Old School Rules…OK?
I don't know about you, but for a number of years I have found RPGs in general have in many ways lost the plot and forgotten about what makes a game fun to play.
There is no doubt that games today are big business and are now more polished and professional then ever before. The graphics and artwork are simply out of this world, truly amazing stuff. The options and choices available to the player are also endless and could not be any more open and un-restrictive.
However, are the games any better? Have the core rules changed that much and for the better? Are the games more fun or simply do they just give the player unlimited options presented in a highly polished finish?
Maybe it is just me or a sign that I'm losing touch with today's gamers, however I find myself often lost in the unnecessary complexity of it all. It just feels too overwhelming and trying to find the path to just pure fun is getting harder and harder.
I am craving for the good old days when everything in the world was less complex when you were happy to choose from a handful of classes instead of an endless list of classes, sub-classes, multi-classes etc. I say Old School Rules rock and it appears I am not alone.
I am reading more and more articles about this and maybe the tide is about to turn. There is a great website that deal with just this thing. They have devised a system called the Microlite20 System. http://www.retroroleplaying.com/content/microlite20-rpg-collection
What is Microlite20?
Do you remember when the gaming table was full of pizza and soda, not rulebooks, miniatures and dungeon tiles? Do you yearn for a role-playing game that doesn't require weight training to carry all the books? Do you want to be able to hold all the rules in your head - or in your back pocket? And do you still want to use all those lovely monsters, adventures and game worlds too? So do we!! -- Greywulf
Microlite20 is a minimalist role-playing game designed to be usable with the majority of the OGL/d20 supplements, rules and adventures with little or no advance preparation. The basic rules for character generation, combat, magic and level advancement take up a single sheet of paper, meaning it is perfect for introducing role-playing to new players, gaming oneshot adventures or tailoring into your own game system.
Ilkor: Dark Rising?
We have designed Ilkor to make use of the Microlite20 system. While we haven't followed it 100% we have learnt that we want to return to the basics, simplify the options and throw away all the clutter and noise. Talking about classes again. There are some really obscure classes that I know for a fact are rarely every picked such as the Bard, Invoker, Shaman, etc. Why have these when 80% of the players will never pick such classes?
So in Ilkor:
- Your character's race can only be one of 4: human, elf, dwarf or halfling
- Your character's class is be: fighter, wizard, rogue or priest.
It is as simple as that. Back to basics. We do have sub-classes that at a later stage of the game you can move into, but again the choice is small and limited to the well known and loved sub-classes of old.
So, without giving any more away, we hope you'll be pleasantly surprised with the choice of our direction. I know we are and we can't wait to get stuck in!!
Cheers,
Sean.