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Alien Rope Burn posted:If only there was some example of WoW on paper. let's not let our love of 4E get in the way of recognizing modern Blizzard game design for the shitpile it is
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Jun 2, 2017 22:49
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Iterated on to meet customers actual play patterns and wants?
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Jun 2, 2017 23:40
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yeah uhh.... there's not a lot you can say about blizzard's modern game design because it goes all the way from "one of the worst examples of its genre" for hearthstone all the way to "current pinnacle of the genre" for overwatch.
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Jun 2, 2017 23:44
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starkebn posted:Iterated on to meet customers actual play patterns and wants? yeah, so's Pathfinder popular != good Impermanent posted:yeah uhh.... there's not a lot you can say about blizzard's modern game design because it goes all the way from "one of the worst examples of its genre" for hearthstone all the way to "current pinnacle of the genre" for overwatch. Overwatch is an exception in that it rises to the level of "okay," and probably not for long if they keep increasing TTK and nerfing every character who consistently generates picks or is good at shooting barriers Tuxedo Catfish fucked around with this message at 00:25 on Jun 3, 2017 |
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Jun 3, 2017 00:23
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Overwatch is really bad designed and it's success is more likely due to the fact that its main competitors at the moment are a 10 year old game and loving Battleborn lol
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Jun 3, 2017 00:45
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Remember when Gearbox tried to get people to draw porn of their Battleborn characters in hopes of attracting the attention of Overwatch players?
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Jun 3, 2017 00:56
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Tendales posted:What is the earliest official mention of 'tank' as defense-oriented warrior, anyway? As far as D&D, the earliest I can specifically think of was in the Complete Paladin's handbook back in 2e. As a gaming term, "tank" probably predates computer games. I was talking with my dad about WoW back in 2006 or so and he immediately understood what I meant by "tank" since that's what his old 60s/70s hex-and-counter wargaming buddies called any tough unit that was hard or dangerous to ignore (like phalanx spearmen, etc). Apparently it was pretty much universal, and so was "turtle" for never moving out of a defensive position and "<unit type> rush" for moving a large number of cheap/small/quick units to victory locations as quickly as possbile.
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Jun 3, 2017 01:08
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Turtle is the Americanised version of a far older term. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Testudo_formation
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Jun 3, 2017 02:54
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The tank as a heavily armored unit is just about 100 years old by now
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Jun 3, 2017 03:01
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Pope Guilty posted:Remember when Gearbox tried to get people to draw porn of their Battleborn characters in hopes of attracting the attention of Overwatch players? Randy Pitchford: OH MY GOD PEOPLE ARE DRAWING PORN OF MY CHARACTERS, WHAT IS A CREATOR TO DO?! *Links to an empty subreddit*
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Jun 3, 2017 03:12
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Tank was a term they were using in WW1 to obfuscate the development program of what we're familiar with now. They were pretending they were making a machine to bring water to the front lines in big 'tanks' and the nickname stuck.
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Jun 3, 2017 03:12
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I always did find it a bit odd that the term Tank was so focused on the defensive aspect when they are essentially mobile artillery. Makes more sense with the longer history of the term.
remusclaw fucked around with this message at 03:20 on Jun 3, 2017 |
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Jun 3, 2017 03:17
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There was some alt-history novel where tanks were invented during the civil war thanks to steampunk tomfoolery or some such plot contrivance. They used the same sort of subterfuge when shipping them to the front lines, only old-timey, which led to them being nicknamed "barrels" instead. I can't remember the name of the book for the life of me, but that part's always stuck in my memory for some reason.
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Jun 3, 2017 03:34
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Sounds like one of Turtledove's things.
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Jun 3, 2017 03:36
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Cassa posted:Sounds like one of Turtledove's things. Yeah and it was in World War 1 (except the Confederates existed by then) http://turtledove.wikia.com/wiki/Barrel
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Jun 3, 2017 03:55
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I feel almost contractually obligated to state I think Battleborn was the better and more complete game, and thay simultaneously there was not a single sensible marketing decision made for it and the game itself was full of absolutely bizarre design choices that helped kill it swifter than it would have otherwise.
