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Kai Tave posted:I mean this is the best kind of parody. The thing about Snow Crash as well is that in some respects it was more prescient than the stories it was ostensibly parodying. I guess you could look at the Metaverse as an attempt to parody Gibson's take on cyberspace, instead of this fathomless digital galaxy of white-hot datapoints and killer programs you have a giant virtual chatroom slathered in ads, people with walking penis avatars, going through the motions of a virtual existence except it's all just pantomime...except one of these things actually happened. Honestly it should be both and weaponizing dick-atars should be an integral tactic to ~hacking the gibson~
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Sep 1, 2017 02:19
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Xarbala posted:A well-made, loving pastiche? Or maybe the original HackMaster RPG, which was both a hilarious sendup of oldschool AD&D and a really good (and even playable) example of an extended AD&D ruleset? vvvv: IIRC the creators of Second Life have specifically cited Stephenson's Metaverse as the key influence behind their work. FMguru fucked around with this message at 03:14 on Sep 1, 2017 |
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Sep 1, 2017 02:30
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Darwinism posted:Honestly it should be both and weaponizing dick-atars should be an integral tactic to ~hacking the gibson~ Even this already sort of happens. I remember at one point there was a way someone created to crash parts of Second Life, which is effectively Stephenson's Metaverse in all but name, but creating infinite numbers of bouncing Mario sprites.
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Sep 1, 2017 02:45
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With all due respect, we basically all already live in a lovely and incredibly stupid cyberpunk future. Demanding all cyberpunk be grim and pessimistic is the best way to ensure I loving never look at the genre again, ever. Like...quote:the bits about two-bit drug addicts or struggling mothers getting involved in stuff that's five orders of magnitude larger than anything they could ever comprehend because they had to score or put food on the table this week. You get that plenty of people are already loving living that, right? And it's not anything new? You aren't describing cyberpunk. You're just describing Basic Life In Capitalism. Like, you just described Fiasco more then anything else, except that's probably "not serious enough." I get enough misery in day to day life. Why the gently caress would I get a game that only promises more of that?
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Sep 1, 2017 03:42
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ProfessorCirno posted:With all due respect, we basically all already live in a lovely and incredibly stupid cyberpunk future. Demanding all cyberpunk be grim and pessimistic is the best way to ensure I loving never look at the genre again, ever. Like... This stuff is why I prefer the Pink Mohawk style of play for when I want to approach cyberpunk, honestly. Grimdark darkgrimness soaks into way too much poo poo.
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Sep 1, 2017 04:25
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Kai Tave posted:I mean this is the best kind of parody. The thing about Snow Crash as well is that in some respects it was more prescient than the stories it was ostensibly parodying. I guess you could look at the Metaverse as an attempt to parody Gibson's take on cyberspace, instead of this fathomless digital galaxy of white-hot datapoints and killer programs you have a giant virtual chatroom slathered in ads, people with walking penis avatars, going through the motions of a virtual existence except it's all just pantomime...except one of these things actually happened. Gibson's cyberspace is grim and serious, but it's a rather pure metaphor for the libertarian shithole that Reagan and Thatcher were working toward and which freaks and creeps like Beck and Hoppe still long for: an anarchic wasteland dotted with monolithic corporate citadels; full of stuff worth stealing, but you do so at your peril. But that vision quickly came into conflict with what the prophets of e-commerce were trying to sell us: an online world of total freedom and no limits, where prejudice was obsolete. Maybe you remember the MCI commercial about how in the future there would be "only minds?" MCI was bought out by WorldCom. So the anarchy of Web 1.0 was marked by cruelty and transgression for its own sake, as people loosed their collective id on a new medium that, unlike television, wasn't heavily regulated from the moment the first pixel lit up. And the most hateful, vicious, and sordid parts of the Internet, namely the alt-right, are very much a legacy from that era. What really defined the transition to what we call Web 2.0 was large corporations moving in and figuring out how to monetize human interaction online. Surprise! Apple and Google are just as evil as Westinghouse and Raytheon, and they're watching you gently caress.
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Sep 1, 2017 06:01
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Halloween Jack posted:they're watching you gently caress.
