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First of all, I'm currently going through job interviews, ad searching, and auditions so that my mom and I don't get kicked out. I have time to post in-between because Im at the computer during ad searching but not to run a session. Maybe in a couple of months but not NOW. My article update is going to have to wait until after Tuesday. I've got a monologue to prepare. Oh, and my gaming history as requested, noting the more influential events. Some of these overlap with each other, in which they happen at the same time. This doesn't include the thousands of hours of fantasy RPG video games, comics, books, movies, cartoons, and tv shows I've absorbed because that's more than I care to write down. I may have missed a few things related to tabletop but this is what I've got to share for now. age 9 and earlier - introduction to fantasy games: Might and Magic on the C64 age 9 or 10 - introduced to fantasy games with actual story in the form of Final Fantasy IV - was given Dragon Quest game as a birthday present age 12 - introduction to Advanced Dungeons and Dragons 2nd edition age 13 - introduction to Dark Sun, Gamma World age 17 - finally put down the "Dragon Kings" book and took a break from RPing in general - rolled more new characters than I can remember since age 13 - either for fun or character death (Dark Sun was brutal) age 18-22 - played various trading card games a lot - wrote "Deck Master" rules book for YuGiOh that I never tried to publish - over 1,000 monsters covered, wrote various free rules supplements for YuGiOh, Magic, and Fullmetal Alchemist including 10,000 random effect dice roller (no 2 effects were the same) for YuGiOh age 23-25 - played in a FR campaign from 3rd to 15th level, sessions were 3 1/2 to 5 hours long - was the paperwork keeper for party activities, including a theater house, a large adventurer's guild, special projects including airship construction - experiemented heavily with race, class, and spell design - also made a final fantasy tabletop rpg reinventing a few 3.5 rules and rewriting every single spell and power in the SRD + new additions age 23-26 - spent a lot of time at local Barnes and Nobles reading various RPG books like Mutants and Masterminds, the Complete supplements, and Vampire the Masquerade age 25-26 - DMed both 3.5e and 4e weekly for friend and his church youth group - sessions were 6 to 8 hours long - varied from 5-8 in the party - used remnants of the ff rpg 3.75e combined with 4e to make ff rpg 5e (50% complete currently) - played World of Darkness for 1 session - played Earthdawn for three 3-hour sessions, used rules from every RPG I ever played or read (including video games) as inspiration for some big ideas in ff rpg 5e - added content to FF 4e at final fantasy d20, keeping ff rpg 5e secrets to myself until I can publish it under an official license (coming late 2010 or early 2011 if things go well) or a new title without the ff flavor. age 26 - made horrible business plan to run pay-for-play campaign - worked on creating a theatrical feel for sessions (currently unproven methodology) after going through lots of GMing forum threads - currently writing article for purpose of debate - looking for job Whew. That's a load off my chest. In hindsight, a workable business plan might be to work for hire instead trying to tackle a 6-day campaign. Respectable acting credits combined with published game design and story writing might make the big difference in attracting customers, particularly the kind that might pay a lot more than $20 for a session. That might work out lucratively. I'll be back with the article hopefully Wednesday. No more posts from me until then. Viola, here I come!
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Mar 16, 2009 04:35
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Triphos posted:that's actually pretty cool
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Mar 16, 2009 04:42
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Mikan posted:For giggles, and to make a point, I want to make the unoptimal character. Um, excuse me sir. I believe we have already established that only OD&D is for character building.
