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Branding is indeed a part of the general problem as I see it, but the general problem I see is one of WotC not wanting to accept their branding. As has been stated numerous times, D&D has never been the "best" game, no more then McDonalds is the "best" burger. It's the generic fantasy game, the intro and gateway game. It was that in the 70's, when Gygax added Tolkien stuff he hated because other people thought it was cool. The idea was simple - take stuff you think is cool and make a game out of it. Since then, however, things have gotten more and more regimented. I think the core of this is that there's a part of the fanbase that adamantly does not want to be the generic gateway game. It's one of the reasons 4e "wasn't D&D," the same as in places like Dragonsfoot, 3e "isn't D&D." It's why 4e was a dumbed down WoW game for babies. It's why Next is talking big about making a "Basic" game then ignoring the actual Basic edition to continue fellating AD&D. It's why there's so much stupid talk over what the TRUE ESSENCE OF D&D IS. Because people don't want those horrible outsiders in their hobby, and that's a drat stupid thing to believe in when you're the McDonalds of tabletop gaming. It's also why you see things like "We can't include MODERN fiction or fantasy in D&D, we need to stay true to the roots!" despite the roots of the game being "Here's some dumb fantasy stuff our group thought was fun." And make no bones about it, D&D will never be the elite exclusive members only game that some of it's toxic fanbase - and, I'm starting to believe, one or two of it's developers - want it to be. It has and always will be the dumbed down game for newbies. The more it fights it, the more it suffers.
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Mar 5, 2013 00:46
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AlphaDog posted:So I have no loving idea how Next is "distancing itself" from specifically 4th Ed by not requiring miniatures.  ) with some attack on your favourite edition, it's just an observation.
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Mar 5, 2013 00:53
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fatherdog posted:I feel like the existence and widespread popularity of Darksun is sort of problematic for this theory. Don't be fooled. Dark Sun is just D&D with a thin coat of post-apocalypse. It still contains nearly all the classic D&Disms.
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Mar 5, 2013 00:56
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Payndz posted:Jesus, chill out. I never played 3e, but came back in with 4e after a decades-long gap to find that it's effectively unplayable as written without minis and a grid, which wasn't the case before. I'm not trying to neuter you (see what I did there? You're right. I've played all the editions and 3.5 and 4E were pointless without minis and a grid. Oddly I didn't mind that aspect in 3.5 but hated it in 4E, and I think my players did too. Whatever I run next is going to be abstract, like we did in 2E.
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Mar 5, 2013 01:32
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hey guys I don't have much of an opinion on what makes an RPG D&D other than being pretty sure most of you are wrong, but how about cryomuddling up a thai basil rum daiquiri?
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Mar 5, 2013 01:52
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D&D's relationship with minis is odd. It was assumed you'd use a fairly rough method of keeping track of distances and such in OD&D, AD&D had the minis rules baked in hardcore to the point where things were measured in inches though some still didn't use them, AD&D 2e went polar opposite and assumed you didn't use minis at all, 3e assumed you used minis but a lot of people didn't which lead to rule wonkiness at times, 4e went back to AD&D levels of miniature assumptions but, rather then bake it into measurements of inches and such, baked it into the combat, and now 5e seems to be doing an unholy mash of 2e and 3e, though "an unholy mash of 2e and 3e" does describe the edition overall. Of course part of it is because 3e and 4e had much crunchier combat rules then AD&D and Basic did, and the mini usage went along with that. 5e has a strange number of combat crunch but is still trying to be cagey about the ~*~theater of the mind~*~.
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Mar 5, 2013 01:56
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ProfessorCirno posted:D&D's relationship with minis is odd. It was assumed you'd use a fairly rough method of keeping track of distances and such in OD&D, AD&D had the minis rules baked in hardcore to the point where things were measured in inches though some still didn't use them, AD&D 2e went polar opposite and assumed you didn't use minis at all, 3e assumed you used minis but a lot of people didn't which lead to rule wonkiness at times, 4e went back to AD&D levels of miniature assumptions but, rather then bake it into measurements of inches and such, baked it into the combat, and now 5e seems to be doing an unholy mash of 2e and 3e, though "an unholy mash of 2e and 3e" does describe the edition overall. Of course part of it is because 3e and 4e had much crunchier combat rules then AD&D and Basic did, and the mini usage went along with that. 5e has a strange number of combat crunch but is still trying to be cagey about the ~*~theater of the mind~*~. AD&D actually had inches, grids, and hex rules as well as abstracting rules in the DMG. 1st Ed was well and truly loving well prepared for whatever you might want to play.
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Mar 5, 2013 03:11
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ProfessorCirno posted:"We can't include MODERN fiction or fantasy in D&D, we need to stay true to the roots!"
