There are games that give you all the basic raw data that BE does. Traveller, for instance, had a sort of lifepath character creation system, all those beautiful DGP books for generating systems, starship operations, even miniatures rules for mass combat, blah blah blah.
But no other RPG I’ve read made it so crystal clear how to PLAY. No other RPG I’ve read has so many…components so tightly integrated, and so focused. Nothing is superflous in BE (that I’ve seen, anyway). All of that stuff MEANS something, and has bearing on the story. In what RPG do you zoom in and zoom out like this? What RPG is so…complete?
BE shows you how to play the game. That’s what it boils down to, I guess. RPGs don’t DO that, do they?
Eh. Ignore my rambling. I just wanted to say thanks for blowing my mind.
Now you’re talking my language! You’ve nailed the design goal for Burning Empires: Show, don’t tell.
So many games say, “My game is about this epic struggle!” but the rules are for basic task res, character creation, magic and combat. The epic struggle is handwaved, “You figure it out at the table.”
I wanted to create a [b]game[/b] that you played and mastered in order to create the epic struggle. A game with rules and guidelines which focus on the epic struggle.
What’s contained within that epic struggle? Why characters, combat and psychology, of course!
This is hot shit, Luke. Like, way above and beyond. Color me impressed.
I’m working on a demo scenario right now, and I’ve mocked up some character and infection sheet PDFs with text fields for those so inclined to use them.