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Thesis: Character Sheets Antithesis: Deck of Cards Synthesis: Deck of Cards w/Character Sheet Apothesis: Wearing a fedora with your character name written on an index card and stuck in it
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Mar 28, 2018 21:34
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Dawgstar posted:Rage Across New York was especially awful. I remember how it said that unlike the awful white tribes, the Wendigo and Ukena only warred on one another for noble and pure reasons. It reminded me of something from, I dunno, MST3K or something - "My race is pacifist and doesn't believe in war. We only kill out of personal spite." Not to toot my own horn or anything, but Rage Across Australia is similarly bad. In which we find out that the European garou killed the Aboriginal Bunyip because they were fearful of their giant black marsupial dicks. Also that cereal grains are of the wyrm.
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Mar 28, 2018 21:49
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slap me and kiss me posted:Every rpg should be a deck of cards. Isaac Childres is a genius.
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Mar 28, 2018 21:53
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Cards suck. Shuffling is an even more dubious method of generating randomness than rolling dice and even if you're not using cards for that specific purpose, they're a bunch of little pieces that are fragile and get lost. I guess the upside is if you're playing a game where characters are built out of modular pieces that change during play they're a handy way to pull information that may not all apply at once together without writing/erasing or constantly referring to things in a book, but you gotta weigh that against the above. Tuxedo Catfish fucked around with this message at 21:57 on Mar 28, 2018 |
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Mar 28, 2018 21:55
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Megaman's Jockstrap posted:Thesis: Character Sheets Comrade Gorbash fucked around with this message at 22:09 on Mar 28, 2018 |
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Mar 28, 2018 21:58
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Tuxedo Catfish posted:Cards suck. Shuffling is an even more dubious method of generating randomness than rolling dice and even if you're not using cards for that specific purpose, they're a bunch of little pieces that are fragile and get lost.
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Mar 28, 2018 22:01
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Tuxedo Catfish posted:Cards suck. Shuffling is an even more dubious method of generating randomness than rolling dice So get away from randomness!
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Mar 28, 2018 22:05
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dwarf74 posted:The Gloomhaven modifier deck is a thing of beauty, though. Constantly improving your deck is a fantastic way of tracking advancement, and imo beats the hell out of die modifiers. Yeah I get it for Gloomhaven and Gamma World 7E, I just wouldn't want to see it become a universal standard.
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Mar 28, 2018 22:06
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Warthur posted:Now I begin to wonder whether the original Vampire was, like Star Wars, one of those projects which was saved in the edit... The original Vampire was one of those projects that was saved by a second edition. Not to say it wasn't a hit - it was - but it was the second edition that everybody remembers. That all being said, they owe a lot to their editing and layout team, but I wouldn't presume it was "saved" by it. But Nicole Lindroos' design of that book really, really helped it stand out from peers like Night Life. Kurieg posted:Yeah it should be a deck of cards and those idiots making vampire should just shut down already because they're cutting into his market share of "succubus" which is totally different than vampire for reasons. Using cards for character design is fine. It's the fact he can't design a system without it becoming a disaster of math that's the problem. Comrade Gorbash posted:This actually existed in a nascent form as the CCG Arcadia, which I still have fond memories of. It's also a White Wolf game, so possibly either the source of Rein*Heigen's idea or someone there heard one of his rants and decided to make an actual game out of it. A surprisingly enjoyable one too. I'm pretty sure Mark worked on that one (out of like four designers). It has a lot of ahead-of-its-time design but really suffered from the fact it was marketed to the CCG market yet really, really didn't fit the CCG mold. It really just suffered if you didn't happen to have a full set, wasn't particularly targeted at the quick head-to-head competitive play one expected from a CCG, and it had no real support or hoook to build the community it needed. It had neat ideas bolted onto some really bad trendchasing.