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Mar 5, 2013 03:22
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jigokuman posted:This makes me wonder if there's a Harry Potter pen and paper RPG, or at least a game that emulates it, because if there isn't, that makes me think the hobby is very much pointed in the model railroad direction. Once, during a discussion on getting new people into gaming, I pointed out that the fact that neither WotC nor White Wolf tried to produce a Young Wizards-pastiche game during the height of the Harry Potter Mania was the equivalent of leaving a large sum of money on the table and just walking away. Someone replied that "Glantri: Kingdom of Magic" contained everything a new gamer needed for Harry Potter-ish gaming. Someone else then pointed out that "Glantri: Kingdom of Magic" had been out of print for seventeen years. That's what I think about when I think about D&DNext.
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Mar 5, 2013 03:55
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Payndz posted:Jesus, chill out. I never played 3e, but came back in with 4e after a decades-long gap to find that it's effectively unplayable as written without minis and a grid, which wasn't the case before. I'm not trying to neuter you (see what I did there? 2nd edition is my favorite edition, in part because it doesn't use miniatures*, but mostly because it's the one I played when I was 14 through 20 years old. When 3e came out, I specifically didn't like the "miniatures required" part of the rules (the box set even came with a big-rear end foldout grid!), but it did kind of grow on me once I remembered how fun AD&D was with the old hex grid we used. I'm just entirely sick of "4e required miniatures, therefore I didn't like it", when "effectiely unplayable RAW without miniatures and a grid" was in no way unique to 4e. It wasn't an attack on you. What's this about neutering? *I recently realised that our biggest problems when we played 2e stemmed from the fact that while it didn't use a grid/minis (good), it also didn't replace them with anything (really really bad), so the usual cause of a stall in the combat was a lengthy discussion of who was where and what could they reach/see. Elector_Nerdlingen fucked around with this message at 04:14 on Mar 5, 2013 |
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Mar 5, 2013 04:09
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So whats TGs opinion on Glennfiddtch? It's a single malt whiskey that got introduced to when I was first able to legally drink; during a bout of DnD games. I always tie the taste to minis, DM screens, and dice now. As far as the 'Soul' of Dnd, I fel like, much like a soul, it isn't quite measurable by any means available to us, but can mostly be agreed upon by a good majority of people that it exists. That being said, I started DnD in 3.5e; so I feel that Pathfinder and DnD 3.5e are really close to what the 'Soul' was. A friend I have (Who incidently got me dromlomg), started in 4e; and he doesn't really like 3.5e or Pathfinder -- It doesn't register as DnD for him. To him, DnD is Minis, action points, and hoping that the dragon doesn't recharge it's breath power.
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Mar 5, 2013 05:05
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I am a Bad Cook (tm) but I try to make up for this by trying new and different things, and I love to grill. Had a 'grill the zoo' party once, I grilled up regular beef burgers alongside turkey burgers with cheddar and peppers diced up inside, bison burgers, and elk burgers. For an appetizer I made some grilled gator kabobs, they actually turned out much better than I thought they would. Side dish was some sweet potato fries, and my friends knocked back some margaritas and tequila while I stuck with IBC root beer because I am a teetotalling nonfunhaver. Pretty good meal, we kicked back on the deck and ate and played some board games, it was pretty cool. Consensus agreement was that elk burgers taste like land-tuna, though that may have been my lovely grilling. Back in 2008 I was an rear end in a top hat (nothing has changed) who was a vocal skeptic and detractor from 4E. I had played all of once (we made characters and played for approximately 7 minutes then had to call it) and felt that the game was too videogamey. I complained loud and often, including in some actual plays I recorded of my then 3.5 game which I haven't released because drat I was (am) a douchebag. I even sat down with some of the writers of 4E at NY ComicCon with one of my players in my gaming group on a press pass and trashtalked the game a few times (though to be fair whatever guy was running stuff at the con at the time was a real dick, so I don't feel too bad). Then I listened to some actual plays, and then I played it a bit, and realized how much of a loving moron I had been, in general, to assume that D&D is the alpha and omega of roleplaying. I'm now working on games for FATE and 13th Age and Call of Cthulhu and Monsters and Other Childish Things, and I love working with these systems so much more. I'm not good with change period, so it was a stroke of luck that I was bored enough at work to listen to elfgames while sorting mail, but