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Leperflesh posted:I think you maybe recognized this, but it sounds to me like Pandemic: Legacy is substantially more brittle in this respect than basically any RPG, even a campaign. Because RPGs generally have some kind of way to deal with an absent player - a designated alternate, or the GM runs the PC for a session, or one of my favorite options, pause the main action and run a quick side-adventure in the same setting with alternate premade characters that helps to flesh out the setting or explain what's going on nearby or maybe events in the main characters' distant past or something. This is possible in no small part because RPGs are (usually) cooperative storytelling games, and at its core, "cooperative storytelling" is an extremely flexible premise. People don't want this though. People playing an RPG want continuity within their group, that's the entire point of an RPG campaign. If a player is absent some groups might go on without them or have a substitute pinch-hit or whatever but the majority aren't looking for drop-in-drop-out games. I mean, I could have brought new players into the Legacy game too, there wasn't anything stopping me, the rules don't explicitly forbid it, but nobody wanted to do that, they would rather have waited until the group was together to play the campaign they'd started. I mean, until that proved impossible. The entire point of the game was to create a shared experience over repeated play, and it's the same for most people in the hobby when you talk about playing an RPG. The cultural inertia you talked about was that of people afraid to play RPGs for fear of being labeled a nerd, the actual cultural inertia you'd need to overcome is the fact that D&D defines what a tabletop RPG is for both the existing hobby market and people not in the existing hobby market who are at least vaguely aware of what RPGs are. That means ongoing campaigns and regular groups, leveling up, etc. I mean, Fiasco already exists and it's pretty much exactly what you're describing, but it isn't setting the world on fire and I doubt that throwing millions of marketing dollars at it would change that too much. Trying to turn RPGs into a successful business seems like a weird cart before the horse thing anyway. Don't you usually try to identify a need and then fill it? It's questionable how much desire there even is out there for RPGs in the first place beyond the market that currently exists, which is my entire point. Everybody seems to assume that all you need is one really hot license/a good marketing campaign/greater exposure and suddenly RPGs as an industry will explode but there's no real evidence this untapped market exists or what sort of product you'd need to create to tap into it.
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Aug 25, 2017 06:04
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See, I agree that the content creators should be reimbursed properly for their labor, but your solution seems to assume that those selfsame people would write for anything that vaguely mirrored RPGs, or that making the hobby mainstream would suddenly allow those projects to get notable funds. I'm not convinced that's the case - grassroots scenes being injected with corporate money doesn't generally lead to those who were involved in the original scene to blossom, it just creates a doppelganger that presents a facsimile of the original designed for mainstream consumption. Would Dr. Moran really be happy writing for this supposed industry? Maybe, I don't know, but I think we can agree that some element of her work would be lost if she were writing for large-scale commercial viability, even if it just meant not being able to put in notes about bishounen. And I'm not sold on the idea that making Dungeons & Dragons: 6th Edition which cribs heavily from the Magic: The Gathering model and is a roaring financial success will actually result in more money in the pockets of most indie developers. Kai Tave posted:People don't want this though. People playing an RPG want continuity within their group, that's the entire point of an RPG campaign. If a player is absent some groups might go on without them or have a substitute pinch-hit or whatever but the majority aren't looking for drop-in-drop-out games. I think they're suggesting that people do want that, just not "people who currently play [or are vaguely interested in] RPGs".
