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It's p shameful of people's commitment to pbp that despite being a genetically lazy casual brazilian piece of poo poo that gets probotniks every 3 days i still managed to be more consistent posting than most of other players and GMs! Shikata ga nai.
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Mar 9, 2015 22:09
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Sup all, just coming round to portray commitment to playing by post as a positive trait. Well, laters.
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Mar 9, 2015 22:11
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Ferrinus posted:Sup all, just coming round to portray commitment to playing by post as a positive trait. Well, laters. *erases Ferrinus from the invite list for the Exalted 3e/nWoD/TBZ homebrew crossover pbp campaign*
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Mar 9, 2015 22:16
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So what's the deal with Atomic Robo? I've heard a bit about it lately from RPPR and here.
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Mar 9, 2015 22:34
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It's basically the newest version of FATE with a light layering of pulp action scifi on it. It apparently worked out a lot of kinks from FATE core, but I'm not up to date on the exact details.
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Mar 9, 2015 22:46
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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. Weren't the Star Wars: KOTOR games based on the SW d20 system? It seemed to work pretty well because, funny enough, d20 is actually tolerable with a computer running all the calculations for you. What's stopping PF from doing the same?
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Mar 9, 2015 22:56
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Star Wars d20 and the games directly based on D&D were both made by licenses directly from WOTC who created 3.x and Star Wars d20, as opposed to 3rd party companies. The OGL specifically doesn't include electronic stuff, and since it's based on the D&D rules, may get covered under any existing D&D video game license. Since Paizo's entire business is based on leveraging the OGL, they're probably playing it safe.
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Mar 9, 2015 23:04
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Helical Nightmares posted:So what's the deal with Atomic Robo? I've heard a bit about it lately from RPPR and here. Mr. Maltose posted:It's basically the newest version of FATE with a light layering of pulp action scifi on it. It apparently worked out a lot of kinks from FATE core, but I'm not up to date on the exact details. Fate Core left me dry because it's pretty dry in and of itself while Atomic Robo incorporates a number of tweaks and hacks that were relegated to "optional" status before, provides a pretty decent set of guidelines for super/weird-powered characters that's a lot more streamlined than something like Dresden Files, and is a pretty user-friendly book in general complete with illustrated examples of "this is how a thing works" using panels taken from the Atomic Robo comics. Things Atomic Robo does that I like: 1). Ditches the Fate skill pyramid for Modes, a setup where you choose three "packages" of skills (the default four provided are Action, Banter, Intrigue, and Science, though you can make others) and mash them together, tweaking and adjusting things as they combine. The end result is, in my opinion, better than the pyramid where you generally struggle to prioritize the top rows while scratching your head over which five +1 skills you want that you'll virtually never end up rolling. 1.5). And to go along with this they consolidate the skill list further, so that's nice. 2). Stunts don't cost refresh anymore. Everybody gets five fate points and five stunts by default. You can take more stunts than that if you want, but each stunt over the initial five will give the GM extra fate points of his own to spend on bolstering the opposition, adding complications, and generally raising the overall challenge rating of things. 3). Stunt creation guidelines for what the game calls "mega-stunts" which are things like super-strength, being bulletproof, having signature gadgets or powers, etc. are handy, not very cumbersome, and something Fate Core was kind of lacking. It also gives guidelines for creating "weird skills" which is a much handier and less bodged-together way of handling things like "I can cast magic" than previous Fate efforts at doing so. 4). Lots of NPC writerups, a good source for mining stunts, aspects, and modes.
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Mar 9, 2015 23:09
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It was very loosely based in the SW RPG of the time, yes, but took a lot of liberties. It was also officially licensed. If Rusty the plush rust monster had issues with WotC legal, I can't imagine what they would think of an effectively house ruled and unvarnished 3e being used for a video game.
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Mar 9, 2015 23:12
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KOTOR being based on d20 was great because you'd get into combat and watch your lightsaber-wielding Jedi have to repeatedly chop someone down like a tree with your lightsaber, a weapon canonically known for being extremely difficult to kill anyone with as everyone is well aware.
