Sometime after his eightieth readthrough of The New Rules, Martin pronounced to us that they were horrible and wrong and that he hated them. We’d been using the new system for about two weeks by then, all of our characters converted over under Martin’s dungeonmastery eye. We were going to scrap it and go back to the old edition of the game, but Jennie really liked the new rules. Martin (and Stan, but he wasn’t running the game) really liked Jennie, so he swallowed his pride and kept slogging through the “unbalanced, unplaytested, unbearable mess” that his most beloved roleplaying game had become.
“I think it evens the playing field for everybody.” I’m a little annoyed that my best friend has just preempted my sulk, yeah, so I’m prepared for some friendly debate.
Dreiser looks at me, pushes up his glasses and theatrically throws his hands up. “Ron, no offense, but you are exactly the gamer this panders to. You’re Mr. I’ll Solve Every Problem With Evocations And/Or Swords.”
“Hey, I played a cleric. Remember? Barten Dwor.”
Martin sighs the way that some people punch. “You were a Sword Cleric.”
As always, the procrastinator in me scoffs at the idea of doing Teaser Tuesday on an actual Tuesday.
This is still exceptionally rough, so go light on the excoriating comments.
