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drrockso20 posted:Honestly I wouldn't be surprised if for 6e WOTC just licenses it out to another company Sell the license to the guy who made Fragged Empire. If nothing else it'll be the most easily-referenced D&D edition ever made.
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Jun 21, 2017 14:03
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hyphz posted:It sounds much more reasonable put like that, but more importantly it assumes that the players will be OK with the GM fiating bad things onto their characters without the support of any rules or pre-provided text. There are plenty of groups that are not OK with that, even though a lot of roleplaying communities online seem to have a blind spot with regard to them. I believe that's why the "5e/PF with adventure modules" style has substantial coverage outside of those groups. That's definitely not how PbtA works, at least. When bad things happen to your character, it's explicitly as a consequence of something you did or a failed roll. If it ever feels like GM fiat, the GM is using the system wrong. Hell, PbtA games even have a list of moves for the GM to ensure that they don't just start pulling things out of their rear end or being unfair to players. I'm less familiar with FATE, but as far as I'm aware, it also has some actual systems when it comes to when bad things happen to your character.
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Jun 21, 2017 14:07
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Things being easily referenced is too "video game". What we really crave is an actively obscurantist edition of D&D (5e aside I mean).
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Jun 21, 2017 14:10
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The aspects in Fate are ideally chargen'd out so that they can both benefit and hamper the character, and the GM should be asking the player if they wanna have an aspect work against them in exchange for a plot point, so it's not just "bad things happen because I say so"
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Jun 21, 2017 14:12
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The GM can GM fiat bad things onto your character in every RPG. Using a different system won't change anything if you GM is an rear end in a top hat.
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Jun 21, 2017 14:14
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I'm interested in running Fragged Empire, but neither I nor my prospective players have experience with it. How painful is it going to be if I'm learning as I go, and my players have likely only skimmed beyond character creation? I'm not sure how resilient FE is to misunderstanding of mechanics or similar.
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Jun 21, 2017 14:16
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gradenko_2000 posted:3. The Warlock is cool and good - not only was it ported into 4e, it survived that and made it to 5e, as a Core class both times There's a Pathfinder port called the Avowed that's in Beta that's really good, too, even if some of the Pact options are a bit weird (I mean, who wants to be pacted to a literal trash monster?)
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Jun 21, 2017 14:18
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ChrisAsmadi posted:There's a Pathfinder port called the Avowed that's in Beta that's really good, too, even if some of the Pact options are a bit weird (I mean, who wants to be pacted to a literal trash monster?)[b] this actually sounds like it would own
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Jun 21, 2017 14:21
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Serf posted:also the book of nine swords ruled and factotum is my favorite D&D class  Because clearly, letting martial character have cool things is for anime and thus wrong & bad.
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Jun 21, 2017 14:23
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Serf posted:this actually sounds like it would own You get the ability to make animated garbage swarms. The capstone is making them sentient.
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Jun 21, 2017 14:23
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ChrisAsmadi posted:You get the ability to make animated garbage swarms. The capstone is making them sentient. Sounds great (aside from needing to play pathfinder)
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Jun 21, 2017 14:24
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Yawgmoth posted:I think you mean the Book of Weeaboo Fightin' Magics. anime is bad but the book of nine swords is good ChrisAsmadi posted:You get the ability to make animated garbage swarms. The capstone is making them sentient. drowning civilization in the refuse it refuses to reuse? 
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Jun 21, 2017 14:26
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ChrisAsmadi posted:There's a Pathfinder port called the Avowed that's in Beta that's really good, too, even if some of the Pact options are a bit weird (I mean, who wants to be pacted to a literal trash monster?) Oscar is a stand-up guy, once you get over the grouchy attitude.
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Jun 21, 2017 14:32
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ChrisAsmadi posted:There's a Pathfinder port called the Avowed that's in Beta that's really good, too, even if some of the Pact options are a bit weird (I mean, who wants to be pacted to a literal trash monster?) Had to find it Otyugh Pact owns, and a Self Pact sounds like a perfect background to play a Horatio from Endless Space.