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Mar 16, 2009 05:45
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You are goddamned right TSR/WOTC should have. Imagine if Magic did a total revamp and made all the cards incompatible. Just ask Wizkids how well that turned out. Oh. Can't. It basically helped kill them, or at least many of their lines. Ask Rackham how the new ruleset and amount of minis required for 4th edition Confrontation is working out for them. (I like the game, but it has landed with a dull thud at best.) I'll be over here buying stuff for new and different games, or supporting the ones that don't make me replace almost everything except maybe the dice every few years. Why buy a new version of an existing game that was apparently loving fine when it was around, but is immediately poo poo the second the beancounters decide its time to scam the consumer whores with a brand name obsession? As to you EXPLAIN VIDEOGAMES folks? First off, videogames are different than hobby games. Hobby games can effectively be played as long as someone is willing to run them. Its part of the glories of paper and ink. Second, its amazing how many games are little more than point upgrades with new missions anyhow. Is Halo 1 really that massively different from 3? Even on a different platform with a new engine its the same game. Hell, Fallout 3 is pretty much built on Oblivion's engine. Some game companies do little more than sell game engines others bolt their game on top of! And an edit with something I just thought of: How come you 4e fans seem hell bent on stopping any negative commentary about 4e wherever it is found, like some kind of consumer product white knight? Do you really think its gonna make the haters magically decide to drop whichever edition or RPG they had and be born again, and join you in consumerist bliss? If its as good as yall say and doing as well as yall think its destined to be, you don't need to do any defending. Unless like, your self esteem is so low you can't take anyone not liking what you do, or perhaps, you just don't like what the detractors are saying, and you hope if you yell real loud, it will somehow not be true, that the cracks aren't really there and those who chose not to buy for whatever reason are in the wrong.... Yall sound like furries really. I don't actually care what you do, however since its not illegal or genuinely harmful (except maybe to my potential player pool of a pleasant time wasting hobby) I will defend your right to do it. But I will be god damned if I praise you for it.
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Mar 16, 2009 08:44
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Today I was going to do a classic rant on account that its the day The Wench heads back to Canada. But I decided that instead I'd be writing about a fairly classic topic, something I haven't ranted about in a long time: RPG.net. RPG.net has changed a lot in the past year or so; they've moderated considerably their moderation policy (pardon the pun) and they've gotten rid of some of the worst offenders of the modclique; the clique's power has been broken, it would seem, largely because they saw people leaving the site in droves. In some part it was due to theRPGsite, and the fact that we demonstrated that you can have intelligent discussion that is MORE interesting by virtue of being unmoderated. But it was also, and much more directly, due to the fact that people were just sick and fed up with the atmosphere of total repression on there, where you couldn't say anything meaningful about anything without someone reporting it as a "group attack" or a "hurt my feelings attack", nor could you express any opinion contrary to the "mainstream" (the "mainstream" for RPG.net, namely its modclique) without the modclique coming down on you for being "intentionally obtuse" or a "disruptive influence" that hurts their "emotionally safe environment". In other words, you dared to disagree, so you're going to be banned. Those times have passed, mostly, and so there's been less reason to write about RPG.net in recent days. But they're in the process of purging a ton of their old Tangency threads, and that creates some interesting historical information. It gives us a chance to see how the gently caress RPG.net got to where it got with the modclique, how it went so horribly wrong. Because there was a time when RPG.net was essentially unmoderated, and where the general atmosphere was one of open flame-wars unlike anything theRPGsite has ever seen. And somehow it went from that to the police state we know now. The question "how did that happen?", how did it get subverted into a place where a tiny minority were in total control of the discussion, the opinion, and the atmosphere of the place come to pass? Threads like the "no report pledge" thread where Gareth Michael-Skarka was trying to fight against the rising of the tide present a very clear indication of how things fell apart. By the time that was posted, admins like Cessna had managed to allow themselves to buy into the idea that they needed to bring in people like Darren or Eric Brennan into mod status, and that measures had to be taken to make RPG.net into an "emotionally safe environment". So things changed from where people would work things out among themselves by argument or discourse into a situation where "reporting" had become the main past-time of a significant group in the board. This group had influenced things to make it that you could report another poster for hurting your feelings, and they had worked it out so that there would be moderators friendly to them in place to ban said people. And then, of course, they set about to using the Report function. By tattling on everyone they didn't like, as often as they possibly could, they were making a concerted effort to purge the boards of their ideological opponents, while those who were believers in free speech were not inclined to report anyone. That meant that the free-speech advocates were automatically at a disadvantage of massive proportions; unwilling to report others, they were being reported