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I've been working on yet another D&D heartbreaker, like we all inevitably do, and I've kind of hit a wall as to what else to do with it/where to go with it moving forward. So, I made a discussion thread to solicit opinions, at the suggestion of a fellow goon. If you can pop in on your daily browse through TG and post your opinions, it'd be much appreciated. Thanks!
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Mar 9, 2015 04:04
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| # ? May 26, 2024 07:18 |
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I just read the best post about Pathfinder Online's leveling system.quote:From what I can tell of the leveling system, it's a kind of bizarre hybrid of a standard MMO XP grind with EVE's learning system. Apparently Dancey generally liked the EVE system, but felt it was flawed, and saw this as the fix.
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Mar 9, 2015 16:45
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How is that still Pathfinder? Does it even resemble the rules of the tabletop game anymore? For that matter, why did so many D&D-like games completely eschew the use of a grid and formal turn limits? Infinity Engine games didn't, Neverwinter Nights didn't, D&D Online didn't, Neverwinter Online didn't, and now it looks like this PFO thing doesn't use it either. Even Temple of Elemental Evil just used miniatures-style precise actual measurements IIRC. That just confused me more than anything trying to translate what D&D was like outside of the PC.
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Mar 9, 2015 17:09
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In related news, and online buddy has invited me to his PF game. I'm...not eager. He says he runs the game looser than the rules are presented, but the overall gamer mindset of his group means they won't even try games that are designed to be lose in the first place.
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Mar 9, 2015 17:23
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Evil Mastermind posted:In related news, and online buddy has invited me to his PF game. As somebody who has a group of friends who only play D&D 2e, I've had a similar experience. Just don't talk any other games with them and try to go in with an open mind. Regarding my situation I did just that, it was about as terrible as a bunch of 40 year old aping lovely mechanics and mindsets from the 1980s could be, but at least I gave it a shot and I'm glad I did. They were also very gracious when I said it wasn't for me.
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Mar 9, 2015 17:31
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Zurui posted:Yeah, let's not jump on people for using singular they for a person whose gender they are not familiar with. I mean, really. I really want to play a full game of The Quiet Year. I did have a fun five or so turns of it.
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Mar 9, 2015 17:41
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Like, a lot.
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The PFO system sounds like a bad attempt at a "skill gain by use" system. Something more organic. Which is a shame, it seems that sort of thing is better with a computer to do the bookkeeping.TheLovablePlutonis posted:I didn't like Monsterhearts much but Avery is a good person considering their alternative way of payment and I wish success on whatever they want to do now.  Less "didn't like" and more "Didn't get the hang of", though.
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Mar 9, 2015 17:43
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It's like bizarro land, all I want to do is kill a goblin and worry about how to carry thee 10' poles. My actual adolescence was full of enough goth kid sexual melodrama that I have no desire to make a hobby of it. The difficulty for me seems to be finding a group that wants to play fussy old games but are not a bunch of shitlords.
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Mar 9, 2015 17:46
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The Quiet Year is a really good game. They have a tendency to peter out very quickly in play by posts though.
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Mar 9, 2015 17:56
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Helical Nightmares posted:The Quiet Year is a really good game. To be fair, that's 90% of PbP regardless of system.
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Mar 9, 2015 18:01
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I honestly don't think I've ever been in a PbP game that didn't just fade.
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Mar 9, 2015 18:04
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I gave up on joining PBPs except for the long running ones I was already in and one that a good friend of mine invited me into and even so only after he said he was only picking people who were unlikely to flake out.
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Mar 9, 2015 18:06
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Kudos for Thesaurasaurus for running a game that managed to survive for more than 2 years and has more words than the bible!
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Mar 9, 2015 18:07
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Going back to PFO chat, the really funny thing is that WoW is the gorilla who's been in the room for a decade now. And in their leveling system you can grind by killing monsters or collecting trade ingredients (some crazy people have done nothing but the latter), by and large the biggest source of XP is and has been from completing quests. Gutting the necessary grind from leveling is, by and large, a solved problem. And yet Ryan Dancey, the
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Mar 9, 2015 18:13
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It is loving amazing to me that Dancey constantly comes up with such terrible ideas that aren't grounded in anything and yet not only keeps getting work but seems to keep getting better work.