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Jun 21, 2017 14:33
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gradenko_2000 posted:Had to find it this poo poo is 77 pages?? 
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Jun 21, 2017 14:37
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P.d0t posted:I read gradenko's post and thought to myself, "y'know, someone will read this, and take it to mean that all of those sourcebooks were completely good," and it just so happened that you are that someone. I don't know if it's an agreement so much as difference in what counts as the best, most innovative examples of 3e design. I'd totally agree that the EPH, TOB, TOM, and heck even The Magic of Incarnum tried. And note that gradenko said "they tried", as in you should take each book as a whole as an attempt to innovate. I don't really think one or two attempts at new gimmicks were necessarily the best, even if designers in the future looked back at those attempts to build something better. Especially when the books they come out of were otherwise a standard "casters get more nice things" and a book for a minis game. The warmage, warlock, marshal, and favored soul were all good tests and expansions of the system, sure. The warmage and favored soul were early attempts at the more limited casters and worked out alright. The warlock was similar while also testing out the limits of at-will, all-day powers and ignited a lot of debate on the practical limits of class powers that did pave the way for more flexible classes. The marshal was an interesting experiment with a class specialized in group buffs even if it was undermined by casters just being better at eveything while not going far enough with its abilities. Serf posted:also the book of nine swords ruled and factotum is my favorite D&D class The warblade and factotum are the best clases in 3e
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Jun 21, 2017 14:38
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fun factotum: shadow of the demon lord has its own factotum with the serial numbers filed off in the jack-of-all-trades
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Jun 21, 2017 14:41
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Let's not quibble - Nuns is correct that me calling out the entire book is maybe being a little too generous. I could have been specific.Nuns with Guns posted:The warblade and factotum are the best clases in 3e in a long campaign playing a Factotum/Chameleon with a Gnoll Warblade buddy and can confirm.
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Jun 21, 2017 14:44
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Subjunctive posted:I'm interested in running Fragged Empire, but neither I nor my prospective players have experience with it. How painful is it going to be if I'm learning as I go, and my players have likely only skimmed beyond character creation? I'm not sure how resilient FE is to misunderstanding of mechanics or similar.
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Jun 21, 2017 14:46
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Harrow posted:That's definitely not how PbtA works, at least. When bad things happen to your character, it's explicitly as a consequence of something you did or a failed roll. If it ever feels like GM fiat, the GM is using the system wrong. Hell, PbtA games even have a list of moves for the GM to ensure that they don't just start pulling things out of their rear end or being unfair to players. Again, there's threads of massive confusion about that on the RPGnet forums. The GM makes a move when the players "look to them to see what happens" but don't they do that immediately after they've declared their action, every time? And one of those moves is "use up their resources", so what stops the GM just pulling stuff out of their rear end to drain a party to nothing? Andrast posted:The GM can GM fiat bad things onto your character in every RPG. Using a different system won't change anything if you GM is an rear end in a top hat. What's different is how easy or hard it is to avoid being an rear end in a top hat. If you don't have the adventure in advance, then hitting the players with any encounter you're not certain they can handle will feel like fiat-bad. In most story driven games, there's no clear rules for how bad stuff happens to the character, so however it's interpreted is down to the GM. If you look back at those questions about being "on fire" in FATE, a lot of them came from the fact that nothing in the Aspect system explicitly allowed the GM to rule that the PC was taking Stress from being on fire, because it's just another aspect. What mindset asks that question? The mindset that wants to avoid any sort of GM-inflicted badness to the characters that isn't backed up by rules. You don't have to like the fact that some players seem to want to play like that, but the fact it comes up so often suggests strongly that they do. If there's no rules, then what's the maximum badness the GM can inflict and not be an rear end in a top hat? Now what's the minimum the GM they're supposed to inflict to to reasonably represent the stress and challenge of the setting? What's the overlap? D&D and its ilk make it nice and clear. I'm not an rear end in a top hat for putting you against this dragon, the book says you're the right level for it. I'm not an rear end in a top hat for rolling the huge damage the dragon does, it's in the book. I'm not an rear end in a top hat that you all got killed, Mike Mearls is an rear end in a top hat for giving dragons stupidly low CRs. But I'm in the clear and don't have to worry about my rear end in a top hat threshold every moment I'm running.
