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BIND Salty Edition
Here's an overview of BIND based entirely on the saltiest and silliest comments I've received.
You don't have a 'what is an RPG?' section
No - I'm afraid nobody - not a single soul - will use this as their first RPG. And if I'm wrong, there are better examples and explanations online than I could ever write.
Another? How many fantasy games does the world need?
I don't know. How many types of breakfast cereal does the world need?
The 'new and special' stuff is coming, but it's not in the genre, and it should not be in the genre.
Making a grand new genre-defying setting might sound exciting, but in reality that means reading page after page of someone's fictional setting. Fantasy RPGs just say the magical word 'elf', and you already understand a boat-load of high-level concepts. I'm giving you a game with elves specifically because I don't want to talk about elves all day - I want to hand over the tools for a fun game.
And don't tell me anyone's tired of fantasy - it's the genre that's been around forever, and by far the most popular genre in RPGs. People aren't over Fantasy, so shusht and eat your +1 hobbits.
We start with randomly rolling your race...
What? I can't decide my own race?
Okay fine - pick a race. If it's your first time playing, we don't want to wait while you carefully peruse the racial abilities - we just want to get started. But if you basically know what an elf is like, then feel free to select that as your race.
Now to roll your stats.
Rolling stats is ridiculous.
Why can't I pick my character?
What if roll bad stats and I'm stuck with them forever?
There's a reason literally every game stopped doing this!
Firstly, the reason people really hate rolling stats isn't about the rolling - it's about getting stuck. You won't get stuck here - you can buy off a negative value easily, even at character creation, so if you're pissed off with your -2 Dexterity penalty, just spend some XP to get up to Dexterity 0.
Secondly, if you don't want to roll stats, then fine - set them all to 0, and buy whatever you like with XP. However, I recommend rolling, because there are some characters you can't make with chosen stats.
Whatever character you're making will rely on some stats more than others. Pure fighters don't need Charisma or Intelligence. Mages don't need Strength. Therefore, any characters defying the mould are punished - the more Charisma you add to your fighter, the lower the Strength score, and the worse that character functions.
Randomly assigning stats easily gives your character colourful quirks. If you get to assign some points, then an optimized fighter will use Intelligence as a dump-stat, but with randomly rolled characters, some will be clever, some will be stupid and nobody has to feel constrained to follow the optimum path, because there is no optimum path.
But fine - if you want to define your own stats, go ahead. Set your Attributes to 0, then you can take one dump-stat by setting an Attribute to -1 and getting back 5XP in return.
Select a basic concept for the character, like 'fighter', 'burglar', 'noble', or whatever.
The book doesn't have any archetypes. Come on, this is basic stuff missing.
You don't need a system telling you which stats to boost...or maybe you do. If you want to know how to put a fighter together here, just copy the example in the core book. If you really want someone telling you how to spend your XP after that, then I'll spend it for you, but do you really want that?
You can get 100% of the advantages of a class system, with 0% of the constraints. Your class isn't helping you do anything, it just removes your ability to make choices.
How are you going to make money off this?
Yea, I'm not trying to.
I'm trying to make a good game, now buy some Traits. I recommend some Fate Points.
You have three skills, so you get three basic items. Maybe put down two weapons and some armour?
Some of this writing is really bad.
Yea, I know. And if you can do better, then fix it. Sign into Gitlab, press the 'fork' button for your own copy, and change the words. If I like your changes, I'll take a copy. If not, at least you can fix your own, because this thing is open source, so you'll have to think about production in a new way.
This isn't that new - people have done open source RPGs before.
No, not really. They just put the words 'open' in there or talk about community, but if you can't find and use the source files to make a document then it's not open source. I know Fate Core and OpenD6 have an open source reputation, but they don't actually provide any source files. They just say you're allowed to publish adventures for their core books, and they're just doing that so people buy more of their core books.
The very few RPGs which genuinely have shared their source documents are extremely new, or incomplete.
The real source for an RPG is the rules, which people can always change.
Making files available doesn't make a difference.
That might be true if you're a highly intelligent alien, but humans don't work like that. Real people use books for RPGs, to reference, to remember, or just to look at the pretty pictures. There's also a real difference between spreading your house rules by mentioning them to people on the internet, and giving out the tools for people to take that rule into their game, and print out a full copy with their changes at the local printing shop.
Now stick a name on your sheet, and roll for Initiative. You're about to see what a tactical RPG is like.
If you're into that sort of ridiculously crunchy stuff there are already loads of tactical RPGs out there, like D&D 4th ed., or White Wolf, or...
No, there aren't.
Take White Wolf for example. It looks like you make the choice of doing a head-shot or a normal attack, but a little Maths shows that the head-shot deals less damage on average, so the choice is really an illusion.
New editions of D&D might seem to give you more options than 'I hit them with my axe', with a once-per-fight-super-barbarian-power-attack, but the best choice is always to use it on the biggest creature, or the first creature if they're all the same.
It's just 'I hit it with my axe', but with extra steps.
Nobody's figuring out these calculations on the fly - the only challenge here is sitting down with a calculator and figuring out which buttons are best, and then you push those same buttons forever. Whether you handle this with 1 rule or 10, one dice-roll or 100 dice-rolls, it's not tactical, because nothing they do matters to you, and nothing you do matters to them.
We do things differently here. The goblins are attacking:
- Their best shot is to all move forward and attack the mage, because he can cast area-of-effect spells.
- That means your best move, is to move to guard the mage.
- However, once you do that, you know that the goblins would be better off attacking the party thief, so they will move towards him, and not the mage.
- A goblin attacks, so you can focus on defence (thereby losing your Initiative), or recklessly attack back.
- When you get a chance to attack, you charge at them and get a better chance of hitting, but leaving yourself more exposed, meaning goblins might switch to attacking you rather than that thief.
And so on and on it goes, the eternal question of 'what will the enemy do next?'.
It's interaction, rather than complexity, which makes combat interesting.
This isn't really generic fantasy if you have all these gods in there, and this weird magic system.
You got me there. I'd like to make the system as open as possible to other people's stories, worlds and campaigns, but alas, a completely generic fantasy system has not been achieved.
Perhaps it's impossible.
Perhaps someone else could do a better job with the right fixes.