|
Really, the fate of the lines was set the instant it was named "Advanced" D&D, since what budding grog would want to play basic rules? I admit I'm in an unusual position since I started with one of the intro box sets then played basic for a while before ever touching AD&D. As a dumb kid I was all into AD&D once I swapped because it was better supported and seemed more challenging, but the benefit of hindsight lets me realize I had a lot more fun with BECMI stuff and a lot of the later Mystara supplements were way more inventive than most AD&D crap (outside of outliers like Planescape or early Dark Sun).
|
#
?
Feb 28, 2016 21:29
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 23, 2024 11:10 |
|
|
Maxwell Lord posted:Like I said, though, there's not a lot of introductory or easy stuff there, they're catering to the hardcore that's left.
|
|
#
?
Feb 28, 2016 22:13
|
|
|
Kurieg posted:There's a lot of older cards that got made next to worthless because their entire way of functioning was designed around Damage going on the stack, but all cards going forward were made with the more proper rules interpretation. 90% of those cards were useless outside of casual play anyhow since they'd cycled out to Vintage/Legacy legal-only, where if you're not a blue instant you might as well not exist, so it's no big loss Speaking of, it's funny how the Magic color that with Wizard creatures that's full of control powers ends up being the magic equivalent of OP as 3.X Wizards. I wonder if that comes from the same unconscious biases or if it's a systemic problem with the kind of powers both are always assumed to have.
|
|
#
?
Feb 28, 2016 22:20
|
|
|
Nuns with Guns posted:Speaking of, it's funny how the Magic color that with Wizard creatures that's full of control powers ends up being the magic equivalent of OP as 3.X Wizards. I wonder if that comes from the same unconscious biases or if it's a systemic problem with the kind of powers both are always assumed to have. In MtG, Blue's supremacy comes in part from "draw cards" being joined to Blue at the hip as a legacy mechanic, which means that Blue gets the best cards that let you draw other cards, in a card game.
|
|
#
?
Feb 28, 2016 22:43
|
|
|
Asimo posted:Really, the fate of the lines was set the instant it was named "Advanced" D&D, since what budding grog would want to play basic rules? Teenage me was a dumbass. In hindsight, all I ever played was Advanced Basic (B/X with more spells and magic items), and not even in the most advantageous way - an orc has AC6 in both versions, but the to-hit roll against one for any L1 character in Basic is 13+, while in AD&D it's 14+ for fighters and 15+ for other classes because the addition of AC10 hosed up all the attack matrices and made everything 5% more difficult.
|
|
#
?
Feb 28, 2016 22:48
|
|
|
LatwPIAT posted:In MtG, Blue's supremacy comes in part from "draw cards" being joined to Blue at the hip as a legacy mechanic, which means that Blue gets the best cards that let you draw other cards, in a card game. "Control" is also basically Blue's domain, and control almost invariably winds up an easily exploitable and powerful approach in games which allow it. That's the crux in a nutshell, abilities which let you subvert the rules or deny opponents the ability to effectively function are going to be pretty strong if other people are simply trying to play the game straightforwardly. It's like how in the PC game Homeworld, a big spaceship RTS about 3D battles in space, the strongest strategy wound up being using salvage corvettes to simply steal every enemy ship you could and add them to your fleet, simultaneously "killing" the enemy without having to bother with shooting while also gaining additional ships without having to pay the cost to build them.
|
|
#
?
Feb 28, 2016 22:51
|
|
|
Asimo posted:Really, the fate of the lines was set the instant it was named "Advanced" D&D, since what budding grog would want to play basic rules? Yeah, that's how I felt in my youth. But ultimately I didn't get to play much of either, which is probably for the best for my growth as a gamer.
|
|
#
?