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Aug 25, 2017 06:33
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Kai Tave posted:People don't want this though. I don't believe you, or I, can flatly state this kind of thing, especially given people have not been marketed this... or anything, really. Goes back to the whole "marketing for RPGs in general has ranged from awful to nonexistent for decades now" thing. quote:People playing an RPG want continuity within their group, that's the entire point of an RPG campaign. 2. I explicitly advocated for RPG modes that do not require continuity within their group, and I don't believe you (or anyone) are qualified to dictate what "people want" given the total lack of market research. We cannot know what the much larger potential market of players wants without effectively informing them of their options, and to date nobody has ever done that. 3. That said, we know for a fact that "people want" casual gaming in many other contexts. And there are RPG contexts already that are non-campaign: go play an RPG session at any convention. Hell, check out PbP on this very forum: groups are ad-hoc and often quite short lived. quote:If a player is absent some groups might go on without them or have a substitute pinch-hit or whatever but the majority aren't looking for drop-in-drop-out games. I mean, I could have brought new players into the Legacy game too, there wasn't anything stopping me, the rules don't explicitly forbid it, but nobody wanted to do that, they would rather have waited until the group was together to play the campaign they'd started. I mean, until that proved impossible. The entire point of the game was to create a shared experience over repeated play, and it's the same for most people in the hobby when you talk about playing an RPG. Again, a board game where you are forced to take over the specific "character" of an absent player is not the same as a collaborative semi-freeform improvisational storytelling session in a fungible setting. I already said how RPGs could support casual drop-in play. And again, I don't believe you have special knowledge of what "people want," your subjective personal experiences being just like anyone else's subjective personal experiences. There is a reason why well-run professional product creation companies do market research, and it's because gut feels and personal experineces are absolutely worthless at predicting what a market wants, or thinks it wants, or can be led to wanting. quote:The cultural inertia you talked about was that of people afraid to play RPGs for fear of being labeled a nerd, the actual cultural inertia you'd need to overcome is the fact that D&D defines what a tabletop RPG is for both the existing hobby market and people not in the existing hobby market who are at least vaguely aware of what RPGs are. That means ongoing campaigns and regular groups, leveling up, etc. I mean, Fiasco already exists and it's pretty much exactly what you're describing, but it isn't setting the world on fire and I doubt that throwing millions of marketing dollars at it would change that too much. They're both issues but the D&D issue puts a lampshade on the point, which is that the popular widespread perception of what an RPG even is, is still defined by a game that hasn't been marketed to the general public for what, 20 years? 99.9% of the general public has never even heard of Fiasco, nor will they, without marketing... and effective quality product reviews that actually analyze mechanics and gameplay, and a push for a new audience that rejects or isn't even aware of the hidebound tropes clinged to by the regressive RPG grognards that are still completely dominating the industry. Also Fiasco is focused on a niche genre (hijinx capers where overly-ambitious characters gently caress up and lose due to their hubris, I guess). I think Fairy Tale runs closer to what I'm thinking of, although it's basically characterless, ostensibly a competitive game, and instantly breaks as soon as anyone actually tries aggressively to win. Still, both of these games represent attempts close to what I'm talking about, but are not marketed to the general public, so we simply do not know what the general public would think of them. quote:Trying to turn RPGs into a successful business seems like a weird cart before the horse thing anyway. Don't you usually try to identify a need and then fill it? It's questionable how much desire there even is out there for RPGs in the first place beyond the market that currently exists, which is my entire point. Everybody seems to assume that all you need is one really hot license/a good marketing campaign/greater exposure and suddenly RPGs as an industry will explode but there's no real evidence this untapped market exists or what sort of product you'd need to create to tap into it. You could have said exactly the same thing about collectible competitive fantasy card games before Magic, or about complicated nontraditional board games before Settlers of Catan, or for TV shows about zombies before The Walking Dead, or for books about vampires before Interview with the Vampire, or for luxury trucks before the explosion of SUVs in the 1990s, home video gaming consoles before the Nintendo, and so on. Sometimes the market has a vacuum that an innovator fills: and sometimes someone invents the iPhone and proves the market for smartphones is actually enormous and not tiny and niche and flooded with terribly designed products used only by nerds willing to master their obtuse interfaces. I'm arguing that this is a possibility, and trying to describe the attributes that I think are necessary for it to have any chance of happening. I'm not arguing it's inevitable. I definitely think it's impossible, as long as the RPG industry consists of an old-rear end revision of an older-rear end version of D&D, a handful of 5th Editions of games with their mechanical and setting roots in the 1980s, and about