It is sad that 97% of the changes I see in 13th Age 2E just piss me off.
The explicit promise that 1E gave us was "here's this great big weird fantasy world, and now it's 100% yours to play with... we have no timeline, nothing changes that doesn't come from your table."
2E is chock full of "And here's how we changed the world and advanced the timeline!"
Don't come at me and say "you don't have to use those elements." I know that. I''m barely touching 2E
1/x
It's just the reversal of stance is so great as to almost be a betrayal. I almost never run pre-written worlds, but for the library kids I wanted to keep things as close to the book as possible if the kids went and picked it up. So the campagin is preparing for/working against the orc Lords strategies as the A plot while the circumstances of the Green Wyrms imprisonment by the Elf Queen as the B plot.
Guess which world elements have been wildly altered in 2E?
2/x
"Oh yeah, someone else killed the Orc Lord, he's gone now, and the Green isn't imprisoned, he's charmed by the Elf Queen...." Just... why?
I want to like this, and to be able to follow the explicit promise made in 1E that this would stay stable so I could port things in as I needed. Shades of 1e to 2e AD&D, except then I agreed with the changes.
Fortunately this is a TTRPG and not a computer game where the actual license owners could change the setting and I couldn't ignore it.
3/x
I suppose I could chalk this up to the old phrase "No game survives contact with its second edition," but I was hoping for better from Pelgrane.
To Be Fair: the clean up of the Icon Relationship Points is nice. The new Ranger's Pet rules hit perfectly. I accept the reduction of tactical complexity for the ease of play trade off of spell leveling. There are likely other things in her I may steal for my 1E game. But as a whole, everything has been fixing "problems" we never had.
4/4
@bss I admit that I like some of the changes in Sorcerer and am implementing some of them alongside the 1E Sorcerer design. Spillover is more elegant than chaotic energy effects, some of the heritage redesigns are good, and I like the inclusion of metallic dragon breath weapons given how much dragons play into my games.
If all the changes were this caliber i would be happy.
Brian Rogers
bss, super genius