Grognards.txt NEXT: Goodnight, Sweet Wince

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gradenko_2000: Oct 5, 2010; HELL SERPENT; Lipstick Apathy

Plague of Hats posted:

Bonus snark: RPGs and wargames are very comparable businesses, hm, yes.

Well 4e was a tactical miniatures wargame, so Games Workshop better watch out!

# ? Jul 3, 2015 08:50

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# ? Jun 9, 2024 10:09

Kai Tave: Jul 2, 2012; Fallen Rib

The narrative that the nWoD is somehow a failure baffles me far more than the "D&D4E is a failure" one because the nWoD is still going and doing pretty well. Like, they regularly put out new stuff for it and everything, which I suppose is more than you can say about 4E now. Some of their latest output looks kinda dodgy (i.e. Beast) but how exactly is it dead? poo poo, Onyx Path is revisiting Scion now, and motherfucking Trinity which I thought was literally a thing that would never happen in this lifetime.

# ? Jul 3, 2015 09:12

That Old Tree: Jun 24, 2012; nah

In which Jimmy D makes some okay points about Apocalypse World's accessibility and also complains that is not just a D&D variant.

What IS the Appeal of Apocalypse World?!? posted:

Trying, again, to ‘get’ Apocalypse World

I’ve tried, several times, to get my head around Apocalypse World. I’ve appealed for help, listened to Podcasts and Actual Play and read the book over and again and I still can’t see how there’s really a playable game in here – worthy of the name – or what the bloody hell the appeal is to people.

This is immensely frustrating as I generally have an intuitive grasp of games systems and their appeal, even if I don’t personally like them very much.

So why not share my experience and frustration to see if that helps people help me…

The Basics

TB1. The first, major, problem with the game is that it drips pretension to such a degree that it is almost painful to read.

TB2. The archetypes and friendship-oriented play seems singularly ill-suited to the trops of a post-apocalyptic setting (with the exception of zombie horror, which is often ‘social horror’ in a similar way to ‘social science fiction’. Setting and system are not in harmony.

TB3. Bleh, psychics. See 2.

TB4. ‘Master of Ceremonies’, see 1. It’s kind of a tradition to rename Games Master at this point, but particularly bad choices still grate. At least it’s not ‘Hollyhock God’. Terminology in general is a problem this and a lot of other pretentious games have. It renders their communication more opaque than is strictly necessary.

TB5. Moves. I loathe and detest the whole idea of ‘Moves’ as they are presented in this game. For me the great, grand appeal of the RPG over other forms of interactive entertainment is the sheer freedom that they have, in spite of the limitations of rules. Apocalypse World, however, seems to hard-code into itself an extremely limited set of interactions that herd you into thinking in terms of ‘moves’ rather than ‘what is my character doing?’ Weirdly, the same problem 4e D&D had.

TB6. Strictly in terms of probability you’re going to hit a ‘7’ on 2D6 21/36 times (nearly 60% of the time). This seems a bit too easy for what’s supposed to be a dangerous setting and 10+ is a ‘strong hit’ – or a good result. Modifiers don’t seem to, normally, extend to more than +/- 3.

TB7. Character creation is normally pretty sacrosanct. Allowing another player to interfere with your character creation by ‘highlighting’ a statistic for you seems to me to horribly dismantle perhaps the most important aspect of player agency.

TB8. Stat terminology pretension rears its ugly head again and while Hx seems like a reasonable concept it makes less sense later on.

TB9. Gear isn’t well described here and the apparent rules raise some red flag but it’ll have to be understood ater.

TB9. Harm and healing seems needlessly complex and counter-intuitive. Debility seems to make sense though, not dissimilar to FATE’s consequences. Again, not well described here which makes it hard to know what to really think at this point.

TB10. Character advancement based on Hx seems to be just begging to be abused and could either turn every game into an orgy or a backstab-a-palooza.

The Characters

TC1. These characters just kill any desire I might otherwise have to play. The pretentious descriptions suck the potential joy out of them.

TC2. For a game with a largely non-explicit background, the explicit use of psychic weirdness relating to abilities not necessarily rooted in psychic power is an annoyance.

TC3. All these interwoven relationships are really going to gently caress a game up if one of the players can’t make it from session to session and means that pregenerated scenarios for conventions are going to be in trouble if you can’t fill your table completely.

TC4. While you can get moves from other Playbooks with advancement, some moves on characters seem like things anyone should be able to get anyway and, again, the specificity of the moves is inherently limiting and anti-RP, a huge turn off.

TC5. Pre-set statistic grabs also limit your options and do not appear balanced, at all. EG: On The Battlebabe why would you take the second entry (total +3) as opposed to any other stat-grabs, which equal +4?

TC6. With gangs etc at your disposal from the get go, there’s much less impetus (or reason) to build, less goals for a character to have and less reason to take risks or do anything yourself.

TC7. Carrying +1 forward to your next roll often won’t make any sense. The Gunlugger, for example, will get a +1 on their next roll after having sex, but how will having had sex necessarily relate to what they’re doing?

TC8. Hardholder has all the problems that a Chopper has, but with the added problem of not being able to move, severely limiting game possibilities.

TC9. The other huge problem with ‘set moves’ is that they’re a bit of a throwback to very old RPGs where different things you did might have entirely different rules, whereas today (thankfully) most games operate under a unified rules-set. With every move acting differently, reference is demanded. I guess this is why there’s ‘playbooks’ but it seems like a sticking plaster over a basic design fault. Specialist booklets would normally be bonus material, not a necessity.

TC10. Helping or hindering people is based on your relationship with them, not your applicable statistic to the task at hand. So if you were trying to move a heavy object you’d be better off asking your girlfriend than Hunk Meatloaf the bodybuilder.

