Last week, I did a post about some More Thoughts on ICRPG and this generated some good discussion over on MeWe. The subject came that ICRPG relies mostly on Loot as a means of character progression. This all got me thinking.

It’s true that ICRPG uses Loot as a means to grant characters more unmph. Old School games were kind of like that especially for the non-casters. The only way for them to get cool/weird abilities was loot or drinking from that mysterious pool in the depths of a dungeon. But then if we look at 5E, every damned class has a super power and loot seems like an after thought. If everybody has cool abilities then just how cool are they? What’s the “right way”? Well, that’s up to you.

But here’s my thoughts. There should be a balance between the two. Loot doesn’t always have to be super cool. It can do things that a character may not otherwise be able to do. You know like food. (I know Goodberry). Or something really cool that augments a character’s abilities and/or skills. Also, Loot can become sort of the trademark for the character. Think of Elric without Stormbringer. Hmm? At the same characters should have a way either by player choice or chance or a combination of the two to get some nifty abilities or powers.

So let me sum up. Character growth and improved should be a combination of choice and chance. Somethings should character abilities and some should be from loot. And it most certainly shouldn’t be like a Chinese menu.

This one totally snuck up on me. There I was just browsing away on the Internet and decided to do a little shopping and bam there it is.

Hey! This thing is by Reaper. Don’t those guys just make miniatures? Well, apparently not. Seems they also want to throw a game out there too. Well, they released the beta Players Primer on their website. And there’s some adventures over there too.

I, of course, downloaded and starting reading. Dungeon Dwellers is a variety of things from various editions and comes up with a generally streamlined game. It’s got the usual classes, races, and spells. There’s no monsters in this primer but like I said, there’s adventures there too.

They are releasing Dungeon Dwellers along with an old-school line of miniatures. That’s cool. I admit that some of the original Reaper Bones weren’t all that great. But I’ve given them another chance and I like their Bones Black and Bones USA lines. (And I like their metal mini’s too.) D&D is having wild popularity but why release your own game? I don’t want to speculate right now. I’ll just file that in the back of mind for later use.

So go ahead and check it out.

Well, since the Master Edition of ICRPG hit a good price, I figured I’d grab that up and do some more deep thoughts on it.

The Master Edition contains the Core Rules plus the main supplements like Magic as well as a couple more settings like Ghost Mountain. As I said, I ranted about ICRPG before. It’s a good game and a good toolkit depending on how you want to use it. Heck, I’ve already incorporated a few things into my home game like the timer die. Recently, I’ve going through the forums and picking up bits of wisdom about the system. This also led me to an awesome fan Youtube channel.

I’m still iffy about a few mechanics but after doing all that digging, reading, and listening; I’ve got a better handle the design philosophy and how better to mold the game into my liking. And maybe that’s one of the reasons that I’m still chasing after it. I like when a creator says, go ahead and hack this. Heck, don’t even use all of it if you don’t want to. I’m even tempted to convert my current campaign to be ICRPG-centric. Plus I’ve got a couple of ideas bouncing around in the back of my head. I don’t know where that is going to take me.