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One OSR project I love and can't gush enough about is trey causey's Strange Stars setting. It's very much a "what inspired me back when I was a kid in the 70's/80's" type setting, but he also brings in the kinds of things that are inspiring him now. So you've got stuff that's very clearly Star Wars-inspired sitting next to transhumanist elements. It's the only OSR product I can think of offhand where the "Appendix N" didn't grind to a halt back in 1978. (The other reasons I love it is because it manages to define a galaxy-wide setting in 30 pages with enough detail to use while being very inspirational, and also because he had a Fate Core rulebook made for the setting. I'm ridiculously tempted to write a Weirdworld style fantasy setting in a similar fashion, but I don't like the idea of just copying his idea. Plus I never finish anything.) fake edit: it's also awesome because it has stuff like this:   
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Covok posted:The original reason, IIRC, was the Elf-Elf weres like the wood elves while the Eladrin were like tolkein-fae elves. Which reminds me. When they brought gnomes back, they were now like weird sorta-fey from the Feywild (lol). I guess this was to make them more distinct from halflings?
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Feb 18, 2016 22:30
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Leperflesh posted:I don't want to pile on bongwizzard too much, because you know, his visceral gut-feels reaction isn't just made up. It's actually how a lot of people reacted. It's how a lot of people reacted, sure. I looked at the races available and had a WTF moment. I agree it was different from what people were expecting. I agree that maybe introducing new races before publishing what were considered the "core" races might have been an unpopular move. I don't agree that this stuff is somehow counter to the tone/feel/whatever of how D&D's always been. I flat out don't believe that anyone actually and honestly thinks that dragonborn are somehow unrealistic in a way that wizards and gnomes aren't. Speaking of gnomes, was there a massive whiny backlash over the inclusion of gnomes in AD&D because gnomes had not previously appeared in D&D core rules? Elector_Nerdlingen fucked around with this message at 22:34 on Feb 18, 2016 |
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Feb 18, 2016 22:31
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Serf posted:Eladrin were what always confused me. Like, we already had elves. Previous editions had roughly a billion subraces of elves too. Why were there now 2 kinds of elf in the core book? Gnomes would've made much more sense, honestly. Whereas for me eladrin was the only time the elves really made sense. While there were roughly a billion subraces of elves, they all fell into two categories: wild nature hunter eco-types, and high falutin' wine drinking "TOTALLY NOT THE FRENCH" magical types. Putting them as Elves and Eladrin finally put them into those actual two categories instead of being all wishy washy and switching back and forth constantly. Gnomes are a perfect example of how loving ridiculous this hobby is. Nobody gave a gently caress about gnomes. It was just something convenient to get angry about. Nobody ever actually played the drat things - you had people openly admitting "now I've never seen a gnome in game, but it's just not right to exclude them!" These people would die rather then get their wisdom teeth removed.
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Feb 18, 2016 22:35
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Leperflesh posted:I don't want to pile on bongwizzard too much, because you know, his visceral gut-feels reaction isn't just made up. It's actually how a lot of people reacted. I'm fine with it because bongwizzard is a dude who wanders into discussions/arguments about game design and stuff solely to say "jeez guys, I don't get why you care so much about this stuff, I guess some people have more fun arguing about games than playing them, makes u think" before then turning around and moaning about how he can't find anyone to game with for some weird reason. quote:I don't think dragonborn are misplaced in D&D, but it was, in hindsight, probably a tactical error to include them (and eladrin) in the first published PHB, while not including gnomes. There's nothing inherently more fantastical about a dragon-man than a gnome, mind you: but first impressions matter so very much, and the game was already taking (much needed, good, positive) risks. Yeah but the thing is that nobody really gave that much of a poo poo about gnomes pre 4E. They weren't some super beloved D&D race that everyone rushed to play and failure to include them was some blatantly boneheaded maneuver on par with, say, omitting elves or dwarves. Gnomes were always the just sorta there race right up until people needed something to latch onto to go "see, 4E is a betrayal of D&D's core values." They only became relevant when people needed something to bitch about. Sure, in retrospect they probably should have just included them to keep the squeakiest wheels greased but A). they probably weren't expecting gnomes to become one of the early rallying points of the latest wave of dumb edition warring and B). once you start doing the whole "we have to make sure to include all this old poo poo to keep the dumb angry rear end in a top hat demographic quiet" thing where does it end?
