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Megaman's Jockstrap posted:The problem is they can't be dissuaded because they will never reach out to, or contact, anyone who would tell them otherwise; they reach these conclusions on their own in an epistemic bubble and don't do any research and just start working on their New and Improved D&D. I can think of several examples off the top of my head where a wrongheaded publisher used marketing language like "infinitely flexible and fun" and "only limited by your imagination" to pimp their game. Typically they claim that their system is focused on fun and roleplaying instead of rules, but because they're pimping a system that bills itself as universal, all the marketing is paradoxically focused on the rules. "Imagine" was a game that did this poo poo hardcore years ago, and the game in question was actually a generic high fantasy setting. visioNation Studios' CORE-7 system is an example of an actually universal system that did this stuff, gasped, and died quickly several years ago. I only just found out about Fyxt today, but what's perversely impressive about the whole thing is that they are actually making a heartbreaker. I've been arguing for some time now that the idea of a "fantasy heartbreaker" is partially defunct now, because part of what makes a heartbreaker heartbreaking is that the creators are blowing a lot of money and resources on it. There are a lot of people making crappy D&D-a-likes or otherwise publishing their lovely homebrew ripoff as an original game, but these days most of them aren't wasting anything more than a lot of free time, maybe some money for art and layout, and whatever it costs to list things on DriveThruRPG. But the publisher of Fyxt managed to detonate his financial security to publish a game. How is he even doing that? What Fyxt-related resources are there that need to be housed on an expensive server, and which the creator believes he needs to host on an even more expensive server? I'm really curious now, is this like Eric Gibson and his crazy plans for a bunch of vague "online developer tools" for OpenD6? quote:One of the things that this industry needs to understand IMO is that a large number of players basically associate RPGs with a better time in their life (teenage or college years) and are trying to forever preserve these feelings in amber. The game is just a facilitator for unproductive wallowing in nostalgia and escapism into the realm of simpler times. So of course if you replace your college D&D 3.5 game with something new and improved then you've poked a hole in the bottom of the boat that's taking you to the land of teenage enchantment, so to speak.
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Mar 19, 2015 22:26
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I made a heartbreaker in high school and pitched it to a couple of companies. I wish I had those emails, because they were hilarious. I even included the boilerplate ''Original idea, do not steal.'' The couple of them that responded were pretty nice about it, the only burn they delivered was that my RPG title ''Brave New World'' might be problematic due to trademarks.
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Mar 19, 2015 22:30
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Are you sure it was a burn? There was a superhero RPG with that title in the late 90s.
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Mar 19, 2015 22:32
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I'm just impressed that's the only thing they criticized in a 2000 word pitch document that was basically ''It's a post apocalyptic world but with fantasy races, like D&D but better!!!''
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Mar 19, 2015 22:38
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Halloween Jack posted:I get that, kinda, but one thing I do not understand is how such fans have the free time for it as they get older. I gave up on really "simulationist" systems not just because of a change in philosophy but because I don't have the free time to spend hours and hours prepping and playing for very detailed rulesets. (Of course not everyone who is roleplaying to recapture their youth prefers complex rules, but I perceive a correlation there.) Gamers in their 30s and up don't conform to the stereotype of being single and childless, so I don't know how they do it. I think you might be overthinking it. RPGs take about as much time for the non-GM players as, say, a weekend golf habit or some other Dad hobby. It's really not that different. Heck right now I am meeting with some friends one night a week for a couple of hours for board games and the occasional two-shot and I'm a family man with a full time job. It's not hard. Anecdotally, the AD&D 2e group that was 9(!!!) players large of dudes in their 40s that I knew met twice a month for 5 hours on a Sunday for 8 years. Their campaign just recently wound down because the DM is having some major personal issues and doesn't have time for anything (also, if you're wondering, he stayed up late at night after his family went to bed to rework adventures from 1970s Dungeon magazines that he had dreamt of running for years). But yeah, for 8 years (2007 - 2015) they met and played AD&D 2e in true 1991 style (i.e. an autocratic DM would send paragraphs and paragraphs worth of world lore to them every month, DMPCs out the wazoo, railroading, you know the drill) and had a blast doing it. I don't begrudge them their fun but the one time I tried to have them try something different they were such colossal little shits about the whole thing that it actually made me respect them a little bit less as people (money quote: "if I wanted to play something other than AD&D, I've got my Call of Cthulu 1st ed books at home!") and of course they dogpiled me for loving 4e. These are the Children of 1980s Basic D&D and (again, anecdotally) A LOT of them literally have no desire to ever interface with the RPG hobby in any other way.
