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You don't lose the power, though. You still have the trick arrow power. You just get to use one of the other options. Like, there is no best one - they are all balanced. You may have a favorite but the whole point of the power is that you have an arrow for every situation. Also, it's not "annoying" to get a little bit of spotlight time doing a side quest during downtime. It's a good thing. It helps the GM, too. I wish I had included stuff like that for every class. But hey, if you have concerns like the ones in this thread, you could use the variant rule on the very same page where when you lose a type of arrow, you are in complete control over when you get it back. Or you can just pick a different power at that level. The other powers are good, too, and very easy to reskin. This is so not an issue. Anyone who wants to play an archer and doesn't like that mechanic has multiple ways to opt out.
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Dec 25, 2018 07:16
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I pretty much agree with you, Jimbozig, when there's a bunch of character options, if one doesn't appeal, you don't have to use it. But that agreed, as a general game design thing: Jimbozig posted:Also, it's not "annoying" to get a little bit of spotlight time doing a side quest during downtime. It's a good thing. "Bob needs to go figure out how to replace his special ammo" side-quest is possibly adaptable into a fun thing for the whole table to watch or participate in the first and maybe second or third times you and your GM have to find a way to do it that fits in with the current campaign situation, and pretty much never true again after that. Guaranteed it gets hand-waved away once it becomes a tedious chore. So I'd ask (not having read Strike!), how long do characters tend to last, in terms of adventures/game sessions/etc? A lot of games frame "downtime" as things the players do between game sessions, possibly with help from the GM over email or something, and for good reason. Your character getting to have the spotlight for a while is good when your character is doing something that is cool, or interesting, or advances their character arc, or engages with another player. "Having the spotlight" in order to perform a maintenance chore to recharge a character ability is bound to become annoying. Again though, I pretty much agree with you that this is a pretty trivial nitpick and not worthy of multiple pages of discussion. I've never read a game or game supplement that didn't have at least a few sub-par abilities or mechanics that left you with a "meh, probably nobody will take that" feeling, it's more or less inevitable.
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Dec 25, 2018 07:36
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You know, I'd actually like to rescind my previous post; I was mis-remembering how action points work.
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Dec 25, 2018 07:51
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ProfessorCirno posted:"That's only a problem if your GM is a dick" is only a valid statement if the game actually does a good job at teaching the GM, and even then runs into issues where so much of the tabletop gaming hobby as a culture is still focused around and desperately trying to appeal to old shitlords who still whinge about the "proper way" to play D&D. Like, sure, there's a lot of stuff that's only a problem if your GM is a dick, but tabletop gaming culture really, really wants your GM to be a dick. Tabletop gaming memes are still full of poo poo like "keep a kill counter of PCs you've taken out!" and "make sure not to give your player too much leeway, because players are evil and want to ruin your game!" Exactly. The problem here isn't even in the ability itself. It's in the wording of the rules. The only valid argument for the rules, the only valid authority, is the rules themselves. They can be reinterpreted in any number of ways but the final word, and why interpretation exists, is the rules themselves. If the rules are vague, then the interpretations get complex and harder to settle on an understanding of. While there's lots of valid interpretations that do work, it's far too easy to argue for interpretations that don't work. And leaving that whole argument up to someone who isn't there to do game design is really bad. The rules shouldn't be confusing, and it shouldn't ask the GM to do work that the rules could do easily. This is apart from the balance argument. If it was properly balanced, GMs would know exactly how long a Trick Arrow should take to refresh, and would know how to implement this regardless of the ranged weapons being used. Whether it's a duck trebuchet, Archer's wacky melee weapons portals, a sentient sword that shoots lasers, or an actual bow.
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Dec 25, 2018 07:55
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To quote Cook, in any case, since I ran across this:Monte Cook on ENWorld posted:Basically, I left WotC in 2001 for many reasons, but mainly because it had become very corporate and political. No big grudges or anything--it just wasn't for me. When WotC approached me to come back for 5e in 2011 (as a contractor), I was told everything was different. I was told that the environment was totally free of any of the corporate bs of the past and a great place for creativity. I was told we'd be revitalizing the whole game, and that this included amazingly cool things like bringing back Dragon magazine to print, reestablishing ties with the old guard (Zeb Cook, Tracy Hickman, Jeff Grubb, etc. maybe as consultants), beefing up the in-house staff (primarily with hiring back people with a lot of solid experience), and creating an aggressive initial release schedule with high-quality adventures and other products created by an in-house staff. In short, focusing specifically on the tabletop D&D experience, and not on licensing to video games, movies, and other things.
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Dec 25, 2018 15:17
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What licensing though? I thought the new DND movie was vaporwave by that point and there has barely new licensed videogames since 2011 (and the biggest ones were rereleases of 90s games).
