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Tuxedo Catfish posted:i looked at the rules for ars magica once, it looked like a really mean-spirited parody of someone arguing the position i am now lol It's a wonderful game.
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Apr 15, 2017 18:49
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Lightning Lord posted:From memory overcoming bigotry between cultures is a thing in romantic fantasy, right? Like I swear that's an element of some Tamora Pierce books. That's why this is here, right? It's hard to look into that genre btw, lot of fantasy novels with romance subplots stuff comes up. Depends on the author and series, usually. Most have a clear "girl power!" message, but can still be pretty racially homogenous. Tamora Pierce's more recent books are a lot more diverse, and the circle of magic books do show tension between the dark-skinned traders and other groups. It just feels like there's a better way to represent racism than falling back on gypsy stereotypes. A lot of the "positives" in the book also romanticize the "lifestyle" in an awkward way.
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Apr 15, 2017 18:52
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Ars Magica is a game that's steeped in a lot of real world history and something I've noticed is that games with a strong historical bent generally don't ever seem to be as popular as Ye Olde Generic Fantasy Setting. But more than that, a lot of the people who enjoy playing (and exploiting the poo poo out of) casters in 3.X and derivatives would probably quite earnestly tell you that they aren't interested in a game that's all about casters and would once again quite earnestly tell you that the balance issues people keep bringing up are overblown nonsense and you can totally make an equally valuable Fighter or Barbarian or whatever. It's kind of hard for me to find the right way to articulate this point without painting with an overly broad brush but a lot of the people who happily accept that of course spellcasters should get all these game-warping abilities because it only makes sense for magic to be able to do anything while non-magical characters need grounding and limitations for [INSERT REASON HERE] are also the sort of people who passionately argue that D&D is actually well-balanced and that the whole power and narrative-agency disparity doesn't exist or at least isn't as bad as everyone makes it out to be, and they often aren't being deliberately disingenuous about it.Lightning Lord posted:From memory overcoming bigotry between cultures is a thing in romantic fantasy, right? Like I swear that's an element of some Tamora Pierce books. That's why this is here, right? It's hard to look into that genre btw, lot of fantasy novels with romance subplots stuff comes up. Nuns with Guns posted:Depends on the author and series, usually. Most have a clear "girl power!" message, but can still be pretty racially homogenous. Tamora Pierce's more recent books are a lot more diverse, and the circle of magic books do show tension between the dark-skinned traders and other groups. It just feels like there's a better way to represent racism than falling back on gypsy stereotypes. A lot of the "positives" in the book also romanticize the "lifestyle" in an awkward way. I did an unfinished F&F review of the first edition of Blue Rose that goes into some detail about the romantic fantasy genre and yeah, there's a lot of that in there in places, but I also noted that the Roamers were, well, Stock Fantasy Gypsies complete with rumors about their thieving, child-kidnapping ways and it was a pretty big moment of whiplash to go from "yeah, the main protagonist kingdom is about as egalitarian as it comes" to "HEY GUYS I HEARD YOU LIKE GYPSIES SO HERE YOU GO" and it's definitely one of the weaker parts of the game imo. I'm honestly disappointed that Green Ronin decided to keep them in since even if their portrayal isn't as bad as it could be it's still pretty eyeroll worthy in tyool 2017.
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Apr 15, 2017 19:32
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Lord_Hambrose posted:It is a shame that for all the obsession with being a cool wizard, everyone is not playing Ars Magica. It is the only rpg I collect the physical books for, and number two on my list of amazing games to play that will probably never happen right behind Wraith the Oblivion. See, in my experience it isn't even people who play Clerics or Druids or whatever who demand to keep Fighters in the shitter. When I first started dating my partner her RPG background was entirely martial characters in 3.5e, and she was convinced it was the best method. She never really expressed why this was the case clearly nor was she jabbing at 4e (she didn't even know I played it), but to her Proper Roleplaying Games featured spellcasters who could do whatever the gently caress they wanted and Rogues could take-20 picking locks sometimes. That difference was just inherent to the medium for her at the time; she wasn't like, a self-hating Martial. Odds are the people she played with who did play spellcasters didn't actually abuse stuff because everyone seems to buy into a sort of Gentleman's Agreement to not actually break the game deliberately.