on by those who hated them for not wanting the board to be moderated. It was only a matter of time until all of these people were hounded out. Cessna and Darren have posted to the "No Report Pledge" thread as if it somehow vindicates their moderation policies, Cessna pointing out that allegedly, GMS himself reported a dozen people from that pledge. Well, for starters, I'd say that this thread pretty well DAMNS you, Cessna. It shows with such clarity how assholes from what was to become the modclique came in, provoked those who were advocates of free speech, tried to disrupt an effort to speak out against their pogroms and secret policing, and generally tried every trick in the book to manipulate or intimidate those who didn't want RPG.net to turn into what it eventually turned into. It was nothing short of visionary, that thread, in that GMS was trying to argue against a future that most definitely came to pass, one where in the name of "security" NO ONE on RPG.net could safely speak about ANYTHING, unless they had a Mod badge on. And then you have the gall to point out that GMS was reporting people? This was like tying one hand behind his back and going out and telling him to fight; then accusing him of dirty tactics because he wasn't standing still when they beat him. His reports weren't an effort to tattle, they were self-defense, trying to shout out against the system. Finally, theRPGsite, just as it played a part in bringing the Modclique down, has served to vindicate not just all those who were banned in RPG.net but all of those who were argued down with the claim that moderation and reporting and banning were required to create a site where people could have interesting conversations; or where it was claimed that people are incapable of policing themselves and needed a system of reporting and punishment. Those who argued this were wrong, and many of them were more than wrong, they were intentionally lying about their motives and how far they wanted it to go, as part of an effort to take over RPG.net. TheRPGsite is our revenge against them and how they ruined what was once a fine and free discussion forum. Incidentally, if anyone notes any other threads that make a good historical accounting for how RPG.net turned fascist, please point them out.
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Mar 16, 2009 19:55
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Currently Smoking: Chronic.
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Mar 17, 2009 00:17
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it's a depressing reminder of how spergy I am that the thing that most often offends me about RPGnet is their inability pluralize "Yozi" correctly
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Mar 18, 2009 20:42
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RPGnet is surprisingly readable if you're really liberal with your ignore list.
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Mar 19, 2009 02:45
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My mask... it is complete...
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Mar 19, 2009 21:19
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ManMythLegend posted:You're right, this that thread is great the fighter gets to do something other sit around while the wizard Does Everything and this makes me so loving mad!!!! 
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Mar 19, 2009 23:20
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Another day, another RPGnet thread to talk about how rape is no big deal.
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Mar 20, 2009 22:49
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magic tomahawk missile
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Mar 21, 2009 18:00
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ManMythLegend posted:This is true, it's included primarily for the sake of tradition. It does depend on what your definition of "necessary" is, of course, and so I acknowledge that my argument is self-defeating because you can now reply "I feel the bard is necessary" and suddenly PHB2 is also core, but I trust you understood the point I was making with my original post? what's wrong with this
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Mar 23, 2009 02:18
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ManMythLegend posted:Because he's using that arguement to say that Bards can't be considered a class by those who "defend" 4E against people like that "BUT MY BARD !!1!" guy from earlier in this thread. ah okay i just saw him saying "i'm not going to allow anythign not in phbi because I'm not going to overburden myself with system knowledge" which seems eminently reasonable
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Mar 23, 2009 05:01
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clockworkjoe posted:I get it. I really do. The mechanics are a mess. They were various degrees of bad under 1ed, and that tradition continued under 2ed. I get that people don't like the setting. They say it's too "small" now, too heavy on metaplot, too many nipple piercings, too many heroin pissing dinosaurs, too many people focusing on the setting without bitching about the mechanics. I get it. This isn't a thread about that. This is a thread about Exalted hate fucks. This is a minus thread for negativity about Exalted. And it's based on one premise:
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Mar 27, 2009 03:44
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rpgnet is actually a pretty decent place to discuss exalted once you ignore list everyone with an anime avatar
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Mar 27, 2009 03:52
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Mikan posted:I'm not going to quote anything from this thread but gently caress this thread. there are some great trolls though quote:I find that quoting Monty Python always leads to a barrel full of laughs. It's especially important, I think, to lighten the mood when the GM or another player's been attempting to depress us all with an overly serious story.