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Mar 9, 2015 23:15
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According to an old FAQ (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=d20/oglfaq/20040123d) :Open Game Definitions: Frequently Asked Questions Version 2.0 -- January 26, 2004 posted:Q: Is Open Gaming restricted to just RPGs? As long as they don't use copyrighted terms and nouns they should be fine as long as they slap an OGL logo on the package. They do say on the FAQ that the writers aren't lawyers but I'm sure if Wizards had a problem with it they would have shut it down back when it was a kickstarter like Wizards is trying to do with Hex. Let's be honest though, no one is going to have to kill that game. It's going to kill itself or never move past beta because everything about it has been hot garbage. RocknRollaAyatollah fucked around with this message at 23:29 on Mar 9, 2015 |
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Mar 9, 2015 23:25
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I find it difficult to work up any enthusiasm for PbP; I can't stop thinking that it's gonna be a huge slow mess and flame out into nothing. And I've been too shy to use Roll20 or anything like that. I'm not even sure I'm involved in this hobby anymore, I don't think I've even played a game this year.
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Mar 10, 2015 00:00
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If the idea of "I'm worried that this game is going to go nowhere and resolve unsatisfactorily" is keeping you from playing then it's possible you're in the wrong hobby. I have never, not once, had a game either face-to-face or online resolve with any sort of narrative finality or even on a solid cliffhanger. Games that achieve a satisfactory conclusion in this hobby are in a stark minority compared to games that peter out and quietly die. I mean, if all those "What is roleplaying?" sections in RPG books were halfway honest this is a thing they'd be telling new players. "All those dreams you have of epic stories that come to a triumphant close after years of regular play, you better temper that poo poo." Going into roleplaying with an attitude of "I'm gonna try and have fun with this for as long as it goes" is, I've found, a lot more satisfying than getting bummed every time a game fizzles out because a lot more games are going to fizzle out before you find one that goes somewhere.
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Mar 10, 2015 00:08
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I guess. Who knows, maybe it's just been so long since I've had an enjoyable gaming experience that I'm just starting to doubt that it's possible to have fun anymore. I think that's another thing I dislike about PbP, winnowing out the applicants, I always feel bad when I have to do it. It's just like, you put in a ton of effort and you're biting your nails about getting in, and then, *fart*. It's just been freaking me out lately. I should do something. I'd say Spring Break is coming up soon, but I was planning to spend that at work, so...it's not like I'm going to have any more or less time.
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Mar 10, 2015 00:16
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Well without trying to play armchair internet psychoanalyst it sounds like your difficulties aren't related to gaming per se.
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Mar 10, 2015 00:26
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Kai Tave posted:I have never, not once, had a game either face-to-face or online resolve with any sort of narrative finality or even on a solid cliffhanger. Honestly that is what your gamemaster is responsible for. When I manage a game the onus is on me to make it exciting with the players I have and have some sort of interesting narrative structure. If some players are not a right fit, then I identify that early and make cuts; or if I'm a player, I leave.
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Mar 10, 2015 00:34
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Helical Nightmares posted:Honestly that is what your gamemaster is responsible for. When I manage a game the onus is on me to make it exciting with the players I have and have some sort of interesting narrative structure. If some players are not a right fit, then I identify that early and make cuts; or if I'm a player, I leave. it's a shared responsibility between everyone involved with the game.
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Mar 10, 2015 00:36
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Not really. Crafting a cliffhanger is a GM's job. After all, they decide when the story breaks for next session and things wind down. A narrative finality depends more on a player but without a GM to put in the effort of an epilogue, an excellent player won't have any narrative finality. This is a pretty simple loss of function test.
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Mar 10, 2015 00:41
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I remember when all this was fields Also playing in a play-by-post campaign ... on a BBS. That was my first and last play-by-post campaign. I think we got as far as the first combat before it stopped forever. AD&D 2nd Edition was not meant for play-by-post. Kai Tave posted:If the idea of "I'm worried that this game is going to go nowhere and resolve unsatisfactorily" is keeping you from playing then it's possible you're in the wrong hobby. I have never, not once, had a game either face-to-face or online resolve with any sort of narrative finality or even on a solid cliffhanger. Games that achieve a satisfactory conclusion in this hobby are in a stark minority compared to games that peter out and quietly die. Perhaps some measure of group expectations are related here? I can think of one time a Vampire game was clearly starting to peter out (in no small part because it was a Vampire game) and we basically demanded the gamemaster skip to whatever ending he had in mind for the next session, and it was certainly more enjoyable that way than just quitting in the middle, even if not as much as getting there organically. Though most campaigns did indeed come to their conclusions in a very orderly (if not timely) manner. If it is not a product of starting when you are like 13, maybe it is a product of having a group of 6 "core" people, at least 4 of which were in any game run for a period of about 10 years? Somewhere between group pressure, good luck, determination, and uhhh, not living in an exciting major metropolitan area, exists The Secret.