I had more or less a gaming epiphany from it. I've been vocally negative towards Next, and I think I'll cool down on that a bit, because I've certainly been wrong before, and if someone has fun playing Next that's their right and I hope then enjoy it. But it doesn't seem like it'll be for me, not anymore. I like seeing how things grow, and regression is harmful to growth. Edit: The 'soul' of D&D is a bunch of jackasses making up ridiculous plans to gently caress over your dungeon and avoid your traps and adventuring off into the (unmapped, you assholes) horizon to see what ridiculous poo poo the GM can pull out of his rear end. And occasionally the GM slaps down the rails and plot happens, and that can be cool too. And the folks who are running around and being dragged on the rails are wearing robes and swords and shields instead of jetpacks and tommyguns. SageNytell fucked around with this message at 05:30 on Mar 5, 2013 |
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Mar 5, 2013 05:27
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TalonDemonKing posted:As far as the 'Soul' of Dnd, I fel like, much like a soul, it isn't quite measurable by any means available to us, but can mostly be agreed upon by a good majority of people that it exists. I don't really watch Doctor Who but it's impossible to visit the nerdier parts of the internet and avoid learning anything about it, and a commonly held belief in Doctor Who fandom is apparently that whichever Doctor you get into the series with is generally the one that most fans will point to as their favorite. That makes a lot of sense, really...first impressions tend to be the strongest, so someone who gets into something and really enjoys it is going to associate a lot of happy memories with those initial forays. So at the risk of coming across as glib, I'd say in all sincerity that the soul of D&D for many people is probably "how D&D was when I first started playing it." People who got into D&D during 3E, and there were a lot of people who got into D&D when WotC rolled out 3E...not, like, Harry Potter numbers or anything, but sometimes it's easy to forget 13 years on just how successful 3E was...are likely going to feel that 3E represents the "true soul" of D&D despite numerous editions coming before it, while a dedicated 2E fan is likely to think that the soul of D&D is found in 2E despite several successful editions coming afterwards. It's not a universal truism of course, any more than it probably is in Doctor Who fandom, but I'd bet actual cash money that it holds true in a large number of cases.
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Mar 5, 2013 05:28
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TalonDemonKing posted:hoping that the dragon doesn't recharge it's breath power. Basic D&D had a similar mechanic to this - the dragon's first attack was always a breath weapon, but then quote:After the first Breath attack, a dragon might choose to attack with claws and bite. To determine this, roll 1d6: The dragon can use it's breath 3 times per day. So when you stumble into its lair, it breathes (whatever) at you. Then there's a 50% chance you get a round without a breath attack. Since the breath weapon does damage equal to the current HP of the dragon, so as long as you hit it hard in the first two rounds, and it doesn't breathe in the second round, its final two breath attacks aren't going to be very scary. Edit: that is assuming the the dragon isn't Asleep when you chance upon it. All dragons have a % chance of being Asleep when you find them, except if they're flying. If the dragon is Asleep, you get one round to attack it at +2, during which it wakes up, and then in the second round the breathe/check thing proceeds as normal. Basic D&D was weirdly gamist for something that's held up as not being weirdly gamist. Elector_Nerdlingen fucked around with this message at 05:38 on Mar 5, 2013 |
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Mar 5, 2013 05:30
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In summary, a bunch of nerds pine for a D&D that never existed, some Platonic Form of D&Dness. And it's useless and I hate that Mike Mearls seems to want to appease this group when really that should be the least of his concerns. D&D has enough history and tradition that regardless of how they represent it mechanically, it's still going to "feel" like D&D.TalonDemonKing posted:As far as the 'Soul' of Dnd, I fel like, much like a soul, it isn't quite measurable by any means available to us, but can mostly be agreed upon by a good majority of people that it exists. Games don't have souls. They have traditions, perhaps. Sometimes the most important thing a game can do is to break the rules set by its predecessors. Should it break every rule at once? Probably not. But there's nothing particularly sacrosanct about D&D's mechanics. Also if you're a lazy cook like me and you need to cook chicken for a whole bunch of people (say you're grilling for your D&D group perhaps), the easiest marinade is just to buy cheap Italian dressing and let the chicken sit in that overnight in the fridge. It makes absolutely delicious chicken and it's easy. Everyone loved it at my last party and several people asked me for the recipe.