a thousand niche indie games made by semi-professional hobbyists living on top ramen or making their games in their spare time or maybe at best stringing together a bunch of contract jobs for less than the average high school janitor pulls down before overtime. I also think it's impossible as long as a majority of people who have any chance of making it happen buy into the story you're pushing, that "people don't want this." And I definitely think it's desirable. But I don't actually see how to get there from here. I can't realistically expect hobbyists and semi-pros to find the startup funding, experienced product development, experienced effective marketers, etc. etc. etc. to make it happen. e. Countblanc posted:See, I agree that the content creators should be reimbursed properly for their labor, but your solution seems to assume that those selfsame people would write for anything that vaguely mirrored RPGs, or that making the hobby mainstream would suddenly allow those projects to get notable funds. I'm not convinced that's the case - grassroots scenes being injected with corporate money doesn't generally lead to those who were involved in the original scene to blossom, it just creates a doppelganger that presents a facsimile of the original designed for mainstream consumption. I think similar to the movie industry, there's room for both. You've got your experimental films, your microbudget student projects, your films aimed at Sundance and Cannes, your shorts, etc. And you've got your mainstream hollywood and bollywood and made for TV etc. movies where a lot of people make a lot of crap but there is also clearly a lot of room for genuinely creative and talented people to make great movies and enjoy doing it. You've got plenty of other industries where amateur, semi-pro, and big budget pro efforts are all possible. Video games industry, board game industry, sports, music, restaurants, etc. RPGs aren't so fundamentally unique and different that this just isn't possible for this one specific industry. Leperflesh fucked around with this message at 06:45 on Aug 25, 2017 |
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Aug 25, 2017 06:39
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Leperflesh posted:2. I explicitly advocated for RPG modes that do not require continuity within their group, and I don't believe you (or anyone) are qualified to dictate what "people want" given the total lack of market research. Neither are you and that doesn't seem to be stopping you from talking pretty authoritatively about it.
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Aug 25, 2017 06:45
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Yes, I'm authoritatively presenting a personal idea for how the RPG system could possibly evolve into a much larger and more popularly accepted industry, while you are authoritatively telling me that people don't want this thing they've never been given the option to try. And specifically basing that on I guess your own experiences with playing RPGs and board games that are definitely not the thing I'm describing. Why is it so hard to even entertain the idea that maybe there's a future in which RPGs are a mainstream social activity, albeit RPGs that support casual drop-in play, are written by people with similar levels of competence and experience as seen in other large content creation industries, and are expertly marketed to the general public? Leperflesh fucked around with this message at 06:56 on Aug 25, 2017 |
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Aug 25, 2017 06:53
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Leperflesh posted:Yes, I'm authoritatively presenting a personal idea for how the RPG system could possibly evolve into a much larger and more popularly accepted industry, while you are authoritatively telling me that people don't want this thing they've never been given the option to try. Okay, well let me know when that happens.
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Aug 25, 2017 06:58
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I don't know if it will. Nobody does. But nobody looking at the Atari 2600 and people playing Zork on their IBM PCs in 1981 could possibly have predicted that in 2015, Activision would spend $5.9B to buy King Games, largely on the global success of the game Candy Crush, which well over half a billion people were playing on their phones. This thread about TG as an industry ought to have room for speculation on the future of the industry, and I find it very frustrating to see someone so knowledgeable about RPG gaming just flatly dismiss the prospect of the industry evolving and growing to become larger and more mainstream, especially on the basis of what I see as - and I apologize if this is insulting, it's not meant to be - spurious logic and anecdotes. ...more concretely, and perhaps more usefullly, I'd like to advocate for any change to the industry that could possibly lead to content creators getting paid properly for their work, and RPG companies welcoming and adopting the business practices that have been standard for essentially every other content creation/entertainment industry for a very long time. I don't know if that can happen without significant growth in the player base, and I don't see the current proliferation of essentially non-profit indie RPGs, as moving us towards that goal at all.
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Aug 25, 2017 07:08
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Liquid Communism posted:Yeah, but then you run into the same problem the writers realized they caused in 4e Shadowrun. Once there's a sufficiently advanced security panopitcon, career street criminals are a thing of the past. They're too easy to identify, so at best they are good for one or two jobs before they're useless. That doesn't make for fun gameplay. career street criminals arent a thing now sometimes you have to just go with the fantasy.