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Feb 18, 2016 22:36
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Serf posted:Which reminds me. When they brought gnomes back, they were now like weird sorta-fey from the Feywild (lol). I guess this was to make them more distinct from halflings? It was probably to make them distinct period. Gnomes were never interesting. They never had any catches, nothing that made them stand out. They may as well have been one of the countless elven subraces.
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Feb 18, 2016 22:37
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AlphaDog posted:You've finally been able to play as monsters / weird stuff in D&D since forever. I remember reading a (Dragon?) article about how to play as an undead character in OD&D, where obviously you start as a 1HD skeleton then move up to Zombie when you hit level 2 and so on. Ok this actually makes no sense, even for OD&D. You start out as a skeleton and get flesh from . . . somewhere? . . . and gradually get stronger ... until you suddenly can do magic without being taught? What would make MORE sense is that you start out as a lich or vampire and, as you get repeatedly murdered, slowly degrade down to a skeleton or zombie, able to follow the simplest commands.
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Feb 18, 2016 22:38
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homullus posted:Ok this actually makes no sense, even for OD&D. You start out as a skeleton and get flesh from . . . somewhere? . . . and gradually get stronger ... until you suddenly can do magic without being taught? It's not supposed to "make sense." It's OD&D. Each level you gain 1HD and become that next monster. Which leads to some hilarity! Insert the story of the flying vampire/wraith war here.
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Feb 18, 2016 22:40
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ProfessorCirno posted:It was probably to make them distinct period. Gnomes were never interesting. They never had any catches, nothing that made them stand out. They may as well have been one of the countless elven subraces. I thought the gnome "thing" was machines and tinkering. Or illusions. Halflings stole crap and gnomes built crazy inventions. At least that's how I remember it when I played a gnome (yes, I played a gnome). Also, not including gnomes was not a dealbreaker or anything for me in 4E. I'd happily trade their core book presence away for dragonborn and tieflings, which are far more distinctive just from their appearances.
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Feb 18, 2016 22:41
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^^^Gnomes were really only tinkers and inventors in Dragonlance though, outside of that they were basically "like even shorter halflings, but good illusionists I guess."ProfessorCirno posted:It was probably to make them distinct period. Gnomes were never interesting. They never had any catches, nothing that made them stand out. They may as well have been one of the countless elven subraces. Gnomes, for when you want to play a really tiny person but halflings just aren't tiny enough goddamnit homullus posted:Ok this actually makes no sense, even for OD&D. You start out as a skeleton and get flesh from . . . somewhere? . . . and gradually get stronger ... until you suddenly can do magic without being taught? Mike Monard/Old Geezer, the dude whose claim to fame is I Gamed With Gary Gygax, had a story about this where some flying vampire PC got hit by level drain and devolved into a ghoul or some kind of undead that didn't have flying, and consequently fell to the ground and took damage. This is literally how it worked, like undead PCs were pokemon just gradually evolving into more advanced types of undead. Old school D&D has a lot of weird, dumb, goofy poo poo that the OSR always seems to ignore or gloss over in favor of "now we're going to roll 3d6 six times in order yet again just like god intended."