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Mar 19, 2015 22:44
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Evil Mastermind posted:So remember Fyxt? Have you ever wondered what the actual mindset is behind making games like that is? I still can't get over how innovative, original, and groundbreaking they seem to think making a universal rules system is. How completely disconnected from the hobby do you have to be for that to happen?
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Mar 19, 2015 23:08
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BTW if you want to keep going down the Fyxt rabbit-hole here's the "Quick Play" adventure: https://fyxtrpg.com/instant-play-quest/ It has all the hits: 1) Players start in an inn, out of money 2) DM read-aloud paragraph boxes 3) The adventure literally starts with a perception check that it's possible (but not likely) for everyone to fail, if you don't roll perception - no adventure. (in other words it's loving pointless, just start the goddamn adventure already) 4) A very friendly writing voice that assumes the person reading it has never played an RPG and explains terms like "campaign" and "role-playing"as though this is Basic D&D 5) Goblins attack the caravan the players are guarding! (isn't this also the D&D 5e intro adventure?!?!) Also the game appears to be a modular 4e reskin that rewards tactical combat. So there you go. Actually making a computer-assisted highly modular 4e reskin is a pretty kickass feat for your first heartbreaker. Too bad this is totally doomed.
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Mar 19, 2015 23:17
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Good thing another highly modular 4e-based rpg didn't just have a very successful kickstarter, lookin good Fyxt guy.
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Mar 19, 2015 23:23
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Countblanc posted:Good thing another highly modular 4e-based rpg didn't just have a very successful kickstarter, lookin good Fyxt guy. What game was that? (been out of the scene for a while, just got back in a month ago) Edit: duh, Strike. Sorry.
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Mar 19, 2015 23:25
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Oh, that poor bastard. The rpggeek thread even has people suggesting Champions, Fate, or AW. All he does that I can see is name 'battle time' 'real time' or whatever to differentiate segments of a 4e session. "I have already spent my savings and 401K to establish the Fyxt RPG." ...
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Mar 19, 2015 23:34
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BY the way, look at the sample characters on the quickstart. Apparently your attack range is determined by your class.Halloween Jack posted:I only just found out about Fyxt today, but what's perversely impressive about the whole thing is that they are actually making a heartbreaker. I've been arguing for some time now that the idea of a "fantasy heartbreaker" is partially defunct now, because part of what makes a heartbreaker heartbreaking is that the creators are blowing a lot of money and resources on it. There are a lot of people making crappy D&D-a-likes or otherwise publishing their lovely homebrew ripoff as an original game, but these days most of them aren't wasting anything more than a lot of free time, maybe some money for art and layout, and whatever it costs to list things on DriveThruRPG. But the publisher of Fyxt managed to detonate his financial security to publish a game. How is he even doing that? What Fyxt-related resources are there that need to be housed on an expensive server, and which the creator believes he needs to host on an even more expensive server? I'm really curious now, is this like Eric Gibson and his crazy plans for a bunch of vague "online developer tools" for OpenD6? That's why they're running the kickstarter. Because they want new server to "handle the load" when this thing takes off despite not telling anyone about it and you have thousands of people trying to access their sheets online. LowellDND posted:Oh, that poor bastard. The rpggeek thread even has people suggesting Champions, Fate, or AW.