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Mar 27, 2009 14:06
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Naar posted:A friend of a friend of a friend in the vegan community named Josh Harper, is currently serving a 36 month prison sentence at the Sheridan Federal Detention Center for in his words "the horrible crime of organizing legal protests, delivering lectures at colleges, and giving unapologetic vocal support to the illegal tactics of others." haha that loving rules
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Apr 2, 2009 18:52
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The Adventures of Johnny Tek Episode 1: The Dungeon of Doom So I'd signed up with the NYC Dungeons and Dragons Meetup Group to start testing out tools I'd suggested for use in my article "Professional GM: Methodology and Theory Complete". The first game was today at the Compleat Strategist. The day started out pretty rough. City workers had started working across the street with jackhammers a few days ago and my sleep cycle has been greatly disturbed. I'd barely gotten 4 hours of snooze time before I left for the session. Yeesh. I'm the sort that needs at least 8 hours of sleep to function well. It was my first time seeing the basement game room of the store. 7 gaming tables. I was blown away. The store looks a lot smaller above ground level. Three players showed up. The party consisted of an eladrin rogue, an elf cleric of the Raven Queen, a human wizard, and a dragonborn paladin. I filled in as the paladin due to the group's need for a defender. Here's what I tested/remembered to test this time around. -Plastic silver stars to represent action points. The players liked this. It was easier to remember points as well as "spend" points. the stars were tossed into a pile as they were used. -Dramatic statement. Just as the players were about to enter the dungeon I'd prepared (for the purpose of adventurous exploration), I let loose with the "pony" lines. The players' reactions seemed indifferent at the time. -Battle Challenge. I created semi-hidden objectives to end encounters but as I was advised in the article thread, I kept mum about it. The players really got into solving the puzzles and tactical dilemmas I'd laid out. I'd tossed XP out the window and used an infinite generator for minion monsters without thinking twice. I'd also used moving terrain. The second encounter lasted over 2 hours but the players loved every round of it (I think about 14 or 15 rounds - one of the players was keeping track of initiative). It was a DnD 4e session for 1st level characters, with the party exploring a strange dungeon that was recently unearthed as the result of an earthquake. The dungeon was an ever-changing building imbued with the essence of chaos. It was located under an ancient temple devoted to a long-forgotten goddess of chaos with three heads, six arms, four eyes, and a double forked tongue. The first level of the dungeon was a room featuring a "chess board" battlefield. The PCs had to solve how to activate a "game" and then how to defeat the 16 chess piece monsters that showed up for the "game". The second level of the dungeon was a room with automatically moving platforms and switches for moving the platforms manually. The PCs had to figure out how to use the moving terrain to get to a pair of magic circles that would open the way to the next level. The stationary terrain in the room was divided by a bottomless chasm. At the end of every player's turn, there was a 50% chance of a zombie falling from the ceiling down on top of the player's character, potentially knocking the character prone with the zombie automatically "grabbing" the PC. With a successful Perception check, the attacked PC could shift 1 square before the zombie landed. It got tense at times with moving battles and dangerous jumps and PCs tossing PCs to get around. The players got smart and started readying actions to knock zombies off their teammates with ranged attacks when they weren't moving. One player readied an action to attack a zombie if one fell on top. A zombie did indeed fall, right on top of the PC's short sword. The PC tossed the zombie into the chasm. The session ended with the third level, which was a chamber that had a large valuable-looking crystal orb. The orb was guarded by a black dragon that opened the battle with a surprise acid breath attack (I gave the party a chance to detect the lurking foe though. They all failed their checks.). They weren't really supposed to win, just remember the option of escape (it was getting late so we had to leave the store soon). The PCs escaped the chamber with the orb in tow. The dragon lunged itself at the PCs at the last moment but they teleported out just before black death came down on their location. Vengeance