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Sep 1, 2017 06:03
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ProfessorCirno posted:You get that plenty of people are already loving living that, right? And it's not anything new? You aren't describing cyberpunk. You're just describing Basic Life In Capitalism. Like, you just described Fiasco more then anything else, except that's probably "not serious enough." And that's where the "punk" part comes in and makes the concept bearable, IMO, because fighting against the system at least gives you agency. I don't think people are complaining because there isn't enough grimdark and misery, but rather that focus is often moved from (relatively) normal people making a difference to cybered-up technowarriors with rad futureguns. It's like trying to write a novel that's all about low-fantasy shitfarmers, but you make Elminster and Drizzt the main characters.
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Sep 1, 2017 06:24
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Comrade Koba posted:And that's where the "punk" part comes in and makes the concept bearable, IMO, because fighting against the system at least gives you agency. yeah but you have to be Able to fight the power. two bit nothings doing petty crime isn't Punk, it's Grunge the problem with shadowrun is it's too big and too crunchy
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Sep 1, 2017 07:34
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Elfgames posted:the problem with shadowrun is it's too big and too crunchy This is pretty much the whole problem. It started with a desire to fully stat out Molly and Case and (honestly D&D but totally not guuuuys) wizards and got hugely granular in a way that just kinda drags the whole thing down. edit: Like, the fact that Molly has to spit to cry is roughly a billion times more interesting and makes for a cooler character than the fact that she has sweet-rear end cybereyes Darwinism fucked around with this message at 08:32 on Sep 1, 2017 |
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Sep 1, 2017 08:15
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Halloween Jack posted:they're watching you gently caress. No they aren't. 
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Sep 1, 2017 11:17
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neongrey posted:No they aren't. They would be if any of us were loving, and by that I mean millennials in general. MY problem with Shadowrun that hasn't been brought up yet is that whoever writes the vehicles and drones rules never checks with the person who writes the chargen rules so the prices are way out of bounds for certain archetypes to even be possible, let alone feasible. Like every edition talks about t-bird smugglers but a vectored thrust craft almost always costs between 2 and 4 times maximum starting resources and you can't pool your cash.
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Sep 1, 2017 14:35
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Shadowrun historically has a problem where chargen in general is slanted towards spending as many character points as possible on money, and then spending most of that money on one piece of gear, namely Wired Reflexes 2*. I actually did a couple one-shots where I said "In my campaign world Wired Reflexes doesn't exist" and it was an improvement. Characters didn't need as much money dumped into cyberware, and what they did buy was more interesting and versatile. *Edit: Or a Vehicle Control Rig, or your cyberdeck. Halloween Jack fucked around with this message at 15:56 on Sep 1, 2017 |
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Sep 1, 2017 15:07
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Kwyndig posted:They would be if any of us were loving, and by that I mean millennials in general. Halloween Jack posted:Shadowrun historically has a problem where chargen in general is slanted towards spending as many character points as possible on money, and then spending most of that money on one piece of gear, namely Wired Reflexes 2. I actually did a couple one-shots where I said "In my campaign world Wired Reflexes doesn't exist" and it was an improvement. Characters didn't need as much money dumped into cyberware, and what they did buy was more interesting and versatile.
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Sep 1, 2017 15:10
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Comrade Gorbash posted:Getting extra actions is always the most overpowered option in any RPG with turn based encounters of any sort, you'd think designers would clue into this eventually. Shadowrun is so frustrating. Five editions, almost thirty years, a cool premise (as long as you treat it as D&D in the cyber future and not an attempt to grapple with cyberpunk's social messaging) and tons of lore (some of which is quite good and interesting), and the core game design is still a mess.
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Sep 1, 2017 16:43
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FMguru posted:Yeah, Shadowrun was foremost in my mind when I said that granting extra actions without understanding how they unbalance the action economy was one of the three big mistakes of game design (the other two were unspent do-cool-things points as XP and dexterity as god-stat).