TC11. Rolling Harm in addition to taking it is going to slow down play. There’s also huge potential for abuse by Games Masters (sorry, MCs) and Players alike – repeatedly slapping the weapon out of someone’s hand on your attacks for example, will not be hard to do at all.

TC12. These Battle Moves aren’t explained at all. There’s a Battle Countdown but it doesn’t explain how it counts down, why it’s limited or what it does. It’s just thrown in there.

TC13. Why is ‘doing stuff under fire’ based on Cool and not based on what you’re actually doing? Given the layered rolling etc elsewhere why not roll Cool to see if you do better or worse at what you are really doing under fire?

Character Creation

Didn’t we cover this already? No, it’s more like the unspoken stuff from most games and a recap.

The Master of Ceremonies

MC1. So no predetermined plot. Fine. This is my favourite way to play but the game does not seem tailored to help the ‘MC’ with their improvisation, or indeed anyone else, another flaw with very set character types and set ‘moves’.

MC2. It’s useful to compare Apocalypse World with Lamentations of the Flame Princess. Where LotFP takes a ‘this is how I do it!’ tone, AW seems to take a more ‘this is how it IS done’ tone, which is offputting.

MC3. This mostly seems to be fairly generic advice, which can be useful, but again it ends up dripping pretension which just makes me want to be contrarian.

The First Session

TFS1. This was always the problem with FATE as originally written too, spending all that time on a formalised getting-to-know-the-characters and linking their backgrounds made it hard as gently caress to throw together a game on short notice and was actually less meaningful than building relationships in play or in a free for all, or even simply ignoring the problem altogether.

TFS2. The worksheets seem like a good idea in theory, but as presented here it just seems like a confusing mess.

Prep for Play: Fronts

FR1. Fronts seem – like much in this game – needlessly complicated and hard-set where they don’t need to be and vague where they don’t need to be either. When should the clocks count down and why use clock terminology when the ‘clock’ only has six segments anyway and would be better and more conveniently represented by a D6?

FR2. Stakes aren’t well enough explained, or how they come into play.

FR3. With regards to opposition, so far at least everything seems to depend on the players FAILING. Not on an enemy succeeding. This would seem to rather rob NPCs and enemies of agency or, indeed, having a point. This isn’t like in Numenera, ‘baddies’ seem to be genuinely pointless. This may clear up in a bit.

Rules of Play: Moves Snowball

RoP1. Yeah, even the example of play shows the problem with the set moves.

RoP2. MC ‘moves’ don’t even seem to be moves and have, again, been unnecessarily formalised. This is stuff that emerges naturally through play.

Rules of Play: Harm & Healing

HaH1. Sources of harm don’t appear to include enemy action (as a direct attack) just screwing up, still.

HaH2. Cinematic harm doesn’t seem to fit with the implicit setting.

HaH3. How does harm against/from enemies work? Seemingly by fiat, or by forcing the player to make a roll – and fail. Sucking the tension out of the game. NPC harm is also a special case – again – further complicating matters.

HaH4. Gang damage seems like it wouldn’t work too well in practice either. A PC group could blast away at an enemy army forever and never do it any harm – at least by the rules.

Improvement

Imp1: Still not convinced the advancement system isn’t ripe for orgy-led/Hx tinkering abuse and handing over control of your highlighted stats to others robs the player of choice in character creation.

Imp2: Multiple characters? Because it leeches away player investment in characters and is ripe for abuse, again.

Basic Moves

BM1: ‘Bargains’ are a genuinely interesting ideas for a mechanic (yes, but…) but aren’t particularly well described or covered.

BM2: The battle clock is better described here, but still seems unnecessary and something that would emerge during play anyway.

Character Moves

CM1: Why are we filling a book with repetition?

The Character’s Crap

TCC1: Abstracting money is old hat and has always been super annoying. Abstracting barter makes more sense, after a fashion, but does harm immersion.

TCC2: As with most low-fi game systems the absence of distinction between types of gear and weapons makes them far less important, which can harm story and character specialisation due to the meaninglessness of the choices. The descriptive words here also seem somewhat useless or unnecessary to point out. This is especially an issue with the vehicles.

Advanced Fuckery

AF1: So it takes the advanced and optional rules before making things easier or harder is even an option.

Conclusion

This was probably the most useful thing in ‘grokking’ the game (even though its for Dungeon World), but I still l don’t really ‘get it’.https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/3269630/dwdotcom/eon-guide/Dungeon%20World%20Guide%20pdf%20version%201.2.pdf

AW is complex where it should be simple and simple where it should be complex. The ‘moves’ make it relatively inflexible and each move restricts a player unduly by their playbook and in their actions – as well as being further disempowered by several, deliberate system choices as written.

Relying on players loving up, rather than enemies doing well is done better, IMO, in Numenera and the rules here as a whole seem manifestly unsuited to the implicit setting, as well as being hugely open for abuse.

I just cannot understand the appeal here. The disjointed mechanics and design choices seem antithetical to roleplay, to immersion, to the implicit setting, to making reactive, in-character choices and on top of that are ripe for abuse.

Character customisation and scaling is particularly pathetic, you only have statistics that range (normally) from -2 to +2.

If I were to use this for anything I’d have to tear it down to virtually nothing, boost the scale (2d12 would at least take the scale to 10, -4 to +4), get shot of the moves and cut out all the needless hectoring and pretension.

I’m not saying any of this to be mean. I have issues with other systems whose popularity escapes me as well (Savage Worlds for example) but AW appears to be a particularly egregious example where I can’t see anything that it actually does well enough to justify the love some people seem to have for it. There’s pretty much nothing a more conventional RPG doesn’t do better.