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Aug 25, 2017 07:17
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Speculate all you want but your logic and anecdotes are no less spurious than mine considering your point largely boils down to "it's possible...if you could somehow radically reinvent the entire TRPG market, prevailing trends and tastes, pour who knows how much money into marketing, and assuming there's actually a market for some sort of brand new streamlined one-shot drop-in-drop-out tabletop RPG." All sorts of crazy poo poo could happen in the future, but people have been making this sort of speculation literally as long as I've known there to be people discussing RPGs on the internet and so far the biggest and most significant change in the TRPG industry has been crowdfunded patronage doing away with the barriers to publication and production that led to the staunch division between "professional publishing houses" like TSR/WotC, White Wolf, etc. and eternal optimists dropping five figures to print their fantasy heartbreaker and having 10,000 unsold copies of their game grow moldy in their garage. I'm 100% in favor of creators getting paid what their work is worth, I fully and wholeheartedly believe that, and I also believe that right now the best way to do that is through Kickstarter or Patreon because unless you have a way to effect a massive sea change in the attitudes of RPG hobbyists as a whole they are never ever ever going to be willing to pay what creators are worth otherwise. Marketing efforts beyond that are going to frankly require an amount of time and money that I'm not convinced someone with the sort of time and money to put towards serious marketing campaigns is going to want to throw at a completely unproven quantity, for exactly the same reason why seriously skilled writers and game designers generally don't remain in the RPG industry but seek greener and more profitable pastures elsewhere.
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Aug 25, 2017 07:30
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Yeah I'm done. I don't think we're communicating with each other effectively and I've already poured way more time into this pointless back and forth than I should have.
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Aug 25, 2017 07:57
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cgl-era shadowrun has always been trapped between people whose idea of the genre is sprawl trilogy and bruce sterling AND NOTHING ELSE and people who want to modernize it (or maybe at least move forward to ghost in the shell) sr5/anarchy's complete lack of strong direction or a single authorial vision means it doesn't do either thing well
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Aug 25, 2017 07:58
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Cease to Hope posted:cgl-era shadowrun has always been trapped between people whose idea of the genre is sprawl trilogy and bruce sterling AND NOTHING ELSE and people who want to modernize it (or maybe at least move forward to ghost in the shell) I think the blame is mostly on how easy it is for fantasy and sci-fi works to be relatively timeless, while stuff that deals with modern technology has to change and adapt at the same insane pace that technology changes for us. The seminal pieces for fantasy and sci-fi/fantasy don't need to change that much, but a modern fantasy is a huge, everchanging bitch and Gibsonian views have been cute and antiquated since the late 90s at best.
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Aug 25, 2017 08:18
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I just feel the need to point out that "everything is wi-fi enabled and connected to the internet at all times for NO REASON but can still be hacked and probably used as a backdoor into everything else why the gently caress does this need an internet connection" is not the future, it is the present. Like, the things Shadowrun thought the future was gonna be really, really aren't that much dumber then the reality it ended up being.
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Aug 25, 2017 08:49
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ProfessorCirno posted:I just feel the need to point out that "everything is wi-fi enabled and connected to the internet at all times for NO REASON but can still be hacked and probably used as a backdoor into everything else why the gently caress does this need an internet connection" is not the future, it is the present. Except for the fact that most of the modern 'Internet of Things' options are opt-in or opt-out for anyone with a modicum of knowledge, whereas SR5E treats it more as a requirement. It's not so much about the future-of-now and more about the future-of-now-but-you-can't-choose-because-megacorps-shutup
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Aug 25, 2017 12:00
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Darwinism posted:Except for the fact that most of the modern 'Internet of Things' options are opt-in or opt-out for anyone with a modicum of knowledge, whereas SR5E treats it more as a requirement. It's not so much about the future-of-now and more about the future-of-now-but-you-can't-choose-because-megacorps-shutup Conceptually Shadowrun isn't wrong about its lovely IoT. Companies making really dumb, short-sighted, and self-centered decisions should absolutely be a feature of the Shadowrun universe. Where Shadowrun fucks up is it forgets why the IoT exists in the first place. The reason "smart" products are popular is you really can get a ton of added functionality with connectivity. Shadowrun adds wireless to a bunch of items that clearly could function without it, provides no benefit for it, and then has them stop working if connectivity is removed. That's dumb. Sure, in a few cases that's okay - a cyberarm with a wireless diagnostic tool that isn't properly siloed from its control systems is a reasonable quirk or defect - it also mirrors real life examples with things like pacemakers. But for the most part, having connectivity should provide a bonus you lose if you turn it off. It should be a risk/reward calculation in deciding whether to enable something or not, and if enabled allow a combat decker to close with you and potentially gently caress up your program if they can get something close enough to force a connection. But as pointed out, it got twisted into a way a decker could get involved in combat through the Matrix without having to be present, and a lovely implementation of that concept to boot.