was sworn by the draconian foe as it roared in anger over its lost treasure... I bent the rules a few times to let the players perform cool cinematic actions and the moving terrain worked out incredibly well. I was inspired to design the moving terrain from my experience playing Legend of Zelda on the SNES. I was heaped with praise at the end of the session for being open with the game rules and for my creative dungeon design. It had been a while since I DMed so I was a bit nervous. I improvised half of what was played on the spot so that was a bit wracking as well. I was relieved to see and hear their pleased reactions. Conclusions -Toy tokens are fun to use for representing "special" resources. -A dramatic pep statement might not make much of a difference. I'll have to try different ones for different situations though. This needs more data. -Battle challenges, especially those that involve the battle terrain, can make an encounter last more than twice as long as normal without making it feel like a drag. On the contrary, fighting lots of monsters while solving a puzzle as a team can be a very immersive experience. Careful monster design/selection is crucial. -It can be freeing to do away with XP rewards but is not for those unfamiliar with building encounters from scratch. If I had never DMed for 4e before the session, then it probably would have turned ugly. -It's important not to be too strict on the rules as written so that everyone has a good time. As long as the rules bending makes sense in a storytelling context. Next Playtest (on the 24th if anyone signs up - otherwise probably at next month's meetup) -I'll be trying out the last story concept I'd come up with before I ended the ill-begotten business that was "Caravan of Blades". -I'll be trying out the "game master's mask" for a specific NPC that the party may communicate with a few times during the session. -I'll have my "cinema stand" up and see how well it works for creating battlefield backgrounds and assisting with storytelling. -I'll be allowing the spending of action points to recharge encounter powers (1) and daily powers (2). -I'll be getting my minimum 8 hours of sleep. Zzz...
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Apr 5, 2009 16:44
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Ashenai posted:I can't make a bow-specialized fighter like Robin Hood, also I can't make a bow-specialized thief like Robin Hood loving CHECKMATE 4E WHORES loll
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Apr 15, 2009 05:51
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Need help - What game to play with hot, sophisticated and educated girls?
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Oct 20, 2009 01:38
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haha rpgnet is just great on gender today (every day) Genders and Gaming: Race edition. I've been doing some thinking lately about Race in gaming and how it applies to both genders. When I was doing 2nd edition, I noticed that the overwhelming majority of female gamers played either humans, 1/2 elves or elves. The only females of the other races were usually played by male gamers. I didn't give it much thought, but it has kinda stuck with me and started me thinking. I also started thinking about how, until 3rd edition, female dwarves have beards, and it was removed to make them more "female friendly". Something similar happened in W.O.W., where elves were added to the Horde, to give female gamers a more feminine option. It is also why the Dragonborn have mammary glands, instead of a more dragon type reproduction options. I guess after all that my questions are as follows: 1. If you do a new race, should your orientate your females of that race towards the female gamer demographic, just as the overwhelming races are thought from a male perspective. Should this be done even if it might make the race less unique in the process? 2. What are the common female racial archtypes, as well as races from any rpg, that female gamers enjoy playing? Obviously there is an easy answer, namely any, but I think with a bit of narrowing down might help me understand things better. 3. How do you make a more male orientated race (ex. dwarves, minotaurs) more playable for a female gamer so they can enjoy playing such roles, either by gender bending or playing a female character of that race? This ranges from color text, to special abilities to anything else that comes to mind.
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Oct 20, 2009 07:11
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shotgunbadger posted:The wiggida wiggida wha? The people that make EVE (CCP) acquired WW, and then sensibly had them make a tabletop tie-in for their flagship product. I believe there's a WoD MMO in the works too.