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Feb 18, 2016 22:42
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homullus posted:Ok this actually makes no sense, even for OD&D. You start out as a skeleton and get flesh from . . . somewhere? . . . and gradually get stronger ... until you suddenly can do magic without being taught? Not only that, but if you fought another undead with level drain you'd go back down the scale. There's a story out there on the internet somewhere of a game, I don't recall if it was at Gary's table or one of the other original D&D groups, where a guy playing an undead character and had leveled up to "vampire" was in an aerial duel with another vampire. Said enemy vampire lands a level-draining hit, and since the undead critter with 1 fewer HD is the wight (which does not have a fly speed), things got... interesting. E: F, B
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Feb 18, 2016 22:44
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AlphaDog posted:Speaking of gnomes, was there a massive whiny backlash over the inclusion of gnomes in AD&D because gnomes had not previously appeared in D&D core rules? Massive whiny backlashes were impossible before the widespread adoption of the Internet. You might see a whiny letter in the back of a magazine or something, but there just wasn't the sort of instantaneous large community. I never went to cons back then so maybe those terrible gnomes were a big topic of discussion, but I really doubt it. Kai Tave posted:Yeah but the thing is that nobody really gave that much of a poo poo about gnomes pre 4E. A good friend of mine played nothing but gnomes in 2nd edition, played a gnome in my 3E game I ran for a little while, but didn't care about the lack of them in 4th because he wasn't playing D&D when 4th came out. Gnomes were basically kitted to be illusionists, to the point where if you made a gnome that wasn't an illusionist people would really wonder what the gently caress you were trying to accomplish. quote:Sure, in retrospect they probably should have just included them to keep the squeakiest wheels greased but A). they probably weren't expecting gnomes to become one of the early rallying points of the latest wave of dumb edition warring and B). once you start doing the whole "we have to make sure to include all this old poo poo to keep the dumb angry rear end in a top hat demographic quiet" thing where does it end? Totally agree. Actually I think the lack of barbarians and sorcerers were a bigger issue. Plainly there was room for them, because hey, there's warlocks and warlords in this stupid book!
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Feb 18, 2016 22:45
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Including Dragonborn and Tieflings in the PHB1 was an excellent idea because it meant the game finally allowed you to play as a dragon or fiend without having to gently caress around with supplements or just be a regular guy with weird eyes or whatever.
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Feb 18, 2016 22:45
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Leperflesh posted:I don't want to pile on bongwizzard too much, because you know, his visceral gut-feels reaction isn't just made up. It's actually how a lot of people reacted. ProfessorCirno posted:It's always been there. If you read through the oldest editions of Dragon or White Dwarf or whatever you'll see a neigh constant war in the fandom going on about it. Gygax more then once had to officially state that "realism" was bullshit and not a core part of his game. You had dozens of branch off games that ended up being little more then "D&D but with harsher wound penalties" or the like. Nerds have always been nerds - the kinda people who don't want to ever actually play the game, they just want to argue about it and imagine their own "perfect" versions. For guys like Rob Kuntz, it was valuable for learning how to play D&D to be a confusing experience. Stumbling through obtuse rules, Gygaxian prose, and mixed messages from the different books you read and people you played with was part of personalizing the experience of becoming a D&D player. Now, Kuntz in particular got to learn how to play directly from Gary, which makes it easier for him to romanticize the experience of cracking open a D&D book and trying to figure out what the hell to do with it. Also ProfessorCirno posted:Gnomes are a perfect example of how loving ridiculous this hobby is. Nobody gave a gently caress about gnomes. It was just something convenient to get angry about.
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Feb 18, 2016 22:50
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Ferrinus posted:Including Dragonborn and Tieflings in the PHB1 was an excellent idea because it meant the game finally allowed you to play as a dragon or fiend without having to gently caress around with supplements or just be a regular guy with weird eyes or whatever.
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Feb 18, 2016 22:51
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You could have said the same thing about including monks or ettins or hobgoblins or whatever, though. We're teetering perilously close to edition wars here - probably the only reason it hasn't kicked off is because most of us liked 4th edition. The real point of the discussion is that a lot of people viscerally reacted badly to 4th edition, and that was a problem for it. Those people loudly spoke their minds online and plenty of people - including people like my brother - wound up not even trying 4th for years. (My brother eventually came around, but not until after a couple years of Pathfinder, and mostly because I sort of forcefully lent him my 4e books. Once he actually read the 4e PHB, he 'got it' immediately, though.) In the TG Industry of the Present and Future (ahem), you have to juggle the competing interests of "making a really good game" and "making your game appeal to the widest possible audience." Those two interests really shouldn't be so competetive, but they are, and railing against them may be fun and an engrossing pursuit, but I haven't seen it accomplish all that much. 4th edition was a very successful game, mind you. It sold lots of books. But it's also one half of a huge schism that developed in the D&D-playing community, with Pathfinder being the other half, and the gap has grown pretty wide. It doesn't look like Wizards has the resources or the interest in closing it, and it's actively in Pathfinder's interests to widen it, so I don't know where we go from here.
