much investment at character creation or play time. If my players had the endurance I'd probably switch systems very often, even in the same campaign. But they find it exhausting. Weird.

Another benefit of BBF, you can use the same system to play Covert Ops, and someday maybe FrontierSpace. And the knowledge somewhat transfers to Star Frontiers. But the same is true for Castles and Crusades, that transfers to Amazing Adventures, Star Siege, and other games.

[capmarvel]

I really like Barebones - can do everything I want and the math (to me) is very intuitive. Plus everything is a percentile. Made some characters with my young kids and they had fun doing it - and they could understand the math as well. No need to explain that a 14 STR translates into something else. Or that your chance to hit has to be translated - you have a 55% to hit so roll a 55 or less. Being "Barebones" there is perhaps some expansion needed, but I believe that is coming in future supplements. As I don't use pre-made modules I could care less about converting to D&D or vise versa. So, looks like we should have fun with it for awhile.

[capmarvel]

Obviously the percentile math in Barebones is easy to follow....does anyone know why D&D went with 3-18 for base abilities, etc?

I did find this interesting history of dice:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GauYwLzNo1E

[alcyone]

Obviously the percentile math in Barebones is easy to follow....does anyone know why D&D went with 3-18 for base abilities, etc?

I don't actually know the answer, but...

Besides the fact that at the time "dice" meant d6s, and percentiles were a couple of d20s, I suppose it was
because if you want to do a bell curve with percentile, you need an accompanying table to describe the ranges. It's also easy to compare a d20 against a 3-16 range, though since that practice wasn't initially spelled out it might not have had much to do with it. In fact, in OD&D your scores didn't really matter much so it could have just as easily been 2d6, a coin, a stick of gum, and some pocket lint. Actually, the d20 was a part of the alternative combat system anyway; OD&D nominally didn't require anything but D6s since you were supposed to use Chainmail to resolve combat.

Much is made of this "SIEGE Engine", but at one time, no one really had a problem with there not being any skill checks as part of the game and saving throws were against tables, so it probably wasn't a large consideration.

I'd say d20 and 3d6 are pretty easy to follow too; each pip is 5%.

I'd recommend that you read "Playing at the World," but it would be disingenuous of me since I am only a third of the way through it.

[Treebore]

I believe it was because of the bell curve given by the D6's. I'd have to reread the beginning of the 1E DMG to refresh my memory to be sure.

[Arduin]

I believe it was because of the bell curve given by the D6's. I'd have to reread the beginning of the 1E DMG to refresh my memory to be sure.

You are correct

[moriarty777]

I love Barebones Fantasy and I love Castles & Crusades. If I come to a friend's game and they said they would be running Barebones Fantasy, I'd be very happy. However, if I were to choose between the two to run a game, I would probably go with C&C.

I think there are a couple of neat things that BBF does and for certain things, does better than C&C. Other things C&C does better. In the end the 'better' is usually associated with how the game is made up.

C&C is an archetype/class based game. Other popular games are skill based and a good few of these are percentile based games. BBF seems to walk a line between class and skill based game design while firmly remaining 'rules light'. It's frankly quite brilliant in execution.

But, as it has been pointed out C&C remains very flexible and compatible with a whole host of material that has been published since 1974. Having started with AD&D, coming to C&C was a comfortable and easy switch.

M

[jdizzy001]

Thanks to this thread I now own a new rpg. I just read the rules, and it looks great. I love these rules light centric rpg's!

[Coleston the Cavalier]

BBF is very good for cinematic action.

[alcyone]

I played this last night as a break from our C&C game.

I am interested in the rules (d00lite is what they call the core engine) because:
- It's similar to Star Frontiers in a lot of ways and I ran that a lot as a kid.
- I am interested in FrontierSpace by DWDStudios when it comes out
- I have Covert Ops and it uses the same system
- Something different to try, maybe a little less reliant on loot&level

The session went very well I think. Everyone caught on pretty quick. Multiple actions at successful penalties, resistance (save/dodge) as an action, crit/fail on doubles, all made an interesting game.

I found it a little trouble to track how many actions everyone took each round, and I had 2 players and my monsters had 1 action. With more I wouldn't be able to keep it in my head.

The players I think appreciated getting development points at the end of the session they could spend before the next game.

I think we'll play more of this, and while I wait for Frontier Space I think I'll gut Star Frontiers and graft in d00lite.