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Mar 9, 2015 18:21
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Okay I'm reading this PFO leveling thing and it's like... how did anyone think this was a good idea? If you're gonna have passive XP generation like EVE, then why also require the achievement gating? It's really an either/or system, you can't dip into both. Passive XP generation + kill XP + quest/crafting XP would possibly be a cool idea, but don't remove the grind only to add in a gating mechanic that is also a grind. I still have some faith that the skinner box only works for so long before people get tired of it, and the rest of what I've seen from PFO doesn't look nearly good enough to justify time-gated and achievement-gated progression.
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Mar 9, 2015 18:30
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Moving from CCP to Goblinworks was not a step up.
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Mar 9, 2015 18:33
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I'm not sure how you get ahead in the world of MMORPGs. Going by the state of the genre, it is not by making good games.
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Mar 9, 2015 18:36
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Evil Sagan posted:I'm not sure how you get ahead in the world of MMORPGs. Going by the state of the genre, it is not by making good games. Going by Star Citizen, it's by not making a game at all.
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Mar 9, 2015 18:37
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Wanna see the achievement gates for other classes. Fighter: kill 500 enemies with a sword, upload video of yourself catching your mouse out of the air Wizard: haha just kidding buddy, you having fun? Can we get you anything?
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Mar 9, 2015 18:39
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Megaman's Jockstrap posted:Going by Star Citizen, it's by not making a game at all. 
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Mar 9, 2015 18:58
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Megaman's Jockstrap posted:As somebody who has a group of friends who only play D&D 2e, I've had a similar experience. Just don't talk any other games with them and try to go in with an open mind. Regarding my situation I did just that, it was about as terrible as a bunch of 40 year old aping lovely mechanics and mindsets from the 1980s could be, but at least I gave it a shot and I'm glad I did. They were also very gracious when I said it wasn't for me. It's weird to me, because I do "Games on Demand" at PAX East every year, and I get people playing DW or Fate coming in from more traditional games, and they end up loving it. In fact, last weekend I had a group playing the Atomic Robo RPG, and two of my players immediately bought FAE and some dice, and they told me that they've been playing WoD for a long time, but they always ignored a lot of the rules because they didn't fit their playstyle. At least now they have a game that'll support them. v  v
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Mar 9, 2015 19:10
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Evil Mastermind posted:In related news, and online buddy has invited me to his PF game.
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Mar 9, 2015 20:17
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Evil Mastermind posted:I honestly don't think I've ever been in a PbP game that didn't just fade. I tried running a pair and just came to the conclusion it's not a gaming style that's for me, you know? It just doesn't work for me.
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Mar 9, 2015 20:24
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Evil Mastermind posted:In related news, and online buddy has invited me to his PF game. Just say "thanks very much for the offer, but I'm really not a fan of Pathfinder and wouldn't want to play it, even if you run things looser." It's better than joining his game and then hating it.
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Mar 9, 2015 20:25
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Mr. Maltose posted:To be fair, that's 90% of PbP regardless of system. Evil Mastermind posted:I honestly don't think I've ever been in a PbP game that didn't just fade. This is basically my experience with RPGs in general which is why I don't mind the turnover of PbPs, because it's not like my actual face-to-face gaming has been any more consistent or long-lived. What's that, GM? The game you were so hype about running that you wrote up like 20 pages of handouts for all of us is ending after two sessions because you decided you don't like the system after all? Okay. That D&D game where we spend a whole Saturday doing collaborative worldbuilding is ending after a single session because you just aren't feeling it? Sure. At least the superhero game went...ten sessions? And we had some Werewolf games that went a half dozen sessions each. Traveller only lasted about three or four sessions but they were fairly memorable. And so on and so forth. I dunno, maybe everyone else who sits down at the gaming table is enjoying sprawling, ongoing epic campaigns that last forever and ever but I'm always confused when people talk about how PbP games have some mayfly life expectancy like that's something unique to the format.
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Mar 9, 2015 20:29
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I've been gaming with one of my groups since I was still in Undergrad 7 years ago, and we've run multiple long-term campaigns to conclusion. I suppose when that's my normal experience, PBP just seems too slow and death-prone to be especially interesting, especially as I'm used to writing longer plots.
