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My firm belief remains that any game can be fixed by making it a Gamma World 7e hack. Just take every possible race and class in the game, boil them down to a save bonus, crit bonus, and maybe one more for flavor, an at-will, utility, and encounter, and arrange them on a random roll table. If anyone complains because they rolled "Ork-Dwarf" remind them how rad that would actually be.
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Oct 9, 2018 01:33
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theironjef posted:If anyone complains because they rolled "Ork-Dwarf" remind them how rad that would actually be. Ah yes, the mighty Dork.
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Oct 9, 2018 01:58
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Plutonis posted:Also: Real cool how this subforum is cheering on G+ being nuked because a small number of dipshits used it while the much larger communities of legit indie games are going to suffer the same. the loss of a social media app that was genuinely useful for certain communities because it wasn't making enough money for the owners is a problem of capitalism and the profit motive, and one that will keep cropping up absent a more public, communitarian model of the internet the fact that it also means certain shitheaded communities also lose a base of incubation is still laudable don't concern troll
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Oct 9, 2018 02:06
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The better indie communities are free to register SA accounts 
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Oct 9, 2018 02:28
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Skelettin posted:The better indie communities are free to register SA accounts Good joke. gradenko_2000 posted:the loss of a social media app that was genuinely useful for certain communities because it wasn't making enough money for the owners is a problem of capitalism and the profit motive, and one that will keep cropping up absent a more public, communitarian model of the internet It's not a concern troll, i legit think it sucks rear end because i'm getting into SOTDL recently and they have a big rear end community there.
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Oct 9, 2018 02:31
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yeah i feel similarly because the Blades in the Dark and Sine Nomine communities were really good
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Oct 9, 2018 02:36
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Skelettin posted:The better indie communities are free to register SA accounts Well, not free exactly...
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Oct 9, 2018 02:38
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gradenko_2000 posted:the loss of a social media app that was genuinely useful for certain communities because it wasn't making enough money for the owners is a problem of capitalism and the profit motive, and one that will keep cropping up absent a more public, communitarian model of the internet I will actually go to bat for Plutonis and say that he has a point, G+ going under isn't a completely unfettered good. Zak S will continue to be a shithead, Twitter perfectly serves his needs and doesn't care about brigading, and at the very least the Blades in the Dark G+ community was fairly instrumental in helping the game get to the point it is today. On the other hand G+ as a social network program was pretty much garbage and tbh I'm sort of surprised in lasted as long as it did. I'll reserve my celebrations for when social media as whole vanishes off the face of the earth which I guess will be happening within the next century along with the rest of civilization, so thank god for that. Skelettin posted:The better indie communities are free to register SA accounts In all seriousness, Discord communities seem to be poised to be a fairly effective and user-friendly way of organizing indie game communities. Lancer went from a subreddit where you'd see a handful of active users every day to a Discord channel with an extremely active community, complete with organized games, playtesting, homebrew, etc.
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Oct 9, 2018 02:44
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I just wish Discord were better at archiving information. I mean, people find ways, but still.
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Oct 9, 2018 02:46
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Tuxedo Catfish posted:I just wish Discord were better at archiving information. Yeah, we use a shitload of Gdocs/dropbox stuff for things that are important, otherwise it's not too bad. I guess the other drawback to Discord is I don't know if it has the...what's the term I want here, network externalities?...of other social media type stuff. Like I have no idea if the Lancer Discord Channel ever gets promoted by any means other than me constantly bringing it up or if there's like a "trending channels" list or something.
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Oct 9, 2018 02:53
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Kai Tave posted:I will actually go to bat for Plutonis and say that he has a point, G+ going under isn't a completely unfettered good. Zak S will continue to be a shithead, Twitter perfectly serves his needs and doesn't care about brigading, and at the very least the Blades in the Dark G+ community was fairly instrumental in helping the game get to the point it is today. On the other hand G+ as a social network program was pretty much garbage and tbh I'm sort of surprised in lasted as long as it did. I'll reserve my celebrations for when social media as whole vanishes off the face of the earth which I guess will be happening within the next century along with the rest of civilization, so thank god for that. I'm not saying that we aren't losing anything valuable, I'm saying that it's a problem endemic to our current corporatist environment. If twitter went away tomorrow, yes, we'd lose a ton of valuable interactions with lots of people, but we'd also be losing a channel for right-wing recruitment and harassment of the marginalized. I don't think it's fair to tut-tut at people for liking the latter, when the occurrence of the former isn't under our control anyway.
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Oct 9, 2018 02:56
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I know the crossover between the two is slim but I'll ask: is there an American Football board/card game that is worth my time and money? Pizza Box Football just seems like a dicefest and doesn't really offer any customization.