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Feb 18, 2016 22:54
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homullus posted:Ok this actually makes no sense, even for OD&D. You start out as a skeleton and get flesh from . . . somewhere? . . . and gradually get stronger ... until you suddenly can do magic without being taught? There's a type (I think one type) of undead creature at every HD up to 12 or so. HD are what monsters have instead of levels. As you gain levels, you progress up the scale to the next type of monster. It makes sense in OD&D because a) it's fun, and b) the hobby had yet to climb so far up its own arse that people were arguing that in-game skeleton warriors should be exactly as they are in the real world. Elector_Nerdlingen fucked around with this message at 22:57 on Feb 18, 2016 |
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Feb 18, 2016 22:54
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Leperflesh posted:Massive whiny backlashes were impossible before the widespread adoption of the Internet. You might see a whiny letter in the back of a magazine or something, but there just wasn't the sort of instantaneous large community. I never went to cons back then so maybe those terrible gnomes were a big topic of discussion, but I really doubt it. Some Dragon magazine letter columns could be hilarious as people tried to have ongoing pass-agg arguments about this or that point of elfgaming on a monthly basis, just because the internet wasn't around didn't mean they didn't try, but ultimately I agree with you that the internet has significantly changed how people approach things like this-or-that game getting a new edition
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Feb 18, 2016 22:55
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ProfessorCirno posted:It's not supposed to "make sense." It's OD&D. Each level you gain 1HD and become that next monster. Which leads to some hilarity! Insert the story of the flying vampire/wraith war here. I am saying that despite "D&D as played at Gygax's table", there were the twin pushes of simulationism and "fiction first" in the game that the public encountered. This was actually my first Dragon magazine! On page 6 you're already faced with charts From Gygax Himself for new weapons for the game, with simulationist weapon speeds. In that issue is also a "fiction first" stat block for John Henry, a man killed by his own Luddite opposition to automation. Edit: and that undead character system does not make sense from the "fiction first" or the simulationist perspective. homullus fucked around with this message at 23:02 on Feb 18, 2016 |
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Feb 18, 2016 22:58
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Leperflesh posted:4th edition was a very successful game, mind you. It sold lots of books. But it's also one half of a huge schism that developed in the D&D-playing community, with Pathfinder being the other half, and the gap has grown pretty wide. It doesn't look like Wizards has the resources or the interest in closing it, and it's actively in Pathfinder's interests to widen it, so I don't know where we go from here. D&D will continue to be relegated to a supply closet until Hasbro finally makes a D&D movie that brings in Bayformers money, and even then their efforts are probably going to be geared more towards IP licensing stuff if D&D The Brand happens to take off big. Otherwise nigh-annual layoffs have stripped the actual D&D design team down to the bone which is probably largely why 5E is Mike Mearls' anemic rehash and now they're trying to farm out sourcebook writing using this Dungeon Master's Guild thing. They can't even get a digital character builder put together. Chances are they've got no money, they've got no talent, and they've got no real backing. 4E is probably the last time we're going to see D&D get a big push for a long time, things have shrunk considerably from the days when D&D had a big presence at PAX and was regularly putting out sourcebooks, now they don't even have much of a GenCon presence. Paizo will continue trucking along because they've tapped into a fanbase that believes that by supporting Paizo they're keeping True D&D Alive, they've spun a narrative of Paizo being plucky underdogs against the big soulless corporation even though Paizo in no way resembles a plucky underdog these days. I don't know if they've already started to succumb to the inevitable shrinkage of sales that starts to happen with RPG lines the further along the supplement treadmill you get because usually the solution to that is a new edition. They've been ruminating over a PF2.0 for a while now and I don't actually know if it's in the works or what, but it remains to be seen whether they'll actually try anything new with it or just keep on keeping on with the same warts of the system they decided to file the serial numbers off of.