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Jun 3, 2017 06:14
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Jimbozig posted:I think the point is that in Tolkien's world, the right to govern is based on inherited titles, racial superiority, and maleness, with no regard to whether or not the individual has any capacity to govern well or has any connection to the people to be governed. It's just expressed in the nerdiest possible way. That's sort of a flawed read on Tolkien, since there's a lot of cases in the appendices where all of this goes wrong, like the whole fall of Númenor thing, and the Kin-Strife in Gondor. Tolkien knew what he is writing about and he was rather clear about that he believes that there's no real-world counterpart to the Númenoreans. Tolkien also said “the most improper job of any man, even saints (who at any rate were at least unwilling to take it on), is bossing other men. Not one in a million is fit for it, and least of all those who seek the opportunity.”
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Jun 3, 2017 10:31
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Kemper Boyd posted:That's sort of a flawed read on Tolkien, since there's a lot of cases in the appendices where all of this goes wrong, like the whole fall of Númenor thing, and the Kin-Strife in Gondor. Tolkien knew what he is writing about and he was rather clear about that he believes that there's no real-world counterpart to the Númenoreans. Sure, but still a big part of what made Aragorn "the right guy" was his inheritance. This isn't even a one-off thing in his mythology, either. As much as everyone's always loving up because they're arrogant elves, greedy dwarves or avaricious humans, the ones who struggle best to maintain their moral compass are frequently (always?) doing so as exemplars of the True Glory of their Special Blood. Considering how he wrote the elves, especially Fëanor's whole farcical family, I don't think this was a deliberate commentary on where goodness comes from. But there's a definite "breed apart" thing going on throughout all works on Middle-earth, regardless if Tolkien thought of it that way.
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Jun 3, 2017 10:54
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Tuxedo Catfish posted:let's not let our love of 4E get in the way of recognizing modern Blizzard game design for the shitpile it is Overwatch was the first Blizzard game I've enjoyed for more than a lark and I've certainly felt they've often been overrated, but they know how to make games people enjoy (even if I generally haven't been one of them).
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Jun 3, 2017 11:14
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Barudak posted:I feel almost contractually obligated to state I think Battleborn was the better and more complete game, and thay simultaneously there was not a single sensible marketing decision made for it and the game itself was full of absolutely bizarre design choices that helped kill it swifter than it would have otherwise. Pope Guilty posted:Remember when Gearbox tried to get people to draw porn of their Battleborn characters in hopes of attracting the attention of Overwatch players? They are carnies, run by a literal carny.
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Jun 3, 2017 14:56
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Pitchford's magic career was basically akin to being an LA stand up comedian, not a carnie.
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Jun 3, 2017 16:26
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Hey Legend of the Five Rings RPG question. A samurai receives a living stipend from his lord. Which book(s) from which edition(s) give me some info on how big and how regular this stipend is? Or does someone with real knowledge of old Japan have some guidance to offer?
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Jun 3, 2017 17:49
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SuperKlaus posted:Hey Legend of the Five Rings RPG question. A samurai receives a living stipend from his lord. Which book(s) from which edition(s) give me some info on how big and how regular this stipend is? Or does someone with real knowledge of old Japan have some guidance to offer?
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Jun 3, 2017 17:52
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SuperKlaus posted:Hey Legend of the Five Rings RPG question. A samurai receives a living stipend from his lord. Which book(s) from which edition(s) give me some info on how big and how regular this stipend is? Or does someone with real knowledge of old Japan have some guidance to offer? Like said, those details are for the filthy underclass merchants to deal with. Money in L5R games should be extremely fluid for Samurai characters in general, you're not supposed to care about the details, you're just supposed to not gently caress up and lose your cash cow. Basically a samurai in good standing doesn't need to worry about the day to day expenses because their lord handles that. The general rule of thumb is that in romanticized Rokugan even low ranking samurais get enough koku to not worry about where their food is coming from as long as they're not loving up, and obviously has clan holdings/family lands/etc to handle shelter. I think it's a monthly stipend on paper but if your samurai isn't going hog wild feasting every day he shouldn't be worrying about when his next paycheck comes in Rokugan.