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Apr 15, 2017 22:26
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The usual argument I've seen is never 'gotta keep those fighters down', though. It's more "We need a simple class for new players and the fighter is that simple class" and coincidentally the people saying this are usually veterans which means they don't need a simple class for babies.
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Apr 15, 2017 23:00
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Its always funny to me because wizard should be the easy class. Pick package of spells that you get per level up, nuke encounters when told to do so, spend every single fight trying never ever to be hit. A fighter has to, on a basic level, make themselves an appropriate target, juggle enemy threats to the party, and balance that against which foes can optimally be hit since not every attack has the same chance of success on top of careful consideration of what weapons and armor to carry for different situations and what to specialize in. The other part i guess is that easy in DnD doesnt mean like easy like in a fighting game with easy combos where you cant do competitive level moves but you can still do cool, complete combos without learning the inputs and instead means easy like the person who whups your rear end in a one v one match calls you easy aka "bad".
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Apr 15, 2017 23:25
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hey Ars Magica sounds kind of like my jam. What is the good edition and what edition is easily gettable, and does it lend itself well to play from a .pdf or do you need physical books? Also can you play it over the internet, also can you play non western style mystics. could I be from a mythical tibetan shaman lineage or something.
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Apr 16, 2017 00:31
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Ars Magica fourth edition is available as a free download. Fifth has some improvements but Fourth is still a good edition.
Kwyndig fucked around with this message at 00:44 on Apr 16, 2017 |
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Apr 16, 2017 00:40
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Ferrinus posted:There's a Wall of Ice in 4E, although it's higher level. IIRC You can actually fly as early as level 6 in 4E, but 1/day, only for five minutes, and you have to keep spending minor actions to stay aloft. There is also the Pouch of Frozen Passage, a magic item which has literally just one single function: make bridges of ice over bodies of water. When it comes to "freeze water into a bridge", both 3e and 4e have explicit options to do it. They also both have cold-related powers which don't explicitly do this (ie. Cone of Cold, in either edition). The only real difference, IMO, is that 3e launched with a lot of "toy" spells and then gradually tightened up its balance as best as it could. Whereas 4e launched with tight balance, and then gradually introduced more and more "toys". If you look at both lines in their matured state, they're really not miles apart anymore. (Assuming you do the smart thing and ban all of 3e's PHB classes.)
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Apr 16, 2017 00:40
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unseenlibrarian posted:The usual argument I've seen is never 'gotta keep those fighters down', though. It's more "We need a simple class for new players and the fighter is that simple class" and coincidentally the people saying this are usually veterans which means they don't need a simple class for babies. There's at least two whole people in one of my gaming groups who argue--and I poo poo you not--that Fighter was made solely to be cross classed, and that it was never intended to be played fully. Like, Fighter as designed purposefully exists to be dipped in for feats or proficiencies or HP, nothing more, and it has always been this way since the start of 3.5 and they don't understand why idiots don't get that. One of them is a DM, who has also houseruled that moving into a threatened square should provoke an attack of opportunity. They're cool guys to play anything but D&D or Pathfinder with, and I'm not real fond of those games to begin with. (Admittedly, the DM guy also has some weird ideas about Mutants & Masterminds.)
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Apr 16, 2017 01:12
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Impermanent posted:hey Ars Magica sounds kind of like my jam. What is the good edition and what edition is easily gettable, and does it lend itself well to play from a .pdf or do you need physical books? You can play non-western style Mages, yes. But Tibet canonically does not exist nor does anything south of the equator. The setting is the world according to an educated European/near Eastern mystic, so it operates in ways the ME perspective would understand the world as operating, and large parts of our world just do not exist, as contact between East and West was so constrained. Also for those interested in international RPG gaming, people in Korea are receiving their copies of Night Witches: https://twitter.com/cympub 
fez_machine fucked around with this message at 01:18 on Apr 16, 2017 |
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Apr 16, 2017 01:16
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Lunatic Sledge posted:There's at least two whole people in one of my gaming groups who argue--and I poo poo you not--that Fighter was made solely to be cross classed, and that it was never intended to be played fully. Like, Fighter as designed purposefully exists to be dipped in for feats or proficiencies or HP, nothing more, and it has always been this way since the start of 3.5 and they don't understand why idiots don't get that. One of them is a DM, who has also houseruled that moving into a threatened square should provoke an attack of opportunity. I'm assuming that certain feat/class interactions that essentially make approaching to melee into suicide with this houserule is considered "rules as intended" with this jackass as well.