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Mar 9, 2015 20:31
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Night10194 posted:I've been gaming with one of my groups since I was still in Undergrad 7 years ago, and we've run multiple long-term campaigns to conclusion. I suppose when that's my normal experience, PBP just seems too slow and death-prone to be especially interesting, especially as I'm used to writing longer plots. I've never finished an IRL campaign, or even reached any reasonable stopping point, in any game that lasted more than one session, and I'm staring envy daggers at you from across the internet.
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Mar 9, 2015 20:33
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I've been in a grand total of four PbPs. For two of them, the GM burned out or went AWOL and cancelled within two weeks. For one of the other two, we managed to play for about a year until the GM's other commitments made him unceremoniously put the game on hiatus, and for the last one, I joined as a replacement and the game concluded a couple of months later, but it didn't peter out. This is honestly about on-par with my RL games; about half of them ended because people were bored of the campaign/system/setting, about a quarter or two fifths ended because the players couldn't commit any more, and the rest hit some kind of natural conclusion.
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Mar 9, 2015 20:37
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Rockopolis posted:The PFO system sounds like a bad attempt at a "skill gain by use" system. Something more organic. Which is a shame, it seems that sort of thing is better with a computer to do the bookkeeping. Honestly, I'd love it if it had a SaGa like advancement system! Everyone gains maximum HP by getting smashed in the face repeatedly.
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Mar 9, 2015 20:40
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I played an old World of Darkness campaign that lasted a few years, but we switched systems a few times. Started out playing Werewolf, then decided to switch to Vampire and the GM worked our new PC's into the game and we tied up the old ones. We were in the middle of doing that with Mage when my work schedule made me drop out. It was pretty fun as all the worldbuilding didn't go to waste and the GM made it so each system explored a different part of the world with just enough call backs to the old game to be interesting.
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Mar 9, 2015 20:43
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Evil Mastermind posted:In related news, and online buddy has invited me to his PF game. dwarf74 posted:I did that a while back and went on with an open mind. It's not an experience I'll repeat, though. It's funny you guys mention this as I am doing something similar right now. Difference being that I know the guy IRL. I suppose another difference is that he's a new GM who is a player in my 13th Age game so I worry less about him being a fuddy duddy about rules. Also, his allowed class rules let me use the Warder from Path of War which is a surprisingly good martial class. (I'm playing martial because he needed a tank)
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Mar 9, 2015 20:46
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Night10194 posted:I've been gaming with one of my groups since I was still in Undergrad 7 years ago, and we've run multiple long-term campaigns to conclusion. I suppose when that's my normal experience, PBP just seems too slow and death-prone to be especially interesting, especially as I'm used to writing longer plots. And one of my PbPs, not here but elsewhere, is coming up on its 5 year anniversary in April. Like, okay, it sounds like you have (I would assume) a game group where you're all enthusiastic about it and you all work off each other well? That's the key to PbP gaming. You app to games that interest you and don't get too concerned if they fold and eventually you find a good game with a good group and things chug along. If that sounds a lot like "throw poo poo at the wall and see what sticks" well, that's a good summary of my elfgaming experiences in a nutshell. You can't go into a PbP thinking "oh man, I can't wait for this to go on for years and reach a satisfying conclusion!," you just have to be thinking "this seems like it'll be fun for however long it goes." Let's see, what are the PbPs I've been in here, discounting ones that basically died on impact: 1). Shadowrun: The Startup run by childrenoverboard, an SR4 game that took us to the island nation of Lagu-Lagu to be runners on retainer for a telecom startup. Actually lasted a full calendar year before childrenoverboard bowed out due to illness and burnout. In the course of the game we rescued hostages, set fire to a mall to act as a distraction while we broke into a corporate building next door, liberated a Yeti, boarded a prison transport, emancipated the shipboard AI, killed a big spirit monster with naval artillery, hosed with Ares a whole bunch, and nearly devolved into infighting several times. The game ended mid-firefight in a slum with a bunch of Ares men-in-black as we were about to use a watcher spirit to kite a nest of feral ghouls into their command post. 2). D&D4E: Heroes in the Making by Hashtag Yoloswag, a game about adventurers adventuring. Featuring the triumphant (second time) appearance of Bryn of Tanna, maybe one of my favorite characters to play. We killed a bunch of kobold cultists and also a dragon, and bickered with each other a whole lot. Game ended as we set out into the wider world. 