Rethinking Gryphons & Gramarye: Whitebox or Core?
One of my Sunday Game players printed out the latest draft version of Gryphons & Gramarye, read it, and sparked quite a discussion after yesterday’s game. He thinks I would be better off working from the Whitebox version of S&W instead of the Core Rules version that I’m using now.
His reasons:
- S&W Whitebox is a more basic set of rules so it would be easier to work my system changes into the system.
- S&W Whitebox has already spun off a large number of variants. As most of them are OGL it would be easy to create a “frankengame” with the best of what others have done combined with my house rules. This would make the game more of a different game than what it is now which might make it more appealing.
- He pointed out that we’ve been playing for over three years and all PCs are still under 10th level. Why go to the trouble of creating a game that can handle high level spells and characters when most old school players enjoy low and mid-level play most. Make those levels more interesting instead of trying to add higher levels than many, if not most, will never use.
- As Whitebox is a much less complex game than Core or Complete, it lets itself to the Microlite74 “many optional rules” treatment.
- Layout-wise, a Whitebox based game would be less trouble to create. It might even be possible to do it in 3-4 digest-sized books just like 0e.
To my surprise, most of my Sunday Game players came around to this POV after 30-40 minutes of discussion. I’m a bit reluctant due to all the work over already done, but have to admit that much of what I’ve done could probably be plugged directly into a Whitebox version with few changes and I am intrigued by the possibilities he mentioned.
I’m interested in more diverse opinions, however. Namely, your opinions. Which do you think would made a better Gryphons & Gramarye RPG: the current Core S&W with my house rules and few other changes version or a S&W Whitebox based version with my house rules and the best (IMHO) of other OGL Whitebox variants and, perhaps, a set of optional rules.