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Feb 18, 2016 23:04
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I had forgotten about Dragonlance having the half-dragon guys, but I remember hating the novels when I was I kid. I also think there was a dragon dude in some of the FR novels? And yes, I do believe that there is a point where over-analyzing the "rules for playing cooperative make-believe" becomes kinda silly. And I totally stand by the idea that "game mechanics" are far down the list of things that make rpgs a fun hobby. While a well designed or just awful designed game can tip the scales, I would still rather play 40k with a great person then ASL with an rear end in a top hat. And my inability to find a group is a function of having a totally non-standard work schedule, I couldn't even commit to a monthly game. I have enjoyed the pbp games I have been in, but I would much prefer a "find a group, pick a game, collectively roll up some characters, then play" to the SA audition model.
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Feb 18, 2016 23:06
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If only science would invent a way to allow people to play good games with good people instead of this nightmare dystopia we're stuck in where the only way to game with good people is to play the shittiest games around.
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Feb 18, 2016 23:11
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Leperflesh posted:In the TG Industry of the Present and Future (ahem), you have to juggle the competing interests of "making a really good game" and "making your game appeal to the widest possible audience." Those two interests really shouldn't be so competetive, but they are, and railing against them may be fun and an engrossing pursuit, but I haven't seen it accomplish all that much. The problem is, there isn't a TG Industry of the Present and Future. The industry has been undergoing nonstop shrink for awhile now. The average age of ttg players has been going up because there just isn't as much new blood entering. And the new blood that does enter tends not to buy books, because nobody has any money. It went full comic books - it decided the only audience worth chasing was the pre-existing one, the most hardcore groups, and as a result nothing is growing. They didn't make a really good game or appeal to the widest possible audience. 5e is D&D entering mothball stages. Of course there's always going to be speculation as to what caused it. Maybe ttgs were ALWAYS going to die out as technology advanced. Maybe 4e split the hobby. Maybe the d20 boom and bust broke it too much. Maybe it was just timing. Etc, etc. Point is, TTGs get to be the newest source of entertainment to learn what happens when you stop trying to grow the hobby.
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Feb 18, 2016 23:11
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While D&D, and games like it, take up a serious chunk of the traditional demographics, I do not believe that those are the largest demographics of future consumers. It's just that tapping into those currently outside the market is real hard to do. But I feel confident that, especially considering the continued greying of current players, role playing games are going to see major demographic shifts over the next couple decades. It's the only way the industry will survive, in any form.
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Feb 18, 2016 23:15
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Kai Tave posted:If only science would invent a way to allow people to play good games with good people instead of this nightmare dystopia we're stuck in where the only way to game with good people is to play the shittiest games around. Dude, we are never going to agree on this. Like, I see your point, but I just don't think it matter enough to worry much about.
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Feb 18, 2016 23:15
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homullus posted:I am saying that despite "D&D as played at Gygax's table", there were the twin pushes of simulationism and "fiction first" in the game that the public encountered. This was actually my first Dragon magazine! On page 6 you're already faced with charts From Gygax Himself for new weapons for the game, with simulationist weapon speeds. In that issue is also a "fiction first" stat block for John Henry, a man killed by his own Luddite opposition to automation. For fun, by the way: Mike Mornard posted:In Volume 1 of Original D&D, Gary wrote that “There is no reason that players cannot be allowed to play as virtually anything, provided they begin relatively weak and work up to the top.” I’ve noted that I played several Balrogs, and way back in the Introduction, I told the story of Sir Fang, the first Vampire player character.
