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Evil Mastermind posted:I don't know anything about Dark Eye, apart from the fact that it's a reprint of Germany's #1 fantasy RPG. I picked it up to see how it is. Beautiful book, and interesting world for pretty basic fantasy, but the skill system is mind blindingly bad.
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Aug 12, 2017 02:39
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Lord_Hambrose posted:I picked it up to see how it is. Beautiful book, and interesting world for pretty basic fantasy, but the skill system is mind blindingly bad. It is brutally fiddly, that's for sure. I've read the rules, but I've never played them. I had basically the opposite reaction to yours, though. I thought the skill system was interesting, but I thought that the setting was pretty basic for fantasy. It's Golarion or Abeir-Toril through a German lens (i.e., the designers have heard of the Thirty Years' War). "The North" is a cool and good North, and the middle latitudes have a few good Ruritanias, but the South is orientalist crapola. The skills, meanwhile, and I've never run or played it, mind, but they seem to me as though they accomplish the goal of inflicting MAD on every character class as a means to enforce the low-fantasy setting. Also the chargen is next-level brutal. Skill rolls are not simple, though, for sure.
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Aug 12, 2017 03:28
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I felt like it made for a good CRPG system solely because it was so utterly alien compared to what we are accustomed to otherwise that it actually made the entire game feel different (for better or worse, of course). Though yeah the system itself is pretty much the definition of "janky" overall. I hope the attention on this new English edition means that my ~2009 American release is now magically valuable. Probably not.
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Aug 12, 2017 06:23
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some loving LIAR posted:It is brutally fiddly, that's for sure. I've read the rules, but I've never played them. I had basically the opposite reaction to yours, though. I thought the skill system was interesting, but I thought that the setting was pretty basic for fantasy. It's Golarion or Abeir-Toril through a German lens (i.e., the designers have heard of the Thirty Years' War). "The North" is a cool and good North, and the middle latitudes have a few good Ruritanias, but the South is orientalist crapola. The skills, meanwhile, and I've never run or played it, mind, but they seem to me as though they accomplish the goal of inflicting MAD on every character class as a means to enforce the low-fantasy setting. Also the chargen is next-level brutal. Skill rolls are not simple, though, for sure. Oh yeah, the setting isn't breaking new ground for sure. But if you consider the age of it I think it compares pretty favorably with its contemporaries. One thing about character creation is that all the race stuff is all strong suggestions so you can ignore all the Dwarven bonuses and penalties if you want, which is different. All the skills requiring that you roll under three different stats, and your skill being a pool of points you use to modify those rolls is... Something.
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Aug 12, 2017 15:01
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S.J. posted:Are these games any good? Torg is functionally Rifts if Kevin Siembieda wasn't involved but it still committed just about every other capital sin of Rifts. Eternity apparently cleaned stuff up a bit but it's still about the same. The Dark Eye is exactly what you'd imagine if someone described a "fantasy RPG designed by Germans in the mid 80s" to you.
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Aug 12, 2017 15:55
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Nuns with Guns posted:Eternity apparently cleaned stuff up a bit but it's still about the same. The Dark Eye is exactly what you'd imagine if someone described a "fantasy RPG designed by Germans in the mid 80s" to you.
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Aug 14, 2017 01:14
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Nuns with Guns posted:Torg is functionally Rifts if Kevin Siembieda wasn't involved but it still committed just about every other capital sin of Rifts. Eternity apparently cleaned stuff up a bit but it's still about the same. The Dark Eye is exactly what you'd imagine if someone described a "fantasy RPG designed by Germans in the mid 80s" to you. So a game where the whole thing follows a regimented timetable and my only interactions with the GM are showing him my papers?
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Aug 14, 2017 05:50
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Comrade Gorbash posted:So Earthdawn with less magic, more tables, more nihilism, and a very grimy aesthetic? yes, yes, no, no I mean look at this  as heck amateur cosplay, the hair especially is just awesome on all the Ugurcan covershttp://nandurion.de/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/DSA2-Abenteuer-Basis-Spiel-Helden-Cover.jpg http://nandurion.de/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/Die-Schicksalsklinge-1992-Cover-Ugurcan-Y%C3%BCce.jpg Look at the big guys in this: http://pbs.twimg.com/media/B_Md9g9XAAEZiUv.jpg THOSE ARE OGRES!!! Goa Tse-tung fucked around with this message at 08:45 on Aug 14, 2017 |
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Aug 14, 2017 08:43
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To be fair, if this was back when DSA was still using Runequest/BRP as a base system, 'handsome as gently caress ogres' were the default. (Apparently based on a Cornish legend?)
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Aug 14, 2017 10:48
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Comrade Gorbash posted:So Earthdawn with less magic, more tables, more nihilism, and a very grimy aesthetic? It's grimy in the "grr! arrgh! We're doing D&D combat but better!" way, but not to the point of nihilism. Barudak posted:So a game where the whole thing follows a regimented timetable and my only interactions with the GM are showing him my papers? I guess so, if you follow the metaplot that flows continuously through the editions from the 1980s to the present. Your GM actions will certainly be limited by the prewritten adventures.
