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ProfessorCirno posted:The whole loving point is to remove the idea that you have to spend hours pouring over the books to get just the right combinations of powers. That's not gameplay. That's homework. Events should be decided because of what happen in the game - not because of metagame decisions made before the game even started. This this this this
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Aug 27, 2017 14:57
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P.d0t posted:This this this this I've always had a feeling that detailed charges is actually there to shore up failures in the deeper system of many games. Like, the character generation is long and detailed because that's when you actually get to imagine your character doing awesome things. Once you're in the actual game, the play will be rather generic. I remember seeing a video game design video that talked a lot about how Overwatch made a lot of effort to ensure that you "feel like your character" in first person, even though all you see is their gun. RPGs really need to do a bit more of that.
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Aug 27, 2017 15:48
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13th Age used your character's background to roll skill tests, essentially turning every challenge into an opportunity to flesh out your character. More stuff like that would be absolutely welcome, but mainstream games have conditioned so many expectations.
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Aug 27, 2017 16:09
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I was doing stuff in town yesterday and I stopped by the chain bookstore to poke around for a bit. I checked the RPG shelf, and it was nothing but D&D 5e, Pathfinder, and a single Dungeon Crawl Classics core book (Starfinder was also present, but that's just Pathfinder again). The Pathfinder card game and Lords of Waterdeep were also there. It was kinda depressing.
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Aug 27, 2017 16:44
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Leperflesh posted:Wil Wheaton is repellently bad on camera and I don't understand how he still has a popular following. I mean, he's a perfectly nice guy and I genuinely like him, but my god, he is always fake-"on" in a really awful way. I imagine him trying to promote a product to the general public would actually hurt sales. I like his on-camera persona, for what that's worth.
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Aug 27, 2017 17:15
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Wil Wheaton's on-camera persona is, for lack of a better word, emphatic, and features cartoonishly precise enunciation. I often see nerds adopt this performative stance though it's hardly a nerd thing. It's very explicitly a performance and my preference is having that same amount of effort and practice devoted to a more naturalistic approach.
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Aug 27, 2017 17:29
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It's obscenely insincere. I don't care if he's the nicest guy on the planet, gently caress him if he won't drop the act long enough to play boardgames with his "friends."
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Aug 27, 2017 18:02
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moths posted:It's obscenely insincere. I don't care if he's the nicest guy on the planet, gently caress him if he won't drop the act long enough to play boardgames with his "friends." If you're referring to Tabletop, they're explicitly putting on a show. It's not 100% scripted, obviously...but people are obviously playing characters, not just sitting around playing a game.
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Aug 27, 2017 18:10
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Probably, I'm not 100% sure what I saw him on. He seemed fake as hell, and radiated a skeevy creeper vibe that I wish I could describe better. E: that might be what makes him relatable? Not for me, anyway.
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Aug 27, 2017 18:15
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I don't know anything about Wil Wheaton the person but as an actor he's fantastic at playing self-absorbed slimeball villains and I'm actually kind of sad that I've only seen him cast this way once, and for a relatively minor part.
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Aug 27, 2017 18:16
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Leverage or Big Bang Theory?
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Aug 27, 2017 21:00
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Lemniscate Blue posted:Leverage or Big Bang Theory? Dark Matter.
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Aug 27, 2017 21:02
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In this video clip, chris hardwick gives wil wheaton a christmas present, and for maybe 20 seconds in there, wil is entirely taken aback and surprised and delighted and you get a real genuine moment, before the "on" persona comes back. That's wil's actual personality and it seems great, I'd love to have him as a buddy. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7jvwMlAJBdA He's just really bad at his on-screen Wil Wheaton character, particularly the "I am super cheerful and enthusiastic about everything" approach. He comes off as a terrible 1970s gameshow host.
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Aug 27, 2017 22:10
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Tuxedo Catfish posted:I don't know anything about Wil Wheaton the person but as an actor he's fantastic at playing self-absorbed slimeball villains and I'm actually kind of sad that I've only seen him cast this way once, and for a relatively minor part. Don't confuse hating his character with hating his execrable acting.