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Dec 25, 2018 15:35
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Wizkids/NECA, Monopoly, D&D sneakers, an IDW comic, GF9 accessories, and a bunch of other stuff off the top of my head. There was certainly more if you do a deep dive.
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Dec 25, 2018 15:42
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Also, focusing on licensing doesn't mean licenses actually happen.
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Dec 25, 2018 16:15
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Heliotrope posted:Not really. It's possible the GM reads "This is a powerful ability, so the GM should not let you off easy" and accidentally makes it hard in an unfun way - because the power says to not let them off easily. If there's advice on how to handle that then that's good and less likely to lead to that result, but if there isn't then the GM is being told to make something difficult without any guidelines on what that might entail and might make a mistake. That's a good point, I wasn't aware of that. I don't actually own the rules, I'm just hunting for a good system to reskin for a game so I won't have to use A Time Of War and thought Strike! sounded promising so I've been reading up on it. Some guidelines would be really nice. Something like "expended trick ammunition automatically refreshes on a long rest. If the player scores a bonus on an applicable skill check they may use that bonus to refresh an expended trick. Only one attempt to refresh an expended ammo trick may be made per encounter. The GM may also refresh some or all of the player's expended trick ammunition if they feel the situation warrants it." That way if Space Arrows spends a little time scrounging after a fight she might find enough stable plasma to get a few more shots of her exploding laser arrows, while Johnny Dancebreaker, who shames his opponents through breakdancing, can also roll his limber up skill after a fight to try to make sure he's still flexible enough to immobilize the next gang member he meets as they watch his dance with slack-jawed amazement.
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Dec 25, 2018 17:29
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Alien Rope Burn posted:Also, focusing on licensing doesn't mean licenses actually happen. See also: NuWhite Wolf.
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Dec 25, 2018 17:33
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ProfessorCirno posted:"That's only a problem if your GM is a dick" is only a valid statement if the game actually does a good job at teaching the GM, and even then runs into issues where so much of the tabletop gaming hobby as a culture is still focused around and desperately trying to appeal to old shitlords who still whinge about the "proper way" to play D&D. Radical proposal: the basic goal a tabletop RPG needs to achieve is clearly communicating its underlying philosophy of how play should proceed to GMs and players. If it succeeds at that and everyone is engaging in good faith then it doesn't matter how much you deviate from RAW - so long as everyone's bought into the spirit of the game then whatever houserules you propose are likely to engage constructively with it anyway and the group can make a meaningful decision to part ways with the rules if that would be truer to the experience the game is aiming for. If it fails at that then even if everyone is engaging in good faith, you can still have a lousy experience which isn't any game participant's specific fault, just the result of folk working at cross-purposes due to equally reasonable interpretations of what they thought they were supposed to be doing in the game. You can correct for this a lot by having good communication within your group, but a solid game text will help that process of getting everyone on the same page along, rather than being a hurdle you have to get the group over in order to get them pulling in the same direction. And of course if someone at the table isn't engaging in good faith nothing the game designer does can help because the shitlordery is coming from inside the house.
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Dec 26, 2018 00:30
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Kurieg posted:See also: NuWhite Wolf. 7th Sea, too.
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Dec 26, 2018 06:34
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To be honest I'd consider it a bullet dodged to leave a company that tries to go all-in on selling out and doesn't even manage it.
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Dec 26, 2018 06:38
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He thought they were gonna hire a bunch of old shitbeards he remembered from the old days and then they didn't? Oh I hope those weird old men still get treated like rapey royalty at conventions at the very least.
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Dec 26, 2018 07:54
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Whenever I get ready to run a game, and I look online and someone put together a fanwork cheat sheet, maybe a page, maybe a couple of pages, and I find it covers the vast majority of the rules of the game, I think to myself, this should be something the actual game has, not something a fan had to make. It should at the very least be in the core book, even if the rules text itself needs a little more room to work out edge cases and explanations. An RPG text needs to be at least part technical manual, and if it is only part technical manual, it should be clearly separated from the fiction bits, because if it isn't, someone else is going to have to do that work to make it so.
remusclaw fucked around with this message at 12:56 on Dec 26, 2018 |
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Dec 26, 2018 12:54
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Warthur posted:Radical proposal: the basic goal a tabletop RPG needs to achieve is clearly communicating its underlying philosophy of how play should proceed to GMs and players. Yes. Warthur posted:If it succeeds at that and everyone is engaging in good faith then it doesn't matter how much you deviate from RAW - so long as everyone's bought into the spirit of the game then whatever houserules you propose are likely to engage constructively with it anyway and the group can make a meaningful decision to part ways with the rules if that would be truer to the experience the game is aiming for. No, it does matter, in the sense that you would be playing a different game then. A good one quite possibly, and certainly nobody is going to call the fun police, but the actual text of the game matters too. Apocalypse World is a game that does a good job of doing the former, and gives you the tools to do the latter if you like, but makes it very clear that you will no longer be playing Apocalypse World at that point.