The one good thing I can take from it is only the nature of dice results.

1. No, and something bad happens.

2. Yes, but something somewhat bad happens.

3. Yes and something good happens.

This also might work even better if it were further expanded.

The appeal of this game as a means of doing anything remains a total mystery. What the hell does it do well? Why did it get all those awards?

How can I ~immerse~ without bigger numbers and doing all this same poo poo but without the game explicitly telling me to do it?

Oh, maybe this is how?

#RPG – Post Apocalypse World – Salvage posted:

*Smashes Apocalypse World to pieces*
*Rummages through the bits*

OK, how can we retool this into a halfway enjoyable, workable game…

OK, we need more scale to finesse things, so let’s double the scale from 2d6+bonuses to 2D12+bonuses.

You could whack together any stats you wanted, but for sake of argument let’s go with…

Will
Body
Sexy
Mind
Soul

In AW stats are normally -2 to +2 normally, -3 to +3 later than character generation. This would normally be doubled here, but here’s an opportunity to do better.

Let’s bring in a more traditional Stat+Skill organisation structure, since Moves suck balls, so we can have stats and then skills, which combined give you your totals. So Stats run -6 to +2 and skills run from zero to +2, with 3 possible later on and certain exceptions.

Stats start at zero and can be bought up to +2 at character creation with the four points you have to spend.

Skills start not being had at all, but again you have four points and spending a single point gives you a skill at +0.

You can drop stats for extra points to spend on stats and skills, but no lower than -6 and buy no higher than +2 at character creation.

You have six health, at zero you’ve snuffed it. You can choose to take a permanent penalty of -1 to a stat in place of damage at any point.

You get two spare points you can chuck into anything, like extra health, extra in a stat or skill (still within limits) or for weird abilities not unlike FATE stunts.

You can develop relationships with players and NPCs or communities in games from -6 to +2(3)

Every session gives you 1xp which can be used to buy stuff by paying 1 or its existing, current level, whichever is highest. That could also limit the maximum amount that helping people is good for.

Doing stuff?

Roll 2d12+Stat+Skill

1-2. Fail and six bad things happen.
3-4. Fail and five bad things happen.
5-6. Fail and four bad things happen.
7-8. Fail and three bad things happen.
9-10. Fail and two bad things happen.
11-12. Fail and a bad thing happens.
13-14. Succeed, BUT a bad thing happens too.
15-16. Succeed and a good thing happens.
17-18. Succeed and a two good thing happens.
19-20. Succeed and three good things happen.
21-22. Succeed and four good things happen.
23-24. Succed and five good things happen.

Every two more higher or lower cause more bad or good things to happen. Those things can be more damage, knocking a weapon flying and so on. Maybe you could also spend multiple good things to do special effects (I did something like this in Kagai! where you spend your successes to do damage).

Armour reduces damage 1-6.

Weapons do base damage, modified 1, 1d4, 1d6, 1d8, 1d10, 1d12 and maybe descriptions of special stuff they can do.

Baddies have a difficulty rank from +6 (like an asthmatic goblin) to -6 (an imperial dragon), health points, armour, some tactics they can use and some ‘bad things’ that they can do.

You get the idea.

So a character might look like…

Sir Fighty McFighterson – Knight of the Realm

Will +1
Body +2
Sexy +1
Mind -2
Soul -2

Stabbing Monsters +2
Riding Horsies +2
Bellowing Scarily +1

Two handed sword for jobbing monsters 1d10 damage, bleeding.
Plate Armour: 6
Shield: +1 Armour (7).

Sir Fighty is clobbering an orc, an Orc warrior is difficulty -2 and carries a dirty cleaver, that does 1d6 damage. The Orc can also take 6 damage.

The orc lunges for him with its dirty sword and Sir Fighty decides the best response is to clobber the motherfucker.

He rolls 2d12+Body+Stabbing Monsters for a total of 17, -2 for the orc challenge level for a total of 15. The sword does 6 damage +1 for a ‘good things’ making 7. That’s a dead orc.

A new challenger appears, another nasty orc. In closing with this wee bastard Sir Fighty ballses it up only rolling a total of 6, which with the -2 is reduced to 4. That’s a fail and five bad things. The orc rolls 4 for damage, which is all soaked up by the armour, spending all the extra ‘bad things’ brings that up high enough to do two damage. Huzzah for orcs!

You get the point, there’d be a lot more to do but stripped bare and reconstructed there’s a more workable (if still somewhat clumsy) RPG in there.

Dungeon World does it better, but doesn’t solve all the issues.

If you’re after a Post Apocalyptic game of worth, Barbarians of the Aftermath is good, retooling Cyberpunk 2020 with the Maximum Metal book works well too.

Literally "why isn't AW just another D&D heartbreaker?"

Also :wtc:

look at that roll chart.

Also he's trying to start his own academic journal for games, because existing so-called academics that aren't in his favor keep yammering on about racism, sexism and representation instead of, I guess, how every game should be D&D.

He's currently taking submissions!

That Old Tree fucked around with this message at 09:51 on Jul 3, 2015

# ? Jul 3, 2015 09:46

paradoxGentleman: Dec 10, 2013; wheres the jester, I could do with some pointless nonsense right about now

He says he has listened to Actual Plays: how can he still not understand how AW works?

# ? Jul 3, 2015 09:55

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

paradoxGentleman posted:

He says he has listened to Actual Plays: how can he still not understand how AW works?

