EN World -- Striking Out on Its Own with O.L.D. and N.E.W.

In the before times, in the not now, EN World was a site for news about the upcoming 3rd edition of Dungeons & Dragons. Since that time, the website has evolved into a vibrant community site that not only had news about role playing games, but was also a publisher of exciting campaign materials for both the 4th Edition of D&D and the Pathfinder Rpg. This month the folks at EN World have taken another bold step and have launched a Kickstarter to fund the publication of their own role playing game system N.E.W./O.L.D. or as they have branded it "What's O.L.D. is N.E.W."

Rediscover the fun of pencil and paper, of building anything you can imagine, with rules that are clear but not so thin they'll blow away in a strong wind.

In What's O.L.D. Is N.E.W. you'll do all that and more! Build a starship. Brew a potion. Explore a dungeon. Create a universe. Put your wizard in the starship. Explore *your* world.

Both O.L.D. and N.E.W. are "generic" role playing games for their respective genres - Fantasy and SF - and as such constitute a brave move by Russ Morrissey. While the market for generic SF games isn't overly crowded, the market for generic Fantasy games is saturated. Morrissey is counting on his game's ability to be extremely customizable while at the same time being accessible. It isn't the first game rule set to make this claim, but if Morrissey delivers on that promise the games can gain a good foothold in the market. Savage Worlds, one of my personal favorite systems, shares some of this space and it is the combination of flexibility and playability that I believe makes SW as popular as it is. There's room in my heart for another game that hits that space and I'm backing this project. You can download the playtest documents yourself to see if they might interest you. As I read through the documents, and give them a brief run through with my group, I'll let you know my thoughts.