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Sep 1, 2017 16:57
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FMguru posted:Shadowrun is so frustrating. Five editions, almost thirty years, a cool premise (as long as you treat it as D&D in the cyber future and not an attempt to grapple with cyberpunk's social messaging) and tons of lore (some of which is quite good and interesting), and the core game design is still a mess. I've said it before, but I think there's a kernel of a great game somewhere in Shadowrun. The problem is that it's buried way too far underneath cruft like autistically-detailed rules for It turned way too hard into being/remaining simulationist in a day and age where there are literally a million better things people could do with their time than try to understand how the recoil rules work, let alone attempt to run the game. LuiCypher fucked around with this message at 17:49 on Sep 1, 2017 |
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Sep 1, 2017 17:46
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LuiCypher posted:I've said it before, but I think there's a kernel of a great game somewhere in Shadowrun. The problem is that it's buried way too far underneath cruft like autistically-detailed rules for ShadowRun: Anarchy was Catalyst's attempt to cash in on the storygamey, rules-light "adjectives as stats" thing FATE was doing, and it really comes close. It has its faults, but having run it (and as a con game no less), I would never ever ever go back to any version of ShadowRun prime.
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Sep 1, 2017 18:07
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Dr. Angela Ziegler posted:ShadowRun: Anarchy was Catalyst's attempt to cash in on the storygamey, rules-light "adjectives as stats" thing FATE was doing, and it really comes close. It has its faults, but having run it (and as a con game no less), I would never ever ever go back to any version of ShadowRun prime. you can have a moderate crunch game that doesn't over do itself to the point of absurdity without going into whatever shadowrun anarchy is
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Sep 1, 2017 18:17
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I just read some reviews and ordered Anarchy, and am mad that this is the first I've heard of it.
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Sep 1, 2017 18:47
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So here's the things about Anarchy: 1: about half the book is "designer tells you about their awesome character" pregens, which is pretty masturbatory 2: it is literally a cargo-cult of FATE, they add all the things a story-first system has, but not only don't understand why they're in there, but what to do with them. They literally say "what do these adjectives mean/do? Decide what feels right for your game" 3: holy poo poo is running this game pleasant, though. It's easy to stay out monsters and the ways to build relations and factions is sane.
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Sep 1, 2017 18:55
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Monte Cook Presents Shadowrun: Anarchy
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Sep 1, 2017 19:01
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This seems to just be how the Cue system works- even the first game using had character archetypes that were so spelled out they were basically pre-gens.
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Sep 1, 2017 19:01
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Dr. Angela Ziegler posted:2: it is literally a cargo-cult of FATE, they add all the things a story-first system has, but not only don't understand why they're in there, but what to do with them. They literally say "what do these adjectives mean/do? Decide what feels right for your game"
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Sep 1, 2017 19:30
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Yea, Anarchy is full of snobby comments about story gaming. "If you want to argue about what an attack is, go ahead and come back when you're ready to play." It could almost be a parody of that attitude.
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Sep 1, 2017 19:55
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Evil Mastermind posted:Cues are what bug me most about that system. Like you said, they look like aspects, and have the feel of aspects, but they don't actually do anything. They're just things your character says that could or could not be a basis for your actions maybe.
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Sep 1, 2017 20:16
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They're literally cues. Like, improv theater cues where you try to work a specific line or bit of business into a sketch. The Cue system is basically taking RPGs and slamming it into Whose Line is it anyway.
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Sep 1, 2017 20:20
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unseenlibrarian posted:They're literally cues. Like, improv theater cues where you try to work a specific line or bit of business into a sketch. The Cue system is basically taking RPGs and slamming it into Whose Line is it anyway. Whose Line is it Anyway? The RPG coming soon to Kickstarter.
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Sep 1, 2017 23:24
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Comrade Gorbash posted:The idea with the vectored thrust craft at least is that if you want to do a t-bird smuggling game, the GM gives you one, sort of like how most Star Wars games you get a transport a la the Millennium Falcon. Not that this is ever spelled out anywhere or anything, of course. And the other vehicle prices are still totally out of whack on their own. Starfinder sucks a lot but it does get this right. The party gets a basic spaceship at level 1, and it doesn't come out of anyone's resources.
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Sep 1, 2017 23:36
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Slimnoid posted:Whose Line is it Anyway? The RPG coming soon to Kickstarter. Those who back at the Mock Mochrie level get a mysetery box of props!