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Mar 10, 2015 00:42
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Kai Tave posted:If the idea of "I'm worried that this game is going to go nowhere and resolve unsatisfactorily" is keeping you from playing then it's possible you're in the wrong hobby. I have never, not once, had a game either face-to-face or online resolve with any sort of narrative finality or even on a solid cliffhanger. Games that achieve a satisfactory conclusion in this hobby are in a stark minority compared to games that peter out and quietly die. Hey, I'm in the stark minority! Cool. Just gonna bask in the fleeting feelings of achievement... But yeah, the majority of my games fizzle, too. Not even from flakey players, just from the hassles of RL; careers and such. Having an addendum for that in RPG books would be good advice. I think it's why I'm shifting my focus to sandbox gaming - there's no "epic plot" you have to worry so much about maintaining. Simian_Prime fucked around with this message at 00:46 on Mar 10, 2015 |
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Mar 10, 2015 00:43
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Helical Nightmares posted:Honestly that is what your gamemaster is responsible for. Ehhhhhhhh. I can't really agree with this. Roleplaying is a collaborative thing first of all, it's not one person's responsibility to ensure the game slides into home plate with every loose end all tied off in a pretty bow. Furthermore, the vast majority of RPGs out there present to players and GMs the notion that roleplaying means sitting down to play the same campaign over and over and over and over and over again week after week until ??????????? Presumably until you hit max level if you're playing D&D I guess but for most other games there's really not a lot of discussion about bringing things to a satisfying narrative conclusion or whatever. And even assuming that you and your group are super tight and work great together and all, playing out a "typical" RPG campaign takes a long loving time. Even if you meet every week like clockwork there's a good chance that, if you go by the book, you're looking at like a year of playing the same game over and over again, maybe more. Yes, there are games that are designed for shorter, more self-contained arcs, but those are the exception and not the rule. On top of this, "narrative" is kind of a dirty word in a lot of elfgaming circles. An RPG isn't meant to drive towards a narrative conclusion, it's an endless Choose Your Own Adventure where you blaze a trail of dungeons and monsters and wacky hijinks until you get bored and retire I guess. If a narrative grows out of that or around that then great! But it's entirely left as an exercise to the players what the hell to actually do with it most of the time.
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Mar 10, 2015 00:43
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Helical Nightmares posted:Not really. Crafting a cliffhanger is a GM's job. After all, they decide when the story breaks for next session and things wind down. Even putting aside differing stances on GM responsibility vs group responsibility, you're assuming games never end because people just can't manage to find the time for a next session, or players lose interest, or any of the other reasons that a game might end without anyone knowing the final session would be the final session.
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Mar 10, 2015 00:45
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I'd say a good third of my campaigns actually see a narrative conclusion. Usually the ones we're enjoying the most, because everyone wants to stick with that game and see where it goes.
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Mar 10, 2015 00:45
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Kai Tave posted:And even assuming that you and your group are super tight and work great together and all, playing out a "typical" RPG campaign takes a long loving time. Even if you meet every week like clockwork there's a good chance that, if you go by the book, you're looking at like a year of playing the same game over and over again, maybe more. Yes, there are games that are designed for shorter, more self-contained arcs, but those are the exception and not the rule.
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Mar 10, 2015 00:47
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I usually run something when I have a good idea for an arc that'll cover six to ten sessions, then roll credits and call it a season. Without a planned end, I've found campaigns tend to go until interest wanes and everybody either agrees to quit or passively votes with non-attendance.