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Oct 9, 2018 03:47
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Zurui posted:I know the crossover between the two is slim but I'll ask: is there an American Football board/card game that is worth my time and money? Pizza Box Football just seems like a dicefest and doesn't really offer any customization. I have no idea if it's any good but there's this.
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Oct 9, 2018 05:25
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Sion posted:Anarchy is real bad. The Sprawl is not bad, so I hear. PBTA Shadowrun. https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ardensludere/the-sprawl-cyberpunk-roleplaying-powered-by-the-ap RocknRollaAyatollah posted:It was Loren Coleman. http://www.sarna.net/wiki/Loren_L._Coleman#The_Frank_Trollman_case CGL is just a decade worth of unforced errors where SR is concerned at this point. This is a company who quite literally published a dungeon crawl in War! where you fight Jewish ghosts to steal not-Menegle's scalpel from the haunted ruins of Auschwitz-II Berkenau. The main metaplot of SR5 has been retconned twice now because the tie-in products it was tied to (an MMO and a card game) were canceled. They care so little about the books that they actually have a freelancer writing all their errata in his spare time, likely unpaid because he refuses to answer any questions about it. Liquid Communism fucked around with this message at 05:35 on Oct 9, 2018 |
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Oct 9, 2018 05:29
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Zurui posted:I know the crossover between the two is slim but I'll ask: is there an American Football board/card game that is worth my time and money? Pizza Box Football just seems like a dicefest and doesn't really offer any customization. Theoretically Blood Bowl is heavily inspired by American football but that might not really be what you're looking for.
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Oct 9, 2018 05:30
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To the broader question: no edition of Shadowrun is ever really "good", but if you absolutely have to play something labeled Shadowrun, I would suggest 5e with the "Run Faster" supplement so that you can use a Lifepath-style character building method. And then be prepared to implement a lot of houserules to smooth out any rough edges. I wouldn't recommend anything earlier than 4e, because the FASA-era hadn't even settled the question of a consistent rolling mechanic yet. Liquid Cannibalism posted:The Sprawl is not bad, so I hear. PBTA Shadowrun. The Sprawl is a good PBTA cyberpunk game, but it doesn't emulate Shadowrun's milieu specifically, such as the D&D-esque races and the emergence of magic into the world. I realize that this might not be an important distinction to some, but I do think it's worth noting.
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Oct 9, 2018 05:36
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gradenko_2000 posted:To the broader question: no edition of Shadowrun is ever really "good", but if you absolutely have to play something labeled Shadowrun, I would suggest 5e with the "Run Faster" supplement so that you can use a Lifepath-style character building method. And then be prepared to implement a lot of houserules to smooth out any rough edges. It takes a little hacking, yeah, but it's easier to tack on magic than to tack on cyberpunk, and there's a wealth of PBTA stuff to crib from. I badly want a good SR. I've been GMing this stupid game for 20 years now, and just once don't want to have to houserule it half to death.
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Oct 9, 2018 05:39
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hyphz posted:I don’t know if that was meant to be sympathetic but the idea of a link between RPG types and depression is a fascinating one. Oh, it was. As a person who is mentally ill, some RPGs really appeal to me and similar people, and Chuubos is one of those.
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Oct 9, 2018 05:47
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There are all sorts of Shadowrun hacks out there for all sorts of systems...PbtA, Savage Worlds, Blades in the Dark has several, FATE, GURPS, Hero, I'm sure someone's done one for D&D. The problem with most of them is that they don't give long-time Shadowrun fans the "90 pages of gear porn shopping trip" vibe that they want. I mean I love crunchy systems with lots of Lego bricks to play with myself, don't get me wrong, but if your criteria for an acceptable Shadowrun game is that it has to let you spend hours customizing your character's gun loadout and cyberware then you're probably out of luck unless you make a Spycraft hack or something because crunchy systems with lots of Lego bricks are a heck of a lot of work even if you're shoving someone else's game through a Shadowrun-shaped hole.
