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I'll be honest, I've dropped like $100-150 on Kickstarters before but it's usually for pledge tiers promising something along the lines of an art commission, and for commissioned art that's not an unreasonable price on top of getting an RPG. I can't really think of an RPG, just an RPG, that would make me want to spend $200-500 on it. Like I get that it comes in a cube and has a plastic hand and there's something there about bestoke adventure paths, but I just can't wrap my head around something that would make me think "this is totally worth it" even if it was made by someone who I didn't relentlessly make fun of. Greg Stolze might have a fuckin amazing idea for a brand new RPG but if he wants that much money for it I'm still gonna need a hell of a lot of convincing before jumping in and even then it might be more a case of "I'll wait 'til someone wants to offload their copy."
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Aug 17, 2018 12:32
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From what I have seen of Invisible Sun, the aesthetic could be replicated handily and at a lower price point by getting the game you want to play and spending a few minutes looking through Spencer gift. Buy some clothes or something with the money you save, you don't wanna spend the rest of your life looking like something that the cat brought in.
remusclaw fucked around with this message at 12:57 on Aug 17, 2018 |
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Aug 17, 2018 12:37
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I dropped 80 bucks on the Red Markets KS, but that's because I wanted to get the full-color hardback. I think I also did 80 USD for the Delta Green KS and all of those are PDFs, but that was because it's something like the Quickstart, the Agent's Handbook, the Handler's Guide, a bunch of different supplements, a dozen adventures, AND the GUMSHOE spinoff. The most I've ever spent at one time on this hobby so far was something like 150 USD for ASL Rulebook and the Beyond Valor game because you have to get both of them in one go or nothing.
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Aug 17, 2018 12:42
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Captain Rufus posted:But do you really need all of it especially to start playing? Or really at all? And will any of it even get used? The answer is pretty much no 99% of the time. Especially if you aren't playing dnd, 40k, or Magic. Yeah, you will, because Shadowrun subscribes to the Games Workshop model of rules errata, aka: Release Another Book.
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Aug 17, 2018 15:11
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I'd say the real "privileged" part of something like Invisible Sun is the difficulty in pirating it. If you're legitimately short on funds, piracy is the one true equalizer where RPGs are concerned, but a game that requires feelies like cards or special dice makes it harder to play without a physical copy. Not that it's something to necessarily endorse, but piracy is the perennial solution for poorhouse gaming.
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Aug 17, 2018 15:26
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Piracy is sort-of a thing, but I see "look at another player's book" so much more frequently that I forgot people even priate.
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Aug 17, 2018 15:51
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Alien Rope Burn posted:I'd say the real "privileged" part of something like Invisible Sun is the difficulty in pirating it. If you're legitimately short on funds, piracy is the one true equalizer where RPGs are concerned, but a game that requires feelies like cards or special dice makes it harder to play without a physical copy.
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Aug 17, 2018 15:55
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Yeah, book-sharing and lending is an important part of the hobby, I just view piracy as the extreme version of that.gradenko_2000 posted:isn't anti-piracy at least one reason for the deliberate use of feelies? I wouldn't be surprised, particularly in regards to Fantasy Flight's model.
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Aug 17, 2018 15:59
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gradenko_2000 posted:isn't anti-piracy at least one reason for the deliberate use of feelies? And so we come full circle from the early days of PC games asking you to use the secret decoder ring that came with the game for the password so you can continue to play.
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Aug 17, 2018 16:09
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Alien Rope Burn posted:I wouldn't be surprised, particularly in regards to Fantasy Flight's model. This was absolutely deliberate at some point, but I feel like they eventually dove into their reputation as the company that makes games with too many card decks. I think I could freak some squares at FFG by pointing out that you can track a value by moving a single cardboard token along a track.
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Aug 17, 2018 16:42
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in any society conspicuously awash in luxuries, not getting to partake in luxuries is literally a form of psychological torture, and the attitude that the poor are stupid for buying luxuries is pernicious and wrong. Particularly given the degree to which the wealthy actively promote luxuries. The question of privilege is irrelevant here because monte cook is not exploiting privilege, really; he's selling an inferior product at a premium price, and that's a different category of exploitation... not of privilege but ignorance. Or, perhaps some of his customers know exactly what they're getting, and what they could get instead, and still want it at that price, I don't actually know, but that is the crux of the matter. From the perspective of "how's the trad games industry" at least it shows there's still a significant customer base with money to spend, and that's a good thing.
