2012/07/18

The first Powers & Perils retro-clone!

Yesterday night i decided to write the first Powers & perils retro-clone.


I'm planning to create and publish as a PDF a streamlined version of this venerable old-school fantasy rpg, a sort of "Powers & Perils" in a nutshell, devoid of all that is considered too complex, so as to ease the comprehension of the game to anyone who might be scared of it.

Considering that a community of fans already exist (powersandperils.org) and that you can find all of the original books online available as free downloads, i am pretty sure there is no problem at all concerning copyrights in embarking in such an endeavour as a retro-clone.

As i said, this version is going to be more easy to understand, quite streamlined and without the optional rules and tables which may confuse someone who tries to grasp this game for the first time.

I would like to make a version of this fantasy rpg more accessible to the masses, so to speak, and i am planning to make some rules changes and revisions, much like they did with OSRIC.This is why i'm calling it a retro-clone.

For instance, i'm planning to change the way priestly magic works, to develop the thief/assassin class better.

Similarly, i'm going to omit something: the faerry class, some crunchy stuff such as height and weight calculations, food requirements factor and the like, modify the initiative rules ( which i deem can be improved), make the overall presentation of the game more easy (in fact, Richard Snider put basic material at the end of some books whereas he should have put them at the beginning. This was baffling for many who read it when it was published and it was detrimental for its accessibility).

All in all, i'm very excited about this project.

I'm just uncertain as for the name under which it will be published, i was thinking about "Perils Eternal" or "Powers & Perils: the Rebirth".

Any suggestion will be much appreciated.

Stay tuned, i totally want to contribute to the OSR movement in this way.

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

Excellent news CL, I look forward to following this project. And I'd vote for "Perils Eternal".

Unknown said...

What about Eternal Perils?

Philosophical slumber said...

actually i'm uncertain. I like "Eternal perils" a lot but i don't know how "Perils Eternal" sounds in english (i mean, to an english mothertongue speaker who hears it).

I got inspired by the name "Arduin eternal", i thought putting "eternal" at the end sounds more poetic or more artistic, but i may be wrong. Any insight is more than welcome.

Raskal said...

This is a very good news. I was a P&P player and i am very happy to see a clone of the RPG
You will create an original setting ?

Anonymous said...

You're right CL, putting eternal at the end of the name sounds poetic and old fashioned. It gives it a nice flavour.

Philosophical slumber said...

@Raskal: no, i will only write a retro-clone of it. I'm going to make it more D&D like in presentation, and i would like to do away with the alleged "dryness" of Snider's style of writing.

Plus, many modifications to make it more easy and accessible, sort of a "Sword & wizardry" version of P&P.

I think "Perilous lands" is already a nice setting.

@David: thanks for the input, that's what i was after, an "old-fashioned" and sort of poetic feeling for the name.

Unknown said...

As you know I'm not a mothertounge but I can agree with you that Perils Eternal is more poetic in some way. Altought Eternal Perils would be more correct, you can think at an halfway between.

Good luck for your project, I'm looking forward to see it.

Anthony N. Emmel said...

Late to teh party, but...as a native English speaker, yes, Perils Eternal is perfectly ok, and fits in with "poetic license." English is not German! We're not all that concerned about placement.

Also, "Perils Eternal" i evocative of the works of C.A. Smith in tone.

Philosophical slumber said...

wow, thank you for your suggestion

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