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Halloween Jack posted:Playing devil's advocate, part of the propaganda for D20 was that there were too many publishers with mediocre in-house systems which they'd created just for the sake of having one. And that was absolutely true. In 2000 there were way too many house systems that all superficially resembled Storyteller/Shadowrun--even when the core mechanic was different, the character sheets looked alike. Yeah this was a new angle for me, but the System Mastery dudes did also mention this - the d20 license meant that if you just wanted to make a setting but weren't a mechanics guy, you could just piggyback off of the d20 mechanics and call it good.
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# ? Aug 9, 2017 15:32 |
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# ? Jun 8, 2024 08:33 |
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frankenfreak posted:Well, you seem to take his word for it, but in the same quote he says
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# ? Aug 9, 2017 15:42 |
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gradenko_2000 posted:Yeah this was a new angle for me, but the System Mastery dudes did also mention this - the d20 license meant that if you just wanted to make a setting but weren't a mechanics guy, you could just piggyback off of the d20 mechanics and call it good. Heck we're doing it now! Thanks Strike! Halloween Jack posted:Playing devil's advocate, part of the propaganda for D20 was that there were too many publishers with mediocre in-house systems which they'd created just for the sake of having one. And that was absolutely true. In 2000 there were way too many house systems that all superficially resembled Storyteller/Shadowrun--even when the core mechanic was different, the character sheets looked alike. While this was certainly 100% true, I find it weird that it would be a motivation for WOTC to try and fix the industry. It's not like lovely paperback Vampire clones like Nightlife and Legacy: War of Ages were going to tear down the industry, they were just going to quietly fail on their very own. theironjef fucked around with this message at 16:13 on Aug 9, 2017 |
# ? Aug 9, 2017 16:07 |
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Technically Vampire was a lovely Nightlife clone! (Vampire came out like a year later, but it was probably 'both of them were working on it at the same time.')
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# ? Aug 9, 2017 16:16 |
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unseenlibrarian posted:Technically Vampire was a lovely Nightlife clone! Oh man that completely ruins my personal fantasy narrative. Nightlife really looks like they took at look at White Wolf and said "I can get all this into one book." Instead, White Wolf saw them and said "They're leaving nerd money on the drat table."
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# ? Aug 9, 2017 16:19 |
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I only know Nightlife from the System Mastery episode but this cover will be forever a monument within my psyche.
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# ? Aug 9, 2017 16:24 |
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mango sentinel posted:I only know Nightlife from the System Mastery episode but this cover will be forever a monument within my psyche. Get off the drat tracks, mullet enthusiasts! You're holding up the 4:15 Ghost Cougar to midtown!
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# ? Aug 9, 2017 16:33 |
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mango sentinel posted:I only know Nightlife from the System Mastery episode but this cover will be forever a monument within my psyche. I've got this half-naked chick in my arms who's clearly into it, but it fills me with nothing but ennui. Might as well commit suicide by CatTrain.
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# ? Aug 9, 2017 16:40 |
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mango sentinel posted:I only know Nightlife from the System Mastery episode but this cover will be forever a monument within my psyche. Is that a parody cover because I recognize the woman from a lovely van spray meme
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# ? Aug 9, 2017 16:52 |
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unseenlibrarian posted:Technically Vampire was a lovely Nightlife clone! theironjef posted:While this was certainly 100% true, I find it weird that it would be a motivation for WOTC to try and fix the industry. It's not like lovely paperback Vampire clones like Nightlife and Legacy: War of Ages were going to tear down the industry, they were just going to quietly fail on their very own. As for the systems, it wasn't just White Wolf imitators that were doing it, either; Decipher, Last Unicorn, and Eden (just to name a few) all had these house systems where character traits are measured on a 1-5 or 1-6 scale, and some kind of Stat+Skill formula is the basis of the resolution mechanic. (Ironically, even though these systems all used a different mechanic, you could port characters from one system to another about as easily as you can port between D20 games.) White Wolf did this themselves; their system was inspired by Shadowrun but they changed the die type and the way the dice pool works. theironjef posted:Oh man that completely ruins my personal fantasy narrative. Nightlife really looks like they took at look at White Wolf and said "I can get all this into one book." Hey, when are you doing Afterthought again? It only took me a couple years to think of an actual question. Halloween Jack fucked around with this message at 16:55 on Aug 9, 2017 |
# ? Aug 9, 2017 16:52 |
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Plutonis posted:Is that a parody cover because I recognize the woman from a lovely van spray meme 100% real and unironic. Here's a splatbook.
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# ? Aug 9, 2017 16:57 |
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We replaced it in the time slot with Expounded Universe, which works well for us since it's different enough to almost count as a break. We have discussed restoring the Q&A sections of Afterthought with like an AMA or a Twitch stream, something like that. And no, that's the real cover of Nightlife. Got a copy right here.