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Aug 14, 2017 12:25
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"More Than 1000 Ogres" is such a German title for an adventure.
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Aug 14, 2017 14:07
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Jimbozig posted:"More Than 1000 Ogres" is such a German title for an adventure. it's probably the best adventure of all time*, the final assault turns into a literal fantasy wargame with its own rules, a hexmap, and counters and poo poo *when you're 13
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Aug 14, 2017 14:22
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Goa Tse-tung posted:Look at the big guys in this: Just like they didn't explain to him how orcs have fur all over their body and are not just mongols with greenish-brown skin. 
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Aug 14, 2017 15:33
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unseenlibrarian posted:To be fair, if this was back when DSA was still using Runequest/BRP as a base system, 'handsome as gently caress ogres' were the default. (Apparently based on a Cornish legend?)
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Aug 14, 2017 15:53
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Frazetta ogres are now canon for my homebrew campaign. That campaign now has the following features: * Frazetta ogres
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Aug 14, 2017 15:57
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FMguru posted:Ogres in Glorantha are attractive, charming, charismatic - and also cannibalistic chaos monsters. My favorite fantasy setting by far. I've only run one session in it but it was glorious and easy.
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Aug 14, 2017 16:05
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FMguru posted:Ogres in Glorantha are attractive, charming, charismatic - and also cannibalistic chaos monsters. I'm aware! It's just that the description entry for them in multiple editions of Runequest mentions 'inspired by Cornish Ogres' and I've never actually been able to track down the cornish Ogres it's referencing.
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Aug 14, 2017 16:11
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unseenlibrarian posted:I'm aware! It's just that the description entry for them in multiple editions of Runequest mentions 'inspired by Cornish Ogres' and I've never actually been able to track down the cornish Ogres it's referencing. I think it's these guys.
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Aug 14, 2017 16:23
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Apparently Blood in the Chocolate won the Ennie for best adventure, and now I have to explain to my friends what Blood in the Chocolate is.
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Aug 19, 2017 14:58
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Yeah, I think so. I talked to him yesterday about it, he said it'll use a new d6-based system that'll be faster and unrelated to older versions.
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Aug 19, 2017 16:33
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Tales from the Loop cleaned up at the Ennies which is awesome, because Tales from the Loop is awesome. Any game based on this guys art had to do well. http://www.simonstalenhag.se/ Humbug Scoolbus fucked around with this message at 19:25 on Aug 19, 2017 |
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Aug 19, 2017 19:23
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Honestly, I'm not at all surprised about BitC winning, given the history of brigading in parts of the OSR community. What's baffling is how it got nominated in the first place.
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Aug 19, 2017 22:41
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Haystack posted:Honestly, I'm not at all surprised about BitC winning, given the history of brigading in parts of the OSR community. What's baffling is how it got nominated in the first place. Some community leader got really horny after reading it? Barely adapting a very popular movie plus more horror isn't exactly groundbreaking.
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Aug 20, 2017 15:38
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Haystack posted:Honestly, I'm not at all surprised about BitC winning, given the history of brigading in parts of the OSR community. What's baffling is how it got nominated in the first place. An OSR guy was voted into the judge's panel because judge spots are won by public vote, the judges pick the products from public submissions, and the public votes on the nominees.
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Aug 20, 2017 16:14
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Well, at the end of the day that's what's wrong with the Ennies: it's just a flat-out popularity contest. Quality isn't measured, probably because gamers will argue that "quality is relative" or "you can't say a game is actually bad" until they're blue in the face. I actually saw someone saying RPGs were useless a few days ago because "fun is relative".
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Aug 20, 2017 16:31
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All awards are popularity contests. If they weren't, they'd be called "reviews."  Their usefulness is primarily to the population their popularity represents, and we obviously aren't that with respect to the Ennies.
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Aug 20, 2017 16:35
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Tuxedo Catfish posted:All awards are popularity contests. If they weren't, they'd be called "reviews."
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Aug 20, 2017 16:56
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Evil Mastermind posted:There's also the fact that at no point does anyone have to say why something was nominated or won. What makes BitC the best adventure of the year, let alone the best product? What puts it above everything else? That fact that swollen blue women get raped 1d6 times through the adventure?
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Aug 20, 2017 17:25
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Humbug Scoolbus posted:Tales from the Loop cleaned up at the Ennies which is awesome, because Tales from the Loop is awesome. At first, I thought someone made a Miss Peregrine's series RPG. It looks more like stranger things, which still sounds really cool.