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Dec 26, 2018 14:36
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Jeffrey of YOSPOS posted:I'd be pretty curious to hear more about Unity RPG as a 4e successor - I remember it came out but even the pdf was expensive and I didn't see many impressions here of the released product. I bought it and it’s a true 4e-inspired fantasy heartbreaker, imo. The power system seems built around specializing in 1-2 tricks and spamming them early and often until you run out of mojo points and have to resort to at-wills until you randomly trigger your point recharge. The combat system includes opportunity attacks against movement in melee, but every class has a lot of fiddly ways to avoid/mitigate them to the point to where you might as well remove them. There’s also very little in the way of forced movement or zones of control. Powers are almost all straight damage with riders of buffs/debuffs to damage, accuracy, or defense. Overall it looks like it could use another balance pass or two from playtesting. This is all just from my casual reading - it could play better than it looks.
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Dec 26, 2018 14:52
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Biomute posted:No, it does matter, in the sense that you would be playing a different game then. A good one quite possibly, and certainly nobody is going to call the fun police, but the actual text of the game matters too. Apocalypse World is a game that does a good job of doing the former, and gives you the tools to do the latter if you like, but makes it very clear that you will no longer be playing Apocalypse World at that point.
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Dec 26, 2018 15:06
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This book states or at the very least heavily implies that the intended experience that the creator is trying to convey matters, so yeah. Other games/creators might be less strict about this and that is cool too, but Apocalypse World the game is very particular about how it is played and why it is played, even though it is somewhat agnostic when it comes to setting and fiction specifics. Personally, I find that to be refreshing and bold, and to its credit it does a good job of providing a productive structure to be creative within, while showing the way and expressly allowing people to make their own non-AW games. It still pissed a lot of people off at release, but I think the increased focus on creator intent, either codified in rules or conveyed through "GM advice", that we have seen in games since then meant the authors were onto something.
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Dec 26, 2018 15:24
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Arivia posted:The idea of "rules as written" is a bullshit fiction coaxed up by people who don't actually understand the mechanism of reading and how that relates to playing the actual game. Academic criticism would be much stronger than the kinds of idiocy the 3e/PF rules community comes up with. You using "apples to apples" as a phrase for comparison shows that you don't really have any idea of how to compare two texts and need to shut up. NGDBSS posted:
Arivia posted:Do you have a degree in cultural studies? I'm not the principle (or sole) authority, but I'm definitely willing to call out pointless, baseless community folklore that doesn't stand up to actual learned critical analysis. If you don't have a degree, that's fine - but do realize you don't have explicit learning about the subject in discussion.
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Dec 26, 2018 16:35
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Are you really saying that you're the principal authority on these boards for interpreting the technical manuals that are D&D books?
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Yikes. All rulebooks are, at least partially, technical manuals. Not to say that they can't be other things too, but ignoring the fact that they're quite literally books of rules is being willfully ignorant.
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Dec 26, 2018 16:46
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When all you have is a hammer...
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Dec 26, 2018 17:08
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Warthur posted:Does it actually matter so long as the new game is a) a fun one that your group enjoys and b) a game which your group wouldn't have reached by themselves without the framework and guidance offered by Apocalypse World? Hasn't Apocalypse World done a good and valuable job in that instance? You can engage the rules in good faith but still gently caress up, though. If you helicopter a random crippling mutation table in from some other post-apoc RPG and expect it to work in Apocalypse World, is it your fault or Apocalypse World's when it doesn't?
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Dec 26, 2018 17:21
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Liquid Communism posted:7th Sea, too. "Pirates are BIG now," John said, ignoring the public's disenchantment and boredom with innumerable Pirates of the Caribbean movies.
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Dec 26, 2018 17:33
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Dawgstar posted:"Pirates are BIG now," John said, ignoring the public's disenchantment and boredom with innumerable Pirates of the Caribbean movies. Also, I think the IP value of "elves" or "vampires" or "pirates" is essentially nil as a licensed product. So you're left with the brand. Because I could make a "basically 7th Sea" movie or video game without licensing the product at all. So how much is it worth slapping "7th Sea" onto the title of my movie or video game? D&D? Something. Maybe not a lot. World of Darkness? Maybe something. 7th Sea? Likely nothing.