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# ? Aug 9, 2017 16:57 |
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mango sentinel posted:I only know Nightlife from the System Mastery episode but this cover will be forever a monument within my psyche. That woman has very pointy nipples
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# ? Aug 9, 2017 17:04 |
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Len posted:That woman has very pointy nipples
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# ? Aug 9, 2017 17:05 |
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mango sentinel posted:100% real and unironic. Here's a splatbook. no bloodninja, it is you who is the lvl 2 druid and it is I who casts Lightning lvl 1,000,000
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# ? Aug 9, 2017 17:09 |
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Plutonis posted:Is that a parody cover because I recognize the woman from a lovely van spray meme Vox Valentine fucked around with this message at 17:35 on Aug 9, 2017 |
# ? Aug 9, 2017 17:29 |
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All in all, Nightlife is definitely an underrated game. The author kept working on it, too, although the latest version is hanging around free online because of their issues with the publisher.
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# ? Aug 9, 2017 17:32 |
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mango sentinel posted:100% real and unironic. Here's a splatbook. I'm the cat
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# ? Aug 9, 2017 17:40 |
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THAT one.
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# ? Aug 9, 2017 17:54 |
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gradenko_2000 posted:Yeah this was a new angle for me, but the System Mastery dudes did also mention this - the d20 license meant that if you just wanted to make a setting but weren't a mechanics guy, you could just piggyback off of the d20 mechanics and call it good. Of course most of the people who took this approach wound up creating something that was hot fuckin garbage and once the bubble burst most of it wound up cluttering shelves. If anything an argument can be made that the d20 OGL movement did more to cull the RPG hobby/industry that existed at the time than it did to help it flourish. But I mean this is Ryan Dancey we're talking about here, so.
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# ? Aug 9, 2017 18:45 |
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gradenko_2000 posted:Yeah this was a new angle for me, but the System Mastery dudes did also mention this - the d20 license meant that if you just wanted to make a setting but weren't a mechanics guy, you could just piggyback off of the d20 mechanics and call it good. Unfortunately, even given my not especially great opinion on d20, many third parties still managed to be exceptionally bad with the system.
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# ? Aug 9, 2017 19:15 |
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Kai Tave posted:Of course most of the people who took this approach wound up creating something that was hot fuckin garbage and once the bubble burst most of it wound up cluttering shelves. If anything an argument can be made that the d20 OGL movement did more to cull the RPG hobby/industry that existed at the time than it did to help it flourish. But I mean this is Ryan Dancey we're talking about here, so. The problem with the d20 crash is that it nearly took down the whole drat industry with it, regardless of whether or not you were involved in the d20 business. The proliferation of d20 and its impact on bottom lines became so pervasive that most companies (even White Wolf, which was the #2 company in the industry at the time) had to have a d20 product line because that's what people were buying. If you didn't get involved with d20, you went out of business because people/sellers were only interested in d20 products. While that last part isn't completely true (reading Appelcline's 2000-2009 history demonstrates that indie RPGs got their start around this time, and the notion of Ron Edwards/D. Vincent Baker making anything d20-related is kind of hilarious), that became the reality for a lot of larger, more established companies.
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# ? Aug 9, 2017 19:37 |
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LuiCypher posted:The problem with the d20 crash is that it nearly took down the whole drat industry with it, regardless of whether or not you were involved in the d20 business. The proliferation of d20 and its impact on bottom lines became so pervasive that most companies (even White Wolf, which was the #2 company in the industry at the time) had to have a d20 product line because that's what people were buying. If you didn't get involved with d20, you went out of business because people/sellers were only interested in d20 products. It's not just a matter of publishers feeling compelled to hop onto the d20 train that then got dragged under by the crash, it's the fact that when the bubble burst it caused a lot of brick and mortar game stores to go under as well since they were now sitting on a bunch of inventory that they probably couldn't have moved even if they did slash prices to an extreme. Indie games were getting their start around that time yeah, but they hadn't quite made the transition to the indie TRPG scene as it exists today where crowdfunding and PoD are normalized processes. I remember seeing games like Burning Wheel on game store shelves, and after a while that became less of a feasible option as more and more stores closed their doors.
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# ? Aug 9, 2017 19:55 |
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So basically the OGL is TMNT.
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# ? Aug 9, 2017 19:57 |
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Kai Tave posted:It's not just a matter of publishers feeling compelled to hop onto the d20 train that then got dragged under by the crash, it's the fact that when the bubble burst it caused a lot of brick and mortar game stores to go under as well since they were now sitting on a bunch of inventory that they probably couldn't have moved even if they did slash prices to an extreme. One of these stores doesn't carry any indie RPGs. Not even Dungeon World or Fate.
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# ? Aug 9, 2017 20:17 |
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Evil Mastermind posted:There's two stores I go to that still have shelves full of d20 poo poo they're never going to unload because they're trying to sell them at the MSRP instead of pricing it to move. How many combined feet are the length of the owner's beard and circumference of his waist?