D&D causes brain damage

# ? Jul 3, 2015 09:57

That Old Tree: Jun 24, 2012; nah

paradoxGentleman posted:

He says he has listened to Actual Plays: how can he still not understand how AW works?

He would have you know that he understands it, now; he just doesn't like it!

Despite many words of his read through making it clear he does not understand it at all.

He's being willfully dense, or he literally cannot grasp non-D&D gaming. Just look at that second quote jfc.

# ? Jul 3, 2015 09:59

gradenko_2000: Oct 5, 2010; HELL SERPENT; Lipstick Apathy

Plague of Hats posted:

Literally "why isn't AW just another D&D heartbreaker?"

Also look at that roll chart.

I fully admit I went through a phase of "let's port over the 4e Power system into B/X D&D", but this guy just out-heartbreaks every heartbreaker by a country mile.

gradenko_2000 fucked around with this message at 10:14 on Jul 3, 2015

# ? Jul 3, 2015 10:07

spectralent: Oct 1, 2014; Me and the boys poppin' down to the shops

Plague of Hats posted:

But where will I go now for poorly formatted copy/pastes of Kickstarter pitches?

It really annoys me when people go "Hah you're too busy talking about the thing to actually enjoy the thing :smaug:

" because despite the "dumb jock" thing people put out, this is actually a hugely anti-intellectual argument. It's the same calibre of argument as saying knowing how sunlight works means you can't enjoy the sunset, and it's just so fundamentally wrong with this huge hidden insinuation you should be dumb and unquestioning and never think about how stuff works or how it could be better. I really hope it's only RPGs that they hold that to but IME that's often not the case.

Plague of Hats posted:

In which Jimmy D makes some okay points about Apocalypse World's accessibility and also complains that is not just a D&D variant.

How can I ~immerse~ without bigger numbers and doing all this same poo poo but without the game explicitly telling me to do it?

Oh, maybe this is how?

Literally "why isn't AW just another D&D heartbreaker?"

Also look at that roll chart.

Also he's trying to start his own academic journal for games, because existing so-called academics that aren't in his favor keep yammering on about racism, sexism and representation instead of, I guess, how every game should be D&D.

He's currently taking submissions!

I never understand why grogs complain all the time about how a game "doesn't allow you to RP" (even aside from the fact I can literally RP anywhere over any medium no rules required) then complain about elements which give your character history with other characters to serve as a springboard. Though in fairness I will state that he's somewhat right about "Act Under Fire" (it's been a bit of a contentious bone for a while) and I do find the writing style of AW insufferable (though the core RPG is pretty amazing, on the other hand).

# ? Jul 3, 2015 10:12

FishFood: Apr 1, 2012; Now with brine shrimp!

gradenko_2000 posted:

I fully admit I went through a phase of "let's port over the 4e Power system into B/X D&D", but this guy just out-heartbreaks every heartbreaker by a country mile.

That sounds fun, though?

# ? Jul 3, 2015 10:22

paradoxGentleman: Dec 10, 2013; wheres the jester, I could do with some pointless nonsense right about now

If I understand the context correctly here and elsewhere, an heartbreaker is a game whore creator is not aware that there are other RPGs apart from D&D and so introduces a couple of variants on the formula expecting to take the world by storm, right?

At least that's where I think the term got its start, I imagine that now it just means "D&D with a fresno cost of paint".

# ? Jul 3, 2015 11:32

Halloween Jack: Sep 12, 2003; I WILL CUT OFF BOTH OF MY ARMS BEFORE I VOTE FOR ANYONE THAT IS MORE POPULAR THAN BERNIE!!!!!

http://www.indie-rpgs.com/articles/9/

http://www.indie-rpgs.com/articles/10/

Fantasy heartbreakers are games in the "Look! I fixed D&D!" mold. The criteria are:

1. They're made by people who obviously have little or no knowledge of RPGs outside D&D, and thus promise "fixes" and "innovations" that were already done by other games years (maybe decades) before. Skill systems, lack of classes and levels, non-Vancian magick, more "realistic" rules for armor and weapons, etc.

2. Nonetheless, they do contain at least one really neat feature.

3. This is why they're called heartbreakers: They're small-press games trying to directly compete with D&D. They're going to fail hardcore, and whatever genuine innovation they contained will be forgotten.

The term heartbreaker doesn't really apply anymore because thanks to desktop publishing, you no longer have to piss your savings away to publish a game. Write it, maybe spend some money on professional layout and art, and poo poo that turd out onto DriveThruRPG.

Also, I personally feel that the term is often applied to games so insipid that they don't even deserve to be called heartbreakers. There is a bevy of "retrogames" that are literally just "The parts of AD&D that my group actually used, plus the fighter gets some featlike abilities from 3e." There is not one single redeeming feature to any of these and they should be forgotten five minutes after they're published.

# ? Jul 3, 2015 11:48

Lightning Lord: Feb 21, 2013; $200 a day, plus expenses

Retroclones or games like Dungeon Crawl Classics aren't heartbreakers and shouldn't be lumped in with them, for good or ill. Most people who create them know what they're doing and are fully aware of the larger RPG scene. Modern heartbreakers are games like this https://fyxtrpg.com

# ? Jul 3, 2015 12:03

gradenko_2000: Oct 5, 2010; HELL SERPENT; Lipstick Apathy

I agree with Lightning Lord as far as "based on D&D or the OGL" does not automatically a heartbreaker make. The straight clones of various D&D editions (Labyrinth Lord, Iron Falcon, OSRIC, etc) are good for readability and availability, and then you've got stuff like Exemplars and Eidolons or DCC or HackMaster that have genuine innovations on the genre.