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Feb 18, 2016 23:15
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Evil Mastermind posted:fake edit: it's also awesome because it has stuff like this: Yeah, nothing says "awesome" to me in an RPG setting like a space smuggler archetype literally quoting Han Solo.
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Feb 18, 2016 23:18
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homullus posted:Edit: and that undead character system does not make sense from the "fiction first" or the simulationist perspective. "Someone wants to do it, it sounds like it'll be fun, and it isn't much work to implement since it mostly fits in with the existing rules... Hey, that worked well I should share that" seems to have been the deep and well considered design philosophy, yes. I somehow doubt whoever wrote it spent even a single second stressing out about whether his fun thing fit into the Simulationist box or the Fiction First box.
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Feb 18, 2016 23:24
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ProfessorCirno posted:The problem is, there isn't a TG Industry of the Present and Future. The industry has been undergoing nonstop shrink for awhile now. The average age of ttg players has been going up because there just isn't as much new blood entering. And the new blood that does enter tends not to buy books, because nobody has any money. It went full comic books - it decided the only audience worth chasing was the pre-existing one, the most hardcore groups, and as a result nothing is growing. They didn't make a really good game or appeal to the widest possible audience. 5e is D&D entering mothball stages. Given the great majority of RPG companies' sales figures are not public, how exactly did you reach the conclusion that the TG industry - or even just RPGs - are in decline? Also the average age of TTG players rising? Also the idea that "nobody has any money"? Also the idea that comic books are in decline? It seems to me, that: there are more TTG products than ever before, that young people are tending to play more online than in person, that several RPG companies are thriving, and that new TTG products on places like Kickstarter are frequently bringing in surprisingly high amounts of interest and money. And also that comic books are better than they've ever been before, although the audiences seem to prefer compilations and graphic novels over monthly issues, maybe. My "evidence" is entirely based on my personal impressions, e.g. it's worthless. Do you have anything better?
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Feb 18, 2016 23:36
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Leperflesh posted:You could have said the same thing about including monks or ettins or hobgoblins or whatever, though. I think we can all agree we don't want Ettin in our games.
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Feb 18, 2016 23:44
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It's 2016 and there's no game based on Wil Huygen and Rien Poortvliet's "Gnomes" and that's pretty hosed up if you think about it.
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Feb 18, 2016 23:46
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Leperflesh posted:Given the great majority of RPG companies' sales figures are not public, how exactly did you reach the conclusion that the TG industry - or even just RPGs - are in decline? Also the average age of TTG players rising? Also the idea that "nobody has any money"? Also the idea that comic books are in decline? My personal experience with TTRPGs and introducing new people is that you give them your books/pdfs and then they never buy their own, because why would they? New players don't see rpgs as a money-starved industry, indie or not, because they're new and don't know anything about the scene. I'm playing in a Strike game with some irl friends right now and none of them have any interest in buying actual copies rather than passing the laptop and book around the table as needed (this has been particularly frustrating when people don't actually know what their powers do), and this is only going to be magnified with games that have completely self-contained character sheets like ___ World titles. Everyone I know who has ever bought books rather than pirate them has either been a young professional with no dependents (incredibly rare), a GM who wants to introduce a system to their friends or dreams of doing so, or someone who wants something to read on the toilet and theorycraft about with nice art.
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Feb 18, 2016 23:49
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Maybe my point of view is skewed because I get my info mainly from SA, but here is what I gathered: -Onyx Path Publishing is making the new Chronicles of Darkness which seem to be mostly going over well, on top of the oWoD stuff to appeal to the more, shall we say, antiquated tastes. -They are also planning on putting out Scion again, together with other pulpy sort of games using the same system. -Fellowship is almost out and it's cool; other PBTA stuff spring out like mushrooms -I hear good things about Strike! -Chuubo might finally solve its issues with its paper versions; in the meantime it and Nobilis remain shining examples of unusual cosmic fantasy games -Everybody loves Golden Sky Stories including me who has never played or read it It's a small industry that is mostly produced by small, Kickstarter using developpers, but it does not look dead to me.