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Mar 19, 2015 23:48
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Halloween Jack posted:I don't understand the belief that players are going to stick to slight variations of their favourite universal system because new rules are just so hard to learn and they would be giving up so much facility of play by moving on from a system they already know well. D20's marketing was based on it, but it was self-defeating: there's so much variation under the D20 umbrella that transferring rules for characters, monsters, equipment, etc. from one version of D20 to another isn't necessarily easier than transferring them to a completely different system and just eyeballing it. Is it really a thing? I know it is in the minds of people publishing games, but what about the audience? I ran a one shot in Call of Cthulhu D20 (yes because everyone already knew D20 rules and I had pre-made everyone's characters to go with the surprise of what game was going down DEAL WITH IT) and had overwhelmingly positive feedback such that they begged to turn it into a campaign. So I was like "O.K., well, there is zero chance I am going to run a CAMPAIGN in Call of Cthulhu D20 ... hmm ... [days pass while I look into systems with horror supplements] all right, welcome to a Savage Worlds campaign!" There was some resistance to the idea of changing systems, because the conversions were obviously not going to really work out that directly. But my rejoinder of "who cares?" pretty handily won the day and we have gone on to have an amazing campaign. And this is with a pretty open-minded gaming group full of people who have seen how my brain works for a decade or more--I can only imagine how hard it might be to convince people who do not love new experiences that they should totally convert their D20 character to an entirely unrelated system. Kind of what Megaman's Jockstrap said except I also wanted to post Also Fyxt has done a good job making Hero Games: D&D but that also kind of got said already. But the particular way he is describing the generic powers instantly takes me back to using HeroMaker in DOS 5.0 and meticulously creating my brilliantly innovative elemental control of "mutant bison powers" because I was an idiot
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Mar 19, 2015 23:53
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Evil Mastermind posted:I'm the one in that thread who told him to put his D&D books away and play Fate and other indie games. You are doing God's work son. Quarex posted:Also Fyxt has done a good job making Hero Games: D&D but that also kind of got said already. But the particular way he is describing the generic powers instantly takes me back to using HeroMaker in DOS 5.0 and meticulously creating my brilliantly innovative elemental control of "mutant bison powers" because I was an idiot Playing with the Heromaker was hella fun, just saying.
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Mar 19, 2015 23:58
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Evil Mastermind posted:Pretty much, yeah. The idea is that you keep your characters, the powers and items you make, and so on on the website. Then you use your phone/tablet/whatever to access it so you don't have to carry around tons of books! And if/when there are changes to the system or errata, then your sheet will be updated in real-time. Which is a really cool idea that pretty much any other established RPG company could/should do because gently caress carrying around a bunch of books all the time, phones are ubiquitous nowadays, and it makes it a lot easier to set poo poo up (and no one loses their character sheet by accident). It's just tied to...that thing.
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Mar 20, 2015 00:05
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Aaaactually... back when I was playing D&D 4th, and they had the offline-able fat client character tools and DM tools... we eventually had to ban devices at the table. The problem was that it was too easy for people to get distracted, especially during combat when it wasn't their turn. I'm sure it can work for some folks, but for some people having the laptop or tablet open is just too much of a temptation. These companies should be providing these tools, mind you, I agree with that completely. But they shouldn't be required in order to use a system, or that's going to rule out a lot of gaming groups that have learned the hard way to ban the electronics at the game table.
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Mar 20, 2015 00:47
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I am going to be a contrarian and say that digital everything is absolutely unnecessary and taking dice plus a character sheet is barely an inconvenience. A digital planning tool for the GM depending on the game is handy though.
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Mar 20, 2015 01:12
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Having your stuff update automatically with every errata is super cool though.
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Mar 20, 2015 01:13
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I feel like everything that needs to be said about D20 Call of Cthulhu can be derived from the fact that the names on the cover are Monte Cook and John Tynes.
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Mar 20, 2015 01:21
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Countblanc posted:Having your stuff update automatically with every errata is super cool though. One of the main reasons I dumped D&D Insider was when they pulled the on-device fat client character sheet program in favor of the online one. Why? Because it removed the ability to override the RAW. E.g., if I had a house rule that everyone gets a free +1 on their main attack every three/four levels (I forget the exact amount) so that we didn't all have to take a magic item to do exactly that, I could do it in the thick client but I couldn't in the web client. Or as another example, I could permit all the characters in my campaign to have an extra, free feat every x levels. The ability to automatically update with errata is awesome for online reference of rules, but an online character builder/GM toolkit absolutely has to support house rules and customization and the ability to override RAW, or it's useless. In my opinion.
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Mar 20, 2015 01:26
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I do all my gaming online these days, so all the players inherently have to have a device in front of them.