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Aug 25, 2017 14:44
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Things like "this gun doesn't work unless it's connected to your PAN" are dumb. Things like "The +2 bonus you get from the camera sight doesn't work if it's not connected to your PAN" are fine.
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Aug 25, 2017 16:16
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Spartan Games is going under.quote:Following a prolonged period of challenging trading and despite the directors’ best efforts to manage through, Rebel Publishing Ltd was unable to continue to trade and the directors have taken the difficult decision to cease. All members of staff were made redundant.
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Aug 25, 2017 16:28
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That sucks. Didn't they just launch a new Kickstarter earlier this month, too?
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Aug 25, 2017 16:37
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Comrade Gorbash posted:It should be a risk/reward calculation in deciding whether to enable something or not, and if enabled allow a combat decker to close with you and potentially gently caress up your program if they can get something close enough to force a connection. But as pointed out, it got twisted into a way a decker could get involved in combat through the Matrix without having to be present, and a lovely implementation of that concept to boot. The other problem is that all these interpretations of an insecure matrix and easy-as-Hollywood hacking get messed up when the PCs are asked to participate in it. Yea, you can hack the data of a corporate exec if you're a skilled enough hacker, but your PCs should also have a reason why that data is on a similar hackable system and why they continue to allow it to be kept there. Otherwise you get stupidity like a Shadowrun PC not storing anything on their commlink and making a filofax instead(!) then laughing at everyone else putting data online. Granted, that is an attitude that some real world hackers have, but the classic cyberpunk ideal presupposes that the protagonists are part of the cyber system, not standing outside and laughing at it (although arguably that is considerably more appropriate for the "-punk" designation) hyphz fucked around with this message at 17:00 on Aug 25, 2017 |
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Aug 25, 2017 16:55
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hyphz posted:The other problem is that all these interpretations of a collapsed matrix and easy-as-Hollywood hacking get messed up when the PCs are asked to participate in it. Yea, you can hack the data of a corporate exec if you're a skilled enough hacker, but your PCs should also have a reason why that data is on a similar hackable system and why they continue to allow it to be kept there. Otherwise you get stupidity like a Shadowrun PC not storing anything on their commlink and making a filofax instead(!) then laughing at everyone else putting data online. Granted, that is an attitude that some real world hackers have, but the classic cyberpunk ideal presupposes that the protagonists are part of the cyber system, not standing outside and laughing at it (although arguably that is considerably more appropriate for the "-punk" designation) So a 'runner having a black folio to keep their most sensitive work stuff is fine. It just shouldn't be how all their business is run, because that would be suspicious and inconvenient as hell. What kind of business person can't accept digital payment? Again - real world, criminal organizations already take BitCoin. Some prefer it. Really it's the core issue of the system making it so connected devices have extra risks and no benefits, and going disconnected has no penalties.
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Aug 25, 2017 17:10
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Lemon-Lime posted:That sucks. Didn't they just launch a new Kickstarter earlier this month, too? It was just canceled. I could have sworn they were at Gencon too but that might have just been a vendor selling their stuff. They don't show up on the map so I'm probably sure that was the case.