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Mar 28, 2018 22:25
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Tuxedo Catfish posted:Cards suck. Shuffling is an even more dubious method of generating randomness than rolling dice and even if you're not using cards for that specific purpose, they're a bunch of little pieces that are fragile and get lost. Cards seem like an ok way to keep track of your prepared spells or other expendable resources. Of course then you'd need a deck with multiple copies of each spell in the spellbook, because the wizard might decide to prepare 5x Fireball today. It'd work best with plain index cards that you fill in as needed, I guess.
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Mar 28, 2018 22:26
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As someone who's been balls-deep in Slay the Spire for the last month, cards as a way of generating a random array of options available along with a path to upgrades/character advancement seem like the platonic ideal and I have no idea how we even bothered with dice.
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Mar 28, 2018 22:34
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Kurieg posted:The werewolf books were not anywhere near as polished. The tribes backstabbed each other at every opportunity and their clan stereotypes were flanderized up to 11. Alien Rope Burn posted:The original Vampire was one of those projects that was saved by a second edition. Not to say it wasn't a hit - it was - but it was the second edition that everybody remembers.
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Mar 28, 2018 22:50
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Warthur posted:I've got 1E in hardcopy and 2E in PDF and I don't remember them being all that different, save that 2E has a nicer layout job and edit, doesn't have the ongoing story told in the art, and otherwise more or less has the same information, just presented in a slightly different order. So I guess you could count that as being saved in the edit. I don't think ARB is talking about the core book on it's own, as much as the Metaplot and supplementary books. The WOD Cores are rather densely packed with crunch and don't leave much room for the writers to wax poetic about how the Get of Fenris are actually for real double plus nazis.
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Mar 28, 2018 23:04
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Elizabeth Mills posted:As someone who's been balls-deep in Slay the Spire for the last month, cards as a way of generating a random array of options available along with a path to upgrades/character advancement seem like the platonic ideal and I have no idea how we even bothered with dice. Probably because, no matter how much people tout the "combat puzzle" aspects of modern D&D, most people don't actually want to solve elaborate puzzles every time they take a turn in an RPG.
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Mar 28, 2018 23:15
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Cards are a good way to force your hand (ha!) and make injuries or compulsions enter gameplay at unwelcome but controlled intervals. Cards are bad at dice-like randomness, but so what? The cards in an RPG do not need to be what determines whether you hit the goblin with your axe.
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Mar 28, 2018 23:22
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Kurieg posted:I don't think ARB is talking about the core book on it's own, as much as the Metaplot and supplementary books. The WOD Cores are rather densely packed with crunch and don't leave much room for the writers to wax poetic about how the Get of Fenris are actually for real double plus nazis. EDIT: Also, I believe 1E had the original and best version of the Mummy supplement, where it was fresh and distinctive and mummies were genuinely rare and the concept wasn't horribly diluted by trying to crowbar all sorts of other stuff into it. Warthur fucked around with this message at 23:28 on Mar 28, 2018 |
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Mar 28, 2018 23:25
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I think cards are great as conflict resolution tools, especially when players have access to a hand of them. Deciding when and where they'd like to spend their most useful resources or their character's most intense efforts seems way more interesting to me than rolling a die or hoping an RNG provides the desired result. But that's probably more design talk than Industry talk.
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Mar 28, 2018 23:34
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Tuxedo Catfish posted:Cards suck. Shuffling is an even more dubious method of generating randomness than rolling dice and even if you're not using cards for that specific purpose, they're a bunch of little pieces that are fragile and get lost. You don't need cards for randomness. I'd also kill for an rpg that released new character abilities like a legacy game rather than make me spend $50 on a new hardcover.
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Mar 28, 2018 23:34
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slap me and kiss me posted:I'd also kill for an rpg that released new character abilities like a legacy game rather than make me spend $50 on a new hardcover. Tear pages 103 to 156 out of your PHB and stuff them into envelopes. Open them when your DM says you've been a very good gamer. There, I just saved you a lengthy prison term.