Feb 28, 2016 22:53
|
|
|
Kai Tave posted:"Control" is also basically Blue's domain, and control almost invariably winds up an easily exploitable and powerful approach in games which allow it. That's the crux in a nutshell, abilities which let you subvert the rules or deny opponents the ability to effectively function are going to be pretty strong if other people are simply trying to play the game straightforwardly. It's like how in the PC game Homeworld, a big spaceship RTS about 3D battles in space, the strongest strategy wound up being using salvage corvettes to simply steal every enemy ship you could and add them to your fleet, simultaneously "killing" the enemy without having to bother with shooting while also gaining additional ships without having to pay the cost to build them. Netrunner showed a pretty similar dynamic. In a game about one side hiding a project behind defenses and working on it while the other side tries to steal it, the most powerful strategy for a long time turned out to be 'finish your projects the instant they're installed' (for one team) and 'take away all the money used to do anything' (for the other). These are both ways of sidestepping the central mechanic of building/breaking defenses. The X-Wing miniatures game, which is about positioning, suffered major balance problems when it introduced ships that could 'decloak' and move large distances outside of the usual movement rules (disrupting the positioning game) and when they added turret ships that didn't have to care about which way they pointed. Both of these are ways around the central gameplay problem of 'how do I point at the bad guy without him pointing at me'.
|
|
#
?
Feb 28, 2016 23:00
|
|
|
Halloween Jack posted:I don't see how what Slimnoid said doesn't still hold true. The Cyclopedia, while an excellent compendium, was the last gasp of the Basic product line. The Black Box was a replacement for Basic and solely intended as an introduction to AD&D. The black box was an intro to RC D&D. My point is that it wasn't a contest because D&D (for which DA was credited) was always meant to lose to AD&D (for which he was not -- the "A" was successfully used as a way to dodge royalty payments). Considering its place as a legal compromise, D&D punched well above its weight. The GAZ series probably extended its life because it became immensely popular. But it was still given a fraction of AD&D's coverage and no organized play support that I'm aware of. So you can't really blame gamers for not sticking with a game whose creators provided so little support. It wasn't just nerds liking fiddly rules. MalcolmSheppard fucked around with this message at 09:12 on Feb 29, 2016 |
|
#
?
Feb 28, 2016 23:21
|
|
|
Honestly, I suspect the fact that most of TSR's effort went into AD&D is part of why the late BECMI/Mystara stuff was so great. There was less oversight and probably less grogthink dragging it down so they were allowed to experiment and do whatever the hell sounded good at the time. Flying continents? A hollow world full of wacky continents? Player character werewolves and crap? Playable
|
|
#
?
Feb 29, 2016 00:39
|
|
|
MalcolmSheppard posted:Board wargaming is very much a thing, but computer games hit it pretty drat hard. Nowadays you get company-based crowdfunding, where if X customers order, it comes out, and they hand out draft rules and such along the way. See: http://www.gmtgames.com/t-GMTP500Details.aspx GMT has been doing this for a crazy long time, since way before Kickstarter, actually. They started doing it in the late 90s/early 2000s and it's basically kept the company in business since they don't produce things people won't buy. GMT wargames are generally very well done as these things go, too.
|
|
#
?
Feb 29, 2016 02:54
|
|
|
Halloween Jack posted:I don't see how what Slimnoid said doesn't still hold true. The Cyclopedia, while an excellent compendium, was the last gasp of the Basic product line. The Black Box was a replacement for Basic and solely intended as an introduction to AD&D. For what it's worth, there were new products in the Basic D&D product line for a few years after the RC and the Black Box, though there wasn't quite the same level of support for it as there was in the 1980s. Basic wasn't killed off until around the same time that TSR's other underperforming legacy product lines (Dragonlance, Greyhawk, Gamma World, Marvel Super Heroes) were also cancelled.
|
|
#
?
Feb 29, 2016 05:03
|
|
|
http://www.enworld.org/forum/content.php?3293-There-s-A-New-Online-Gaming-Store-In-Town&s=590cc5631274316ca822868d97855f45 Billing itself as the home of open gaming, particularly D&D 5th Edition OGL products, a new online store has just opened up. It has been planned by a consortium of top OGL-supporting companies, including Kobold Press, Frog God Games, Troll Lord Games, Green Ronin, Rite Publishing, Super Genius Games, Expeditious Retreat Games, Hero Games, and more. Already it stocks 5E products from these companies, both in electronic and print form. The store is called Tabletop Library https://tabletoplibrary.com/
|
|
#
?
Mar 11, 2016 22:24
|
|
|
clockworkjoe posted:http://www.enworld.org/forum/content.php?3293-There-s-A-New-Online-Gaming-Store-In-Town&s=590cc5631274316ca822868d97855f45 It is, for me, the reuben sandwich of RPGs -- attractive, popular, and improbably composed solely of the things I least want to consume in all the world.
|
|
#
?
