Recently, I've been hankering for something from D&D 4e that it just can't provide: looseness. The crazy combat and crunchy rules are something amazing, but too much crunch is too much crunch– and it begins to get in the way of things.
As such, the game is receiving a well-deserved mechanical makeover. Over 4e– forever in our hearts as the grumpy, loveable, "back in the war" senile old man of RPGs– Advanced Fighting Fantasy has been chosen. From what we've seen, it's a great system: enough crunch and depth to the rules to provide an interesting experience, but absolutely no bars on what you can change, create, or add. And that's something I've always wanted.
As AFF brings with it some wonderfully weird and different ways of playing the game (that 3-letter sorcery system has already garnered hype), this mechanical change brings with it a bit of a setting change. We'll be keeping with the current world (as a whole), but moving, changing, and otherwise shaking things up to work with this new system.
All I know now about that– as most of the finer points of this change will come when my copy of the core rules arrives– is that with a cast of new characters we'll be moving the focus of play to somewhere else in the world. I really enjoyed the low-prep sandbox I created for the Hinterlands early on: I'd love to try that pure, stringless sandbox again. I think it might start somewhere new, without that baggage of all the things I created for the Hinterlands before I knew what was useful or not.
However, that doesn't mean new characters are required (though somewhat encouraged; as a DM I always enjoy a fresh roster). Feel free to bring any character, new or old, to the table, lads.
So, a fresh system, fresh region, and fresh characters (largely). Hopefully, this'll allow us to play the game free of the mechanical limitations of D&D.
No comments:
Post a Comment