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# ? Aug 9, 2017 20:20 |
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To be fair, a store that put Fate Core on a shelf would risk having to deal with an irate customer saying they were cheated by being sold something that is free online.
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# ? Aug 9, 2017 20:26 |
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mango sentinel posted:How many combined feet are the length of the owner's beard and circumference of his waist? The current owner's actually pretty slim, but it's very much a grog store. This is the place where, two weeks ago, I heard someone say that they play Pathfinder, but they have to ignore most of the rules to play it (which of course begs the question as to why they're playing it). This person also introduced someone to RPGs by sending her to the Pathfinder SRD.
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# ? Aug 9, 2017 20:35 |
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Evil Mastermind posted:The current owner's actually pretty slim, but it's very much a grog store. That makes sense, when I want to teach someone about the world, I send them to a 1970s encyclopedia set (A-E).
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# ? Aug 9, 2017 20:44 |
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Kai Tave posted:It's not just a matter of publishers feeling compelled to hop onto the d20 train that then got dragged under by the crash, it's the fact that when the bubble burst it caused a lot of brick and mortar game stores to go under as well since they were now sitting on a bunch of inventory that they probably couldn't have moved even if they did slash prices to an extreme. Indie games were getting their start around that time yeah, but they hadn't quite made the transition to the indie TRPG scene as it exists today where crowdfunding and PoD are normalized processes. I remember seeing games like Burning Wheel on game store shelves, and after a while that became less of a feasible option as more and more stores closed their doors. Oh yeah, for sure. It was a combination of smaller retail stores being unable to get that poo poo out of their store, and the larger stores (think Borders when it existed/Barnes and Noble) having contracts in place where they can just give back unsold inventory to the publisher by the truckload and get their money back. Evil Mastermind posted:The current owner's actually pretty slim, but it's very much a grog store. I'm guessing two things: 1. She doesn't play RPGs anymore. 2. Said store is probably terribly laid out, with product being placed throughout the store seemingly on a whim.
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# ? Aug 9, 2017 20:54 |
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LuiCypher posted:1. She doesn't play RPGs anymore. 2. It used to be; the place is chock full of ooooooold RPGs, board games, and PC games that are on 5 1/2 floppies. The current owner reorganized everything so now you can actually find stuff.
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# ? Aug 9, 2017 20:58 |
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Keep in mind when talking about Dancey that...you're talking about Dancey. The man has literally never once succeeded at anything and got by for years based entirely on nepotism. He's a con artist at best. I don't even know what he's doing in his post-Pathfinder Online failure life. Probably grifting someone new.
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# ? Aug 9, 2017 21:02 |
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Ryan Dancey is now an Extremely Cool and Good Director at Alderac Entertainment Group. https://twitter.com/rsdancey/status/894921983133048832
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# ? Aug 9, 2017 21:10 |
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He´s actually some sort of "director" over at AEG. His latest post was about preparing "pitch meetings" for the company at GenCon where people could come and present their game to him and AEG. Edit: I´ve been Halloween-Jacked. drat =)
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# ? Aug 9, 2017 21:10 |
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They took him back? Nepotism strikes again. Glad to see he's a giant shitlord to boot.
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# ? Aug 9, 2017 21:26 |
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Evil Mastermind posted:I found an interview with Dancey, and found the other reason: to wipe out other RPGs. Don't forget that Dancey was basically lifting the whole idea from the brand new and exciting open source software movement and a quick read of The Cathedral And the Bazaar - he's basically quoting the concept of many eyes making all bugs shallow in the second half of that snippet. However. It turned out that that was actually pretty much bullshit - Heartbleed among other things was a major bug that nobody noticed for years. Halloween Jack posted:Ryan Dancey is now an Extremely Cool and Good Director at Alderac Entertainment Group. So Dancey *is* the Eric Raymond of the RPG industry...
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# ? Aug 9, 2017 21:56 |
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No, I keep trying to tell you, he's the Vince Russo.
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# ? Aug 9, 2017 21:57 |
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Halloween Jack posted:Ryan Dancey is now an Extremely Cool and Good Director at Alderac Entertainment Group. I've never seen someone make so many tweets and get so few replies. ProfessorCirno posted:They took him back? Nepotism strikes again. Glad to see he's a giant shitlord to boot. Not only did they take him back, they did so just as they sold off their most famous and iconic property to Fantasy Flight.
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# ? Aug 9, 2017 22:01 |
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Halloween Jack posted:No, I keep trying to tell you, he's the Vince Russo. Ouch.
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# ? Aug 9, 2017 22:08 |
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# ? Jun 8, 2024 08:33 |
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I did an awesome thingslap me and kiss me posted:Playtest 006: Domain Management, Mass Combat, Mythic Foes
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# ? Aug 9, 2017 22:12 |