TG July Chat Thread: Now with 20% less uncanny valley

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Traditional Games > TG July Chat Thread: Now with 20% less uncanny valley

parabolic: Jul 21, 2005; good night, speedfriend

ProfessorCirno posted:

Dad jokes are amazing as an ESL teacher in another country, because they're jokes my students can still understand despite differences in cultural humor, and are all around safe and pleasant and won't get me in any sort of trouble.

Can't tell offensive, subtle, or dark jokes to kids, and they don't translate well to foreign language learners either; a match made in heaven.

As an aside, I played a Pathfinder campaign once and had a fun time, should I feel bad? Didn't know it was so disliked. :ohdear:

# ? Jul 18, 2014 00:51

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# ? Jun 7, 2024 19:38

Night10194: Feb 13, 2012; We'll start,
like many good things,
with a bear.

Hell, one of the most fun games I was ever in was 3.5. A good DM and group can make almost any game a good game. I think Pathfinder has a terrible system that exacerbates the problems of 3.5, but if you're having fun, it's all good!

# ? Jul 18, 2014 00:52

fatherdog: Feb 16, 2005

Night10194 posted:

Hell, one of the most fun games I was ever in was 3.5. A good DM and group can make almost any game a good game. I think Pathfinder has a terrible system that exacerbates the problems of 3.5, but if you're having fun, it's all good!

what is this even in response to?

# ? Jul 18, 2014 00:56

unzealous: Mar 24, 2009; Die, Die, DIE!

Also iirc SKR was looking over some homebrew magic items made by fans. One of which was a pair of gloves that gave an enemy behind cover only +2 AC. SKR thought +4 was better. +4 is the default bonus for cover.

unzealous fucked around with this message at 01:00 on Jul 18, 2014

# ? Jul 18, 2014 00:56

Night10194: Feb 13, 2012; We'll start,
like many good things,
with a bear.

fatherdog posted:

what is this even in response to?

The guy just above me asking if enjoying a Pathfinder game makes him a bad?

# ? Jul 18, 2014 01:01

Kwyndig: Sep 23, 2006; Heeeeeey

Night10194 posted:

The guy just above me asking if enjoying a Pathfinder game makes him a bad?

Enjoying any kind of game doesn't make you bad, unless it's like something disgusting like Black Tokyo played 'straight'.

# ? Jul 18, 2014 01:03

Arivia: Mar 17, 2011

Kwyndig posted:

Enjoying any kind of game doesn't make you bad, unless it's like something disgusting like Black Tokyo played 'straight'.

And now we return to discussing Elminster getting it on with his adopted daughters.

# ? Jul 18, 2014 01:04

Night10194: Feb 13, 2012; We'll start,
like many good things,
with a bear.

Kwyndig posted:

Enjoying any kind of game doesn't make you bad, unless it's like something disgusting like Black Tokyo played 'straight'.

Yeah, that's exactly what I said. I don't see where any of the confusion came from.

# ? Jul 18, 2014 01:07

mllaneza: Apr 28, 2007; Veteran, Bermuda Triangle Expeditionary Force, 1993-1952

Gau posted:

�.to shoot my own missile at Mearls and Zak Smith's airliner as it flies overhead.

Too soon.

# ? Jul 18, 2014 01:10

DalaranJ: Apr 15, 2008; Yosuke will now die for you.

Arivia posted:

And now we return to discussing Elminster getting it on with his adopted daughters.

If you're wondering how hard Mearls is thinking about the toxicity in our hobby the answer is not hard enough to ever consider firing Greenwood.

# ? Jul 18, 2014 01:13

Winson_Paine: Oct 27, 2000; Wait, something is wrong.

mllaneza posted:

Too soon.

# ? Jul 18, 2014 01:13

Arivia: Mar 17, 2011

DalaranJ posted:

If you're wondering how hard Mearls is thinking about the toxicity in our hobby the answer is not hard enough to ever consider firing Greenwood.

Why would he fire Ed Greenwood? He's a good writer who's popular among the fans and sells really well - also is on time and everything.

# ? Jul 18, 2014 01:14

Mors Rattus: Oct 25, 2007; FATAL & Friends
Walls of Text
#1 Builder
2014-2018

DalaranJ posted:

If you're wondering how hard Mearls is thinking about the toxicity in our hobby the answer is not hard enough to ever consider firing Greenwood.

Ed's a dirty old man, no question, but I'm pretty sure he's incapable of hatred.

# ? Jul 18, 2014 01:15

Traveller: Jan 6, 2012; WHIM AND FOPPERY

Gau posted:

to shoot my own missile at Mearls and Zak Smith's airliner

Shut the gently caress up.