A heartbreaker is someone going "I'm going to make my own D&D, but with blackjack and hookers, and the blackjack is going to be 10 times more historically accurate based on this Discovery Channel documentary I just watched" with little or no regard for the rest of the hobby's status and how game design is supposed to work as far as creating a game whose rules fit the theme you're trying to evoke.

# ? Jul 3, 2015 12:16

Halloween Jack: Sep 12, 2003; I WILL CUT OFF BOTH OF MY ARMS BEFORE I VOTE FOR ANYONE THAT IS MORE POPULAR THAN BERNIE!!!!!

Yeah, one criteria I forgot, direct from the source essays, is that heartbreakers are following in Gary's footsteps in terms of publishing model--a few guys putting their homebrew on store shelves in the hopes that it will catch on. D20 games are disqualified by virtue of the business environment in which they were operating, because D20 invited you to tweak its system for use in any genre and jump on the bandwagon of an industry boom. Fantasy heartbreakers are fantasy games written by people who evidence little or no knowledge of games outside of D&D, and their games make it obvious that they're ruled by unquestioned assumptions about what roleplaying can be, and that they think that what amounts to patch rules are brave deviations from TSR's holy writ. That said, if you are a very particular, very precious sort of idiot who would write a D20 fantasy game and pay for an expensive, unsolicited print run in 2015, I'd give you a pass.

(And by the by, I wasn't putting down DCC or other retrogames like, say, Other Dust and Stars Without Number. A specific example of the kind of low-effort retrogame I'm talking about is Dragons at Dawn. It purports to be a painstaking attempt at reconstructing Dave Arneson's D&D, but is really just the author's OD&D houserules with some sops to things Arneson said on forums or wherever.)

The Fyxt guy is just amazing. I don't know the whole sad story like some of you do, but it's kind of impressive. If you want to blow your life savings and mortgage your house to publish a roleplaying game these days, you have to very deliberately go through a certain chain of stupid ideas in order to get there.

Halloween Jack fucked around with this message at 12:40 on Jul 3, 2015

# ? Jul 3, 2015 12:26

gradenko_2000: Oct 5, 2010; HELL SERPENT; Lipstick Apathy

Halloween Jack posted:

(And by the by, I wasn't putting down DCC or other retrogames like, say, Other Dust and Stars Without Number. A specific example of the kind of low-effort retrogame I'm talking about is Dragons at Dawn. It purports to be a painstaking attempt at reconstructing Dave Arneson's D&D, but is really just the author's OD&D houserules with some sops to things Arneson said on forums or wherever.)

That's fair, no snark intended from my end - there's really more than a few games on this big list that have little redeeming value. My personal peeve is Pits and Perils with its horrid "typewriter" aesthetic, Seven Voyages of Zylarthen retaining the female STR limitation rules, and I'm going to go out on a limb and say Castles and Crusades doesn't really do anything interesting, to say nothing of games like Adventurer Conqueror King and Arrows of Indra that are problematic for different reasons.

# ? Jul 3, 2015 12:50

Owlbear Camus: Jan 3, 2013; Maybe this guy that flies is just sort of passing through, you know?

Lightning Lord posted:

Retroclones or games like Dungeon Crawl Classics aren't heartbreakers and shouldn't be lumped in with them, for good or ill. Most people who create them know what they're doing and are fully aware of the larger RPG scene. Modern heartbreakers are games like this https://fyxtrpg.com

I only clicked through a bit and was struck by the fact that he breathlessly explains how this system doesn't just let you play elves and wizards, but you could do gunslingers and cowboys, or "even office workers."

Now leaving aside the fact that a "generic" system is nowhere near that novel...

And leaving aside the fact that a "generic" system isn't even that desirable a selling point (If I'm doing a western, I might want the system to privilege sixguns and emphasize status like "outlaw" or "marshal" depending on what I'm doing with it. If I'm doing an "office worker" game the only way it's going to be moderately entertaining is if it has clever mechanics for the inanity of middle management, absurd edicts from corporate, the petty politicking, etc)...

... The "demo adventure" that he puts front-and-center to showcase this floor wax and desert topping system is literally a bunch of fantasy archetypes meeting a merchant in ye old tavern and being hired on to protect his cart of wares.

Owlbear Camus fucked around with this message at 13:33 on Jul 3, 2015

# ? Jul 3, 2015 13:12

gradenko_2000: Oct 5, 2010; HELL SERPENT; Lipstick Apathy

So Paizo releases a new iconic character and:

quote:

I'm going to risk being pummeled.

I wish her costume had a bit more "fanservice"

quote:

It's not like other Patfinder iconics din't fill the part. *cough* Seoni and Freya *cough*

quote:

quote:
quote:
Her tale is an interesting one, and the art looks nice.

As for that earlier cheesecake debacle, I say let people have their opinions.

You don't have to agree with them, but you shouldn't deny them their freedom to express it either.

I think the clothes she wears suit her just fine. And really, if people want to draw her in less, they probably will do so.
Privately owned forum, you don't have the freedom to express yourself in a way that Paizo's moderators disagree with. And thank god for that.
I would never thank anyone for limiting freedom of speech (with some rare exceptions), but whatever floats your boat I guess.

quote:

Be careful questioning NeoPuritanism, or it will be a cyber Scarlet D for you....Just kidding (I hope).

Mercifully this was only a small fraction of the posts, and fanservice dude got shouted down.

# ? Jul 3, 2015 13:25

That Old Tree: Jun 24, 2012; nah

The scientists of NeoPuritanism had no way of knowing what monster they would unleash. At least, that's what they said, but they'd said the same thing when it was just "Puritanism."