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Mar 5, 2013 05:36
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jigokuman posted:This makes me wonder if there's a Harry Potter pen and paper RPG, or at least a game that emulates it, because if there isn't, that makes me think the hobby is very much pointed in the model railroad direction. From what I remember, there were one or two jabs at it but Harry Potter the IP is ludicrously valuable and it's owners kept a tight lid on it (outside of the inevitable sea of terrible video games that always somehow occurs). As for emulating it, the tabletop industry has been notoriously terrible about following actual pop culture stuff as it comes out, so...yeah. Which is funny because there is a fairly gigantic internet culture based around freeform roleplaying that, from what I've seen, absolutely could be tapped into by the industry. But it doesn't, because they roleplay as like 18th century nobility or wizards and vampires (but not the "cool" tabletop versions), and it's predominately female, so...welp. Kai Tave posted:I don't really watch Doctor Who but it's impossible to visit the nerdier parts of the internet and avoid learning anything about it, and a commonly held belief in Doctor Who fandom is apparently that whichever Doctor you get into the series with is generally the one that most fans will point to as their favorite. That makes a lot of sense, really...first impressions tend to be the strongest, so someone who gets into something and really enjoys it is going to associate a lot of happy memories with those initial forays. So at the risk of coming across as glib, I'd say in all sincerity that the soul of D&D for many people is probably "how D&D was when I first started playing it." People who got into D&D during 3E, and there were a lot of people who got into D&D when WotC rolled out 3E...not, like, Harry Potter numbers or anything, but sometimes it's easy to forget 13 years on just how successful 3E was...are likely going to feel that 3E represents the "true soul" of D&D despite numerous editions coming before it, while a dedicated 2E fan is likely to think that the soul of D&D is found in 2E despite several successful editions coming afterwards. It's not a universal truism of course, any more than it probably is in Doctor Who fandom, but I'd bet actual cash money that it holds true in a large number of cases. While this is true, it also speaks to why Next is going to fail - it's trying to be 13 again, but you can't. You cannot be a 13 year old again. You cannot play D&D for decades and then suddenly revert to not knowing everything you spend those decades learning. Because they don't want something new, they want the old thing to magically feel new again without actually changing. Back when g.txt was still around, there was the quote that "grognardism is the failure to grow up in a mature and/or graceful way," and I think that's what's haunting Next and it's devs. You can't be 13 again. And the more you try, the worse the end result looks. ProfessorCirno fucked around with this message at 05:41 on Mar 5, 2013 |
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Mar 5, 2013 05:39
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Lady Gaga posted:Games don't have souls. They have traditions, perhaps. Sometimes the most important thing a game can do is to break the rules set by its predecessors. Should it break every rule at once? Probably not. But there's nothing particularly sacrosanct about D&D's mechanics. This is really important and something that also aggravates me about the oWoD/nWoD argument that still happens now and again. The 'soul' basically amounts to the 'feel' of a game. But that's stupid, right? Games don't actually have feels. They are't fabric. They're ephemeral. Like a lot of things, we know that we like it or that we don't like it, and some people don't think about it a lot more than that. Some people know that they don't like something and try to figure it out backwards, and invent things that aren't true. Sometimes that manifests as a sort of weird gesticulation towards an item, with a shrug, adding, "Well, it does't feel right." Because we lack other answers. The 'feel' of a game is basically the way it made us feel when we played it. Expecting a different game to produce the same experience is dumb. You'll never capture the 'soul' of D&D and not because of bullshit nostalgia reasons, either. It's just not possible to articulate and reproduce the 'feel' of something without making the thing itself. I do think it's possible to make a game that captures an entirely new if somewhat related sense of wonder. Reign made me feel that way the first time I read it, and so did Exalted. I sometimes wonder, half cynically, if the feel we're always chasing is actually a species of novelty.
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Mar 5, 2013 06:00
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I've often thought that the proper way to make a new D&D edition would be to throw out everything in Appendix N and make an entirely new fantasy RPG with your own Appendix N, full of whatever's current and popular. Get some Avatar: The Last Airbender, Harry Potter, and maybe even Twilight in there. If not Twilight, then definitely some of the current magical teenager romance genre. Being overly attached to the past is bad for games.
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Mar 5, 2013 06:16
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Ratoslov posted:I've often thought that the proper way to make a new D&D edition would be to throw out everything in Appendix N and make an entirely new fantasy RPG with your own Appendix N, full of whatever's current and popular. Get some Avatar: The Last Airbender, Harry Potter, and maybe even Twilight in there. If not Twilight, then definitely some of the current magical teenager romance genre. Being overly attached to the past is bad for games. Or at the very least, find equivalents that are relevant today. Game of Thrones, I'm looking at you (despite being a like, 20 year old book.)
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Mar 5, 2013 06:26
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Ratoslov posted:I've often thought that the proper way to make a new D&D edition would be to throw out everything in Appendix N and make an entirely new fantasy RPG with your own Appendix N, full of whatever's current and popular. Get some Avatar: The Last Airbender, Harry Potter, and maybe even Twilight in there. If not Twilight, then definitely some of the current magical teenager romance genre. Being overly attached to the past is bad for games. I think the problem with that approach is that "fantasy" is way less same-y now. Mashing Harry Potter and Last Airbender together produces something much less coherent than doing the same thing to Conan The Barbarian and Lord Of The Rings. Edit: Although I guess Game of Thrones and Wheel of Time would produce an interesting result, albeit one with game sessions that last 37 hours but you have to wait 26 months between them, and sometimes nothing interesting happens.