# ? Jul 18, 2014 01:16

Gau: Nov 18, 2003; I don't think you understand, Gau.

mllaneza posted:

Too soon.

I'm sorry. I made a joke in poor taste. I've edited it out.

# ? Jul 18, 2014 01:17

Arivia: Mar 17, 2011

Mors Rattus posted:

Ed's a dirty old man, no question, but I'm pretty sure he's incapable of hatred.

Yeah Ed may be creepy but he is a really big advocate for more women in the hobby so if anything he's the kind of people Wizards needs more of.

# ? Jul 18, 2014 01:18

DalaranJ: Apr 15, 2008; Yosuke will now die for you.

Mors Rattus posted:

Ed's a dirty old man, no question, but I'm pretty sure he's incapable of hatred.

Fair enough.

# ? Jul 18, 2014 01:20

Babylon Astronaut: Apr 19, 2012

parabolic posted:

As an aside, I played a Pathfinder campaign once and had a fun time, should I feel bad? Didn't know it was so disliked.

The main reason it is disliked is because it does no favors for the DM by having tons of fiddly bits that usually make one player overpowered at the detriment of the other players' enjoyment. The actual book, pathfinder is guilty of these things, even if they don't come up in your game. I think it is way too complicated to run for the small amount of actual options you get while playing, but if the dm doesn't mind, and no one is stepping on someone else's fun, sure it can be a good time.

# ? Jul 18, 2014 01:21

dwarf74: Sep 2, 2012; Buglord

Gau posted:

I'm sorry. I made a joke in poor taste. I've edited it out.

I dunno, the irony of being an insensitive dick while complaining about insensitive dicks lent it a certain weight.

# ? Jul 18, 2014 01:30

ProfessorCirno: Feb 17, 2011; The strongest! The smartest!
The rightest!

Yeah, everything I've heard about Greenwood is that he's basically just a free love hippie child of the 70's who never entered the 80's. Like yeah there's sex everywhere in Forgotten Realms, but that's because Greenwood just really, really thinks sex is great and people should be free to have it as much as they want whenever they want. I'm pretty sure even back in the 80's when TSR was doing their big FR push they had to censor a bunch of poo poo not just because of the sex everywhere, but because Greenwood was rather open about the Realms being all inclusive of various sexualities.

Dude might come off as creepy but is, in the end, just an old dude who thinks sex is great, so long as you're enjoying it with whoever also enjoys it with you.

# ? Jul 18, 2014 01:31

Arivia: Mar 17, 2011

ProfessorCirno posted:

Yeah, everything I've heard about Greenwood is that he's basically just a free love hippie child of the 70's who never entered the 80's. Like yeah there's sex everywhere in Forgotten Realms, but that's because Greenwood just really, really thinks sex is great and people should be free to have it as much as they want whenever they want. I'm pretty sure even back in the 80's when TSR was doing their big FR push they had to censor a bunch of poo poo not just because of the sex everywhere, but because Greenwood was rather open about the Realms being all inclusive of various sexualities.

Dude might come off as creepy but is, in the end, just an old dude who thinks sex is great, so long as you're enjoying it with whoever also enjoys it with you.

Yeah like even the published details on FR's goddess of S&M are consensual and very very different from the rape ogres of say Golarion. Ed has always worked really hard to have powerful women who are active and have tons of agency in his work, too.

He is definitely not the problem unless you want an incredibly antiseptic version of D&D just for teenage boys who haven't figured out how to talk to girls yet.

# ? Jul 18, 2014 01:34

Down With People: Oct 31, 2012; The child delights in violence.

If people want a fantasy setting that's not awful, made by people that aren't awful, now's the best time to get into Glorantha.

# ? Jul 18, 2014 01:36

Andrevian: Mar 2, 2010

Down With People posted:

If people want a fantasy setting that's not awful, made by people that aren't awful, now's the best time to get into Glorantha.

Seconded. Glorantha is amazing.

# ? Jul 18, 2014 01:41

100 degrees Calcium: Jan 23, 2011

Down With People posted:

If people want a fantasy setting that's not awful, made by people that aren't awful, now's the best time to get into Glorantha.

Glorantha is cool, but what makes now the best time?

# ? Jul 18, 2014 01:49

S.J.: May 19, 2008; Just who the hell do you think we are?

Down With People posted:

If people want a fantasy setting that's not awful, made by people that aren't awful, now's the best time to get into Glorantha.

Speak to me about this mythical place.

# ? Jul 18, 2014 01:49

Arivia: Mar 17, 2011

Evil Sagan posted:

Glorantha is cool, but what makes now the best time?

There's a new 14 kilogram atlas or something coming out.

