Recent content by Reynard

There is an interesting question: if something is easily hackable (Shadowdark, say) does that mean it is a generic or universal system? I don't think so. I think it just means that the core of the system has flexibility of presentation built into it.

Oh, sure, but many a good thread has been killed by a 2 poster sniping war.

it seems obvious on its face that all universal or generic systems have built in limitations. That hardly seem controversial, and therefore not really worth derailing the thread over.

Is that better or worse than a thread circling the drain for an interminably long time as two posters go back and forth, talking past one another to make the same points over and over and over and over...?

So talent trees. Cool. That is definitely better than subclasses.

Very cool. Did they succeed?

I was listening to a podcast this morning that was covering the post WW1 struggle between Britain and Russia over who got to control Persia/Iran. They talked about the companies trying to secure oil rights, mercenaries, and then other folks doing archaeology etc. It got me thinking about how war...

IMO Star Wars is as close to an all encompassing milieu as you can get, so it makes for a great test bed.

I don't think we know. If I recall,WotC put 2nd and 3rd in the vault. A bunch of the others ended up getting released by different 3PPs.

I don't think they are worried about people that don't like the game. I mean, why would they be?

I think it is worth noting that the playtest uses the word "villain" -- which kind of precludes the sort of thing you are talking about where the PCs are more "anti heroes." I don't think running a villain campaign would be especially rewarding, fun or even tolerable. Villains, by definition...

Sure. The way to make it align with 5E is just to make it a tool proficiency. That doesn't preclude a hacker subclass of rogue, tho.

I get the strong sense that I asked the question poorly, since so many people are arguing against generic systems in general. What i really wanted to know is do you (like me) have a go-to setting or milieu against which you measure a system that purports to be generic or universal? The actual...

That was almost 20 years ago.

I believe @Remathilis is advocating for a Paizo-like approach, similar to how they have used Golarion for everything.