# ? Jul 3, 2015 13:42

Angrymog: Jan 30, 2012; Really Madcats

I guess they were requesting more fanservice of this lady? http://paizo.com/paizo/blog/v5748dyo5lhob?Meet-the-Iconics-Rivani

Very shallow of them not to make the same request for last week's iconic: http://paizo.com/paizo/blog/v5748dyo5lhna?Meet-the-Iconics-Estra

What if grany spiritualist wanted to show off her beach body? What then, huh?

# ? Jul 3, 2015 14:03

Halloween Jack: Sep 12, 2003; I WILL CUT OFF BOTH OF MY ARMS BEFORE I VOTE FOR ANYONE THAT IS MORE POPULAR THAN BERNIE!!!!!

Otisburg posted:

I only clicked through a bit and was struck by the fact that he breathlessly explains how this system doesn't just let you play elves and wizards, but you could do gunslingers and cowboys, or "even office workers."

Now leaving aside the fact that a "generic" system is nowhere near that novel...

And leaving aside the fact that a "generic" system isn't even that desirable a selling point (If I'm doing a western, I might want the system to privilege sixguns and emphasize status like "outlaw" or "marshal" depending on what I'm doing with it. If I'm doing an "office worker" game the only way it's going to be moderately entertaining is if it has clever mechanics for the inanity of middle management, absurd edicts from corporate, the petty politicking, etc)...

... The "demo adventure" that he puts front-and-center to showcase this floor wax and desert topping system is literally a bunch of fantasy archetypes meeting a merchant in ye old tavern and being hired on to protect his cart of wares.

There's a rash of really detailed universal systems that claim to be able to do any genre, from high fantasy to sci-fi to historical romance. Yet they have derived attributes like encumbrance limits, precise movement rates, and hand-to-hand damage bonus baked into the rules and noted on the character sheet. It would be a comedy if it wasn't a tragedy.

# ? Jul 3, 2015 14:15

LatwPIAT: Jun 6, 2011

MalcolmSheppard posted:

Bring it back. We live in a world where lots and lots of people have access to the tools to automate it. I'm still waiting for someone to revive a super-complex system in app form.

There's a guy, Eero Juhola, who runs a game of Phoenix Command set in the Vietnam War, "Charlie ei surffaa", every year at Ropecon in Finland. He has a computer with a program he wrote himself that handles all the table-lookups. It's a command-line program for laptops though, rather than a smartphone application.

# ? Jul 3, 2015 14:26

Halloween Jack: Sep 12, 2003; I WILL CUT OFF BOTH OF MY ARMS BEFORE I VOTE FOR ANYONE THAT IS MORE POPULAR THAN BERNIE!!!!!

There is a Flash game for the Aliens board game by Leading Edge.

# ? Jul 3, 2015 14:48

Ratpick: Oct 9, 2012; And no one ate dinner that night.

LatwPIAT posted:

There's a guy, Eero Juhola, who runs a game of Phoenix Command set in the Vietnam War, "Charlie ei surffaa", every year at Ropecon in Finland. He has a computer with a program he wrote himself that handles all the table-lookups. It's a command-line program for laptops though, rather than a smartphone application.

Those guys are a loving inspiration. They've been running that thing for more than twenty years straight and show no signs of stopping. Every year they run that game from the moment the con begins all the way until the con is over (obviously not through the night, they've got to eat and sleep too) and there's not a single year when they have trouble getting players to show up.

Also, in anyone's wondering, "Charlie ei surffaa" is Finnish for "Charlie Don't Surf," appropriately enough given the setting of the game.

# ? Jul 3, 2015 15:02

starkebn: May 18, 2004; "Oooh, got a little too serious. You okay there, little buddy?"

How long has that Fyxt stuff existed? The forum is thread after thread of subjects posted by the creator with no replies.

# ? Jul 3, 2015 15:30

gradenko_2000: Oct 5, 2010; HELL SERPENT; Lipstick Apathy

I wasn't sure where else to post this, but I was listening to the Three Moves Ahead podcast and they were talking about "historical accuracy", or why people keep getting hung up on the lack of proper modeling of a Napoleonic general's wound recovery time in a game about the whole of Europe from 1800-1815 at the strategic scale.

The argument was basically that when people internalize some fact or general principle, and then the game doesn't live up to it, people can stop caring about the game as a whole and start feeling like the game is :airquote:

broken

because it's missing that particular thing that they know to be true.

In strategy games, that means people bitching about Tiger tanks versus Shermans. In TG, as we've seen here, it seems like that would be in the form of things like "you cannot load a crossbow with one hand", or "Fighters cannot do magic, and certain stunts need magic to be able to be performed", or "damage-on-a-miss makes no sense"

The panelist at first found the behavior puzzling, about as much as some of us did with that guy who railed against Warlords so hard, but the developer in the conversation explained that people aren't "emotional blank slates" when they start games, and it sometimes leads to situations where you don't want to design to subvert expectations, and then further that leads to reinforcing genre stereotypes as you avoid more recent scholarship and/or historical revisionism for the sake of trying to appease the outdated sensibilities of your market.

In strategy games, that leads to things like Company of Heroes 2 depicting Soviet soldiers as being shot in the back by Commissars and World of Tanks severely overstating the strength of German tanks. In TG, that leads to ... well, this thread, and 5th Edition. And while that's in no way an excuse, I thought the explanation was interesting, and especially as far as designers know that it happens and factor it in.

# ? Jul 3, 2015 16:36

alg: Mar 14, 2007; A wolf was no less a wolf because a whim of chance caused him to run with the watch-dogs.