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Mar 10, 2015 00:57
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It's not even a sandbox thing necessarily. A lot of GMs start with a premise for a game that directs the players towards an immediate short-term goal...the King is looking for adventurers to go and rescue his daughter from kobolds, the Galactic Survey Corps wants you to go explore the planet Zokfar, the Prince of Poughkeepsie is holding a vampire ball and intrigue is afoot, etc...but then once that's done they didn't really have any sort of long-term plan in mind, so things often become "uh, okay, hang on and lemme think." If he's lucky then the players have bit at a plot hook or two and will trundle along in that direction, otherwise a lot of the time the GM comes up short-handed.
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Mar 10, 2015 00:59
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Quarex posted:AD&D 2nd Edition was not meant for play-by-post. I'd rather think that PbP would be perfect for crunchy games because you have all the time in the world to obsess over all the rules and spergy bits.
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Mar 10, 2015 01:44
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gradenko_2000 posted:I'd rather think that PbP would be perfect for crunchy games because you have all the time in the world to obsess over all the rules and spergy bits. You'd think, but add in all the other reasons people have to not post, and it makes it even slower. God help you if there's a rules question.
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Mar 10, 2015 01:55
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I've said it before and I'll say it again, if you're willing to sit down and run crunchy, rule-heavy games at the tabletop there really isn't that much appreciable difference in doing it via PbP. You've already committed yourself to playing AD&D2E or FantasyCraft or HERO or whatever, doing it over a computer doesn't magically make it ten times more demanding. All that hard work? You'd be doing that poo poo anyway.
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Mar 10, 2015 02:03
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Kai Tave posted:I've said it before and I'll say it again, if you're willing to sit down and run crunchy, rule-heavy games at the tabletop there really isn't that much appreciable difference in doing it via PbP. You've already committed yourself to playing AD&D2E or FantasyCraft or HERO or whatever, doing it over a computer doesn't magically make it ten times more demanding. All that hard work? You'd be doing that poo poo anyway. It does. Take WH40KRP: In person, the fact that people are going to miss shots relatively often stretches combat out an extra 20-30 minutes. In PbP it could conceivably do it an extra 3 weeks. One of these is way more likely to cause strain than the other.
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Mar 10, 2015 02:05
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If you don't like trimming down apps just find some people you already want to play with or, barring that, just take the first X people who post. Apps kind of suck when you're in a spot to hear the people who didn't get into a game complain about it, but it does let you just pick and choose from players and concepts you'd like for the game. Or when people go completely off the rails you get to realize you did a horrible job setting the tone of the game in the OP. Like me.
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Mar 10, 2015 02:05
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Night10194 posted:It does. Take WH40KRP: In person, the fact that people are going to miss shots relatively often stretches combat out an extra 20-30 minutes. In PbP it could conceivably do it an extra 3 weeks. One of these is way more likely to cause strain than the other. "Stuff takes longer" is gamingonline.txt. Like, sorry, but if you aren't willing to accept that then the problem really isn't crunchy games, the problem is that you don't want to play by post. And that's fine, not everything's for everybody, but "oh no I might have to make a few more internet posts" isn't really what I would consider strain. Speaking only for myself, I would rather deal with a drawn out combat where I can make an internet post moving things incrementally forward and then turn my attention towards something else than be stuck at a tabletop waiting around for poo poo to get finished and realizing that Jesus, this combat has taken two hours already. sentrygun posted:If you don't like trimming down apps just find some people you already want to play with or, barring that, just take the first X people who post. Apps kind of suck when you're in a spot to hear the people who didn't get into a game complain about it, but it does let you just pick and choose from players and concepts you'd like for the game. Speaking as someone who's apped for more games than I've gotten to play, if you don't get chosen for a game you're excited about don't go around bitching about it, goddamn. Yes, it sucks sometimes, but that's the way it is. Don't be a jerk, be cool and save your ideas for later. There'll be other games.
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Mar 10, 2015 02:09
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Kai Tave posted:"Stuff takes longer" is gamingonline.txt. Like, sorry, but if you aren't willing to accept that then the problem really isn't crunchy games, the problem is that you don't want to play by post. And that's fine, not everything's for everybody, but "oh no I might have to make a few more internet posts" isn't really what I would consider strain. Better 2+ hours on skype or irc than a week or worse, a loving month, on PBP. Speaking on personal experience as well!!!