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Aug 18, 2018 07:31
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I think it's bad for poor folks to buy luxuries when they could pirate them, instead. I don't think stupid is the right word, you don't have to be stupid to be duped into acting against your best interests. I agree with you that asking someone to simply go without luxuries amounts it's torturous. Maybe someone will transcribe all those cards...
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Aug 18, 2018 09:00
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No me knew exactly what they were getting because the Kickstarter was extremely vague on both sitting and mechanics for its entire run. I remember trying to figure out whether it was Occult modern or not and only being able to because a gun was offhandedly mentioned once.
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Aug 18, 2018 12:54
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Leperflesh posted:The question of privilege is irrelevant here because monte cook is not exploiting privilege, really; he's selling an inferior product at a premium price, and that's a different category of exploitation... not of privilege but ignorance. Yeah, as I said before, the Apple of Tradgames. Mors Rattus posted:No me knew exactly what they were getting because the Kickstarter was extremely vague on both sitting and mechanics for its entire run. I remember trying to figure out whether it was Occult modern or not and only being able to because a gun was offhandedly mentioned once. Yeah. Right near the end they had a "gameplay" video that showed it to be...something like a Cypher System game with 2d10s as the resolution mechanic. I think that's why we have the Apple-Tier marketing: "Amazing" Revolutionary! Groundbreaking. Because "I have a new Cypher System game and its gonna be really expensive" isn't really the seller people think it is. Monte cook sure does love his expensive poo poo, though, anyone remember Ptolus? As far as tradgames go, MCG is just an expensive as heck retailer of some decent TTRPG products. I don't really like Monte Cook Products that much for a variety of reasons, mostly that I can't get anyone to play them, and then once I played the videogame and realized that Numenera isn't supposed to be a simple medieval, dying earth esque world but rather a rainbow colored landscape where you find something bizarre and strange every ten steps, I lost interest .
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Aug 18, 2018 15:40
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Kai Tave posted:You probably shouldn't spend $300 on Shadowrun either tbh. Far too late...I started with 1st edition and have kept current.
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Aug 18, 2018 20:57
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The thing with Ptolus was that it was a shitload of money for an absolute shitload of content. Like you paid a ton, but it was actually worth it. And it had and still probably has the best layout in any d20 product ever. Invisible Sun was just gimmicks on gimmicks on gimmicks.
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Aug 18, 2018 21:10
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Arivia posted:The thing with Ptolus was that it was a shitload of money for an absolute shitload of content. Like you paid a ton, but it was actually worth it. And it had and still probably has the best layout in any d20 product ever. I have Ptolus and it was 100% worth the money.
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Aug 19, 2018 00:00
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That's the giant adventure city supplement right? That one looked legit cool and I wanted to run it on 3.5 when I still played it but I never found scans.
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Aug 19, 2018 00:04
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One of my friends won the Ptolus book the year it came out. He won the competition to hold the book out straight for the longest amount of time. Dude was huge; he happened to be dressed as a gladiator for it. (We were all with the booth selling foam swords and running the combat demos.)  
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Aug 19, 2018 00:37
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Plotus is pretty solid, though I'm always amused at it being one of the few 3.5 settings really designed with high-level spellcasting in mind, so you have a lot of hard walls set up to restrict stuff like summoning or teleporting. It's relatively well thought-out in that regard but also incidentally highlights some of the many ways spellcasters can run roughshod over settings in that game.
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Aug 19, 2018 14:18
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Alien Rope Burn posted:Plotus is pretty solid, though I'm always amused at it being one of the few 3.5 settings really designed with high-level spellcasting in mind, so you have a lot of hard walls set up to restrict stuff like summoning or teleporting. It's relatively well thought-out in that regard but also incidentally highlights some of the many ways spellcasters can run roughshod over settings in that game. And the price is fine (although a lot to swallow at once). You get more good D20 gaming material out of a $120 Ptolus book than out of $120 worth of, say, Scarred Lands products - and certainly much higher production values.
