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New Open-Source Tabletop RPG
ClintonRNixon writes "A new open-source tabletop RPG has been released, The Shadow of Yesterday. People have been putting RPGs online for free for years, and Wizards of the Coast has their Open Game License, but this is the first time a game has been written and published using only open-source tools, and is published under a Creative Commons license.
To make the online version, vi and Python Docutils were used; the published game was laid out using Scribus, The Gimp, and OpenOffice."
this is the first time a game has been written and published using only open-source tools, and is published under a Creative Commons license.
While the CC license is good, I don't understand the fuss over OpenOffice and the GIMP. Did people really care earlier about what RPGs were developed with? Were there really groups of people proclaiming "this RPG was written on a typewriter instead of with a pen"?
The license is what matters. It allows players to modify and redistribute the game, according to the rules stated in the license. Whether or not it was typed in OpenOffice, or written on a stack of napkins, is relatively insignificant.
The fact that this one does not is further evidence that the Open Source community rarely, if ever, really innovates.
Oh... I should point out that emacs is the exception which proves the rule. That program is a shining example of totally insane creativity unleashed.
I'm more of a vi user myself, but props where credit is due...
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
I think no one does it because that approach isn't fun or interesting. Plenty of games have tried other approaches, of varying complexities. I've never liked any of them.
I do like location-based damage systems, and I do think wounds to certain locations should result in certain penalties, but I'd prefer to keep it very simple.
Top Secret SI was a good compromise system... you had 10 locations (2 arms, 2 legs, head, 2 chest, 1 abdomen, 2 hands) and equal hit points in each. Loss of all points in the 4 critical areas was basically incapitation, and I think loss of 2x the points was death. In arms, legs, and hands 1x was incapitation of the limb, 2x was amputation. Roll a d10 for the location an attack hits, or you could also do called shots at a penalty.
I'd use a system like that, I guess. Of course, most of the time now, my sessions are pretty combat-lite, so I don't really sweat the details.
It's a strange world -- let's keep it that way
Most people who play a lot of RPGs don't care much about any of the things you are looking for in an entertaining "world sourcebook" to read.
Tabletop RPG folk like to creat their own worlds, their own histories, and their own mythologies, and then let the games take place in those worlds. Any setting info is simply used as a guideline for the tone which is supposed to be represented. (Or a template... I wish I had a dollar for every time I pulled out the old "Keep of the Borderlands" map that came free with the old D&D box-set because I quickly needed a generic military outpost in one of my campaigns.)
The only exceptions I can think of are the famous "Ravenloft" scenario book from AD&D, and the entire Paranoia & Acute Paranoia line. Both of those were such fantastic works that almost any game master who thumbed through them immediately wanted to take their players through them, right out of the box, with minimal changes. (I'm sure there are others, but those seem to be pretty universal stand-outs.)
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
UNIX is a MULTICS-alike. MS-Office includes a Wordperfect-alike and a 123-alike. Windows is a MacOS-alike.
It's turtles all the way down. Anybody who thinks any of the market players are "innovators" is a naive fool. It's all about imitation and incremental improvement, no matter if you're from FLOSS or otherwise.
Is it good?
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or is it whack?
Part of the reason that this hasn't happened is the sheer amount of math and dice-rolls involved in a more complex combat system. This means that the only way the game stays fun (although rolling 4d6 + 5d10 + 3d20 + 2d12 to resolve a single hit might be fun) is to use a laptop. However, laptops aren't dice, part of the appeal of the tabletop RPG is that it's a pencil-and-paper game. Basically what I'm saying is -- Thou shalt not part a gamer and his/her dice!
He effected a bored affect.
The rules are there for fun and simplicty, not realism. It would be dull, but realistic, if you had to balance a healthy diet for your character. Hit points and AC are merely convenient measurements that don't subtract enough from realism to take away believability. Besides, our group has always viewed HP as something more like your ability to avoid the final blow. 100HP means you can dance and dart around blows that would have landed on a normal person. The Star Wars d20 system called it "vitality".
Check out White Wolf's Exalted roleplaying game (or Vampire which is similar). In that, armour reduces the damage potential but doesn't eliminate it. As you lose health from damage, you become less capable of performing. It's a simple system, but it works well.