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Aug 25, 2017 17:11
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hyphz posted:The other problem is that all these interpretations of an insecure matrix and easy-as-Hollywood hacking get messed up when the PCs are asked to participate in it. Yea, you can hack the data of a corporate exec if you're a skilled enough hacker, but your PCs should also have a reason why that data is on a similar hackable system and why they continue to allow it to be kept there. Otherwise you get stupidity like a Shadowrun PC not storing anything on their commlink and making a filofax instead(!) then laughing at everyone else putting data online. this is the opening scene of Johnny Mnemonic, only with a shotgun instead of a rolodex
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Aug 25, 2017 18:15
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Comrade Gorbash posted:This is not actually the case. A lot of lovely IoT products have opt-out in terms of whether the data is collected, not whether the connectivity is enabled. And that's discounting companies deliberately obfuscating what they're doing, or implementing connectivity features incompetently. A couple years ago one of the early smart home hubs had an admin panel that was searchable over Google, and didn't require a unique login credentials. There's also plenty of devices that are always listening, whether you turn off connectivity or not, and can potentially be forced open if someone finds them while wardriving. Improper siloing of diagnostic and control systems is almost the default rather than the exception. Shadowrun's universe has also had the entire Matrix, and the global economy with it, crashed twice in fifty years because of the failure of those responsible for it to be remotely capable of information security. The 5e Matrix is, in fact, designed from the ground up by the corps to attempt to prevent another AI from arising... and yet thanks to the writers, there's a whole underlayer of systems that nobody can apparently figure out how it is being produced. As in the people who designed the Matrix are not competent enough to track down what hardware all this poo poo that needs supercomputer-level resources is running on, and apparently nobody back at HQ has noticed all the wasted runtime on their vastly expensive hardware that's going to doing random poo poo that isn't their work. Shadowrun is the Internet of Things as written by people with less knowledge of how networking works than a kid with two cans and a piece of twine. Liquid Communism fucked around with this message at 19:43 on Aug 25, 2017 |
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Aug 25, 2017 19:40
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Liquid Communism posted:Yeah, but then you run into the same problem the writers realized they caused in 4e Shadowrun. Once there's a sufficiently advanced security panopitcon, career street criminals are a thing of the past. They're too easy to identify, so at best they are good for one or two jobs before they're useless. That doesn't make for fun gameplay. Counterpoint: Paranoia.
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Aug 25, 2017 19:58
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homullus posted:Counterpoint: Paranoia. Yeah, but Paranoia's whole thing is a relentless security panopticon that is nevertheless hilariously terrible at its job to the extent that literally everyone is a commie mutant traitor.
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Aug 25, 2017 20:00
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Liquid Communism posted:Shadowrun's universe has also had the entire Matrix, and the global economy with it, crashed twice in fifty years because of the failure of those responsible for it to be remotely capable of information security. The 5e Matrix is, in fact, designed from the ground up by the corps to attempt to prevent another AI from arising... and yet thanks to the writers, there's a whole underlayer of systems that nobody can apparently figure out how it is being produced. As in the people who designed the Matrix are not competent enough to track down what hardware all this poo poo that needs supercomputer-level resources is running on, and apparently nobody back at HQ has noticed all the wasted runtime on their vastly expensive hardware that's going to doing random poo poo that isn't their work.
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Aug 25, 2017 20:40
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The idea of rogue AI building an inpenetrable bottom layer of the internet that nobody can isolate is insanely cool, and that's vastly more important than realism. Not more important than good gameplay, of course, but that's a separate issue.
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Aug 25, 2017 20:45
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There's also the possibility that a literal wizard actually did it. E: vvv oops, forgot about that. I feel like it was an early attempt at balance. moths fucked around with this message at 21:16 on Aug 25, 2017 |
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Aug 25, 2017 20:49
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Tuxedo Catfish posted:The idea of rogue AI building an inpenetrable bottom layer of the internet that nobody can isolate is insanely cool, and that's vastly more important than realism. Not more important than good gameplay, of course, but that's a separate issue. Yeah, the issue is this isn't something a rogue AI did, this is apparently a 'natural outgrowth' of a less than a few year old system explicitly designed to prevent the possibility of rogue AI. Like most of SR 5e, it's an interesting concept, really really poorly implemented. Rules wise it's a direct analogue to astral space, because their lazy game design target for everything wireless matrix based has so far been 'can we just crib these rules from the magic system'. moths posted:There's also the possibility that a literal wizard actually did it. That'd be cool too, but the rest of the mechanics and writing still hold up that magic and tech don't mix because reasons. It'd sure be nice if there was someone actually vetting how all this stuff goes together, but the line editor is not remotely concerned. Liquid Communism fucked around with this message at 20:56 on Aug 25, 2017 |
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Aug 25, 2017 20:49
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Liquid Communism posted:That'd be cool too, but the rest of the mechanics and writing still hold up that magic and tech don't mix because supposed "Balance" reasons. The thing that annoys me is that 4/5e also introduced Resonance, which allows people to mentally connect to the matrix and the intelligent tech-spirit-things that live there. Of course this being shadowrun the rules for Resonance are horrifically parasitic and the horrific drawbacks far outweigh the potential upsides, and if you have even a single dot of magic you're forever forbidden from doing it because gently caress you that's why. It also doesn't work with cybertech because gently caress you that's why.