# ? Jul 18, 2014 01:51

sexpig by night: Sep 8, 2011; by Azathoth

Arivia posted:

Yeah like even the published details on FR's goddess of S&M are consensual and very very different from the rape ogres of say Golarion. Ed has always worked really hard to have powerful women who are active and have tons of agency in his work, too.

He is definitely not the problem unless you want an incredibly antiseptic version of D&D just for teenage boys who haven't figured out how to talk to girls yet.

Yea I roll my eyes at some things he writes but at the very least he's super behind the idea that even if he's gonna be a dirty old man in some places he's not gonna be a loving scumbag about it, so it's hard to have more than an 'oh that silly grandpa Ed' reaction to his stuff.

# ? Jul 18, 2014 01:52

Littlefinger: Oct 13, 2012

Arivia posted:

There's a new 14 kilogram atlas or something coming out.

That, and the flagship product of the "industry" went irrevocably down the grog rabbit hole, thanks to game design genius, PR maven and all-around swell guy Mike Mearls.

# ? Jul 18, 2014 02:22

FMguru: Sep 10, 2003; peed on;
sexually

Evil Sagan posted:

Glorantha is cool, but what makes now the best time?

The great big giant final authoritative world-defining guidebook has just been released. 40 years in the making!

S.J. posted:

Speak to me about this mythical place.

Fantasy, but non-Tolkien. Based on the setting creator's love of mythology and anthropology. There are elfs and dwarfs, but they are very different than normal (elfs are living bipedal plants who are plugged into the forest hivemind, dwarfs are atheistic machine constructs who are more like modrons than drunk scottish midgets). The world is the sort of place where myth is true: diseases are caused by evil spirits and not germs, the sun god travels across the sky in an enormous chariot every day and passes through the underworld at night (if you go far enough east or west, you can see the giant gates he uses at dawn and dusk), precious metals and gems in the earth are actually the bones and crystalized blood of long-dead gods, and so on. All the cultures are very well defined, and myth is more powerful than science - literally, the way you perform major magic is you have to open a gateway into the realm of the gods and re-enact one of their myths (or, if you're feeling especially badass, change the myth through your actions).

Here's a free PDF detailing a number of the cultures: http://www.glorantha.com/docs/heroquest-voices/

# ? Jul 18, 2014 02:24

ProfessorCirno: Feb 17, 2011; The strongest! The smartest!
The rightest!

Mystic Mongol ran a rather awesome LP of King of Dragon's Pass, which takes place in Glorantha.

Find it here!

# ? Jul 18, 2014 02:36

Cyphoderus: Apr 21, 2010; I'll have you know, foxes have the finest call in nature

FMguru posted:

The great big giant final authoritative world-defining guidebook has just been released. 40 years in the making!

50 dollars a PDF :stare:

I get what this product is, but if they want people to actually try their setting out in a gaming context they should come up with a final authoritative world-defining guidebook that's not big and giant. I tried getting into Glorantha through Heroquest; the material is well-written and flavorful, but extra confusing. People praise Glorantha's unreliable narrators but I just found it really hard, as a GM, to come up with a coherent picture of the setting in my mind that I could convey to players. It's like system mastery, but lore-driven instead of math-driven. I didn't like it.

It's a wonderful setting if you're looking for excellent world-building, though. Totally worth a read.

# ? Jul 18, 2014 02:48

Night10194: Feb 13, 2012; We'll start,
like many good things,
with a bear.

Cyphoderus posted:

50 dollars a PDF

I get what this product is, but if they want people to actually try their setting out in a gaming context they should come up with a final authoritative world-defining guidebook that's not big and giant. I tried getting into Glorantha through Heroquest; the material is well-written and flavorful, but extra confusing. People praise Glorantha's unreliable narrators but I just found it really hard, as a GM, to come up with a coherent picture of the setting in my mind that I could convey to players. It's like system mastery, but lore-driven instead of math-driven. I didn't like it.

It's a wonderful setting if you're looking for excellent world-building, though. Totally worth a read.

This. I goddamn love reading about Glorantha, but gently caress if I can run a game in it.

# ? Jul 18, 2014 02:50

FMguru: Sep 10, 2003; peed on;
sexually

It is true that Glorantha fans tend to get wrapped up in either the big-picture aspects of the setting (what was the God Learner secret? who was the Red Goddess initially?) or the minutae, and it can be really off-putting to newcomers. Hell, I just pitched the $50 ($200 for the physical copy) 800-page guidebook as an entry point for the setting. The trick is to have someone who knows the setting but is willing to set 90% of it aside in order to have a good game for newbies. I've done it myself:

FMguru's campaign pitch posted:

You guys are the up-and-coming young weaponthanes and god-talkers of a clan of celtic/viking dudes who worship the storm god Orlanth. Your leader had told you to accompany the tribe's main trade negotiator on a visit to a neighboring clan that is holding a trade market - which is odd, since it isn't market season. Escort him through the wilderness, help him make some good trade deals, see what's going on with the other clans, and try and find out why they're holding this market out of season.