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Jun 3, 2017 18:17
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That Old Tree posted:Sure, but still a big part of what made Aragorn "the right guy" was his inheritance. This isn't even a one-off thing in his mythology, either. As much as everyone's always loving up because they're arrogant elves, greedy dwarves or avaricious humans, the ones who struggle best to maintain their moral compass are frequently (always?) doing so as exemplars of the True Glory of their Special Blood. Tolkien quite famously disliked deep readings of his own works, so I can see how he might have sought to write a traditional Romantic story cycle (and all that entails) while ignoring its implications. For the longest time, he denied that LotR had any sort of allegorical meaning, until one of his students basically debated him into submission and made him realize that, yes, his experiences during the war really did have parallels in the books he wrote.
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Jun 3, 2017 18:50
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Well yes guys I know that. I want to know if any sources go into more detail.
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Jun 3, 2017 20:55
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What sort of prep work would you do for a Cthulhu Dark session?
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Jun 4, 2017 00:44
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Gearbox made a couple of great Half-Life expansions and the second Borderlands. If only they'd stick to their strengths.
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Jun 4, 2017 01:52
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SuperKlaus posted:Well yes guys I know that. I want to know if any sources go into more detail. Kolat spotted. Also its an orientalist fantasy, go hog wild. As far as I know none of the published materials get into Samurai financial planning. In reality they did have to take care of their own finances, but obviously were entitled due to often being paid in land (which they would then have the ability to use to generate wealth). Many of these matters were handled by their wives, and as the role of samurai declined many went into farming as primary occupations (as well as professional trades or bureaucracy).
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Jun 4, 2017 02:07
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DalaranJ posted:What sort of prep work would you do for a Cthulhu Dark session? Here is the designers guide to scenario creation. You can also lots of existing CoC or ToC scenarios. So long as they don't rely on combat they should be fairly easy to convert.
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Jun 4, 2017 02:23
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neaden posted:Here is the designers guide to scenario creation. You can also lots of existing CoC or ToC scenarios. So long as they don't rely on combat they should be fairly easy to convert. I had read that before, but I'm not sure I totally grasp it. Could you give a brief example of part of an adventure run in this style?
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Jun 4, 2017 02:49
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Cinnamon Bear posted:Kolat spotted. If you're interested in this topic, I recommend the Japanese film Tasogare Seibei/The Twilight Samurai, which is about an aging samurai in the Meiji period and does involve some discussion of economic duties and realities for a low-level samurai during the slow death of Japanese feudalism. It's mostly a (very good) character piece, so it's not completely dry, but it does deal with the topic a bit.
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Jun 4, 2017 04:57
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Plutonis posted:Yeah and it was in World War 1 (except the Confederates existed by then) What I can recall from the few Turtledove books I've read is that 1. in his "but what if the Japanese invaded Pearl Harbor on Dec 7 1941?" duology, he spent waaay too much time and waaay too much detail on American women being turned into comfort women for the Japanese occupiers. 2. in his "but what if the Confederacy survived to the 20th century?" series, a lot of the battles seemed to be rip-offs of actual historical battles, just transplanted into the continental United States.