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Mar 5, 2013 06:31
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AlphaDog posted:I think the problem with that approach is that "fantasy" is way less same-y now. Mashing Harry Potter and Last Airbender together produces something much less coherent than doing the same thing to Conan The Barbarian and Lord Of The Rings. For instance, if you want to do Harry Potter poo poo, something like 'spell books' start to make a lot more sense as a rule to have. It would also probably be pretty easy to come up with a Magic School Adventures D&D setting. If you want to do something more dying-earth, here's some suggestions on how to make equipment out of alternate materials and some bare bones Dark Sun sort of stuff, with a lead in to the Dark Sun campaign setting guide. If you want to go conventional murderhobo clearing out the megadungeons and using a 10 foot pole, here's some more commentary. Hell, you could even class it up and make it so you can easily port your characters between games in a reliable way - so your fourth-year Prestigitatrix is a level 4 wizard with a couple thiefy tricks if you take her to Murderhobo Adventure Time for an evening. Bring back the classic attitude that way. e: This was actually one of the things Exalted dabbled in, as I recall; they tried to at least discuss options on how to frame campaigns so everything didn't just default to 'you're superpowerful and you're in a sandbox, go.'
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Mar 5, 2013 06:42
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That's the best and worst thing - fantasy for the most part is still fairly similar to how it used to be. All you'd really need to do is emphasize a few different styles or plot hooks. Get some different types of wizards and magic mechanics, don't be afraid to mix in some "eastern" touches, get settings or adventures with a de-emphasis on murderhoboing and a bigger push towards grand kingdom politics and drama. In fact a general note of "Make sure your settings have drama built in" would be a smart move overall. And Harry Potter could absolutely work with Avatar. Part of the problem is that some people want this clear and perfect style for D&D. They get really mad about "anime" or draculas or people playing orcs, and some claim that D&D went downhill by adding in the monk. But D&D was never pure. It's always been a dirty mess of medieval knights smiting brain sucking aliens from the future in the name of greek gods. The monk class came from some dude going "Man I like this terrible TV show called Kung Fu because it's the 70's and we aren't going to evolve taste for awhile." One of the original gods of Greyhawk is a cowboy, literally a cowboy, with two straaaaange iron wands that can fire six mystical projectiles before they need to be "recharged." The earliest games involved Dungeon McDonalds and the Balrog Times. It just. It bewilders me that people can take Gygax, a dude who said "I hope they remember me as a guy who liked games," and try to deify him. Only they don't, they're deifying their image of him, which is often pathetically far from the truth. That people can claim they speak with the righteous authority of all of D&D, and then turn around and hate on half of it. You can't love old school D&D but hate the monk and the Barrier Peaks. That's all a part of the sheer bizarre wackiness of the game. This loving fanbase is built around flocking to a hobby based entirely around imagination and desperately trying to choke anything new or imaginative out of it.
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Mar 5, 2013 06:50
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ProfessorCirno posted:It bewilders me that people can take Gygax, a dude who said "I hope they remember me as a guy who liked games," and try to deify him. Only they don't, they're deifying their image of him, which is often pathetically far from the truth. That people can claim they speak with the righteous authority of all of D&D, and then turn around and hate on half of it. You can't love old school D&D but hate the monk and the Barrier Peaks. That's all a part of the sheer bizarre wackiness of the game. This loving fanbase is built around flocking to a hobby based entirely around imagination and desperately trying to choke anything new or imaginative out of it. e: Really, this is where the rules module thing would make a lot of sense, since you could slot in a couple things or take them out for different styles. You're doing school wizards? Then you ain't gonna level that fast and you're using a bunch of optional spell bells and whistles, especially since for SOME REASON everyone's going to be a caster. You want to do Adventure Time? Do it murderhobo style but include more 'storygamey' damage rules. Planescape? Social/cultural action rules, light combat, and perhaps - if you dare - plug in the forbidden cartridge labelled "ALIGNMENT." Nessus fucked around with this message at 07:03 on Mar 5, 2013 |
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Mar 5, 2013 06:57
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Elmo Oxygen posted:Eh, my buddies still call Sunday "D&D night", even though we've been playing Dungeon World for the last two months. When one of them plays Pathfinder with another group every now and then, he calls it D&D. If we end up playing Burning Wheel or Sacred BBQ or BECMI or any other game where we pretend to go into dungeons to fight dragons, we'll still call it Dungeons and Dragons. I still tell my wife I'm going to go play D&D when we've been playing Rolemaster for months now. I told her I was playing D&D when we were playing White Wolf, Dragon Age, Pathfinder, or whatever other system whoever was GM'ing that night wanted to run. I go into greater detail if she asks, but she's not that into it and doesn't care too much about the specifics. I think it's like how my grandma used to call all video games Nintendo. Even when I was playing my grandfather's Atari, which was older than I was, and which had been in her house for longer than Nintendo had been a thing (my grandad was a TV repairman, so he always had the best toys), I was playing Nintendo. She didn't care about specifics, but she knew the commercials that came on TV. e: quote:Harry Potter the RPG Oddly enough, my wife roleplayed a ton back in high school during the Harry Potter craze. She and her friends has no interest in using rules or anything, though. They just sat around in costume and pretended to be wizards at wizard school together. Her older sister and her college friends pretended to be the teachers. No rock/paper/scissors to resolve the fights they didn't have. It was the most peaceful, sedate game I'd ever seen, but they still talk about it years later. I'm not certain numbers and dice would have made their experience any more enjoyable. I'm not saying it wouldn't have sold well, had it existed, but I guess I'm trying to say that certain fandoms don't truck much for needing rigidly defined systems in their roleplaying? They were well aware of D&D and MET and the like, and no question could they have kludged together something, but they didn't want to. Toph Bei Fong fucked around with this message at 07:26 on Mar 5, 2013 |