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Oct 9, 2018 06:08
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Kai Tave posted:There are all sorts of Shadowrun hacks out there for all sorts of systems...PbtA, Savage Worlds, Blades in the Dark has several, FATE, GURPS, Hero, I'm sure someone's done one for D&D. The problem with most of them is that they don't give long-time Shadowrun fans the "90 pages of gear porn shopping trip" vibe that they want. I mean I love crunchy systems with lots of Lego bricks to play with myself, don't get me wrong, but if your criteria for an acceptable Shadowrun game is that it has to let you spend hours customizing your character's gun loadout and cyberware then you're probably out of luck unless you make a Spycraft hack or something because crunchy systems with lots of Lego bricks are a heck of a lot of work even if you're shoving someone else's game through a Shadowrun-shaped hole. The greatest sin of SR5 for me is that the equipment is poorly done, so those crunchy gear choices are effectively meaningless. I really enjoyed the gear porn books from the SR2 days, just as a thing to read. So many cool plotlines in the shadowland commentary on the items, and I miss having my characters own multiple weapons and bits of gear because they were all situationally useful as opposed to there being a clear Best Weapon that does it all. Liquid Communism fucked around with this message at 06:14 on Oct 9, 2018 |
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Oct 9, 2018 06:11
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Liquid Cannibalism posted:The greatest sin of SR5 for me is that the equipment is poorly done, so those crunchy gear choices are effectively meaningless. Gear in Shadowrun has been an optimization exercise in a number of respects for longer than just SR5. The gear flavor has always been neat and that sort of thing has a lot to do with why Shadowrun is so fondly remembered even when the game itself has long been a different hot mess with every edition, but Shadowrun The Game seems to fall into the trap of being one of those RPGs which is more fun to read than to play.
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Oct 9, 2018 06:19
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Sion posted:Anarchy is real bad. I've been trying for like two months to hack one out of Fragged Empire/Kingdom/Seas because as far as I can tell the answer is "not really" or one of a few PBTA-ish games (which is fine but doesn't have the level of crunch I'd want).
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Oct 9, 2018 06:22
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01011001 posted:I've been trying for like two months to hack one out of Fragged Empire/Kingdom/Seas because as far as I can tell the answer is "not really" or one of a few PBTA-ish games (which is fine but doesn't have the level of crunch I'd want). Yeah, Fragged* could probably make a decent stab at it. My current recommendation right now is for one of the better Blades in the Dark hacks because it's ground-up a game focused on the loop of heist-downtime-repeat which notably eschews extensive pre-planning, but it's definitely not a game where gear porn is anything like a central facet.
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Oct 9, 2018 06:28
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Kai Tave posted:Gear in Shadowrun has been an optimization exercise in a number of respects for longer than just SR5. The gear flavor has always been neat and that sort of thing has a lot to do with why Shadowrun is so fondly remembered even when the game itself has long been a different hot mess with every edition, but Shadowrun The Game seems to fall into the trap of being one of those RPGs which is more fun to read than to play. I've found the answer for most fun, as far as me GMing and my players' opinion, has been 'heavily houseruled SR2 or SR3'. Frankly, what I think would be good at this point is a tabletop version of the system Harebrained Schemes made for SR:Returns. I can flesh out the gear lists myself if need be.
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Oct 9, 2018 06:29
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The actual answer is wait for R. Tal to release the Cyberpunk 2077 tabletop game and just add magic to it.
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Oct 9, 2018 06:38
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Imagined posted:I just joined the 13th Age G+ community today! The Facebook groups are pretty active, and in my experience, not lovely.
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Oct 9, 2018 06:39
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On the topic of Shadowrun, one thing I've contemplated is maybe doing an OSR game for it, considering how much Shadowrun takes from D&D in the first place, and while OSR systems aren't completely without warts, it still should have less issues overall
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Oct 9, 2018 08:01
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The best Shadowrun edition is just loving playing Shadowrun: Dragonfall and Shadowrun: Hong Kong. It's hard for me to say what I want out of some future Shadowrun because I increasingly feel like what I want out of a cyberpunk game is absolutely not what most people want out of a Shadowrun game. Like, the minute you mention gear lists at all, or living by your gear "brand," you've kinda lost me, and I feel like for most people, big gear lists and gaining a corporate sponsorship is exactly why they play. EDIT: G+ closing would be more sad if it wasn't as inevitable. It sucks, but also nobody's really surprised, I hope. It was always kinda on borrowed time. ProfessorCirno fucked around with this message at 10:31 on Oct 9, 2018 |
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Oct 9, 2018 10:26
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ProfessorCirno posted:It's hard for me to say what I want out of some future Shadowrun because I increasingly feel like what I want out of a cyberpunk game is absolutely not what most people want out of a Shadowrun game. Like, the minute you mention gear lists at all, or living by your gear "brand," you've kinda lost me, and I feel like for most people, big gear lists and gaining a corporate sponsorship is exactly why they play. I feel like this is starting to get into the territory where Shadowrun, like D&D, means different things to different people, and reasserting the focus on any one thing is going to cause someone else to be turned off, even if the overall design is tighter (and therefore more coherent) as a result (and, like D&D, it should absolutely be done, drat the torpedoes)
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Oct 9, 2018 10:36
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ProfessorCirno posted:EDIT: G+ closing would be more sad if it wasn't as inevitable. It sucks, but also nobody's really surprised, I hope. It was always kinda on borrowed time. Forgive my lack of foresight, but what were the signs? Hopefully I can keep my eyes peeled for them the next time I come across a doomed venture.