Mar 11, 2016 22:44
|
|
|
Now you can get your d20/OSR shovelware without having to look at all those filthy indie games!
|
|
#
?
Mar 11, 2016 22:46
|
|
|
Evil Mastermind posted:Now you can get your d20/OSR shovelware without having to look at all those filthy indie games! The flip side is potentially being able to look at all those filthy indie games without all the d20/OSR shovelware.
|
|
#
?
Mar 11, 2016 22:48
|
|
|
homullus posted:The flip side is potentially being able to look at all those filthy indie games without all the d20/OSR shovelware. Win-win! 
|
|
#
?
Mar 11, 2016 22:53
|
|
|
Wait, wait, wait. Correct me if I misremember something, but... So in 2000-ish, WotC made their OGL thing. They hoped that this would cause people to flock to their game. But over time it actually paved the way for Pathfinder, set up by a company which was once their ally. Now in 2015-ish, WotC made their online publishing store thing. They hope that this would cause people to flock to their game. But now it actually paved the way for a competitor set up by companies which were supposed to have become their allies? Yes? I mean... that can't be true, can it? I must be wrong about something here.
|
|
#
?
Mar 11, 2016 22:56
|
|
|
I don't know if the new D&D webstore thing is meant to get people to "flock to the game"; I think it's more to get a cut from all the third party content that people are cranking out.
|
|
#
?
Mar 11, 2016 23:01
|
|
|
The new OGL is also fairly restrictive, in that you can't do a full functional reprint in the way that Pathfinder did. And if you're dumb enough to release anything on the DM's Guild WOTC can just go "Yes, thank you, this is ours now."
|
|
#
?
Mar 11, 2016 23:03
|
|
|
The main draw does seem to be that you get featured on WotC's official webstore. Like, that's it. And it's part of DriveThru/RPGNow anyway, so it's not like it's going into separate user libraries or people wouldn't be able to see them from a DriveThru search. I think I did the math about how much DriveThru takes of each sale versus how much WotC+DriveThru would, and you basically get screwed out of a few bucks. Which isn't a big deal for the types that just release two or three products or aren't really looking to make this their main source of income, but it's gonna add up for WotC.
|
|
#
?
Mar 11, 2016 23:06
|
|
|
And this is free money for WOTC without any actual work, since DTRPG is going to be doing the heavy lifting. I mean hell, the monthly article they put out that's basically the only source of new player facing content pulled a mulligan this month and just posted a thing espousing the wonders of the DM's guild.
|
|
#
?
Mar 11, 2016 23:11
|
|
|
Over on Tenkar's Tavern, one of the points raised by Matt Finch (Swords & Wizardry creator) was that retaining control of intellectual property played a large role in some publishers shying away from DM's Guild:Matt Finch posted:As to what goes on in terms of the 5th Edition D&D market, that's a bit of a complicated answer, and I don't want to say anything negative about the DM Guild. In a nutshell, though, the DM Guild has zero interest for serious publishers due to the nature of the license to use it. That's why so many major publishers signed on to TTL immediately. It's not primarily about price, it's about intellectual property, although OBS taking a 50% slice of 5e D&D is a factor. I'm inclined to agree. Even though the Guild's main draw is using WotC's official artwork, Forgotten Realms material, and all the Product Identity contents of the corebooks, I'd worry about writing an adventure or character only for someone else down the line to take it in a direction I don't want out of incompetence or spite. I also believe that there was a problem in the licensing of how a rival competitor can literally take your product and re-release it for free. Don't know how true this is, but if so that would be an even larger turn-off for me. I doubt that most D&D publishers are vilified enough that vindictive pricks will go after them in such a way, but I can just as easily see a "info should be free" dude setting up an account for the sole purposes of uploading free PDFs. Again, correct me if I'm wrong on this.
|
|
#
?
Mar 11, 2016 23:11
|
|
|
Found my math:Evil Mastermind posted:So going by their website the normal OBS payout is 70% of the cost of a PDF product if you sell exclusively through them. So I write something, charge $20 for it, and I get $14 per sale.
|
|
#
?