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Apr 16, 2017 02:06
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Impermanent posted:hey Ars Magica sounds kind of like my jam. What is the good edition and what edition is easily gettable, and does it lend itself well to play from a .pdf or do you need physical books? I have run games over the Internet, but you definitely need to an insane amount of work to maintain it. You have to track what every character does every single season, but it does lend itself to long sweeping stories of what amounts to petty wizard grudges that last generations. As a wizard your main poo poo is sitting at home reading books and doing weird research while sending other characters off to do stuff. Wizard politics is life.
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Apr 16, 2017 02:20
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fez_machine posted:You can play non-western style Mages, yes. But Tibet canonically does not exist nor does anything south of the equator. The setting is the world according to an educated European/near Eastern mystic, so it operates in ways the ME perspective would understand the world as operating, and large parts of our world just do not exist, as contact between East and West was so constrained. Do they even have a Chinese magical tradition in Ars? The farthest East they go with Tribunals is Byzantium unless they added some Asia stuff recently. I've only ever seen the Middle Eastern and African stuff.
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Apr 16, 2017 04:43
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Nope, they have Mongolian Shamanism for when the juggernaut that is the Mongol Empire comes a-knocking but no Chinese magic
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Apr 16, 2017 07:22
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RocknRollaAyatollah posted:Do they even have a Chinese magical tradition in Ars? The farthest East they go with Tribunals is Byzantium unless they added some Asia stuff recently. I've only ever seen the Middle Eastern and African stuff. The game is definitely about capital "W" wizards from Europe. That being said there is a whole wizard gang that is all the non Roman wizards (there were two but...) and another faction that is all hedge wizards and the remnants of small weird magic traditions forced to join at gun point. And these are just the ones in the Order of Hermes. There are a fair amount of rules for rival magical systems for other groups as well.
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Apr 16, 2017 12:07
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There are some rules for Mongols, but they are mostly for NPCs. Nothing directly Chinese. Fun fact: your bog standard fully armored knight is terrifying because the best armor in the game can tank most early combat spells without trouble. It isn't until a wizard emerges from months of research with a spell that bypasses combat entirely that they become a true master of war. But it's usually better to pursue wizard hobbies than do that.
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Apr 16, 2017 13:53
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https://twitter.com/gshowitt/status/853613567739867136 (In reference to the newly released edition of Paranoia)
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Apr 16, 2017 15:47
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Apr 16, 2017 15:52
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Flavivirus posted:(In reference to the newly released edition of Paranoia) This hobby has the biggest cheapskates known to man.
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Apr 16, 2017 16:02
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Agronox posted:This hobby has the biggest cheapskates known to man. 50 dollars for a PDF is not acceptable my man.
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Apr 16, 2017 16:05
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Agronox posted:This hobby has the biggest cheapskates known to man. I feel like if one of the three headline writers of a product is calling it out as overpriced you done goofed? Not to mention that $50 for a pdf is more expensive than a lot of academic textbooks.
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Apr 16, 2017 16:06
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50 dollars for a PDF could work... but it'd have to be a much better game than the new Paranoia.
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Apr 16, 2017 16:08
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I paid something like 120 dollars for the entire Delta Green reboot plus The Fall of Delta Green in nothing but PDFs
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Apr 16, 2017 16:14
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I mean, here's a second author chiming in: https://twitter.com/JamesWallis/status/853626969942106112 (should be mentioned this is the 'Director's Commentary' annotated pdf, a $20 markup on the base game)
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Apr 16, 2017 16:17
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If these were backer exclusives they're charging a premium for, this is even more disgusting.
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Apr 16, 2017 16:18
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Apologies, I thought that was for a book!
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Apr 16, 2017 16:21
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Agronox posted:Apologies, I thought that was for a book! It is, just annotated for a $20 markup.