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Feb 18, 2016 23:50
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Leperflesh posted:Given the great majority of RPG companies' sales figures are not public, how exactly did you reach the conclusion that the TG industry - or even just RPGs - are in decline?  Everything else is basically a rounding error in comparison, at least now that White Wolf has kinda fallen from its 90's heights.I mean kickstarter and readily available print-on-demand has helped a lot but that's solely because the sales and margins for most games are so low that having accurate pre-order numbers and exact print numbers means you aren't eating the cost of overprinted books. That doesn't mean things are getting busier or healthier though, it just means that small hobby companies don't instantly go out of business after one fuckup. This is an "industry" where high three-digit sales are a big success and four digit sales are a runaway hit.
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Feb 18, 2016 23:50
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I agree that physical books are not the future of TTRPGs. But it seems like PDF sales are filling the void? I also agree that the TTRPG scene has balkanized. There are tons and tons and tons of niche products and not so many huge blockbuster sellers. I don't know that that translates into lower total revenues across the industry, though, and more to the point, I don't think it's even possible to know that, because the only trad games company I'm aware of that reports its sales to the public is Games Workshop... and their RPG stuff is no longer produced in-house. The industry is changing, of that I have no doubt. Dying? I'm very skeptical of unqualified claims regarding that.
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Feb 18, 2016 23:52
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I mean, what I see is stuff like this: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/modiphius/robert-e-howards-conan-roleplaying-game I'd never even heard of Modiphius before, but evidently they have a solid product line, and they've just generated over 1500 preorders for an RPG product in what, 24 hours? Conan is a popular franchise, but still. This (big successful kickstarters for RPG products) does not strike me as the sort of thing that happens on a weekly or monthly basis in a dying industry.
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Feb 18, 2016 23:55
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Leperflesh posted:I agree that physical books are not the future of TTRPGs. So, what would the future of TTRPGs look like? Just PDFs? What about a wiki type format? Could you charge for access to it? Could you set it up so that you or authorised 3rd parties could make supplements/expansions that were pay-gated on the same site? Could you reasonably have an offline version (ie, update it online, take it out to your game room where you won't be connected)? I can see a lot of benefits, what would some of the downsides be?
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Feb 18, 2016 23:58
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From the perhaps selfish point of view of a consumer I must say that I am perfectly happy with my ever growing folder of pdfs. If had a tablet capable of reading them comfortably I would be set.
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Feb 19, 2016 00:02
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Jedit posted:Yeah, nothing says "awesome" to me in an RPG setting like a space smuggler archetype literally quoting Han Solo. I'm phoneposting right now so I can't dig too deep into this, but if you want people to get your setting when it's based on a certain type of media then it's a good idea to use examples most people who aren't neck-deep in nerd stuff wouldn't recognize. I mean, saying "you can totally play Han Solo in this" is better than the usual "you can play as whatever you want" or basing things off some obscure novel nobody's read since the 70s.
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Feb 19, 2016 00:05
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AlphaDog posted:So, what would the future of TTRPGs look like? I've actually literally argued that I'm amazed we don't have more RPGs with rulesets laid out as online references rather than as books in the traditional sense. When the D20 SRD went online, I almost immediately started using it to the total exclusion of the printed references, except when I needed content that simply wasn't there. It sort of seemed like Wizards had figured this out when they turned on D&D Insider, but I guess they eventually decided they couldn't afford to keep their cash cow alive or some loving thing. The downsides are that A) a lot of RPG-playing nerds are traditionalists resistant to change, B) maintaining a quality online reference takes a different skillset than creating a print book, and C) a lot of people reflexively reject paywall models of access to information. I suppose there's also D) from the customer's perspective, a book or PDF they buy is theirs forever, but access to an online resource could be lost at any time. I think a free but ad-supported online game reference is at least theoretically feasible? Given advertisers love highly-focused audience profiles, so you can seed such a site with ads specifically focused on consumers interested in RPGs and gaming... but then, maybe those advertisers aren't as deep-pocketed, I dunno.
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Feb 19, 2016 00:15
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