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Aug 19, 2018 14:30
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Alien Rope Burn posted:Plotus is pretty solid, though I'm always amused at it being one of the few 3.5 settings really designed with high-level spellcasting in mind, so you have a lot of hard walls set up to restrict stuff like summoning or teleporting. It's relatively well thought-out in that regard but also incidentally highlights some of the many ways spellcasters can run roughshod over settings in that game. The thing that I find funny about this aspect of Ptolus is that Cook once wrote an article (around the time of Ptolus's release) about how setting up roadblocks against high-level abilities like that is bad design. It's always better to design a scenario that requires a character's high-level abilities to complete, rather than one that prevents them from using them. He was 100% right, but I guess he couldn't follow his own advice. It was around that point I decided Cook really wasn't all he was cracked up to be, game design-wise.
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Aug 19, 2018 16:42
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I think the best way to summarize Cook is as an Ideas Guy cursed with actual, good, unexecutable ideas.
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Aug 19, 2018 17:23
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Falstaff posted:The thing that I find funny about this aspect of Ptolus is that Cook once wrote an article (around the time of Ptolus's release) about how setting up roadblocks against high-level abilities like that is bad design. It's always better to design a scenario that requires a character's high-level abilities to complete, rather than one that prevents them from using them. He was 100% right, but I guess he couldn't follow his own advice. I think that's one of those ideas that's definitely true if you also get to design the high-level abilities, but can be unworkable if you're stuck with, say, the high-level abilities available to a 3.5e D&D wizard.
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Aug 19, 2018 17:52
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FMguru posted:And the price is fine (although a lot to swallow at once). You get more good D20 gaming material out of a $120 Ptolus book than out of $120 worth of, say, Scarred Lands products - and certainly much higher production values. Yeah, it's fine. It's probably one of the standout d20 products, even as I realize that sounds kind of backhanded-ey, but Cook's credit largely comes from being one of the few publishers to put out d20 material of any substance. Flawed, to be sure, but few publishers ever overcame the inherent issues with the system's design philosophy, and he at least focused largely on innovation over explication. Of course, he's also a relentless huckster, and "so big!" products like Plotus and Invisible Sun play into his grandiose style of salesmanship.
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Aug 19, 2018 17:57
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Jeb Bush 2012 posted:I think that's one of those ideas that's definitely true if you also get to design the high-level abilities, but can be unworkable if you're stuck with, say, the high-level abilities available to a 3.5e D&D wizard. Ok, but he was one of the guys designing all those high level abilities. Cook is really good at loving up, looking at his gently caress up, going "well that's no good, people shouldn't do that," and then loving up in that exact same way again forever.
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Aug 19, 2018 19:57
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Holy gently caress why are there so many posts about the ethics of paying Monte Cook $500 to poo poo in your mouth? Also you guys know that it was "only" $197 to get the black cube with all the rulebooks, right? It was $539 to participate directed story campaign, and you could also do the $152 add-on to get the playtest rules.
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Aug 20, 2018 01:30
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Nuns with Guns posted:Holy gently caress why are there so many posts about the ethics of paying Monte Cook $500 to poo poo in your mouth? I think I opened up a can of worms because I don't think there's anything wrong with the product and there's nothing wrong with putting out products like this. It's literally not a crime, there is no moral responsibility to not use Premium Pricing. Some guy tried to offer up the embarassing and feeble excuse that "w-w-what if people try to do it too and they fail?" which literally isn't Monte Cook's fault and also isn't really a bad thing. Poorly run companies are done in by bad ideas all the time. Somebody else suggested that Every Single Game will fall into Invisible Sun territory, but I...can't see that happening. That's not how markets, economies, etc work. Basically it's been an interesting discussion and the only reason I stirred the pot was because it was...actual discussion. Not "gently caress monte cook." and "I agree. Invisible Sun is poo poo because it's EXPENSIVE!"
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Aug 20, 2018 01:44
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monte cook presents: literally not a crime
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Aug 20, 2018 01:50
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Jeb Bush 2012 posted:monte cook presents: literally not a crime zak s presents: maybe a crime?
