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Saturday, July 16, 2011

Delving Into Liber Zero's Status

I haven't mentioned where I am lately in the Liber Zero project. I've been chipping away at stuff in the background, but things slowed down a bit, partly because of busy life stuff, but also because I'm waiting to see what happens with a certain other clone project: Delving Deeper, by Brave Halfling Publishing. I don't know much about it, other than the backstory on how it came about. However, it's intended to fill the "original three booklets" retroclone niche, the same one some people have complained is not quite being filled right now -- and the same niche I was aiming for with Liber Zero.

So I'm waiting to see what Delving Deeper actually looks like, or at least get more information about how close it will actually be to the original rules and where it will diverge. I plan on completing something called "Liber Zero" no matter what, but if Delving Deeper is very close, then I will be adjusting Liber Zero to fit whatever still needs to be done.

The stripped-down build-a-spell and build-a-monster rulesare unique to Liber Zero, so they will definitely be completed and published, no matter what.

I haven't seen any other retroclone attempt to translate the 1d6-based miscellaneous event rolls from the original or basic rules into a unified event system the way I have with situation rolls, so those will almost certainly be published.

The character bits are the questionable parts. From what I've seen, Delving Deeper's version of the Magic-User is pretty damn close to the original: it passes the hit dice test, which is the main thing I look at. If Delving Deeper is very close in the rest of the character-related rules and is only missing a few bits and pieces, Liber Zero would work better as an add-on/mod to other retroclones. I mean, if I could have 0e play using Delving Deeper + the Liber Zero elements I just listed, why go through all the troubles I've gone through with experience tables?

4 comments:

  1. Well said. I too am curious about DD, as well as Liber Zero -- thanks for the update.

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  2. Pretty good questions.

    If Delving Deeper looks to be your cup of tea, I'd love to see Liber Zero in add-on form. Retroclones don't get enough unique addons, in my opinion.

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  3. I'm part of the team putting DD together and our aim is most definitely to produce a clone as close as possible to the original, in much the same way as OSRIC has with 1e. We've certainly avoided changing mechanics whenever possible.

    Having followed your Liber Zero project Talysman I think you'll be very happy with DD, but I also think you are doing things with your project that are both beyond the scope of the literal "retro-clone", and are wonderfully inspired.

    DD is a bit overdue at the moment because life threw a few curved balls, but it's now on the home stretch and an announcement from John Adams will probably happen in the very near future.

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  4. @austrodavicus: thanks for the update. I pretty much blame the current problems DD is having on my sudden interest. When I was following some of the posts on ODD74 with mild interest, everything seemed to be roaring along. As soon as I started to "delve deeper" and think I might need to wait for it to come out before deciding LZ's direction, John Adams announced the delays.

    My psychic powers are amazing!

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