A few days ago, I received a very helpful set of comments on Microlite75 in email from Kevin Donovan and, with his permission, have been posting and discuss some of the more interesting/controversial nuggets in recent blog posts. (Hit Points as Spell Points and the 15 Minute Adventuring Day and Ideas for the Warlord in Microlite75). Feel free to comment with your own views on the issues Kevin raises. Feedback is good and, outside of my Sunday campaign group, I don’t get nearly as much as I would like.

Today, a few general Microlite75 comments from Kevin:

Also, what you think of a psionicist character? Essentially, a magic-user that slings psionics instead of spells. I’m thinking through some of the details, and I’ll send along my ideas later on.

While I have nothing against a psionicist class, I’m trying to make the psionics system work like the system on 0e and 1e where most classes had a chance of being psionic. One of my major campaign settings was designed around this back in the 1970s, so I need it to work that way. This will also allow easy use of old adventure modules and campaign material from TSR. There is a 3.x based psionics supplement for Microlite20 which could probably be dropped into Microlite75 with only a few changes for those who want class-based psionics.

Adding a psionicist class to the main rules would be hard because psionics as spells and psionics as powers are so different that I would have to include two separate (and probably incompatible) psionics systems in the “core rules.” I think that would be very confusing. However, I’d be really interesting in seeing your psionicist class ideas for possible inclusion in the “Unearthed Arcana” type supplement in the future.

Speaking of spells and optional stuff, a “fire and forget” spell system might make for a good optional rule.

I’ll go ahead and add it. Unless I want to go with a formula system (which is hard for many to understand), it’ll add a couple of pages to the final version. I doubt that will matter as rules are already so long that “Microlite” is a bit of a misnomer.

Moreover, I curious to see how the spirit-binding rules could fit in with Carcosa. As such, a PC with a shamanic background would definitely have a better chance of success with the spirit realm. But that’s just my 2 cents worth.

I can’t see why something like this would not work. Spirits could just as easily be demons.

Also, do you have any particular favorite settings that you’re using ML 75 for?

I’m designing Microlite75 so it has all the non-setting-specific rules needed to run either of my two major campaign worlds: the Hidden Valley and the Empire of Arn. The Hidden Valley is a fairly standard low to medium powered fantasy world. The Empire of Arn is a much higher-powered world where technology and magic co-exist to some extent. This should enable Microlite75 to be used in almost any fantasy world. I can see it working from Greyhawk, the Forgotten Realms, Mystara, the Wilderlands of High Fantasy, and similar settings. My playtest campaign is set in the Wilderlands of High Fantasy.

Finally, I’d like to thank Kevin for both his comments on Microlite75 and for allowing me to discuss some of those comments here.