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Dec 26, 2018 17:37
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I am glad 7th Sea produced as many books as it did before they ran out of cash. I hope the movie pitch trailer and the two attempts at an unasked for board game teaches someone a lesson.
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Dec 26, 2018 18:05
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Honestly, I think you could pitch a high budget pirate movie in China. Sure, you might be getting yourself into a bit of money laundering or run the risk of it getting used without you, but the margins are probably about as good as you can get for a TG property at this point.
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Dec 26, 2018 18:15
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I would watch the hell out of wuxia buccaneers I have no idea if that would be at all appealing to audiences (Chinese or otherwise) though
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Dec 26, 2018 18:17
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Ok, it's no longer Christmas, so I can be grouchy about the industry and about a conversation I had over the holiday. Any indie computer game, which was primarily multiplayer only, and that launched without any support for finding servers or players, would be laughed off most platforms. Every FLGS that wants to stay in business has to provide some kind of group arrangement or connection at least for CCGs and board games. So why it pretty much standard that this is ignored for RPGs? It's not as if it's particularly unviable. I expect a large majority of indie RPG sales go through DTRPG, so why couldn't it offer matching based on the games a person has bought, or statistics on play results per game? It'd not only add a bunch of value to everything on the site, it'd also provide some much needed curation if the authors of stuff like Beast or Blood in the Chocolate had to think through how they were going to arrange groups of the kind of person who wants to play Beast or Blood in the Chocolate. Better yet, it might actually increase potential sales value for RPGs by reducing the effect of adverse selection.
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Dec 26, 2018 18:27
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Achmed Jones posted:I would watch the hell out of wuxia buccaneers It's more that Chinese firms have recently begin investing in Western movies as loss leaders for some kind of weird money laundering/tax scheme.
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Dec 26, 2018 18:32
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CitizenKeen posted:Also, I think the IP value of "elves" or "vampires" or "pirates" is essentially nil as a licensed product. This is correct on 7th Sea, but I think that Forgotten Realms specifically has enough cultural roots that it could be worth it to license. It'd probably be a bad movie, since FR is a weird setting without a lot of logical consistency, but it's the kind of thing that WB could make a lot with. Especially if they just do Lord of the Rings But Now it's Drizzt.
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Dec 26, 2018 18:50
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Achmed Jones posted:I would watch the hell out of wuxia buccaneers There's a bunch of fantasy dramas now in China that have been getting licensed by Prime and Netflix so I can assume there's a not insignificant audience for that sort of audience in China. If it's anything like the fantasy ones, it'd definitely be more chinese flavored so less galleons, more junks.
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Dec 26, 2018 18:51
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Luarien posted:This is correct on 7th Sea, but I think that Forgotten Realms specifically has enough cultural roots that it could be worth it to license. Ed Greenwood makes FR toxic as a licensed setting.
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Dec 26, 2018 18:57
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hyphz posted:Ok, it's no longer Christmas, so I can be grouchy about the industry and about a conversation I had over the holiday.
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Dec 26, 2018 19:00
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Could you adapt a specific FR novel, say the Drizzt stuff, without needing to involve Greenwood particularly? Or do you think even his vague association would be enough to torpedo a movie?
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Dec 26, 2018 19:02
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Enola Gay-For-Pay posted:Could you adapt a specific FR novel, say the Drizzt stuff, without needing to involve Greenwood particularly? Or do you think even his vague association would be enough to torpedo a movie? I think he and his vocal fans at places like Candlekeep would be extremely vocal about how you're doing it Wrong.
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Dec 26, 2018 19:05
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Mors Rattus posted:I think he and his vocal fans at places like Candlekeep would be extremely vocal about how you're doing it Wrong. For Reference see the reaction to 4e Forgotten Realms. Even though Drizzt and Elminster got to survive all the way through to 5e despite the multiple giant timeskips.
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Dec 26, 2018 19:09
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Mors Rattus posted:I think he and his vocal fans at places like Candlekeep would be extremely vocal about how you're doing it Wrong. hollywood would be a ghost town if internet nerds being mad about them doing it wrong actually affected anything
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Dec 26, 2018 19:16
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Dawgstar posted:"Pirates are BIG now," John said, ignoring the public's disenchantment and boredom with innumerable Pirates of the Caribbean movies. There was a decently budgeted pirate show on Starz called Black Sails that ran for four seasons, earned approving reviews, and then faded away without making any kind of cultural impression. Pirates are a spent force, here in the 2010s.
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Dec 26, 2018 19:17
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Brother Entropy posted:hollywood would be a ghost town if internet nerds being mad about them doing it wrong actually affected anything who would the target audience of a Forgotten Realms thing over an original fantasy setting be other than 'dudes who know and care about the FR'
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Dec 26, 2018 19:19
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