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Jun 21, 2017 14:48
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I ran Fragged Empire for the first time yesterday. None of us had played it before and I'm the only one who had read any of the rules. It went fine. It's not that complicated and most of the rules are pretty intuitive.
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Jun 21, 2017 14:49
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On the topic of DM fiat, one of the passages from Red Markets that stood out to me was:quote:The Market Will Win This doesn't "rear end in a top hat-proof" the design, for sure, and on the mechanical side, this is "just" Players Roll All The Dice, but it does create an interesting motivation for the table because there's always something that's going to happen unless the players work to prevent (or redirect, or reverse) it.
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Jun 21, 2017 14:57
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All Capitalists Must Be Eaten I kind of really want to get Fragged Empires now just because you're said it has a good layout.
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Jun 21, 2017 15:10
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hyphz posted:D&D and its ilk make it nice and clear. I'm not an rear end in a top hat for putting you against this dragon, the book says you're the right level for it. I'm not an rear end in a top hat for rolling the huge damage the dragon does, it's in the book. I'm not an rear end in a top hat that you all got killed, Mike Mearls is an rear end in a top hat for giving dragons stupidly low CRs. But I'm in the clear and don't have to worry about my rear end in a top hat threshold every moment I'm running. Rockopolis posted:I kind of really want to get Fragged Empires now just because you're said it has a good layout.  $22 US for the core and two setting supplements.
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Jun 21, 2017 15:17
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Gobbeldygook posted:Here's what their website says for "recent" tabletop releases: Just to go back to this, let's look at who actually wrote these books: Princes of the Apocalypse - Sasquatch Game Studio Elemental Evil Companion - Sasquatch Game Studio Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide - Green Ronin Curse of Strahd - Written by Chris Perkins and others not credited as WotC employees on the website, but it's not Green Ronin, so I dunno. A freelance thing? Storm King's Thunder - same as Strahd Dungeonology - Candlewick Press Volo's Guide - WotC Yawning Portal - WotC So they're doing about half as much of the writing as their already sluggish schedule would suggest. They mainly seem to be acting as an IP manager. The real glut of new content comes through their partnership with DriveThruRPG, which also takes very little effort on their part. The only things WotC has really dug into in the past few years are books that are retreads of old monsters and adventures.
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Jun 21, 2017 15:18
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Evil Mastermind posted:"I’m not out to get you. If I were, you could just pack it in right now, right? I’d just be like “there’s an earthquake. You all take 10-harm and die. The end.” No, I’m here to find out what’s going to happen with all your cool, hot, loving kick-rear end characters. Same as you!" - Vince Baker, Apocalypse World. What is this, a font for ants?
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Jun 21, 2017 15:19
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Evil Mastermind posted:Not very painful at all. Most of the combat stuff is handled in the list of actions. If you can follow those, that's a large chunk of the combat mechanics covered. Andrast posted:I ran Fragged Empire for the first time yesterday. None of us had played it before and I'm the only one who had read any of the rules. Awesome, thanks!
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Jun 21, 2017 15:21
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EverettLO posted:So they're doing about half as much of the writing as their already sluggish schedule would suggest. They mainly seem to be acting as an IP manager. The real glut of new content comes through their partnership with DriveThruRPG, which also takes very little effort on their part. The only things WotC has really dug into in the past few years are books that are retreads of old monsters and adventures. A lot of this stuff isn't even new. The DMG is a collection of chapters taken from earlier DMGs, right down to literal copy-pastes, lots of the art is taken from 4e, and the mechanical stuff are rules from 3e's Unearthed Arcana.
