How Bastards killed my Homebrew
Posted: 20 Jan 2016, 13:19
Hello everyone. Let me begin by saying i'm not good at Introductions, so I'll skip that for now.
I have been at writing a roleplaying system for a few years now. The process has had the general characteristics of changes in personal taste, leading to annual rewrites, and generally a complete lack of testing.
Now the latest iteration was indeed based on TRoS, of which i only had read the rulebook and never had played a session, as gaming groups had proven unfeasable to assemble (I live in Germany, and the only roleplaying game anyone ever plays here is The Dark Eye, which if you know about it, you know it to be an utter turd of a roleplaying game system.)
So, the last few years, most of my roleplaying game related activity was largely limited to myself. I quietly wrote my rules and setting info, more as a hobby than to ever present them to anyone.
Then I heard of TRoS Revival Projects, first Song of Swords, and later Bastards. That was around summer last year.
From the teasers, it quickly became very clear to me that Bastards was doing a lot of the things i wanted my rule system to do, and also doing it a lot better than me.
Needless to say I have not spent a lot of time on my system since.
I have been at writing a roleplaying system for a few years now. The process has had the general characteristics of changes in personal taste, leading to annual rewrites, and generally a complete lack of testing.
Now the latest iteration was indeed based on TRoS, of which i only had read the rulebook and never had played a session, as gaming groups had proven unfeasable to assemble (I live in Germany, and the only roleplaying game anyone ever plays here is The Dark Eye, which if you know about it, you know it to be an utter turd of a roleplaying game system.)
So, the last few years, most of my roleplaying game related activity was largely limited to myself. I quietly wrote my rules and setting info, more as a hobby than to ever present them to anyone.
Then I heard of TRoS Revival Projects, first Song of Swords, and later Bastards. That was around summer last year.
From the teasers, it quickly became very clear to me that Bastards was doing a lot of the things i wanted my rule system to do, and also doing it a lot better than me.
Needless to say I have not spent a lot of time on my system since.
That sounds both terrible and uplifting at the same time. Terrible because of your game getting killed, but also uplifting, since you discovered that you're not completely alone out there with your gaming tastes. We're fully aware that 'Bastards is essentially aimed at a minority audience of a very specific RPG niche and as such, it's always good to hear that our ideas just click for someone else. Makes us feel like as if we aren't chasing the wind after all. 