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Mar 10, 2015 02:12
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Sure, different strokes etc. My point is that I don't think crunchy systems are inherently any worse for PbP than others. I mean, there's a difference between "crunchy" games and "badly designed games that are also crunchy" too. I wouldn't be especially interested in playing, say, Exalted via PbP but I'm not tremendously interested in playing Exalted face to face or over Skype either, so.
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Mar 10, 2015 02:16
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Kai Tave posted:Speaking as someone who's apped for more games than I've gotten to play, if you don't get chosen for a game you're excited about don't go around bitching about it, goddamn. Yes, it sucks sometimes, but that's the way it is. Don't be a jerk, be cool and save your ideas for later. There'll be other games. Eh, I just mean like the collective 'baw i didn't get picked' in an irc channel after a recruit ends or something. Like you feel bad because aw man I'd like to grab all the people I'd like along for the ride especially if all of them app in, but six people is already a stupidly huge game nonetheless like ten+. People actually going apeshit is weird but also has happened in hilarious fashions. Re: combat, I dropped out of a 4e live game because I realized how much I hate waiting for combat to resolve. Games with long, drawn out combat suck a lot if the fights aren't well designed and difficult because why do I really care about this fight when I just roll to see if I shot someone with my crossbow every like 20 minutes. Of course, most GMs aren't going to be fantastic at making battles (hi it's me) so this probably ends up happening a lot, unfortunately, but this seems like just as much of a problem if not more-so in a PbP environment where fights can be so long you start forgetting what happened a couple turns ago because that was two weeks ago.
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Mar 10, 2015 02:17
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sentrygun posted:Eh, I just mean like the collective 'baw i didn't get picked' in an irc channel after a recruit ends or something. Like you feel bad because aw man I'd like to grab all the people I'd like along for the ride especially if all of them app in, but six people is already a stupidly huge game nonetheless like ten+. People actually going apeshit is weird but also has happened in hilarious fashions. I mean, it's okay to go "aw shucks" I guess but still, you oughta know going into a game that you aren't guaranteed to get in, it sucks, it happens. You deal with it and move on. Likewise, GMs shouldn't feel too bad about having to pick which apps to take because, y'know, them's the breaks. Sure, it'd be nice to make everyone happy but since that's not really feasible you've gotta go with what what you think is going to make for the most enjoyable game. Better that than RPGnet's PbP scene which is a GM posting "I'd like to run a game, maybe? I dunno what it's about though" and then like three people post vague affirmations of interest with no real suggestions for what to do and no character apps.
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Mar 10, 2015 02:21
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Kai Tave posted:It's not even a sandbox thing necessarily. A lot of GMs start with a premise for a game that directs the players towards an immediate short-term goal...the King is looking for adventurers to go and rescue his daughter from kobolds, the Galactic Survey Corps wants you to go explore the planet Zokfar, the Prince of Poughkeepsie is holding a vampire ball and intrigue is afoot, etc...but then once that's done they didn't really have any sort of long-term plan in mind, so things often become "uh, okay, hang on and lemme think." If he's lucky then the players have bit at a plot hook or two and will trundle along in that direction, otherwise a lot of the time the GM comes up short-handed. Rockopolis posted:I find it difficult to work up any enthusiasm for PbP; I can't stop thinking that it's gonna be a huge slow mess and flame out into nothing.
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Mar 10, 2015 02:30
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Ningyou posted:yes good don't use roll20 that community is a roaring garbagefire of creeps and boring 5e/pf fuckboys and some weirdo trying to run a 12-person MH livegame Please capitalize your posts and respect people who like 5e and PF and don't generalize a gaming community. Although I didn't knew there was a Roll20 community I just used it on ircgames I was already in and on a Rogue Trader game that I played with YCSers before I had to drop out due to classes.
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Mar 10, 2015 02:35
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The roll20 community is just the site's looking for group index which is 99% Pathfinder. Sometimes you might spot something else and 5e's probably popping up now that it's out since last I actually looked at it.
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Mar 10, 2015 02:40
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Ningyou posted:yes good don't use roll20 that community is a roaring garbagefire of creeps and boring 5e/pf fuckboys and some weirdo trying to run a 12-person MH livegame I don't think I've seen a worse reason not to use roll20, and its not like you need to dig deep to find a good reason.
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