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Aug 25, 2017 20:56
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As far as minmaxing goes, I think part of what gives it such a bad rap is that in most cases, players don't do it evenly. It becomes an rear end in a top hat thing to do not because knowing the system is bad but because usually in a group, only one person cares all that much about it. And when a system allows severe power differentials between characters, you end up having one person stealing the show and everyone else left in the dirt. It really isn't a problem if everyone is doing it, but how often is everyone doing it, and how often is everyone doing it to the same degree? Like I remember back in the last irl campaign I was in (the one I left because everyone thought it was hilarious that the paladin decided his god was Niger, and it's not racist because it was named after the country, never mind how it was actually being used). And it was 3.5 which is the lowest hanging fruit as far as power differentials go, but whatever. Anyway I went in with what would have been a fairly modest build in the games I had been playing PBP, like a wizard but nothing particularly bonkers, the cheapest thing I did was specialize as diviner and bar evocation which was fairly common wisdom at the time. Fairly low level stuff with combat expected to be frequent, so I packed a bunch of grease spells. loving trivialized every encounter because I was the only one, player or dm who actually knew what my poo poo did and how to apply it. And that was the problem, not the fact that I did it at all. Of course a lot of the classic player problems come from everyone not being on the same page so this is no different, but yeah, it is a problem when the system allows players with different awareness of the system able to trivialize each other, sometimes even without realizing it.
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Aug 25, 2017 21:18
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Otaku / Technomancers / Weird Matrix poo poo In General has always been something in Shadowrun that is cool yet such a goddamn pain to use that you, uh, don't. Because the Matrix rules have always been more then a little hosed. But then, that's something basically all those older cyberpunk games suffered from - and still do if they're still around, which I think is only Shadowrun. Cyberpunk 20xx is getting revived...just not right now. Also the most unrealistic thing about Shadowrun has always been the idea that the megacorps are in any way good at their job or efficient in the slightest. An everpresent panopticon only means Runners get caught instantly if the people watching the panopticon notice or even give a poo poo with their garbage paycheck. Or that the panopticon actually isn't so interconnected for the sake of ease of use that a hacker can't just shut down or divert the whole goddamn thing. The idea that every contracted security guard with a lovely pistol is ready and willing to give up their life for their boss is hilariously dumb. SR5e at least made the point of stating the real threat on a run isn't getting caught, it's getting caught and sticking around long enough for the actual security team to arrive, and once you DO leave, so long as you aren't openly hurting the corp's rep, they aren't gonna personally go after you, because that's a pointless legal headache that's only going to cost them MORE money. Wasn't there even a thing a year or two ago where Walmart realized they were losing an absolutely hilarious amount of money to shrink - something every other store deals with - because they were so dedicated to loving over their employees, they didn't actually connect the dots and realize that those employees were the only things that ACTUALLY ensured their poo poo didn't get stolen non-stop? Like, the idea that the Matrix is so poorly put together and run because it's built by the megacorps who don't even understand how it works (because they just hired 'some egghead contractors' to do it) and they end up sabotaging themselves nonstop over their refusal to actually give a poo poo isn't fantastic or absurd, it's probably the most believable thing in the setting, is what I'm saying. EDIT: Like now I'm remembering people complaining about SR5 that "no company would ever allow as many security holes everywhere like the rules do" and buddy, I have bad news about real life.
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Aug 25, 2017 21:23
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It's also worth noting that minmaxing coming across as a moral failing got its start during a time where "play something better" was simply not an option. What game was I supposed to play if I wanted balanced heroic combat during the 3e D&D era? Even now balanced crunchy games are rare and many storygames get around the problem by not making combat something all players are expected to engage in equally (in addition to being a much shorter process). Of course minmaxing isn't limited to combat, but it generally stays just as messy if you start looking at things like divination or mind control.
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Aug 25, 2017 21:26
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Minmaxing gets a bad rap because nerds - like everyone else - are loving stupid, yet cannot comprehend the idea that they may not know everything. It will always exist for this same reason. Because the core root of the problem is that the game is poorly made. And yet, admitting that would be admitting that maybe A Thing You Like isn't perfect. What makes this worse is that, most of the time, the ones whining about minmaxers would absolutely do the same if they knew how. But they don't. Cue nonstop 3.x jokes about "you gotta stop minmaxing" followed by poo poo like "ban warlocks" or "don't let them multiclass more then once," as if those were ever problems. People who actually understand the mechanics know the game is at fault. Morons who assume they fully understand the mechanics blame the players. In the end, in the vast majority of cases, people getting mad at minmaxers is the same as people getting mad at someone who finds a real easy or broken character or combo in a fighting game. They aren't actually mad you're ruining the game. They're mad you beat them at something they prided themselves in.