And you're off and running - the GM can throw anything he wants at the players, drop in all kinds of cool Gloranthan facts and trivia, see what engages the players, and just see what they take an interest in and build towards that.

It's a big big world, but you start with a small bit of it (usually somewhere in Dragon Pass) and just proceed from there. The "Sartar: Land of Heroes" campaign book has everything you need to run a long campaign in Dragon Pass, or you can get the big Pavis book for more traditional D&D adventure (dusty frontier city on the edge of bunch of barely-explored ruins that has just been occupied by a foreign army wielding unsettling and power magic). Once you get your feet wet, you can dive in to the depths.

# ? Jul 18, 2014 03:06

Down With People: Oct 31, 2012; The child delights in violence.

I will admit, even now that I have the Guide, it'll take some legwork before I can make a game of it. But if you want something easier to pick up and play with, Sartar: Kingdom Of Heroes and Pavis: Gateway To Adventure are still out there and ready to be used with the Heroquest 2E rules.

My favourite place in Glorantha is Fonrit. It's a collection of city-states which worship Ompalam, the god of slavery. As a result, almost everyone in Fonrit is a slave. You own slaves, you are a slave, you are owned by slaves. Their cities are built like prisons, with massive stone walls to keep the populace from escaping. When they're not fighting each other, the city-states get attacked by the Pujaleg Empire, a shapeshifter society ruled by werebats who are really into blood sacrifice - and yet, still come off as the good guys compared to the Fonritian nobility.

The designers are really rad people and a couple of them post on the forum. Glorantha also has its own irc chat at #cowgame if you wanna find out more.

# ? Jul 18, 2014 03:22

RocknRollaAyatollah: Nov 26, 2008; Lipstick Apathy

Cyphoderus posted:

50 dollars a PDF

It's $60 for both volumes of the guide and the atlas right now, which is $20 a pdf. I didn't get in on the kickstarter, I couldn't really spare the money at the time and I was shakier than I am now on kickstarters, but I bought it last weekend. It's a solid set of books and not bad when you consider the amount of material you're getting.

# ? Jul 18, 2014 03:33

Mors Rattus: Oct 25, 2007; FATAL & Friends
Walls of Text
#1 Builder
2014-2018

My favorite guys in Glorantha are the trolls. The trolls are a heavily matriachal group of underground critters who run on a sort of duality of savagery and protection. A troll is your worst enemy if she doesn't like you, because she will come in the night and kill you and eat you.

(And then spit you out later because trolls can't actually digest human beings.)

And if she likes you? That troll is your best friend. She will protect you and guard you in the dark places.

Trolls are terrifying, because they come in the darkness, they come in hordes and they are a deeply cursed race, which tends to make them very cranky. Most of their children are worthless - literally worthless trollkin, creatures too stupid to be much use for anything. Trollkin are largely kept around as snacks. Trolls used to birth huge litters. Now, well, those are trollkin. Now, actual troll births are rare.

This is because trolls are quite literally the greatest bastion in the world against Chaos, and their tireless work in destroying Chaos ended up pissing off a very powerful Chaos...person-deity-thing that cursed them irrevocably. Nothing they've tried has ever been able to fix it. Ever. Even their eldest, most potent witches can't do much - and given at least one of those is a minor goddess in her own right, that says something. (Cragspider is also very dangerous to everyone around her, being kind of a jerk, but she's trying to fix things! ...for trolls.)

Oh yeah, and one of the world's greatest heroes decided that, since no one else was going to gently caress Chaos up enough, he was going to turn himself into a troll. (Most of humanity remembers him as a traitor, because...well, he turned himself into a troll and betrayed his old cultures in order to become better at monomaniacally slaughtering chaos.)

This is just one tiny corner of the setting.

# ? Jul 18, 2014 03:47

Cassa: Jan 29, 2009

Anyone know how to contact Pyradox? Want to use their last stand art for a recruitment poster.

# ? Jul 18, 2014 03:48

Down With People: Oct 31, 2012; The child delights in violence.

Mors Rattus posted:

One of my favourite gods in the setting is Argan Argar, the troll god of trade. Since trolls normally eat anyone and anything they can get their hands on, the cult of Argan Argar is very useful, giving trolls an avenue to communicate with the other races peacefully and vice versa. Argan Argari tend to be male trolls, since they're seen as disposable, and they wear gaudy pimp outfits to display their wealth.