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Mar 28, 2018 23:57
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Warthur posted:The 1E A World of Darkness supplement had John Dee as a Tremere mastermind, Crowley as a Malkavian deliberately tricked into thinking he was a Tremere to embarrass them, the Brujah as the secret masters of the Mafia, the original Hunedora Castle background, supernatural kitties, and Oscar Wilde running the world's best vampire nightclub in a buried ship in San Francisco. If that's wrong I don't want to be right. Related: Jim Morrison was a Cultist of Ecstasy. (Why, yes, Phil Brucato wrote that Tradition book. Why do you ask?)
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Mar 28, 2018 23:57
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Jimbozig posted:Tear pages 103 to 156 out of your PHB and stuff them into envelopes. Open them when your DM says you've been a very good gamer. I guess it was worth it
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Mar 29, 2018 01:38
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Warthur posted:I've got 1E in hardcopy and 2E in PDF and I don't remember them being all that different, save that 2E has a nicer layout job and edit, doesn't have the ongoing story told in the art, and otherwise more or less has the same information, just presented in a slightly different order. So I guess you could count that as being saved in the edit. In any case, it's not an edit Stevens had anything to do with.
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Mar 29, 2018 01:46
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Alien Rope Burn posted:Yeah. Geek Social Fallacies feels more relevant than ever to help explain why RPG companies and fans react so badly when these issues come up.
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Mar 29, 2018 01:52
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slap me and kiss me posted:You don't need cards for randomness. Hello, UA?
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Mar 29, 2018 02:05
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Alien Rope Burn posted:I'm pretty sure Mark worked on that one (out of like four designers). It has a lot of ahead-of-its-time design but really suffered from the fact it was marketed to the CCG market yet really, really didn't fit the CCG mold. It really just suffered if you didn't happen to have a full set, wasn't particularly targeted at the quick head-to-head competitive play one expected from a CCG, and it had no real support or hoook to build the community it needed. It had neat ideas bolted onto some really bad trendchasing.
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Mar 29, 2018 03:00
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I liked Milwaukee by Night- it's got its problems, but there's a real sense of desperation and danger that permeates it. Milwaukee's vampires are in bad trouble, it's probably too dangerous to leave, and nobody can get along with anybody outside their clique.
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Mar 29, 2018 03:00
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Meinberg posted:I think cards are great as conflict resolution tools, especially when players have access to a hand of them. Deciding when and where they'd like to spend their most useful resources or their character's most intense efforts seems way more interesting to me than rolling a die or hoping an RNG provides the desired result. But that's probably more design talk than Industry talk. I mean, Phoenix: Dawn Command already exists y'all. I have only had the chance to play one session, but the rules felt pretty good and the PC concepts were all super rad.
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Mar 29, 2018 05:39
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thefakenews posted:I mean, Phoenix: Dawn Command already exists y'all. I have only had the chance to play one session, but the rules felt pretty good and the PC concepts were all super rad. Sure but there's room for more games that explore the concept. Gloomhaven does some really nice things with cards, from the way you construct attacks each turn using the top portion of one card and the bottom portion of another which compacts a lot of possible options into a minimal amount of space while preserving diversity, to the modifier decks which are slim, minimal in overt randomness, and get modified as you spend XP on them (thinning out negative modifiers, adding positive ones, increasing your crit chances, etc).
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Mar 29, 2018 05:56
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Was thinking about how you'd design a card driven rpg earlier today inspired by Gloomhaven. One of the nice things aboutr the design of that game si that there's no arndomness in when your abilities are usable - you just have your whole stack of ablities and lose them as you rotate through your hand, then get to pick them up after you've used your abilities. The only thing about transitioning that style of combat to an RPG is that Gloomhaven's take on rpg combat is more towards 'puzzle' than 'tactics' than most players would be ready for. You can really gently caress up and get wrecked in Gloomhaven in a way that you can't if you're playing 4e. I wonder if Gloomhaven's model would work without that tight design?