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Aug 27, 2017 22:28
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Tuxedo Catfish posted:I don't know anything about Wil Wheaton the person but as an actor he's fantastic at playing self-absorbed slimeball villains and I'm actually kind of sad that I've only seen him cast this way once, and for a relatively minor part. He was good on Criminal Minds too, in the villain vein.
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Aug 27, 2017 23:59
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Wil read choose your own adventure novels to kids at local libraries, but also is a premiere Hollywood liberal "whattabouter". I don't find his on screen character particularly appealing or unappealing.
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Aug 28, 2017 00:18
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Golden Bee posted:Wil read choose your own adventure novels to kids at local libraries, but also is a premiere Hollywood liberal "whattabouter". If you look for 'milquetoast' in the dictionary, you'll find a picture of Wil Wheaton.
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Aug 28, 2017 01:33
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Comrade Gorbash posted:Yeah that's the sort of thing where Shadowrun fucks up. The problem is that the rationale commonly used to say "that's dumb" is also dumb. It's one thing to say "thematically this moves too far from the source material" (I don't agree but there's a legit argument that can be constructed here) or "the implementation of this is lovely, both in terms of mechanics and logic" (absolutely true). This is a pretty elegant way of putting this and it fairly obviously isn't even limited to cyberpunk given that those are all real scenarios and real reasons why 'privatization' has been a disaster in some places. I think one reason it fails in RPGs is that a lot of people don't fully understand that, and also are much more familiar with the trope of the enemy panopticon, and also the idea that they can always ultimately punch the right person to solve poverty/if they enthrone the right king all will be set to right/if they release the right damning evidence then justice shall prevail. Cyberpunk literature waffles back and forth on these areas though most of the authors lean towards their stories being bleak scrabbles for a small measure of victory against an enemy that isn't really an enemy. Cyberpunk RPGs are caught between the normal RPG power fantasy and those realities/genre conventions and they're not super-compatible unfortunately. Not to say that cyberpunk is wasted genre, but I think RPGs are always going to get it kind of wrong.
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Aug 28, 2017 03:59
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Corporate mediocrity is less compelling as an antagonist than frightening corporate competence. So the question is: if the corporations and their machinations are merely setting/background, then go ahead and make them blunder around a bit; but if your PCs are pitted directly against them, they may need to be unrealistically good at what they're doing in order for it to really feel satisfying to beat them.
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Aug 28, 2017 04:55
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AEG published a piece on what sort of games they'd be interested in hearing pitches about : https://www.alderac.com/2017-gencon-pitch-meetings/ I'm not actually going to pitch any games, but it's fascinating reading about what a publisher think about the industry. Does anyone else publish something similar?
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Aug 28, 2017 08:14
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Cthulhu Dreams posted:AEG published a piece on what sort of games they'd be interested in hearing pitches about : Yeah although it's not games in general SJGames puts out a GURPS wish list for which titles they're interested in seeing submissions on. Since GURPS covers everything it's a good peek into what lines they think sell well enough to be worth expanding.
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Aug 28, 2017 13:25
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Cthulhu Dreams posted:AEG published a piece on what sort of games they'd be interested in hearing pitches about : That sounds a lot like Dancey. I'm not saying I know it's Dancey, but it reads keenly like his writing style.
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Aug 28, 2017 13:51
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Alien Rope Burn posted:That sounds a lot like Dancey. I'm not saying I know it's Dancey, but it reads keenly like his writing style. It's got his email address listed lower down, so you're probably right.
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Aug 28, 2017 13:56
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Kwyndig posted:Yeah although it's not games in general SJGames puts out a GURPS wish list for which titles they're interested in seeing submissions on. Since GURPS covers everything it's a good peek into what lines they think sell well enough to be worth expanding. That's pretty interesting. SJ games general level of openness (showing sales!) always surprises me
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Aug 28, 2017 13:57
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potatocubed posted:It's got his email address listed lower down, so you're probably right. Ha ha, can't believe I missed that. I don't know if I'm proud or depressed I can recognize the way he writes now.