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Mar 5, 2013 07:08
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ProfessorCirno posted:The monk class came from some dude going "Man I like this terrible TV show called Kung Fu because it's the 70's and we aren't going to evolve taste for awhile." I am going to briefly don the mantle of The Pedant and say that the Monk was actually intended to be based on the Remo Williams "The Destroyer" novels about a US Government operative and assassin whose mentor teaches him the deadly and completely fictitious martial art of Sinanju, and also Remo is supposed to be the Avatar of Shiva too or something like that. Basically, this is the sort of thing people were using as inspiration when it came time to make new D&D classes. David Carradine can get the gently caress out, that poo poo is way too normal. I would actually really like to see a modular "super D&D" like people are talking about here. There are enough different D&D's within the canon body of D&D history that making a game where you could add in different components and campaign qualities to do "Magical high-school adventures" or turn the dials another way and do "In an age of heroes" and then another set gives you "Remember your iron spikes and ten-foot poles motherfucker, it's dungeon time." Fantasycraft has its different campaign qualities and that's what I'd start with as far as things to blatantly rip off. With all the talk of "modular" from Mearls et al, we've seen remarkably little of that so far. They still have a year, mind you, but I'd love to have a clearer idea of what they mean by "modular" exactly assuming it isn't just their current marketing buzzword good luck charm. Also I would love an Avatar-esque RPG. Dear Margaret Weiss Productions, please contact Nickelodeon and get the license to do an Avatar RPG in Cortex, also I would like a pony and a toy rocket ship, thank you.
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Mar 5, 2013 07:58
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DnD can still be a cool game while "staying close to it's roots", which is emulating really old fantasy fiction. Just look at the Lord of the Rings revival during the last decade. Peter Jackson painted a coat of Cool on a really old franchise, and got people excited again, even people who would normally never want to see a movie about hobbits and elves. The problem is not so much that DnD is not trying to emulate modern fantasy, it's that it's still trying to emulate itself emulating old fantasy thirty years ago. With the exception of 4E of course, but it could still do a bit better. But DnD aside, I agree how the fact that TTRPG companies aren't more aggressively trying to tap into currently popular IPs is just bizarre. It's like these people hate money. Or maybe there are a lof of things I don't know about those deals that would make more sense out of this. Maybe the fact that TTRPGs are not that popular compared to other media makes acquiring such a licence prohibitive, but that turns it into a Catch-22 argument in the end. e: Hahaha, I am a moron who browses these forums way too much Rexides fucked around with this message at 11:21 on Mar 5, 2013 |
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Mar 5, 2013 11:09
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Rexides posted:DnD can still be a cool game while "staying close to it's roots", which is emulating really old fantasy fiction. Just look at the Lord of the Rings revival during the last decade. Steve Jackson painted a coat of Cool on a really old franchise, and got people excited again, even people who would normally never want to see a movie about hobbits and elves. The problem is not so much that DnD is not trying to emulate modern fantasy, it's that it's still trying to emulate itself emulating old fantasy thirty years ago. With the exception of 4E of course, but it could still do a bit better. Steve Jackson Steve Jackson?  Edit: Wait, I'd watch the poo poo out of a Warlock of Firetop Mountain movie. Elector_Nerdlingen fucked around with this message at 11:15 on Mar 5, 2013 |
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Mar 5, 2013 11:12
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Rexides posted:But DnD aside, I agree how the fact that TTRPG companies aren't more aggressively trying to tap into currently popular IPs is just bizarre. It's like these people hate money. Or maybe there are a lof of things I don't know about those deals that would make more sense out of this. Maybe the fact that TTRPGs are not that popular compared to other media makes acquiring such a licence prohibitive, but that turns it into a Catch-22 argument in the end. You have to enjoy the popular thing to make a game out of it, and most people in the industry pride themselves in not enjoying modern pop culture. I legit saw people give 4e poo poo because "wizards have to use wands like their harry potter or something dumb like that."
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Mar 5, 2013 11:46
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ProfessorCirno posted:You have to enjoy the popular thing to make a game out of it, and most people in the industry pride themselves in not enjoying modern pop culture.
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Mar 5, 2013 12:49
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Was that "I am part of the group that manages the Adventure Time IP, we have crunched some numbers with marketing and it seems that this would be a good opportunity for both of us" or " Hey dude, check out this new show, bet you could turn it into a fun RPG!"?