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Oct 20, 2009 08:11
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Haha rpgnet is terrified of feminists taking away their porn
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Oct 21, 2009 22:57
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Phuzzy posted:You can't just say something like this without linking it. To be fair most of the thread is mocking the OP and his few allies for being goony but there are some gems in there
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Oct 21, 2009 23:35
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Epicurus posted:Yeah look at that 'spergy buffoon, denying the obvious danger of suggestive clothing on pretend elf women.
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Oct 22, 2009 00:02
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there's nothing inherently wrong with the sort of dadaist playstyle implied by those traps but it's really weird how grognards all believe liking it makes you masculine or something
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Oct 22, 2009 21:40
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shotgunbadger posted:I love D&D and all but Gygax was the worst, a killer DM, a rather pretentious rear end, and just generally a hack, but the dude got lucky and David Arneson managed to spit out the most iconic pen and paper RPG we have.
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Oct 23, 2009 17:19
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if you love worldbuilding for its own sake you'll see "verisimilitude" used in non-silly ways and it won't really bother you anyone who claims the object of 3.5 was "simulation" and not a bunch of rules for killing people in caves in tactically interesting ways is kind of dumb though
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Oct 26, 2009 01:43
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It's kind of annoying how the 4e RAW kind of implies your character can't be particularly dumb or foolish or meek but that's trivial to ignore is there any reason other than legacy code stats are still on the old scale rather than straight bonuses/penalties?
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Oct 26, 2009 14:49
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lol i remember there was a 3.5 supplement that was like "perhaps you'd like to play a half-dragon weretiger!"
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Oct 30, 2009 03:04
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vampire identity counselor
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Nov 7, 2009 14:40
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phoneposting so I can't quote but check out the "most grotesque thing" thread on RPGnet, that thread is gonna go places
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Nov 7, 2009 20:36
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mandrake776 posted:You are like the Church that put Galileo in prison because you don't want to accept the world is not the flat one your think it is.
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Nov 8, 2009 05:47
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FirstCongoWar posted:What the gently caress does "Swine" mean in this context besides being vaguely insulting?
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Nov 8, 2009 23:09
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Wiki it, if you don't know. Basically, the ashantis were these badass african warriors who gave the Brits more trouble than anyone else in Africa. Well, anyone else black African, that is (the Boers, predictably, put up tougher fight). Ok, for those who don't know, the colonization of Africa happened due to many reasons, one of which was because it was so darn cheap. It took, on average, less than 1000 Europeans and few thousand African troops to take over any given area; in fact, in a lot of cases, there were less than 200 Europeans. Basically, it was conquest on the cheap. Real cheap. The Ashantis put up better fight than the others, but it still was pretty cheap for the Brits. Let's change the equation. Let's say the Ashantis were an entirely separate species, superficially similar to homo sepiens, but very different in many ways. These were the differences: 1) Many times stronger than humans; 2) preternatural endurance, so that they could fight longer and harder, and required far less water and food -- their logistical train was a fraction of what was needed for humans; 3) no fear, thus they were willing and capable of fighting to the very last man -- no morale check needed. How do you think the Anglo-Ashanti wars would have progressed, and to what lengths do you think Britain would have gone to win for sake of prestige? Lastly, what system would you use, were you to: 1) play this out on squad level; 2) play this out on national level?
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Nov 10, 2009 07:53
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We're veering off-topic, but Hitler's responses to Germany's real problems (hyperinflation, mass unemployment) were actually pretty good. Depending on your reading of the international situation, you could concievably diagnose his "declare war on everyone" policy as a false solution to the real problem of a Europe to the East and West that might threaten Germany again. Most of the gratuitously evil stuff was in response to completely imaginary problems, obviously.
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Nov 11, 2009 19:32
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fritz posted:handy tip: google groups archive of rec.games.frp.dnd has the 2e-3e transition about 40k threads back in the grim darkness of the past...
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Nov 11, 2009 21:43
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oh an inflammatory non sequitur from ferrinus, color me surprised
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Nov 12, 2009 01:47
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Kerison posted:Dragons are nothing more than overgrown cats vomiting fire. *plays with food* *lazes around in smug satisfaction*
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Nov 12, 2009 20:38
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