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Aug 20, 2017 23:40
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It's worth remembering that most of the problems with the ENnies are more features than bugs. The point is supposed to be that everything is chosen by the fans: they vote for judges who will represent their interests, the judges come up with the nominations, then fans vote. Fans sometimes vote for big name publishers for its own sake and it's really susceptible to Sad Puppies-style brigading (vote in a friend as a judge, they push to nominate your games, you vote for them as a bloc) but it's hard to change the formula without removing the whole fan empowerment thing they're supposed to be about. (It's also harder to stack the deck as much as the Puppies, because you'd have to produce enough material to dominate a category and somehow fill all the judge spots with your mates, so there's that.) One change I'd like to see is feedback. A while ago I submitted Breakfast Cult to a bunch of award places and I got really positive feedback from one of them—at least some of the judges even went through a session first, which is above and beyond what I expected. The judges of the others could have just added the PDF to their collection and not read it for all I know. It would probably be really hard to give feedback for every single nomination (and someone more likely to get bad feedback from strangers would probably disagree with me here  ) but a man can dream.
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Aug 21, 2017 05:58
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Really, as much as I want the game industry to pay professional editors and technical writers, I'd be glad if some game writers would even accept honest feedback. So many of them are so drat sensitive and/or arrogant they seem to think they don't need it. So having award-givers also offering "official" feedback might penetrate some few would-be aspirants as to their fixing points. It might not of course, the number of stories I've heard about authors going apeshit at publishers or editors who rejected them is just obscene.
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Aug 22, 2017 03:57
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occamsnailfile posted:Really, as much as I want the game industry to pay professional editors and technical writers, I'd be glad if some game writers would even accept honest feedback. So many of them are so drat sensitive and/or arrogant they seem to think they don't need it. Maybe it's because my day job is in advertising but I just do not understand that attitude at all. I submit game writing expecting extensive feedback from editors, and if I don't get it, my first thought is "i hosed that up so bad they don't even want to bother with revisions." Even now after several times writing for Eclipse Phase I still think that if Posthuman doesn't give me much feedback. For writers who think like this: you're not that good. No one is. That's why editors exist.
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Aug 22, 2017 16:12
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I mostly write investment memos with an intended audience of fewer than 20 people, and I crave people's feedback on form and substance as I put it together. I really don't get the attitude that admitting imperfection is worse than shipping a worse product.
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Aug 22, 2017 16:15
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It's just... dumb. Two of my writing rules which have helped me personally and professionally are that 1) everything you write is a chance to improve, and 2) every piece of feedback you receive is a chance to learn. Sure there's bad feedback, but part of being a professional writer is learning to identify that vs. good feedback and using it to learn and improve your craft.
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Aug 22, 2017 17:14
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Even feedback that I don't agree with or incorporate adds to my understanding of how an audience might receive my future writings!
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Aug 22, 2017 17:30
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Y'all talking this way about writing and feedback is very similar to how I feel about feedback on my coding. I guess pretty much every profession is like this, though.
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Aug 22, 2017 18:13
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On one of the first freelance fiction projects I did, the editor took the time to write me afterwards and thank me for being so flexible and professional with their feedback. I remember thinking "what, people AREN'T that way?" Now I've been around the block enough to know that those prima donnas are definitely out there. Again, I work in advertising, and worked my way up to CD, so I feel like it's just part of how this game is played and any little snot who comes in and doesn't take feedback is usually out on their rear end because we don't have time for that poo poo here, and I default to assuming that every industry is the same way but nope.
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Aug 22, 2017 18:42
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Peas and Rice posted:On one of the first freelance fiction projects I did, the editor took the time to write me afterwards and thank me for being so flexible and professional with their feedback. I remember thinking "what, people AREN'T that way?" Now I've been around the block enough to know that those prima donnas are definitely out there. Yup, there's a huge range in how well people take feedback. I once edited a rulebook for a game by a comics-industry influencer, who responded to a bunch of my edits and suggestions with phrases like "you're killing me." Other people, though, have told me I'm one of the kindest and most measured editors they've ever worked with.
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Aug 22, 2017 19:39
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My first piece of honest peer feedback hurt like a son of a loving bitch, especially since I was so proud of the piece I'd offered up. After the initial embarrassment cooled off, I felt enormously better because they'd given me enough praise on my other stuff that I'd wondered if they were humouring me. Not to mention that the crit I was given was 100% on point.
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Aug 22, 2017 19:59
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I think writing criticism is a bit different from game design criticism - the former has a much more developed lexicon and understood rules, and the latter has a not insignificant number of people championing the idea that it literally cannot be refined (because it's wholly subjective and thus all things are good for some people and bad for others) or thinking balance is bad or whatever. It's hard to have a mature, critical discussion of mechanics in most places people frequent like forums or conventions, so would-be designers never actually learn what those conversations should look like and critics/playtesters think it's appropriate to use phrases like "the combat is janky" when giving feedback. There's definitely people who are too sensitive to feedback to create polished games, be they tabletop rpgs, board games, or other, but I don't think the problem is as simple as "why can't other industries just be mature like mine, which has existed for well over a century, has significant cultural capital, and has a plethora of viable routes to it through academia".
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Aug 22, 2017 20:23
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