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Mar 5, 2013 12:53
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Rexides posted:Was that "I am part of the group that manages the Adventure Time IP, we have crunched some numbers with marketing and it seems that this would be a good opportunity for both of us" or " e: as for wizards using wands, wasn't that like one of the key ways you got round your spell shortage or had offensive capabilities? A wand of magic missile or fireballs or some poo poo? I realize they don't do THAT in 4E but it's not like "your wizard man has a wand of magic" is a new part of the game.
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Mar 5, 2013 12:56
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jigokuman posted:This makes me wonder if there's a Harry Potter pen and paper RPG, or at least a game that emulates it, because if there isn't, that makes me think the hobby is very much pointed in the model railroad direction. The RPG hobby wishes it was a billion dollar industry that was expanding markets overseas. The model railroad analogy is a popular hobby horse to beat around here, but it is dumb as hell and I wish people would knock it off. Comparing a hobby with thousands of dollars invested in actual product on a set table vs. one that is almost exclusively IP driven is fabulous in its stupidity and that is compounded with the defacto assumption that because a product is niche or limited in scope it is automatically doomed or unsuccessful. Ugh. ProfessorCirno posted:From what I remember, there were one or two jabs at it but Harry Potter the IP is ludicrously valuable and it's owners kept a tight lid on it (outside of the inevitable sea of terrible video games that always somehow occurs). As for emulating it, the tabletop industry has been notoriously terrible about following actual pop culture stuff as it comes out, so...yeah. Harry Potter is kind of a neat case, and I don't wonder if the IP is actually too big to rate a PNP style RPG at this point. As far as them dismissing the freeform rpg/fanfic community because they are mostly women? That might be kinda true, but that community is hard to monitize in a traditional way. It is money I am sure they would love to have, but there is not a whole hell of a lot they can do to get it outside of conventions/personal appearances/etc. Honestly it is a measure of... something that they are more or less leaving those communities alone (although the battle over Harry Potter was pretty epic, although one the fanfolks ended up winning) rather than trying to regulate or control them. Maybe that is part of why there is no attempt at that sort of monitization, the community at which it is aimed is pretty paranoid about attempts at official intrusion.
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Mar 5, 2013 12:58
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TalonDemonKing posted:So whats TGs opinion on Glennfiddtch?
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Mar 5, 2013 13:01
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TalonDemonKing posted:So whats TGs opinion on Glennfiddtch? It's a single malt whiskey that got introduced to when I was first able to legally drink; during a bout of DnD games. True confessions time, I have never met a Scotch I could stand. It tastes liked someone soaked rotten wood in rubbing alcohol to me. The wierd part is while I have adjusted or learned to enjoy a lot of other poo poo, Scotch continues to elude my palate. I have no idea why.
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Mar 5, 2013 13:09
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Winson_Paine posted:The RPG hobby wishes it was a billion dollar industry that was expanding markets overseas. The model railroad analogy is a popular hobby horse to beat around here, but it is dumb as hell and I wish people would knock it off. Comparing a hobby with thousands of dollars invested in actual product on a set table vs. one that is almost exclusively IP driven is fabulous in its stupidity and that is compounded with the defacto assumption that because a product is niche or limited in scope it is automatically doomed or unsuccessful. Ugh. I was just trying to point out that there doesn't seem to be much in the way of marketing toward potential new players. That plus a hostile attitude for new ideas is not a healthy combination. Video games have been pretty good at making people aware of D&D. I remember playing Warriors of the Eternal Sun and being utterly confused at a lot of the terms. But the license has been tied up for the life of 4E, and I wonder how much of a factor that was on sales.
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Mar 5, 2013 13:50
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jigokuman posted:Video games have been pretty good at making people aware of D&D. I remember playing Warriors of the Eternal Sun and being utterly confused at a lot of the terms. But the license has been tied up for the life of 4E, and I wonder how much of a factor that was on sales. I think that was a huge factor. D&D computer games have been bringing people to the hobby and teaching them the crazy rules since the Gold Box games. They did it for 1e. Baldurs Gate/Torment/IWD did it for 2e and BG1 was re-released recently again with Steam bringing it to a huge audience. NWN1/2 did it for 3e. And then the ball got dropped with 4e due to licensing bullshit and the whole brand suffered. There hasn't been a decent PC game since arguably NWN1. And now we are in the era of mobile games, where are those? D&D is an old IP but look at what else has been resurrected lately. Transformers. GI Joe. Battleship. A ton of comic books. 80's IPs are profitable now that the kids who used to play them have grown up into adults. D&D could have done the same if it was better managed.