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Aug 20, 2018 01:55
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TheDiceMustRoll posted:I think I opened up a can of worms because I don't think there's anything wrong with the product and there's nothing wrong with putting out products like this. It's literally not a crime, there is no moral responsibility to not use Premium Pricing. Some guy tried to offer up the embarassing and feeble excuse that "w-w-what if people try to do it too and they fail?" which literally isn't Monte Cook's fault and also isn't really a bad thing. Poorly run companies are done in by bad ideas all the time. Somebody else suggested that Every Single Game will fall into Invisible Sun territory, but I...can't see that happening. That's not how markets, economies, etc work. To be fair, it's on point with Invisible Sun to consider how its development was gated behind the privilege of being able to afford both the base rules and the playtest rules (if you wanted to be someone who would catch poorly-conceived ideas before they were put in the final product.) At least twice now, Monte Cook Games let stuff with deeply racist implications slip into their published books, and then was hostile towards anyone pointing out the racism. The Thunder Plains in The Strange was significantly worse than the "beaners" in Numenera, and criticism of it was justifiably louder and eventually did prompt MCG to issue a resentful "thanks to everyone who politely told us it was racist, we promise to do better!!!" As far as I'm aware their staff is predominately, if not entirely, white, and it's understandable for anyone to side-eye their future products based on precedent. Their position as a "well-meaning" company of white game devs kind of seems to be the current status quo of tabletop gaming at the moment, though, so it's not something I'd say they're uniquely guilty of.
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Aug 20, 2018 02:10
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Arivia posted:zak s presents: maybe a crime? Varg Vikernes presents: yeah, that's a crime.
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Aug 20, 2018 02:19
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Nuns with Guns posted:To be fair, it's on point with Invisible Sun to consider how its development was gated behind the privilege of being able to afford both the base rules and the playtest rules (if you wanted to be someone who would catch poorly-conceived ideas before they were put in the final product.) At least twice now, Monte Cook Games let stuff with deeply racist implications slip into their published books, and then was hostile towards anyone pointing out the racism. The Thunder Plains in The Strange was significantly worse than the "beaners" in Numenera, and criticism of it was justifiably louder and eventually did prompt MCG to issue a resentful "thanks to everyone who politely told us it was racist, we promise to do better!!!" As far as I'm aware their staff is predominately, if not entirely, white, and it's understandable for anyone to side-eye their future products based on precedent. Oh their engagement on racial matters is terrible. But yeah, I dont give an ounce of credit to your first point, because if you're going to buy a product a year or two before it comes out and need to buy it for 500 bucks, you deserve what you get. I used to play videogames but the preorder culture was out of this world in how little accountability devs had.
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Aug 20, 2018 02:22
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Lemniscate Blue posted:Varg Vikernes presents: yeah, that's a crime. That reminds me his new MyFarog supplement is a freaking modern world zombie apocalypse RaHoWa but he's smart enough not to make "racial" instant stats and flaws and instead just hints that a GM could have those.
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Aug 20, 2018 02:24
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Kai Tave posted:I'll be honest, I've dropped like $100-150 on Kickstarters before but it's usually for pledge tiers promising something along the lines of an art commission, and for commissioned art that's not an unreasonable price on top of getting an RPG. I can't really think of an RPG, just an RPG, that would make me want to spend $200-500 on it. Like I get that it comes in a cube and has a plastic hand and there's something there about bestoke adventure paths, but I just can't wrap my head around something that would make me think "this is totally worth it" even if it was made by someone who I didn't relentlessly make fun of. Greg Stolze might have a fuckin amazing idea for a brand new RPG but if he wants that much money for it I'm still gonna need a hell of a lot of convincing before jumping in and even then it might be more a case of "I'll wait 'til someone wants to offload their copy." I did like $130 on the last Delta Green kickstarter but that was specifically for buying several hardcover books at a set price point each, it wasn't on one product. It's hard for me to imagine spending that much on one book, but if it was big enough and nice enough I can understand having to charge that much. IDK if I'd buy it, but I can imagine charging it.