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Oct 9, 2018 11:10
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paradoxGentleman posted:Forgive my lack of foresight, but what were the signs? Hopefully I can keep my eyes peeled for them the next time I come across a doomed venture. While it doesn't address the prescient signs of failure, this Ars Technica article goes into detail about Google +'s death knell. https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2018/10/google-exposed-non-public-data-for-500k-users-then-kept-it-quiet/
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Oct 9, 2018 11:33
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I didn't see a GURPS thread so I thought I'd pop over here and ask. For creating a campaign, what would be a good charater point amount for a group? I'm doing a modern mercenary one (setting is real life ish, no magic or anything) and I want the characters to be good, but not uber high tier (though I do plan to make combat deadly). I read the 4e supplemental for Navy Seals and while a good baseline 250-275 points for a charater seemed a bit much. Never really used this system though so I may be wrong.
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Oct 9, 2018 11:53
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Liquid Cannibalism posted:The greatest sin of SR5 for me is that the equipment is poorly done, so those crunchy gear choices are effectively meaningless. Eh, this is fully typical of SR. For any given gun category, there's like 40 guns, of which 1 is the outright best, 2 are situationally useful, 1 is trash but it has a huge clip so you give it to NPCs so you don't need to keep track of bullets, and the rest are trash in one way or another. My favorite way they make something useless is to make something an Exotic Weapon skill rather than a normal skill.
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Oct 9, 2018 12:00
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Jimmy4400nav posted:I didn't see a GURPS thread so I thought I'd pop over here and ask. For creating a campaign, what would be a good charater point amount for a group? I'm doing a modern mercenary one (setting is real life ish, no magic or anything) and I want the characters to be good, but not uber high tier (though I do plan to make combat deadly). I read the 4e supplemental for Navy Seals and while a good baseline 250-275 points for a charater seemed a bit much. A lot of it is based on how competent you want your characters to be. 250 is pretty Black Ops (run black ops winson come back please). Do not worry about combat in GURPS being not-deadly enough.
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Oct 9, 2018 12:01
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If memory serves, there was a GURPS Jagged Alliance style pbp here back like 10 years ago that I remember being a good read. If you have archives, it might be worth digging up.
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Oct 9, 2018 13:22
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Liquid Cannibalism posted:CGL is just a decade worth of unforced errors where SR is concerned at this point. This is a company who quite literally published a dungeon crawl in War! where you fight Jewish ghosts to steal not-Menegle's scalpel from the haunted ruins of Auschwitz-II Berkenau. I think one of my favorite things from War! or one of the related books from that time was the mission where you had to infiltrate Bogota by submarine, and not some cool TMNT drill machine "submarine". I can understand a bit because the writers were all BattleTech writers doing it on the side since CGL had chased off all the Shadowrun writers but even a world map will show you what's wrong with that.
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Oct 9, 2018 13:35
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Yeah, a submarine escape down a 2 foot deep river on the landlocked highest plateau on the continent, that only gets to the sea over IIRC multiple major waterfalls.
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Oct 9, 2018 13:54
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So this may be dumb, but ... Doesn't Feng Shui 2 have like 90%+ of the stuff you'd need to make a fair run at Shadowrun? Sorcery, cybertech, etc.? It's mostly, what, missing elves and dwarves and whatever, and that can easily just be flavor?
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Oct 9, 2018 14:12
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paradoxGentleman posted:Forgive my lack of foresight, but what were the signs? Hopefully I can keep my eyes peeled for them the next time I come across a doomed venture. I mean, the annual articles of "is G+ dead?" from various tech periodicals or Forbes or whatever are always a warning sign. Google's attitude has been its own warning sign, discontinuing what little marketing it did for G+ some years back. It all adds up to a social platform that wasn't exactly looking healthy, and google has certainly killed underperforming platforms before. There's always been evangelists pushing back against that narrative. You can see a thread on RPG.net right now that started ironically about a week before this broke that has the first 4 pages full of people insisting that its all a myth that G+ is dead and citing some dubious statistics that don't even pass the sniff test (if they were true, Google would be crowing them from the rooftops, as they'd be more active than some of the big social media platforms). That's kind of muddied the waters a bit in the RPG space, but outside of there most people seemed to view ending G+ as a question of when the costs would outweigh losing some goodwill by a small but dedicated userbase.
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Oct 9, 2018 15:14
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Helical Nightmares posted:While it doesn't address the prescient signs of failure, this Ars Technica article goes into detail about Google +'s death knell. To be fair, google has a lot of money, and in the imaginary world where hackers had no interest in stealing data from the company that’s the largest information source in the world, they probably would have left g+ to lay fallow forever.
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