Haven't had the chance to play it that much yet, but so far it is just as much fun as any other class. The other guys in our group who have played fighter (champions) seems to have found it entertaining as well. I don't really think your class has much to do with how enjoyable play is anyway. I attempt more or less the same shenanigans whether I play a fighter or a wizard, I just approach them differently.

# ? Jul 3, 2015 20:31

Nessus: Dec 22, 2003; After a Speaker vote, you may be entitled to a valuable coupon or voucher!

World of Tanks presents German tanks pretty accurately, which has led to massive crying and bitching on the part of people who imagine the Germans to have had invincible Gundam tanks, as opposed to "pretty good tanks, which were made extremely effective by training and good operational deployment." Similarly, the Russian tanks tend to be quite good, because historically, they were -- the Germans even considered just building their own copy of the T-34. It probably helps that WoT is developed by a Belorussian company.

Now that said I would not be surprised if other tank games made Tigers into invincible battlemechs.

# ? Jul 3, 2015 20:34

chin up everything sucks: Jan 29, 2012

Don't be silly, the Tiger was never a battlemech.

# ? Jul 3, 2015 20:46

Bruceski: Aug 21, 2007; The tools of a hero mean nothing without a solid core.

gradenko_2000 posted:

In strategy games, that leads to things like Company of Heroes 2 depicting Soviet soldiers as being shot in the back by Commissars and World of Tanks severely overstating the strength of German tanks. In TG, that leads to ... well, this thread, and 5th Edition. And while that's in no way an excuse, I thought the explanation was interesting, and especially as far as designers know that it happens and factor it in.

That makes sense, people get stuck on certain things for all sorts of topics. As a personal example, I don't care what they do to the Fantastic 4 as long as Ben Grimm is still Jewish. Make them all cats for all I care.

Of course if they changed that I wouldn't go on an epic forum-trolling rant, I just wouldn't watch it.

# ? Jul 3, 2015 20:49

paradoxGentleman: Dec 10, 2013; wheres the jester, I could do with some pointless nonsense right about now

Can cats be jewish?

# ? Jul 3, 2015 21:03

Bruceski: Aug 21, 2007; The tools of a hero mean nothing without a solid core.

paradoxGentleman posted:

Can cats be jewish?

If a brick golem can, I don't see why not.

# ? Jul 3, 2015 21:07

sexpig by night: Sep 8, 2011; by Azathoth

Circumcising them is a real pain

# ? Jul 3, 2015 21:16

BrainParasite: Jan 24, 2003

paradoxGentleman posted:

Can cats be jewish?

If they're good and studious, maybe.

# ? Jul 4, 2015 00:13

Owlbear Camus: Jan 3, 2013; Maybe this guy that flies is just sort of passing through, you know?

A PYF Idiots on Social Media/Grognards.txt crossover event.

# ? Jul 4, 2015 00:47

Tulul: Oct 23, 2013; THAT SOUND WILL FOLLOW ME TO HELL.

Was that chart actually a Ryan Dancey production or is that from the goon spite-project I've heard about?

paradoxGentleman posted:

Can cats be jewish?

I googled "non-human Jews" to find out but that didn't get me anywhere.

Also the Rabbi's Cat is great and you should watch it.

# ? Jul 4, 2015 01:31

That Old Tree: Jun 24, 2012; nah

Tulul posted:

Also the Rabbi's Cat is great and you should watch it.

This is the most correct thing in a thread full of wrong things.

# ? Jul 4, 2015 01:33

Ferrinus: Jun 19, 2003; i'm finding this quite easy, i guess in part because i'm a fast type but also because i have a coherent mental model of the world

Has anyone got that Wandering Damage Table image? That was great, especially the "70-90: What? No damage? Impossible, this table is foolproof. Roll again!"

# ? Jul 4, 2015 01:41

Harrow: Jun 30, 2012

Otisburg posted:

A PYF Idiots on Social Media/Grognards.txt crossover event.

This Facebook group is based in the town where I live. Please send help.

# ? Jul 4, 2015 02:03

Owlbear Camus: Jan 3, 2013; Maybe this guy that flies is just sort of passing through, you know?

Harrow posted:

This Facebook group is based in the town where I live. Please send help.

I joined it because I thought by "traditional games" they just meant "not electronic" and it was just another tabletop group to find games in Mad Town, but I'm pretty sure by "traditional games' they mean As Gygax Would Want PBUH.

Tuesdays at Pegasus Games is Antique Elfgame Night.

# ? Jul 4, 2015 02:15

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# ? Jun 9, 2024 10:09

That Old Tree: Jun 24, 2012; nah

A classic from the misty past of yester-loving-day: Are orcs racist?

quote:

Sometimes a savage is just a savage.

If orcs become "problematic" how long before fighting of any kind in RPGs becomes "problematic"?

quote:

Since when was tribalism racist?

quote:

The problem I have with this argument is that the people who are making it are basically equating humans to non-humans.

Orcs are a related, but different species, like say the Neanderthal or Homo Erectus.

If you comparing real world humans to a fictional, non-human species, and then claiming it's a sign of racism, I think the person doing the comparing is the racist in order to even see the comparison in the first place.

quote:

Cannot speak about the context of the specific game linked. Is it possible some game added racist overtones to orcs? Sure.

Are orcs inherently a racist concept? Absolutely not. People like to project their own analogies onto them and then claim things based on this as if their projections are "facts".

First off, there's a difference between race and species (and its an unfortunate Gygaxian legacy of this hobby and the other hobbies it inspired that those two continue to be confused). And "specism" (specieism?) is not racism. If I hate cockroaches, that doesn't make me racist against roaches.