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Aug 25, 2017 21:35
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ProfessorCirno posted:Minmaxing gets a bad rap because nerds - like everyone else - are loving stupid, yet cannot comprehend the idea that they may not know everything. It will always exist for this same reason. every loving person who tells me about their OP monk in 3.x
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Aug 25, 2017 23:17
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ProfessorCirno posted:People who actually understand the mechanics know the game is at fault. Morons who assume they fully understand the mechanics blame the players. Yes and no. First of all, the discovery changes the nature of the known game - if the players now feel they all have to play in a particular way, that reduces the experience. You could reasonably argue that the game was always broken which is fair enough, but the players won't feel that way if they've been enjoying the game for the last few months unaware of the holes. The other problem is that there seems to be a real jekyll-and-hyde in the mindset of many, if not all, RPG players over the experience they want. There's at least some extent to which an RPG can't have rules that directly deliver the intended experience because players reject them if they do. I've frequently heard players say they want a balanced game, but in practice any system with built in automatic balancing (like Rune) or with no possibility of the balance being upset (like skill checks in Strike!) sends them running for the hills. In the same line, when our local minmaxer came to Shadowrun with his ridiculous gun-bunny who blasted every encounter in seconds, he complained the game was boring because "I just shoot everything". I, the rather-annoyed-at-the-time GM, snapped back "hey, you spent hours trying to make absolutely sure your character could shoot everything easily. Why are you complaining that you succeeded?" Now granted, on one hand I can see the psychological reasons why that's not a valid point, but from the game design point of view it seems a completely valid one. Ron Edwards used to write a lot about the "ouija board gaming" mechanics where players want something specific but don't want a specific mechanism for delivering it, and about "no myth gaming" but this dissolves into cooperative storytelling which - while there's nothing intrinsically wrong with it - many such players just don't enjoy.
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Aug 25, 2017 23:59
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Some of the animosity is also received wisdom from the very original D&D games, where it made more sense but gamers just took it as gospel instead of paying attention to the context. The hatred of Monty Hall GMs is a classic example of this.
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Aug 26, 2017 00:49
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There are players who legit expect - perhaps not totally unreasonably - that while they are min-maxing their character to be uber powerful, the GM is min-maxing the antagonists in the same way; e.g., their minmaxing is necessary to meet the expected challenge. They may even feel aggrieved that their fellow players aren't putting in the effort to make powerful enough characters. In that context the complaint "I just shoot everything" may be expressing surprise that the presented challenge turned out to be much less difficult than they expected. ...probably more often, there's just no more thought put into it than "hey I discovered a set of rule synergies that let me have even higher numbers! Woo" and I have a hard time being mad at someone for doing that, either. It really is just, the game presented options that stack or synergize or were worded poorly to be interpreted as such; so players can but don't necessarily take advantage, leading to major power disparities between characters. And that's bad game design, period.
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Aug 26, 2017 00:57
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Leperflesh posted:There are players who legit expect - perhaps not totally unreasonably - that while they are min-maxing their character to be uber powerful, the GM is min-maxing the antagonists in the same way; e.g., their minmaxing is necessary to meet the expected challenge. They may even feel aggrieved that their fellow players aren't putting in the effort to make powerful enough characters. See, you're right it's not unreasonable, but at the same time it shows the problem. If you want a completely balanced challenge, flip a coin. What's the gain in making it "spend hours poring over the books to get the right combinations of powers, just to have the same result as flipping a coin would have had?"
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Aug 26, 2017 01:11
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hyphz posted:See, you're right it's not unreasonable, but at the same time it shows the problem. If you want a completely balanced challenge, flip a coin. What's the gain in making it "spend hours poring over the books to get the right combinations of powers, just to have the same result as flipping a coin would have had?" That is not what balanced means.
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Aug 26, 2017 01:38
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