Re: Nickel and Diming

On 3/18/2025 12:47 AM, gbbgu wrote:

On 24 Feb 2025, Kyonshi wrote:
 

On 2/10/2025 12:16 PM, gbbgu wrote:

Kyonshi <gmkeros@gmail.com> wrote:

 

It turns out I will have to buy a not yet published GM's book to make
use of these "Core Rules". Or buy a previous edition, because Pendragon
never changed so much that I can't use the previous edition for this.
I find this quite annoying. Core Rules in my opinion are supposed to
contain the actual core rules of a game that you need to actually play,
not just a small subsection.

 

And outside of Pendragon I recently learned that the new edition of
Cthulhu by Gaslight also will be split into a Players' and a GM's book.
That also used to be a single book. Something that already annoyed me
with the 7th ed. Call of cthulhu rules.

 

I know they want to make money, but Chaosium is lately overdoing it
somewhat.

>
I have a fondness for games that manage to actually present their core
rules in a single book, in a way so you never actually need another
book. There's something wholesome and nice about it.
That's why I really got into OSR back in the day: I realized Labyrinth
Lord (which basically was B/X) was a complete game in itself. Same with
(Mongoose) Traveller, where it even contained the information how to
create your setting in the game itself.

 I guess you make 3x the money by having to buy 3x the books. I used to want to
buy all the supplements and additional stuff for any system I was interested
in (and still have that completionist tendency), but lately I'm falling back
to "simple is better". I don't have time to read books full of info, and can't
remember it anyway.
 I'd rather a simple book that I can reference at the table and make the rest
up on the fly. I've played enough that I can fill in any backstory of a random
NPC with hooks if needed. A few decent random tables to glance at help too.
 Probably why my latest obsession is shadowdark, it seems like a really nice
easy system... but of course if the players _really_ want to play DnD then
I'll run that system.
 

I don't think I could get myself to invest into DnD 5e or whatever is new anymore. I mean, if it's a game I actually want to run that's different (I say, having spent way too much money on Mongoose Traveller 2nd edition stuff the last few months). But I just don't want to do 5e (or 4e, or even 3e) anymore. It's just a style of gaming that isn't what I want, and I don't care to run it.
And I think that the great thing about being a DM is that you provide people with the environment to game, it doesn't mean to slavishly follow all their wants and needs, because the DM also is a player in the game and needs to have fun.