Second, many people are uncomfortable with a fantasy creature being "inherently evil". Even Tolkien wrestled with that insomuch as it applied to his Catholic beliefs, which is why we don't have any set origin of Tolkien's orcs/goblins. Fair enough, except that being uncomfortable with that doesn't over-ride author intention. If, in a fantasy world, its declared "all such-and-such are inherently evil", they just are. Real-world logic doesn't apply. And for those people who refuse to engage it on those terms, I call general hypocrisy. Things can exist in a fantasy setting that cannot exist in real life (in fact that's rather the point). So judging a race by those standards, in a situation you're willing to give a pass to "Magic!" is hypocritical.

Thirdly, not all cultures are created equal. One can hate a culture without being racist, because culture is no more inherent than religion. And if a culture is based on mass slaughter, mindless brutality, and constant warfare, then that culture is not some ethical highground that deserves some level of respect.

But last, and most important of all, you cant be racist against things that don't exist.

All that said, SJWs are going to continue flogging this dead horse for as long as they can, because that's the whole point of being an SJW.

It's specisism, gawd! Also not real! DO NOT LOOK BEHIND THE CURTAIN!!!

quote:

As if the blatant orc racism around here wasn't bad enough, we need to have a conversation about why this site didn't roll out a rainbow banner to celebrate #lovewins. Clearly this is problematic.

quote:

I got a nasty email because I didn't rainbow up my profile pic on facebook last week.

My response? "I love gays, but I loving hate rainbows."

ShitThatCertainlyHappened.txt

quote:

Skullgrinder and Spleenchewer were having a bit of fun with the prisoner when the elf arrived. Chewer threw a sneer towards Grinder who responded with a faint shake of the head as he backhanded the weeping human for good form.

"Anything?" the elf asked in his soft, musical voice.

"Nar, he sez he's a pasi-thingie. You know, one of them what don't want no more wars. Thought if he could just talk to us we'd all be lying in the soft grass sipping weak wine together."

"Is that so?" the elf smirked at the suffering man, "Well, as it happens he's gotten his chance to talk to us and we will be marching on his precious village tomorrow. So, if he doesn't have anything to tell us about their defenses, you might as well give him his wish. Stake him out on the beach with his feet in the river. And as it's going to be such a hot and sunny day, put some watered down wine just outside of his grasp."

The orcs nodded silently as the elf strode off with a slight bounce to his step.

"Fugging elf," grunted Chewer.

Grinder just kept his head down and that was what saved him from the elf's blade, which cleanly removed Spleen Chewer's head from his shoulders.

"You're a good fellow Skullgrinder, do me a favour and throw this mess in the river after you've staked out our friend with the gentle, peace-loving heart here would you? This silk shirt is new and I'd hate to get any blood on it."

Grinder just smiled and nodded, he knew what was good for him. The ripper fish in the river would be driven into a frenzy by Chewer's fool blood and the humans legs would soon follow. That's what unthinking bias got you in this orcs army and he had no desire to join the human pacifist on the beach.

quote:

quote:
Anyway, it's a source of ongoing bemusement to me that in a hobby where our characters are serial killers, casual murderers, thieves and rapists, it's racism that's out of line.

It'll all be "out of line" at this rate.

Remember, rape (or even very indirect implications of rape) is quickly becoming taboo as a topic in fiction too. See what happened to Game of Thrones, the Batgirl comic cover, several incidents in video-gaming and movies, etc.

The bizzaro-world attitude now is that even realistically depicting a subject like racism or rape as obviously bad thingsis actually endorsing them and mentally assaulting all the fragile people who require trigger warnings on everything.

Murder (especially of "non-problematic" groups) is still fine and dandy, but for how much longer?

I wouldn't be surprised if tabletop RPGs soon find themselves fielding renewed attacks on their "problematic violence". After that we'll be left playing gentleman thieves for a little while until that last bastion is taken, and then we'll all end up playing RPGs where we peacefully wander around a house looking for clues as to where our overweight-but-proud otherkin sister ran off to.

(EDIT: Yes, I edited this several times, that's how nervous this climate of assume-the-worst outrage makes me.)

First they came for the pretend rapists…

quote:

The hobby is a really easy target for those who are trying to aggrandize themselves. Another easy target are people who enjoy the works of HP Lovecraft, but don't feel bad about HPL's personal life.

quote:

Yeah any thread related to HPL's work inevitably ends up being about what a racist prig he was in spite of the fact that he's been dead for 80 years and most of his best works have essentially no racist elements, and the few that do can almost all be read and enjoyed completely without any racial subtexts if they do exist. It's entirely possible for a Deep One to be nothing more than a fishman monster...

quote:

So someone feel's "uncomfortable" playing a game. Wah. Life is uncomfortable. It is uncomfortable because you have to deal with people who don't think the way you do. Wah. Wah, wah, wah.

It's a game. No laws are being broken except someone's sense of propriety. This is why we now live in a world were people use 20 words to explain what could be said in 5

quote:

A dude who seeks racism in the most improbable and ludicrous places, doesn't realize that he is not yet aware of his own racism. This is called projection and well known in psychology (this is universal): you attribute intents and flaws to people you don't know, and generally always the same, so in fact you are but describing yourself. So, this dude is racist, and he has yet to discover it (though probably not toward ethnic groups, but intolerant and having prejudices towards some groups of people)

WhoIsTheRealRacist.txt

quote:

This is why I prefer to keep goblinoids as supernatural dark fey-like creatures who do not have developed cultures, societies or babies. Other than whatever is deemed necessary to provide basic antagonists

It's not racist if they're really different, right?

quote:

Someday we can put all this SJW nonsense behind us, and just talk about rpgs. But that is not this day.

# ? Jul 4, 2015 03:55

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