Why Knave?

So there I was. Having spent a lot of time and energy making my dream RPG. See my posts on the Alternative Rules and Supplements for Early Editions for a fuller explanation. I had decided on a B/X style game powered by Basic Fantasy and additions from the SRD’s. Although each change or addition I added was small, the cumulative weight of the Frankensystem I had created was to much. While I was planning on starting a severe pruning and editing of the system, I stumbled across Knave. So what is Knave? Here is the answer from the designer’s own words.

“KNAVE is a rules toolkit created by Ben Milton for running old school fantasy RPGs without classes. Adding, subtracting and modifying rules is both expected and encouraged. Knave’s features include:

• High compatibility with OSR games. If you have a library of OSR bestiaries, adventure and spell books, little or no conversion is needed to use them with Knave.
• Fast to teach, easy to run. If you are introducing a group of new players to OSR games, Knave allows them to make characters and understand all the rules in minutes.
• No classes.Every PC is a Knave, a tomb-raiding, adventure-seeking ne’er-do-well who wields a spell book just as easily as a blade. This is an ideal system for players who like to switch up their character’s focus from time to time and don’t like being pigeonholed. A PC’s role in the party is determined largely by the equipment they carry.
• Abilities are king. All d20 rolls use the six standard abilities. The way that ability scores and bonuses work has also been cleaned up, rationalized, and made consistent with how other systems like armor work.
• Optional player-facing rolls.Knave easily accommodates referees who want the players to do all the rolling. Switching between the traditional shared-rolling model and players-only rolling can be done effortlessly on the fly.
• Copper standard. Knave assumes that the common unit of currency is the copper penny. All item prices use this denomination and approximate actual medieval prices.
• A list of 100 level-less spells.
• Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License: You are free to share and adapt this material for any purpose, including commercially, as long as you give attribution.
• Designer commentary. The rules include designer comments explaining why each rule was written the way it was, to aid in hacking the game.”

Please consider purchasing this from Drive Thru RPG. It is $2.99 and well worth it.

So why did I decide to make Knave the basis for my writing and rules development?

• Knave is B/X adjacent: It scales along similar curves. I can easily use all of the existing B/X resources available.
• The author released the rules under a CCA 4.0 license. So there are no IP entanglements.
• The author is developing Knave 2E. It’s available to his patreon supporters on the Questing Beast website. He is introducing some great new ideas and concepts, but…
• I prefer a more B/X style game.
• So I plan on writing for and supporting the first edition of the game.
• When the second edition is released, I will evaluate whether I will migrate there.