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Aug 28, 2017 14:02
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Alien Rope Burn posted:Ha ha, can't believe I missed that. I'm more impressed with how out of touch he is. He says he wants a Settlers, but Settlers sat on the shelves for years before it hit real mass market. Also his don't want list is basically everything he would remotely have experience with.
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Aug 28, 2017 14:12
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Leperflesh posted:Corporate mediocrity is less compelling as an antagonist than frightening corporate competence. So the question is: if the corporations and their machinations are merely setting/background, then go ahead and make them blunder around a bit; but if your PCs are pitted directly against them, they may need to be unrealistically good at what they're doing in order for it to really feel satisfying to beat them. Going with the whole 80/10/10% with how large corporations deal with problems, I'd be more inclined to run them as sleeping giants: for the most part, they simply can't be bothered to give a poo poo about what the player characters do, because their impact is minimal - they have so many revenue streams, research operations, etc. that they can just write off most runner actions as the cost of doing business and it'll have zero impact on their bottom line. Hell, since they control most of the laws they might even get a kickback from it. It's when players gently caress around with something that's way over their heads - something that actually affects the business - that the giant wakes up. And suddenly they realize - hopefully not too late - that their opponent thinks it's worth it to destroy an entire building just to eliminate them, a la Weyland Industries' Scorched Earth card from Netrunner.
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Aug 28, 2017 15:08
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Kwyndig posted:I'm more impressed with how out of touch he is. He says he wants a Settlers, but Settlers sat on the shelves for years before it hit real mass market. Also his don't want list is basically everything he would remotely have experience with. I am pretty sure my first thought with AEG selling off L5R was "Well, at least this company had a good run." Is this them desperately trying to find a product someone will care about? I have played a little Smash Up, and while a fun filler game it seems hard to prop up a company with. I think they have finally stopped shoveling 1000 versions of Love Letter to retail.
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Aug 28, 2017 15:12
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Lord_Hambrose posted:I am pretty sure my first thought with AEG selling off L5R was "Well, at least this company had a good run." Lovecraft Letter (groan) would beg to differ: https://www.alderac.com/lovecraftletter/
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Aug 28, 2017 15:29
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As a child I never would've believed that Lovecraftian...stuff would become so popular, but I also would never have believed it would become this sort of TVTropes Ranch Dressing that people would just pour on top of everything.
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Aug 28, 2017 15:36
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Halloween Jack posted:As a child I never would've believed that Lovecraftian...stuff would become so popular, but I also would never have believed it would become this sort of TVTropes Ranch Dressing that people would just pour on top of everything. BRB, prepping my pitch for "The Settlers of Fhtagn"
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Aug 28, 2017 15:46
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Keep going until we get Del Toro's "At the Mountains of Madness" movie.
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Aug 28, 2017 15:47
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FMguru posted:BRB, prepping my pitch for "The Settlers of Fhtagn"
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Aug 28, 2017 15:50
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Serf posted:Keep going until we get Del Toro's "At the Mountains of Madness" movie. And geeks hated it!
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Aug 28, 2017 15:53
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Geeks will always hate any long-awaited movie adaption of a popular property, because the movie will never match up with the perfect version they have in their heads.
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Aug 28, 2017 15:57
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Halloween Jack posted:He scrapped development because Ridley Scott already made it. I dunno, I thought it was pretty good. Still want to see a proper adaptation.
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Aug 28, 2017 16:00
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Halloween Jack posted:And geeks hated it! In the geeks' defense, everybody hated it.
