"Rodney E. Barnes" wrote:

> I agree with most of your points if playing evil was allowed.  But playing
> evil is NOT allowed in the new game.
>
> There are no more thieves, assassins, etc. in the new game.  And they have
> reworked the alignment definitions to a more jewdeo-Christian definition of
> good and evil, as opposed to the old more "open" definitions.

Where are you getting this information?  It is in fact strongly recommended that
you don't
play evil pc's, but I wouldn't call it a rule.  I believe the rpga does forbid
it, however.
(as an interesting note, the text on how evil characters are against the nature
of heroic
gaming is somewhate reminiscent of Everway, another game from WotC that Jonathan

Tweet designed.  Not quite cut and pasted, but close.  The system of 3E
resembles
Jonathan Tweets Ars Magica.  Which just goes to show that Jonathan Tweet can
make
the bestselling rpg ever out of used bits from his old games.  What skill!
Applause!)

I don't know why you are saying there are no more assassins, they are in the
DMG.
It's a prestige class. PC assassins are allowable, playable, acceptable,
whatever.

There are still thieves. They are just called 'rogues.'
They changed the name because the class is much broader in scope now,
although still dedicated to the scoundrel of the party.



>
> And to my surprise again, they just released a new adventure in Dungeon
> magazine based on the Crusades (where you play the Christian Crusaders, and
> they are the GOOD GUY!!).
>

Far and away from the real crusades, which were mostly an excuse for the second
and third sons of nobles to slaughter, enslave, and steal the land from anyone
that might or might not be an infidel.(for those of you out of the loop: the
eldest sons inherited
title and lands.  The second son might get something. Generally if they wanted
to stay nobility
they needed to find a female only child of another noble and marry her, or put
an army together
and go take over somewhere.) I quote: "Kill them all, god will sort them out."
And that is exactly what happened.  The Knights Templar never shaved or bathed,
and were suspected of cannibalism.  Aside from their probable homosexual
practices.
Just because they were supposed to be christians doesn't mean they were the good
guys.

>
> The "downside" is that they still have "gods", magic, and psyonics in the
> main system rules.  But that is easily handled by the DM.  In fact, the new
> DMs guide gives rules for magic/"gods"/ and Psi-less campaigning. And I was
> very disappointed in their listing of Tarot cards being one of several card
> sets that could be used for the "deck of many things" (but in all fairness,
> they gave several suggested decks, with building your own as the recommend
> choice).  Actually, a couple of their own in house designers objected to
> that one.
>

I really don't think the solution is to strip out the gods, magic, and psionics.

If you are going to strip out all the fantasy elements, why play a fantasy game?

If you want some gritty and realistic medieval game where faith and virtue are
important, I suggest Pendragon.  the magic in that game is nearly nonexistent,
so
stripping it out is pretty easy.  It's basically about the new christian
morality vs.
the old pagan morality in arthurian times.