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Mar 20, 2015 02:07
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Pope Guilty posted:I feel like everything that needs to be said about D20 Call of Cthulhu can be derived from the fact that the names on the cover are Monte Cook and John Tynes. D20 CoC owned, it was the best low-effort D20 clone (admittedly not saying much and ignoring stuff like M&M that made a bunch of changes).
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Mar 20, 2015 13:32
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It wasn't very good at capturing anything from the source material or original game. Unless I missed all the level six defensive option heroes in weird fiction.
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Mar 20, 2015 13:45
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moths posted:It wasn't very good at capturing anything from the source material or original game. Unless I missed all the level six defensive option heroes in weird fiction.
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Mar 20, 2015 15:07
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moths posted:It wasn't very good at capturing anything from the source material or original game. Unless I missed all the level six defensive option heroes in weird fiction. I don't remember reading about any headbutt specialists in the source material so it's not like the original game was good at emulating it either. With D20 CoC bringing the massive threshold down to 10 it could be lethal as poo poo (an average pistol did like 2d6 damage so a single shot could kill you no matter what level you were).
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Mar 20, 2015 15:08
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What I was getting at was that the rules were dumb and pointless but the setting and Mythosy bits were loving great because Monte Cook is D20 as gently caress and John Tynes owns bones.
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Mar 20, 2015 15:09
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Also the cover looked like this
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Mar 20, 2015 15:11
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FFGs Horizon series were all at least interesting and Spellslinger and Grimm were pretty loving good. I can't imagine any of them were really high effort.
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Mar 20, 2015 15:16
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After my highschool group played D20 CoC, I don't think we ever really went back to 3.5 D&D. I am grateful to it for that if nothing else. I had a lot of fun with it, though, and it ended up being the gateway to a lot of lighter systems in a trend we continue to this day. I know my experience probably isn't typical, but d20 CoC let us do pulpy, ridiculous CoC games and - having seen there was other stuff out there - we continued to try other systems. Pretty close to Quarex's story, actually. In terms of how it relates to industry, despite the fairly negative overall perception of the D20 CoC book, apparently it sold quite well. It didn't get a reprint due to licensing issues rather than not hitting sales targets. Sionak fucked around with this message at 15:40 on Mar 20, 2015 |
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Mar 20, 2015 15:28
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Let's not pretend that the original Call of Cthulhu was meticulously loyal to the source material and had great rules. BRP was a clunky, hoary system and Chaosium was glad to define a playstyle through the mechanics and organize the mythos like Derleth did. Really, I think most of the respect accorded to BRP Call of Cthulhu is due to the outstanding modules and supplements and the fact that a Lovecraftian horror game was very, very different from what was on offer both in roleplaying and pop culture in 1981. There's a reason that there are now several other games designed to do adventuring-party roleplaying in the Lovecraft mythos, some of which are trying to be Chaosium's CoC with a different ruleset, and some of which are trying to get past Chaosium's game to emulate subsets of the source materials more closely. Megaman's Jockstrap posted:4) A very friendly writing voice that assumes the person reading it has never played an RPG and explains terms like "campaign" and "role-playing"as though this is Basic D&D quote:As it says in the subtitle, The Gaean Reach is a roleplaying game. If you have no idea what that means, we congratulate you for accidentally stumbling upon this text, which is aimed at a fervent niche audience. We wish we had the space here to teach you the basics of the hobby. Find friends who know what roleplaying games are, and have them demonstrate the basic concept to you. Incessantly bug one of them until they run a session for you and your friends. You’ll be glad you did.
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Mar 20, 2015 15:39
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Yeah the claymation cover owned, and I'm glad to own it just for the D20 stats of mythos creatures, but I feel like D20 mechanics have too much of their own overpowering flavour. Levels and offensive/defensive "classes" just existed because D20 needs them - one of the strengths of the original was that you never leveled up. Humans were humans. E: to give it its due, it was definitely a step up from D20 Modern or 3.x. I feel like D20 CoC encapsulated the D20 CAN DO ANYTHING PERFECTLY! thing that everybody was desperately trying to make true. moths fucked around with this message at 15:43 on Mar 20, 2015 |
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Mar 20, 2015 15:40
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Halloween Jack posted:Let's not pretend that the original Call of Cthulhu was meticulously loyal to the source material and had great rules. BRP was a clunky, hoary system and Chaosium was glad to define a playstyle through the mechanics and organize the mythos like Derleth did.