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Mar 29, 2018 06:11
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Kai Tave posted:Sure but there's room for more games that explore the concept. Gloomhaven does some really nice things with cards, from the way you construct attacks each turn using the top portion of one card and the bottom portion of another which compacts a lot of possible options into a minimal amount of space while preserving diversity, to the modifier decks which are slim, minimal in overt randomness, and get modified as you spend XP on them (thinning out negative modifiers, adding positive ones, increasing your crit chances, etc). Sure, I'm just pointing out that it's not a particularly out-there concept, and there is an extant example of a bunch of the concepts being brought up in the discussion. Maybe I'm misreading, but a lot of posts seem to be talking about a card-based rpg character sheet, and/or card based resolution, in the abstract when there is actually a concrete example of a game that does both to point to. Edit: I've toyed with the idea of an RPG that uses the mechanics from the old Warhammer Warcry CCG. The cards in your deck each had a die value on the bottom of the card (often less powerful cards had better die rolls), and you flipped cards to generate rolls. So your deck was both your resources and your "randomiser". I think there's an interesting space to explore there. thefakenews fucked around with this message at 06:29 on Mar 29, 2018 |
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Mar 29, 2018 06:16
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Relevant:
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Mar 29, 2018 06:27
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I mean the core mechanic of Gloomhaven as described never sounded fun to me either, but I haven't actually played it.
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Mar 29, 2018 06:41
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Alien Rope Burn posted:Yeah. Geek Social Fallacies feels more relevant than ever to help explain why RPG companies and fans react so badly when these issues come up. I feel like a lot of the "jocks are popular, nerds are loser" basis behind these don't even apply anymore. Game of Thrones, not too long ago, was one of the most watched shows on Netflix, pretty much everyone plays videogames, there has never been a better time to be a geek than this one.
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Mar 29, 2018 12:31
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Never let reality get in the way of a perfectly good persecution complex.
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Mar 29, 2018 12:53
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NBA players are playing Fortnite, NFL teams get obsessed with Catan, and baseball has always been for nerds. The old signifiers of nerdiness are now ubiquitous and everyone likes to call themselves a nerd. But there are still nerds... not cool people who like nerdy things, but obsessive lonely geek boys and girls who are looked down on just as they have always been. I don't want to call them "the real nerds" because then it sounds like I'm gatekeeping. But we all know there is a difference between a celebrity who likes Star Trek and the kid who spends his time coding up a computer program to model a video game's combat so he or she can optimize and find the best strats. Maybe we call them both nerds, sure. So what is the word we can use for that difference?
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Mar 29, 2018 13:33
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Jimbozig posted:NBA players are playing Fortnite, NFL teams get obsessed with Catan, and baseball has always been for nerds. The old signifiers of nerdiness are now ubiquitous and everyone likes to call themselves a nerd. I mean, I guess obsessives would work. It's very rarely someones interests that make them social outcasts though, and more often has to do with how those interests are expressed, and with how that person presents themselves.
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Mar 29, 2018 13:43
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Either it interferes with other parts of their life (socialization, finances, hygiene, whatever), in which case it’s a problem that might deserve a label, or it’s just a hobby like any other.
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Mar 29, 2018 13:58
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Subjunctive posted:Either it interferes with other parts of their life (socialization, finances, hygiene, whatever), in which case it’s a problem that might deserve a label, or it’s just a hobby like any other.  For all we know, Vin Diesel could’ve memorized all the tables from D&D 2-5 but just doesn’t talk about it aside from mentioning it in some interviews and that one geek and sundry session. Some of those football players are HUGE weebs and could probably argue with you all day about DBZ and Master Roshi’s turtle’s power level.
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Mar 29, 2018 14:06
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Chill la Chill posted:
I mean, the guys from the New Day do let's plays in their spare time and once did their ring entrance in Saiyan battle armor.
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Mar 29, 2018 14:17
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Kurieg posted:I mean, the guys from the New Day do let's plays in their spare time and once did their ring entrance in Saiyan battle armor.
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Mar 29, 2018 14:34
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