General question: if you were considering running a play by email game of Glen Cook's _Black Company_ series designed to replace the Books of the South, what would you use as a game engine?
I know Green Ronin did a d20 adaptation but it's wildly out of print, and I'm not sure how well d20 translates to the grittier action of the books.
@SubplotKudzu Band of Blades is a version of Blades in the Dark that's adapted to be extremely close to the Black Company set-up. I haven't played a game by email, so I'm not sure how a BITD hack would work in that format, but in terms of tone, character types and scenarios, it's already very close.
@Crowstone interesting…. Thanks!
@SubplotKudzu I should add, Band of Blades is it's own thing - it just takes Cook's novels as one of the main points of inspiration.
@Crowstone I saw that when I checked out the Drive Through RPG page, but it's always good to see how others executed on the theme.
I'm not sure on it because it's so en media res whereas I picked that spot because it's the cleanest break in the books where the Company is down to 7 members, so it's the size of a gaming table, and they are in a new to the reader environment.
Still, I'll probably pick it up just to check it out. Thanks again!
@SubplotKudzu Oh wait, you said PBEM. Hm. I mean, those two could still work, and you have a higher tolerance for complexity in the PBEMs you run than I do when I run a PBEM.
@drcpunk yah. The PBEM environment is the bigger concern; I just can’t have initiative cycling be cumbersome or action resolution require too many back and forths. That’s something that worries me about Blades or Reign.
@SubplotKudzu The thing is, once you want grit, you get into a balancing act, as the systems that are best with grit tend to be more mechanically complex, at least in my experience.
@SubplotKudzu I'm not super into it as I've not yet internalized how it works, but I would guess Blades in the Dark could work. REIGN might work well.