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Mar 20, 2015 15:48
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Piell posted:Also the cover looked like this This was the first system I ever GM'd back in highschool. My entire experience with roleplaying was one game of D&D. I had bought a box of books sight unseen at a garage sale for $5. In there was that drat book. The first 3 sessions had 6 player deaths due to stupidity, zombies, and explosives (also brought about via stupidity). Everyone loved it. Gaghskull fucked around with this message at 16:47 on Mar 20, 2015 |
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Mar 20, 2015 16:44
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One of my most satisfying campaigns of all time was CoC d20, heavily modified. The GM advice in it is spot on. Even put together a little rules doc for it. https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B9qwm-rNX9YESHlPeUh6THFLV0k/edit?usp=docslist_api
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Mar 20, 2015 17:30
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Gaghskull posted:This was the first system I ever GM'd back in highschool. My entire experience with roleplaying was one game of D&D. I had bought a box of books sight unseen at a garage sale for $5. In there was that drat book. The first 3 sessions had 6 player deaths due to stupidity, zombies, and explosives (also brought about via stupidity). Everyone loved it. Maybe after the horrors of Black Crusade I can cut my teeth on Masks of Nyarlathotep with y'all in BRP CoC. It will be a great situation where posing as Inquisitors will get you killed by cultists and/or evil gods! Also, we won't need too much in the way of grids for that sort of thing. The first system I ever GM'd was this back in... 5th or 6th Grade, I think?  I still have no idea how to run anything remotely AD&D-related to this day, but it did lead to me getting the AD&D DMG and Return to the Tomb of Horrors, both of which I have never used but regardless considered to be interesting reading.
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Mar 20, 2015 18:19
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Haha! Oh Monte Cook Games, you scamps. https://plus.google.com/+Montecookgames/posts/DhyFE67jFoZ Select bits: quote:The petition did not get much support. We felt personally blindsided and hurt by the libelous portrayal of our company and our employees within the text, but we knew the impact of the petition on our business would be negligible. quote:This wasn’t a money or even a PR issue. There wasn’t enough support for the petition to put “pressure” on us, and in fact the majority of people that we heard from, privately and publicly, Native and non-Native, said that we really didn’t need to do anything. quote:2. But simply removing Thunder Plains created other problems. When Bruce, the Thunder Plains designer, wrote the material he did so intentionally because Native people were under-represented and as someone who grew up among the Sioux and Lakota, and has Native family members, he wanted to include them and do so with sensitivity and respect. Our intention was one of inclusion. Simply cutting Thunder Plains would mean less of a Native presence in RPGs, and many people we talked to—particularly Native people—did not want to see that happen. (Sensitivity and respect like "they dance naked every night" and "thunderbird is basically evil.") quote:We cannot stress enough that we are doing this because we were moved by the thoughtful voices we heard, willing to engage with us in conversation. Could we have ignored this issue? Yes. Could we have written a lengthy defense of our creation and our intentions that would have satisfied 99% of the people out there? Yes. Could we have spent our time fighting the petition’s libelous language? Yes. "But we didn't, we just called our attackers libelous slanderers instead."
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Mar 20, 2015 20:55
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What a piece of poo poo.
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Mar 20, 2015 21:01
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"My minority friends said it was okay!" Well, Cook's now on my 'never buy from' list.
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Mar 20, 2015 21:05
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Night10194 posted:"My minority friends said it was okay!" Randomly, he's the reason there's no 2-handed hammers in 3.x.
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Mar 20, 2015 21:18
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quote:Could we have written a lengthy defense of our creation and our intentions that would have satisfied 99% of the people out there? Yes. Could we have spent our time fighting the petition’s libelous language? Yes. Seems to me like they did both of these.
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Mar 20, 2015 21:20
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dwarf74 posted:He was already there on account of being a lovely designer who loves wizards a bit too much. As someone who plays Dwarfs a lot, this is enough to make me hate him. Also I love 'well if we take our racist thing out, that's less natives in the media', like yea, I bet all the natives will be CRUSHED that their naked woo woo dancing bullshit 'setting' is removed.
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Mar 20, 2015 21:26
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