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Jun 4, 2017 06:21
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Antivehicular posted:If you're interested in this topic, I recommend the Japanese film Tasogare Seibei/The Twilight Samurai, which is about an aging samurai in the Meiji period and does involve some discussion of economic duties and realities for a low-level samurai during the slow death of Japanese feudalism. It's mostly a (very good) character piece, so it's not completely dry, but it does deal with the topic a bit. I saw that one in theaters and bought the DVD! I loved it and should re-watch - it's certainly not completely dry, not with that swordfight scene where the dude basically jumps right over another dude from almost a standstill (as I remember it). I wonder if that was pure stuntwork, which would be wild, or if it was computer- or wire-assisted. And the gruesome final conflict. The director put out a couple others like Love and Honor and The Hidden Blade. I've been proudly weebing L5R and samurai media for many years. But I just now noticed none of the GM's Guides or anything ever really talked about samurai stipends and I wanted actual information. I was reluctant to pull numbers out of my rear end because I'm very bad with economics and am probably going to end up with something or other not making any sense. I am running a game and I believe the lure of money is an A-Number-One-Top-Rated Reason for characters to fudge on bushido and thus generate interesting stories. So all the blather about getting your due from your lord is well known but I was hoping for some guidance on how much walkin' around money characters might have. One character already blackmailed someone and got a 12 koku payday. The roleplay happened, he's happy with the sum at the moment, the dramatic concepts of the blackmail relationship are in place, yes, thank you, I still want to know how that kind of money weighs on the income scale. It seemed like a fat payday because the book says it's rice for a year money (and in the in-universe polite fiction idea of the economy, rice for TWELVE). Another character burned her sandals to placate a fire kami and I was just going to file that under "not paying attention" living expenses but I noticed the book says sandals cost a whole koku. We can say her lord buys her new shoes - but what about next time? And after that? Maybe, to spitball, something like twice your Status in koku per month as discretionary funds??? Status squared?
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Jun 4, 2017 16:06
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Antivehicular posted:If you're interested in this topic, I recommend the Japanese film Tasogare Seibei/The Twilight Samurai, which is about an aging samurai in the Meiji period and does involve some discussion of economic duties and realities for a low-level samurai during the slow death of Japanese feudalism. It's mostly a (very good) character piece, so it's not completely dry, but it does deal with the topic a bit. I highly recommend this film as well. gradenko_2000 posted:2. in his "but what if the Confederacy survived to the 20th century?" series, a lot of the battles seemed to be rip-offs of actual historical battles, just transplanted into the continental United States. Most of his books are just historical events in one country transposed into another, sometimes with slightly changed names for the country. The rise of the Southern Nazi party was pretty much the same as the rise of the real world Nazis with all the proper nouns changed to reflect it being in the American South. He cranks out at least a full novel in a year so I'm sure he can't afford to be original. He also seems to know his demographic pretty well to do it paint by numbers style.
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Jun 4, 2017 16:13
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And the Confederate Victory timeline ironically ends with the US bigger than OTL after annexing Canada and the CSA that had bought land from Mexico upon their victory on WW2
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Jun 4, 2017 16:26
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drrockso20 posted:I can't remember(been busy the last couple of weeks due to a family tragedy), who was it that wanted to buy my copy of Marvel Heroic, cause I still have it and am still interested in selling it This was me, btw
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Jun 4, 2017 20:45
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Plutonis posted:And the Confederate Victory timeline ironically ends with the US bigger than OTL after annexing Canada and the CSA that had bought land from Mexico upon their victory on WW2 Superstates are more common in alt history than zeppelins.
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Jun 5, 2017 03:30
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Moriatti posted:This was me, btw Thanks, mind posting your Skype again, I'll probably message you about this tomorrow
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Jun 5, 2017 03:45
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This weekend my fiance and I were spending time with her little brother, who is ten. He wanted to learn how to play Magic, so we went to our FLGS and got him a starter deck. He picked up on it quick and is very much enjoying himself. While we were there he wandered around excitedly asking what things were, and while he was looking through RPGs and ended up getting very attached to The Warren, a PbtA game about rabbits. We picked up a copy of that and we played for a few hours that evening with a couple friends. It's great, as PbtA stuff usually is. The next day he wanted to try another RPG before he had to go home so I ran a short, tonally cleaned up Shadow of the Demon Lord session just because it's very quick to get going and we had a great time going on a werewolf hunt. The werewolf turned out to be the mayor. There's no point to this other than, hey, sometimes people do actually have fun playing games. We didn't even talk about caster supremacy all weekend.
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Jun 5, 2017 14:08
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