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Jun 21, 2017 15:27
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starkebn posted:a top idea guy that guy ChrisAsmadi posted:There's a Pathfinder port called the Avowed that's in Beta that's really good, too, even if some of the Pact options are a bit weird (I mean, who wants to be pacted to a literal trash monster?) Serf posted:it seems like the supplement treadmill is one of the few ways to make a consistent profit on a tabletop rpg. like if you're not publishing books, running kickstarters for more books, or publishing other games i don't see how you're gonna stay in business. Apropos of nothing, you gotta hand it to White Wolf for selling a ton of supplements based mostly on the strength of the writing, and not on stuffing them with new character options. Granted, there's a downside to their approach: people buying books to read and not to play. That doesn't hurt anything per se, but over time I found there was this negative effect on the fandom whereby people became preoccupied with their deep knowledge of the setting, sometimes sorta parading it around in a My Uncle Who Works For Nintendo Said way, which makes the game impenetrable to new fans. Like, when I played Exalted, the GM seemed to want everybody to know the setting as well as he did. I don't think needing to read a whole book to play a game is a good idea, unless you're talking some very niche setting like Tekumel or Glorantha where immersing yourself in an extremely rich, strange culture is the point. Halloween Jack fucked around with this message at 15:30 on Jun 21, 2017 |
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Jun 21, 2017 15:27
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Halloween Jack posted:Apropos of nothing, you gotta hand it to White Wolf for selling a ton of supplements based mostly on the strength of the writing, and not on stuffing them with new character options. Granted, there's a downside to their approach: people buying books to read and not to play. That doesn't hurt anything per se, but over time I found there was this negative effect on the fandom whereby people became preoccupied with their deep knowledge of the setting, sometimes sorta parading it around in a My Uncle Who Works For Nintendo Said way, which makes the game impenetrable to new fans. This is probably the core problem of the 40k RPGs in a nutshell. 40k has a fuckton of fiction already written for it, and people can be neck-deep in the fluff of 40k without ever playing any 40k-related game. This can cause problems when, as a GM, you decide to do something cool (non gender-specific Space Marines) to help new players get into it and some nerd's hackles get raised and he goes off on you for not being lore-appropriate. Which is why you sit down and play Rogue Trader instead and promptly tell that person they're not in the Imperium anymore and everything they know is wrong
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Jun 21, 2017 15:35
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Halloween Jack posted:The Alan Conway of the Leo Bloom of the Steve Jobs of things. PCs in White Wolf games are so inextricably a part of the fabric of the setting (no weave pun intended) that players should probably know about it. Not encyclopedic, but should probably be able to give a run down of the big factions and players. Wanting people to have read expanded fiction books is a bit much, maybe just give them a study sheet handout if you really need to supplement.
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Jun 21, 2017 15:36
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Halloween Jack posted:Like, when I played Exalted, the GM seemed to want everybody to know the setting as well as he did. I don't think needing to read a whole book to play a game is a good idea, unless you're talking some very niche setting like Tekumel or Glorantha where immersing yourself in an extremely rich, strange culture is the point. My players would rebel if they had to read anything related to the setting.
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Jun 21, 2017 15:36
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Nuns with Guns posted:I don't know if it's an agreement so much as difference in what counts as the best, most innovative examples of 3e design. LuiCypher posted:Which is why you sit down and play Rogue Trader instead and promptly tell that person they're not in the Imperium anymore and everything they know is wrong
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Jun 21, 2017 15:38
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hyphz posted:Again, there's threads of massive confusion about that on the RPGnet forums. The GM makes a move when the players "look to them to see what happens" but don't they do that immediately after they've declared their action, every time? And one of those moves is "use up their resources", so what stops the GM just pulling stuff out of their rear end to drain a party to nothing? "Make a move when they look to you" is meant to be trumped by "if a player describes doing something that fits a move, tell them to roll a move". I can't remember exactly how clear that's made in the rulebook, but without that players would technically never get to roll anything, so the intent is pretty cut-and-dry. In general, you can only make a "hard move" (one which actually has a negative effect on the character) if a player has rolled a 6- or has ignored a "soft move" (a warning of oncoming danger). You can't just take someone's sword away without giving them any chance to engage with the mechanics. There's still room for arguments as to whether a player has ignored a soft move, of course, but that's a question of communicating the situation properly to players, which can cause problems in pretty much every game.