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Apr 16, 2017 16:24
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Kwyndig posted:If these were backer exclusives they're charging a premium for, this is even more disgusting. Mongoose are a lovely company. Also water is wet. News at 11.
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Apr 16, 2017 16:40
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At present, nobody is actually making any money, so yes, everything in the industry needs to cost more than it does.
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Apr 16, 2017 16:41
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Agronox posted:Apologies, I thought that was for a book! I'd say that $50.00 would be a great price for a hardcover book with developer annotations. The PDF though? naaah Rand Brittain posted:At present, nobody is actually making any money, so yes, everything in the industry needs to cost more than it does. The paranoia kickstarter made £217,517 out of a £30,000 goal. They're doing fine. Nuns with Guns fucked around with this message at 16:51 on Apr 16, 2017 |
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Apr 16, 2017 16:48
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Kwyndig posted:50 dollars for a PDF could work... but it'd have to be a much better game than the new Paranoia. gradenko_2000 posted:I paid something like 120 dollars for the entire Delta Green reboot plus The Fall of Delta Green in nothing but PDFs That's money I'd only pay on an incredibly fancy board game full of hand-crafted flair miniatures and stuff, not for something with the same page count and illustrations as a kindle ebook for one third of the price.
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Apr 16, 2017 16:56
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Nuns with Guns posted:The paranoia kickstarter made £217,517 out of a £30,000 goal. They're doing fine. That's not really a great measure of anything, honestly.
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Apr 16, 2017 16:56
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Rand Brittain posted:That's not really a great measure of anything, honestly. Especially as they were selling a box set of books, handouts and dice for £30+EDIT:NO Shipping. It's basically certain that all ended up as a loss. Really with any product you should work out how much you'd have to charge yo make it profitable, and if that will price it out if your market. There's a sweet spot at around $10-$20 I think: if your business model means a pdf sold at that price won't work, you should probably reassess your plans. Flavivirus fucked around with this message at 17:14 on Apr 16, 2017 |
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Apr 16, 2017 17:05
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Rand Brittain posted:That's not really a great measure of anything, honestly. It's a measure that there's a lot of interest in the game. But I double checked the kickstarter, and I see they didn't charge for any shipping on their game boxes, which seems like a bigger misstep than a $50.00 PDF.
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Apr 16, 2017 17:12
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Nuns with Guns posted:It's a measure that there's a lot of interest in the game. But I double checked the kickstarter, and I see they didn't charge for any shipping on their game boxes, which seems like a bigger misstep than a $50.00 PDF. Well, that's what I mean? You can see that there's interest, but if they aren't charging enough per unit, most of that money is going to go into fulfillment and they wind up having a "massively successful" Kickstarter that didn't make any money, or lost money.
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Apr 16, 2017 17:21
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Unfortunately, from reports I'm getting from a friend that bought the thing: it is a bad Paranoia game, possibly a bad game in general.
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Apr 16, 2017 17:25
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Mors Rattus posted:Unfortunately, from reports I'm getting from a friend that bought the thing: it is a bad Paranoia game, possibly a bad game in general. Just from reading the blurbs on the KS itself anybody who understands what makes Paranoia tick could tell you it was going to be a bad Paranoia game.
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Apr 16, 2017 17:33
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Rand Brittain posted:Well, that's what I mean? You can see that there's interest, but if they aren't charging enough per unit, most of that money is going to go into fulfillment and they wind up having a "massively successful" Kickstarter that didn't make any money, or lost money. That doesn't really tell you much about pricing in the industry as a whole, though, which is what your point to start with. Paranoia's got enough of a built in fanbase that I can't see the numbers falling that dramatically if shipping had been charged to backers as part of fulfillment.
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Apr 16, 2017 18:35
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Nuns with Guns posted:That doesn't really tell you much about pricing in the industry as a whole, though, which is what your point to start with. Paranoia's got enough of a built in fanbase that I can't see the numbers falling that dramatically if shipping had been charged to backers as part of fulfillment. Yeah - drawing a line from 'this kickstarter was priced very badly' to 'nobody makes any money in this industry' is a bit of a stretch.
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Apr 16, 2017 18:44
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