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Aug 28, 2017 16:08
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LuiCypher posted:Going with the whole 80/10/10% with how large corporations deal with problems, I'd be more inclined to run them as sleeping giants: for the most part, they simply can't be bothered to give a poo poo about what the player characters do, because their impact is minimal - they have so many revenue streams, research operations, etc. that they can just write off most runner actions as the cost of doing business and it'll have zero impact on their bottom line. Hell, since they control most of the laws they might even get a kickback from it. Speaking of not being monolithic, the corps as a group really shouldn't be. Most of the time they have zero reason to cooperate in dealing with 'runners. Sure, the store across the street has security cameras pointed right at where the 'runners were - but that store is owned by Renraku, and the run was against Ares. Renraku has zero motivation to turn over sensitive assets to Ares - in fact they have reason to gently caress Ares as much as possible, even if they weren't the ones who hired the 'runners. On top of that, pissing off another megacorp is almost always going to represent a higher cost than whatever dickery you just suffered at the hands of the 'runners. The panopticon in cyberpunk is balkanized, and owned by entities who have no mandate to cooperate or to maintain "law and order" beyond a minimum effort to protect the bottom line. Corporate security staff is generally not opposing 'runners based on a principled stand against criminality. Even if they were - remember the FBI and local law enforcement notoriously have trouble cooperating. The main thing isn't to portray the corp opposition as either incompetent or hyper-competent, but uneven. If your plan falls into the 80% to 90% they've planned for, then it's difficult to impossible. What makes 'runners special is that they have the skills to find and exploit the 10% corner cases. In particular the best loopholes are the ones that are obviously dumb but wouldn't actually matter without bypassing something that's smart. That's the best kind of dipshit corporate behavior to use - where they've cut corners or been lazy because some other factor should cover for them. 'Runs really should be a matter of finding or making a bunch of small holes in each security layer and lining them up in an unexpected way. Look at heist movies - pretty much all of them include a line to the effect of "we've found dumb oversight X and we have the skill to bypass security measure Y, but that still leaves Z." And then they have to come up with something crazy that only they can manage to deal with Z. In Ocean's 11, the oversight was that the target casinos were lax on floor employee background checks (they slipped a team member onto the staff and got other info/resources from a disgruntled employee), because they thought it wouldn't matter given their technological security. The security measure they could bypass by skill was getting into the vault (this later was complicated and required a new crazy plan when the target found the exploit and fixed it). Getting out again, though, required a crazy plan that only that particular crew could pull off.
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Aug 28, 2017 16:11
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moths posted:In the geeks' defense, everybody hated it. Comrade Gorbash posted:I totally agree. Most of the time the 'runners aren't dealing with the megacorp as whole, but a local branch and it's particular managers who are trying to climb that corporate ladder. It might be life or death for the local VP if their project comes off, but it's a rounding error for the corp as a whole, and chances are there's an ambitious junior exec ready to take their place (and probably stabbing the VP in the back already). That's another part to remember - corps aren't monolithic. Every time a 'runner crew takes out a corp project, there's a decent chance the execs they piss off get the axe and new management slides in, without any vested interested in wasting time and money in chasing down the 'runners. If the 'runners make too much of a nuisance then the whole might of the corp might be unleashed, but that should be an unusual circumstance. The entire premise of Shadowrun is that you are deniable assets hired by an unknown person to commit crimes for unknown reasons. Whatever megacorp you are operating against should have no reason, what-so-loving-ever, to track you down. Yet an absurd amount of Shadowrun flavour fiction involves the runners being hosed over by Mr. Johnson and hunted down by whatever corporation they were targeting. It's funny how 90% of all shadowruns are false-flag operations. Halloween Jack fucked around with this message at 16:46 on Aug 28, 2017 |
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Aug 28, 2017 16:38
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Halloween Jack posted:Nah, it was a critical and commercial success. It's places like RedLetterMedia or whatever that get people thinking that everyone hated every film. Halloween Jack posted:Nah, it was a critical and commercial success. It's places like RedLetterMedia or whatever that get people thinking that everyone hated every film. The double-cross from the Johnson on the other hand is definitely massively overused and lazy as gently caress. Comrade Gorbash fucked around with this message at 16:53 on Aug 28, 2017 |
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Aug 28, 2017 16:47
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