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Mar 5, 2013 14:13
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Winson_Paine posted:True confessions time, I have never met a Scotch I could stand. Me neither, and same with bourbon and other stuff of that ilk. It's not like I hate spirits, either, even if beers are more my thing. I did have a nice tasting Irish whiskey one time, but I can't remember what it was, and it was very much enhanced by the awesome cigar I had at the same time. ritorix posted:D&D is an old IP but look at what else has been resurrected lately. Transformers. GI Joe. Battleship. A ton of comic books. 80's IPs are profitable now that the kids who used to play them have grown up into adults. D&D could have done the same if it was better managed. One of the things about that stuff is that if you start googling "Transformers" or "Iron Man" or whatever, you won't immediately find the official site, with the official forums full of people angrily denouncing various versions of the IP. I mean, you get arguments about which version is people's favorite, which involves a degree of "and the other ones suck". But they're not often to the level of the D&D arguments. Also, if you head along to wherever you buy DVDs to buy Iron Man 2, you're unlikely to be accosted by someone who tells you how much that one sucked, and how you should totally either buy the first one (which also sucked but less), or really what you need to do is either buy these old comics or wait 2 years for the next version of the movie, which will be just like the old comics only better. Elector_Nerdlingen fucked around with this message at 14:20 on Mar 5, 2013 |
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Mar 5, 2013 14:14
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Winson_Paine posted:AD&D actually had inches, grids, and hex rules as well as abstracting rules in the DMG. 1st Ed was well and truly loving well prepared for whatever you might want to play. Winson_Paine posted:The RPG hobby wishes it was a billion dollar industry that was expanding markets overseas. The model railroad analogy is a popular hobby horse to beat around here, but it is dumb as hell and I wish people would knock it off. Comparing a hobby with thousands of dollars invested in actual product on a set table vs. one that is almost exclusively IP driven is fabulous in its stupidity and that is compounded with the defacto assumption that because a product is niche or limited in scope it is automatically doomed or unsuccessful. Ugh. MadScientistWorking fucked around with this message at 15:31 on Mar 5, 2013 |
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Mar 5, 2013 14:33
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Winson_Paine posted:Harry Potter is kind of a neat case, and I don't wonder if the IP is actually too big to rate a PNP style RPG at this point. As far as them dismissing the freeform rpg/fanfic community because they are mostly women? That might be kinda true, but that community is hard to monitize in a traditional way. It is money I am sure they would love to have, but there is not a whole hell of a lot they can do to get it outside of conventions/personal appearances/etc. Honestly it is a measure of... something that they are more or less leaving those communities alone (although the battle over Harry Potter was pretty epic, although one the fanfolks ended up winning) rather than trying to regulate or control them. Maybe that is part of why there is no attempt at that sort of monitization, the community at which it is aimed is pretty paranoid about attempts at official intrusion. I wonder, though... To use another franchise, there are two different fan My Little Pony RPGs bumping around the internet. I know, I know, but that poo poo sells a ton of merchandise, to the point where Hasbro (hmm...) doesn't really care if all their
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Mar 5, 2013 15:36
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palecur posted:hey guys I don't have much of an opinion on what makes an RPG D&D other than being pretty sure most of you are wrong, but how about cryomuddling up a thai basil rum daiquiri? Ratoslov posted:I've often thought that the proper way to make a new D&D edition would be to throw out everything in Appendix N and make an entirely new fantasy RPG with your own Appendix N, full of whatever's current and popular. Get some Avatar: The Last Airbender, Harry Potter, and maybe even Twilight in there. If not Twilight, then definitely some of the current magical teenager romance genre. Being overly attached to the past is bad for games. ProfessorCirno posted:And Harry Potter could absolutely work with Avatar. Part of the problem is that some people want this clear and perfect style for D&D. They get really mad about "anime" or draculas or people playing orcs, and some claim that D&D went downhill by adding in the monk. But D&D was never pure. It's always been a dirty mess of medieval knights smiting brain sucking aliens from the future in the name of greek gods. The monk class came from some dude going "Man I like this terrible TV show called Kung Fu because it's the 70's and we aren't going to evolve taste for awhile." One of the original gods of Greyhawk is a cowboy, literally a cowboy, with two straaaaange iron wands that can fire six mystical projectiles before they need to be "recharged." The earliest games involved Dungeon McDonalds and the Balrog Times. The expedition leader thing was pretty much abandoned with the 2e era, I think, but a new D&D with a new Appendix N would have to take it for granted that it isn't part of the playstyle. Because so much of the fantasy inspirations were filtered through wargaming, you could redesign D&D to actually reflect a lot of different things in Appendix N and it would be radically different from the original game--and it would hold a lot of appeal. Stuff like the Barrier Peaks that actually embraced the weird, far-out, unself-conscious blender of sci-fi and fantasy has unfortunately been the exception and not the rule in D&D. If anything, I'm inclined to think that Gamma World does it better than D&D.
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Mar 5, 2013 16:33
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