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Sep 2, 2017 00:23
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Cease to Hope posted:Starfinder sucks a lot but it does get this right. The party gets a basic spaceship at level 1, and it doesn't come out of anyone's resources. Yet another thing in Fragged Empire's favor - your ship is to at least some degree treated as another character, rather then a piece of gear.
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Sep 2, 2017 04:34
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ProfessorCirno posted:Yet another thing in Fragged Empire's favor - your ship is to at least some degree treated as another character, rather then a piece of gear. Merry...
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Sep 2, 2017 06:06
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How much of a clusterfuck is Starfinder space combat? From the stuff I saw before it's eerily reminiscent of Starships of the Galaxy, which younger me loved for how nitpicky it was but older me knows was a pile of hot garbage made of the worst kind of charop.
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Sep 2, 2017 06:07
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Darwinism posted:How much of a clusterfuck is Starfinder space combat? From the stuff I saw before it's eerily reminiscent of Starships of the Galaxy, which younger me loved for how nitpicky it was but older me knows was a pile of hot garbage made of the worst kind of charop. it's a wargame almost entirely siloed away from every other part of the game and large ships will immediately crush the PCs like a disposable cup
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Sep 2, 2017 06:10
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Leperflesh posted:As a technical writer I can say that yes, reference is excellent and many games do it really badly or not at all, to their detriment; but no, making a reference manual is not sufficient on its own, you still need introduction, concepts, tutorials, and procedures to be documented in accessible ways, and organized collectively in a well-signposted navigable format. The bigger issue for Shadowrun is that it is badly in need of a full reboot and rewrite. Going through four different companies, with the last of them being the flaming shitpile that is Catalyst, the setting has become schizophrenic when compared to what the rules simulate. For the vast majority of characters, there is no reason to be a runner. They can make better, safer money flipping stolen cars or doing grunt level magical crafting work three days a week. Thus gets even sillier when the setting goes on about full mages being "1% of 1%" of the populace, then has them dirt common living at street level and scrounging in the gutters. The game needs reworked. Anarchy was a half rear end attempt to ape the rules light trend, but the main game needs to be dragged kicking and screaming out of 1990's game design.
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Sep 2, 2017 06:31
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drat phone. Quote is not edit.
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Sep 2, 2017 06:38
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I legit don't even know what the metaplot is right now. That said, they could do far worse then...literally just openly stealing from Shadowrun: Returns and resetting it to that point in the timeline (pre-Bug City and Renraku Shutdown) and then adapting it to better technological progress since...well, look. We can maybe skip the fax machine 'ware this time. In fact, with just about everything involving Shadowrun, "they could do far worse then...literally just openly stealing from SR:R" is basically an eternal statement. I know L5R is doing that after being sold to Fantasy Flight, so we'll see how that sort of thing goes, I suppose.
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Sep 2, 2017 06:57
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I note SR:R (Dragon fall especially) cribbed happily from the German language only materials which still have a lot more of the neo-anarchist social warfare in them. Agreed on the metaplot, though. I thought they were going somewhere with the nanotech possession stuff, but that was apparently mostly a tie-in to Shadowrun Online, which crashed and burned like two thirds of their promised stuff from 2012.
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Sep 2, 2017 07:07
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How essential/important is the metaplot to Shadowrun, anyway? Because I feel like if I was going to run it, I'd only know enough to have an informed aesthetic, but I couldn't be more specific than "You've been hired to steal this datachip from a lightly-guarded warehouse on the corner of 5th and 3rd. It's night-time, and there's been a light drizzle of slightly-acidic rain for the last 48 hours. You're holed up in a roach motel about a block from the building with line-of-sight to it, and you can see the prefab wall with the electrified fence-top, the three CCTV cameras, and a couple of patrolling rent-a-cops. The employer wants it done tonight. You put down the cyber-binocs because the glare from the neon signs overlooking your window is making your head hurt. Five more hours to daylight. What do you do?"
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Sep 2, 2017 07:12
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It's mostly interesting as a backdrop. Overarching reasons why particular cities are hotbeds of shadow work, like the DMZ in Chicago after the bug spirit invasion, or the war in Azatlan.
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Sep 2, 2017 07:17
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