3). Atomic Robo: Tesladyne and the Chariots of the Gods by TurninTrix, an Atomic Robo game actually in the Atomic Robo setting, madness. Investigating totally a UFO crash in the middle of India, fighting science cultists with robot arms and taking the world's most daring selfies. Ended due to GM burnout. 4). Only War: Sisters of the Sacred Sword by Night10194, one of the aforementioned games he dropped after deciding it wasn't for him. An all Sisters of Battle game where a bunch of angry nuns with guns descend upon a world deadlocked in a grinding, ongoing war to get things moving, without notifying sector command that they're planning to do so. We blew a bunch of things up and cooked a good meal. 5). [FATE/Cthulhu] NyarlathoTech Plus - Transeldritch by Ettin, cyberpunk anime action adventure in the neon drenched streets of future Miami. We killed six billion ninjas and crashed a flying island, then killed Hitler on top of an arcology. This one isn't officially dead per se but it kind of lost momentum after an abrupt scene change to Seattle and also street racing I guess? Oh and Ettin has a little Kickstarter project taking up a lot of his free time (understandably). Lasted for a while though, over a year at least. 6). Black Crusade: Outcasts of the Screaming Vortex by frajaq, a bunch of Chaos dudes get punked then wake up on Waterworld hungry for revenge and also skulls. Still ongoing! Frajaq is a rad GM when he doesn't try to run three or four games at once and he seems to have struck a sensible balance here. We just kicked a bunch of daemon rear end and got off of Furia, the aforementioned waterworld, and are now in the Ragged Helix looking for our Pirate Princess' former ship so we can get this party started for real. I'm pretty sure we're about to be ambushed by Dark Eldar. 7). Only War: Slam Sector by DOWN JACKET FETISH, a game where we all play terrible, tiny, hosed-up mutants and ruin everything for everybody all the time. Still ongoing! And like probably a dozen besides this that ended too quickly for me to bother keeping bookmarked or anything.
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Mar 9, 2015 21:01
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Covok posted:It's funny you guys mention this as I am doing something similar right now. Difference being that I know the guy IRL. I suppose another difference is that he's a new GM who is a player in my 13th Age game so I worry less about him being a fuddy duddy about rules. Also, his allowed class rules let me use the Warder from Path of War which is a surprisingly good martial class. (I'm playing martial because he needed a tank) I could charge and do absurd damage. Otherwise, I was poo poo. At everything. I had some lackluster fiddly bonuses, but that's it.
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Mar 9, 2015 21:02
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gradenko_2000 posted:How is that still Pathfinder? Does it even resemble the rules of the tabletop game anymore? I'm pretty sure there's some legal reason that they can't use Pathfinder's actual rules in a videogame. That's also why the upcoming Pathfinder videogame by Obsidian is based off of the card game's rules instead of the RPG rules.
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Mar 9, 2015 21:13
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Something something OGL
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Mar 9, 2015 21:14
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If a game has a good GM and good players a pbp game can go a long time. Blackbird Dreaming has been going since 2007. Over 20,000 posts made. That's a very rare exception, but as long as you have a GM and Players willing to work; then you can get a long running game.
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Mar 9, 2015 21:37
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Whether or not OGL material can be used for a video game hasn't been put to the test. Does that card game still use rust monsters and other distinctly D&D critters? That seems like it could be an issue for translating adventure paths to a card game and then into a video game.
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Mar 9, 2015 21:53
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You know what's a good PbP? Mine. Last chance to submit a character!
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Mar 9, 2015 21:54
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Alien Rope Burn posted:Whether or not OGL material can be used for a video game hasn't been put to the test. Does that card game still use rust monsters and other distinctly D&D critters? That seems like it could be an issue for translating adventure paths to a card game and then into a video game. It does but makes sure to keep them using the Pathfinder visual style. Though I think all outsiders have genericified names like Balors going to Flame Demons.
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Mar 9, 2015 21:56
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