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Jun 21, 2017 15:44
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Halloween Jack posted:What puts a pin in 40K for me is that the way to have fun with it is to set your game on the margins of it. The way to have fun with 40k is play it like the crazy 80's and 90's version, not the grimdark they go for now.
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Jun 21, 2017 15:46
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Evil Mastermind posted:"I’m not out to get you. If I were, you could just pack it in right now, right? I’d just be like “there’s an earthquake. You all take 10-harm and die. The end.” No, I’m here to find out what’s going to happen with all your cool, hot, loving kick-rear end characters. Same as you!" - Vince Baker, Apocalypse World. Sure. So how much harm is it OK to inflict on them? How much is it OK to do? The problem with the "hard move"/"soft move" thing is that there's no actual list of which moves are hard or soft; you can use up PC resources as a soft move. But It's not even just that. Even if the GM balances everything perfectly, the feeling in play from the fact that the GM is making things up on the fly is not the same as knowing it already exists. I mean, how cheated did everyone feel at Lost when they were told the mystery had no answer? That'll be in your mystery RPG unless you work out the answer in advance, no matter how well you run it otherwise. The feeling that the evil dungeon was all in place and there are 5 goblins in the room because there are 5 goblins in the room, not because you decided to put some goblins in, and it's a fixed challenge that the players are pushing against (and even one they can compare their progress on with other players across the world!) is important for a lot of players. For all the neat innovations in RPGs, none of the new innovators seem to get that this stuff is important, so we're left with those players stuck with duff systems.
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Jun 21, 2017 16:08
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hyphz posted:
Dude, I've run Fantasy Craft, Eclipse Phase, Torchbearer, and Burning Wheel exactly in the manner you just described. Doesn't matter how rules heavy it is you can run any game by the seat of your pants. All it takes is good improv skills and a decent understanding the system as a matter of fact I hate to break it to you but most games are run that way. Very few people I know actually sit down and really plan out their s*** regardless of the system they're using. Most GM's might do some planning but most of it goes out the window anyway because you know players. I'm just saying but if you think we one hundred percent planned a lot of that s*** out I hate to break it to you but we did not. Even if we have the dungeon mapped out we might be making s*** up. I've had dungeon Maps where I just use the map and made s*** up in every room and no one noticed. You really can't tell the difference especially when you pretended to look at your notes.
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Jun 21, 2017 16:19
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Yeah, the layout for FE is ridiculously good. There's some stuff that gets put in weird places (it took me far too long to figure out where the hell maximum Endurance is, for example - it's under "Defence" in the combat section) but otherwise it's pretty easy to figure out what things do and there are lots of places where there are internal links/page references to other parts of the book. The combat action-breakdown section is arguably the most concise I've seen in a game: 
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Jun 21, 2017 16:25
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Halloween Jack posted:Like, when I played Exalted, the GM seemed to want everybody to know the setting as well as he did. I don't think needing to read a whole book to play a game is a good idea, unless you're talking some very niche setting like Tekumel or Glorantha where immersing yourself in an extremely rich, strange culture is the point. There were big chunks of Exalted that I feel like could run as Glorantha-type big rich strangeness, but there was just no cohesion to the setting, and a lot of the connective tissue was just boring dark-fantasy-by-the-numbers crap, and it didn't help that the core aesthetic really didn't support the weirder, more interesting stuff well. I'd still run a game set in Jenna Moran's 1E Malfeas, though.
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Jun 21, 2017 16:26
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To be fair, my experiences with Exalted are coloured by having played 1st edition, during college-age years. So my desire to engage seriously with The Curse and play Jason or Autolycus was rather overshadowed by the GM and some of the players driving everything towards Final Fantasy VII and harem anime.
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Jun 21, 2017 16:41
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