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Aug 20, 2018 02:39
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I also think this is just part of the current Kickstarter funding model - you need some rare stuff that justifies the high-dollar pledge levels. The RUNEQUEST CLASSIC kickstarter has, as a reward at the $250 level, a copy of the original playtest manuscript from 1979 (hand annotated by the original playtester), and the $1000 level got you this:quote:The 3 volume "Unpublished Scenarios and Source Material" set - is three hardcover books with hundreds of pages of unpublished RuneQuest material by Greg Stafford and other early authors. It includes a fair bit of Sorcery rules for the West, the Howling Tower scenario set in the Upland Marsh, as well as a wide range of other material, esoteric and otherwise. This reward is only available as part of this Kickstarter. I'm a Glorantha superfan and would love to have that, but I'm not willing to bone out a month's rent for a collection of old notes. I'm mildly annoyed that I'll probably never get to see those pages, but I'm happy that 60 people apparently parted with a cool grand each, because that's $60,000 that was used to subsidize the project and keep Chaosium operating. There were super-rare exclusive materials at the top level of the Guide to Glorantha KS, too quote:$1500 - PROVINCIAL OVERSEER: You are large and in charge (of the Orlanthi provinces!). MoLaD level, plus a hardcover full color version of the GreGarth Atlas of Lunar Provincial Lore. This amazing collection of hand-drawn historical maps details: the history of Peloria from the Dawn to 1650 in 50 year increments; the history of Prehistoric Peloria; the history of the Lunar Wanes: and a variety of maps showing other important details of the Dara Happan and Lunar Empires. Includes attached notes and commentary from Greg. You can even help design the custom cover. quote:$3000 - 7 MOTHERS/LIGHTBRINGERS: MoLaD reward level, plus the ultimate 15 volume "Roots of Glorantha" series of unpublished Gloranthan monographs written by Greg Stafford. Each printed volume is approximate 100 pages in length. You get to pick your favorite 7 Mother or Lightbringer for the cover theme and color. Free shipping included. Again, I'd love to have 1500 pages of unpublished Gloranthan monographs on my shelf, but it's not worth $3000 to me. It was worth $3000 to 13 Gloranthaphiles riched and crazier than me, and hey that's $40,000 more that Chaosium has to work with. All hail those nutcases who are willing to subsidize the continued publishing of my favorite game line with four figures of cold hard cash. I'll just have to be satisfied with my 800-page battleship of a setting guide (for a mere $150). If you're going to tap big-dollar superfan Whales to help crowdfund your project, almost by definition you're going to have to give them something a little extra, a little exclusive, that isn't available to people pledging at a lower level. So it goes.
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Aug 20, 2018 03:10
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TheDiceMustRoll posted:Oh their engagement on racial matters is terrible. I'm not sure what you mean by my first point because I agree that if you throw that much money at a product that doesn't even provide demonstrable rules or more than a vague outline of a premise with a plastic hand standee, then you've already put your full support behind whatever come of it.
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Aug 20, 2018 03:54
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FMguru posted:If you're going to tap big-dollar superfan Whales to help crowdfund your project, almost by definition you're going to have to give them something a little extra, a little exclusive, that isn't available to people pledging at a lower level. So it goes. Someone, I can't remember who, had said that they originally weren't going to put some big spendy pledge tier in their KS but someone talked them into doing it anyway because if you present the option there's a chance someone will take you up on it, even if you personally think it's kind of excessive, and sure enough it worked. I don't really think there's anything wrong with doing so as long as those super-tiers don't wind up biting you in the rear end.
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Aug 20, 2018 04:02
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Going back to that blog post on changes to the Ennies: why didn't anyone tell me we were rigging the votes? Because I have a word or six for the kingmaker behind the win of every d20 product for the past 20 years, Blood in the Chocolate, and Zweihander.
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Aug 20, 2018 05:01
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Nuns with Guns posted:Going back to that blog post on changes to the Ennies: why didn't anyone tell me we were rigging the votes? Because I have a word or six for the kingmaker behind the win of every d20 product for the past 20 years, Blood in the Chocolate, and Zweihander. If I were a cynical man I might suggest that Zweihander was the tipping point specifically because it's not a d20 product of some sort.
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Aug 20, 2018 05:16
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