Mar 11, 2016 23:18
|
|
|
So everyone is just going to let some nerd poo poo-taking Rubens just slide?
|
|
#
?
Mar 11, 2016 23:45
|
|
|
I don't get what the point of that store is. Is it products that don't already appear on DTRPG?
|
|
#
?
Mar 12, 2016 00:01
|
|
|
Or products that exist both places, so long as there's no exclusivity deal. I dunno. I think this is a good thing, if it takes off. I'd like to see OneBookShelf have some competition so they have a need to keep improving their service.
|
|
#
?
Mar 12, 2016 00:23
|
|
|
gradenko_2000 posted:I don't get what the point of that store is. Is it products that don't already appear on DTRPG? The point is that sellers get a higher cut of actual sales than they get from DTRPG. As of right now, there's no real benefit for consumers except to be able to say that you're supporting publishers more directly than if you bought their stuff from DTRPG.
|
|
#
?
Mar 12, 2016 00:27
|
|
|
JackMann posted:I dunno. I think this is a good thing, if it takes off. I'd like to see OneBookShelf have some competition so they have a need to keep improving their service. I would agree, if it was by someone other than the d20pfsrd guy.
|
|
#
?
Mar 12, 2016 00:55
|
|
|
What's so bad about "the d20pfsrd guy"?
|
|
#
?
Mar 12, 2016 00:59
|
|
|
I still can't believe that WOTC opened up a storefront that's name has the acronym DMG.
|
|
#
?
Mar 12, 2016 01:00
|
|
|
Dagon posted:I would agree, if it was by someone other than the d20pfsrd guy. Gonna need some context for this. Is he some kind of shithead?
|
|
#
?
Mar 12, 2016 01:12
|
|
|
Well, I just noticed one thing that makes that new Bookshelf site less useful, regardless of content: no previews on anything. I mean, a lot of times the previews on DTRPG are just the cover, credits, and table of contents, but at least it's something.
|
|
#
?
Mar 12, 2016 17:42
|
|
|
Not directly related to the tabletoplibrary discussion, but it sure would be nice if WOTC allowed PODs of their officially released PDFs.
|
|
#
?
Mar 12, 2016 17:45
|
|
|
However well 5e is doing, I doubt they want it competing with the entire back catalog in the physical market.
|
|
#
?
Mar 12, 2016 17:55
|
|
|
The Crotch posted:What's so bad about "the d20pfsrd guy"? I'm curious about this myself.
|
|
#
?
Mar 12, 2016 18:09
|
|
|
That's not pathguy of online character builder fame, is it?
|
|
#
?
Mar 12, 2016 22:42
|
|
|
Zephirum posted:That's not pathguy of online character builder fame, is it? No, two different people.
|
|
#
?
Mar 13, 2016 00:04
|
|
|
MalcolmSheppard posted:The black box was an intro to RC D&D. My point is that it wasn't a contest because D&D (for which DA was credited) was always meant to lose to AD&D (for which he was not -- the "A" was successfully used as a way to dodge royalty payments). Considering its place as a legal compromise, D&D punched well above its weight. The GAZ series probably extended its life because it became immensely popular. But it was still given a fraction of AD&D's coverage and no organized play support that I'm aware of. So you can't really blame gamers for not sticking with a game whose creators provided so little support. It wasn't just nerds liking fiddly rules. Kurieg posted:The new OGL is also fairly restrictive, in that you can't do a full functional reprint in the way that Pathfinder did. And if you're dumb enough to release anything on the DM's Guild WOTC can just go "Yes, thank you, this is ours now."
|
|
#
?
Mar 13, 2016 16:01
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 23, 2024 11:10 |
|
|
I wonder how much of a concern hijacking DM's Guild material will end up being? Would it end up something like the Bethesda modding communities? I could see second-rate spinoffs and sequels to big DM's Guild adventures being possible. Would we also see people try to push to the edge of what the Terms & Conditions allow for adult content to include the ttrpg equivalent of tit mods? Someone "improving" a homebrew class in really banal ways? Dunno if any of those would do damage to the original product though. The only thing that I could see being a major concern is if a product is taken wholesale and rehosted on another person's account while the original product is still up.
|
|
#
?
Mar 13, 2016 16:33
|
|