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gradenko_2000 posted:as someone who only just very recently dipped their toe into the miniatures wargaming scene, seeing the Age of Sigmar starter box as something that already contains figures good for BOTH sides of a game, plus the rules, plus all the other paraphernalia, was a great way to tempt me into giving the hobby a shot because it had everything I needed in a neat package Amen. So many deckbuilders/minis games have died for me because the conversation goes "I just found this neat new game" "cool, let's play a match" "well first you either need to buy your own set, or play with the leftovers from what I built when there's only one of the good cards, or we can put a lot of effort into splitting what I've got in half when the game wasn't built to handle that small of a deck."
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Jan 26, 2019 20:03
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One of the issues with D&D being the gateway RPG is that it is very rules heavy. I've met a lot of ttg players who only really play D&D not because they just think D&D will always be the best, but because there's such a huge buy in, in terms of time and effort to fully understand the rules, they assume all other games will likewise take up the time and effort, and to be honest they're usually right. There's a whooooole lot of "I'll just play ______."
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Jan 26, 2019 20:41
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hyphz posted:It’s precisely because they are; leisure time is scarce, and leisure time for an activity lacking side benefits (ie, physical exercise) is even more so. The ROI requirement is much higher.
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Jan 26, 2019 20:42
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Age of Sigmar is a very high production value game, sure, but it's also a terrible game, and expensive. I'd feel bad suggesting it to anyone. Mantic's new Vanguard game doesn't come in a sweet box with all the trimmings, but a couple of war bands plus the rules is cheaper, gives you two very balanced forces, and is a better tabletop game to boot. For that matter, basically any skirmish game with a low model count is a better intro than a massed game, particularly at 28mm scale. Of course both games assume terrain. The simple truth is that there's no easy, inexpensive, low-effort gateway drug into tabletop miniatures wargames, especially compared to RPGs. But stores that provide gaming tables and terrain are an ideal arena to introduce someone without having to do that up-front cost thing, as long as someone - including maybe the game store - has a couple of balanced forces to table. And in that context, the production values and contents of the Age of Sigmar box aren't relevant.
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Jan 26, 2019 20:44
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If we're counting Guild Ball as a War Game, I'd point to that one 100% of the time to meet those requirements. I'm not even a huge fan of it but it's a really well made game.
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Jan 26, 2019 21:08
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Kai Tave posted:Perhaps we're finally reaching a point where video games have caught up to where the RPG industry has been all along. *Low-margin product because consumer base has no idea how much the product costs to make *A couple major publishers producing huge things, tons of smaller-scale efforts by small teams *Games released incomplete *Games released with critical errors *Games released with little or no copy editing *Freakish, raging MRA/white supremacist fringe *Massive nerdstalgia attacks when anything changes *Games sold in beta test form *Simplistic and/or regressive takes on gender and sexuality Checks out!
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Jan 26, 2019 21:09
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The only thing that's missing is the "multi-billion dollar industry making more money than Hollywood" part.
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Jan 26, 2019 21:13
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Leperflesh posted:The simple truth is that there's no easy, inexpensive, low-effort gateway drug into tabletop miniatures wargames, especially compared to RPGs. I'd argue that Shadespire comes pretty close. The base game is $60 and has models and cards for two players, and warbands have a set number of models that doesn't expand past what you get. A single game takes about 30 minutes on average, and you don't need terrain or even need to paint the models. Gotta clip them out of the sprue, but it's all push-fit so that's the only real effort in it.
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Jan 26, 2019 21:41
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Star wars leigon also has a two-player starter box, and seems to be a pretty cool game. I haven't played a lot of it sadly though, because getting out to my LFGS when others are there hasn't work so well with my schedule.
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Jan 26, 2019 21:44
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Does Battlelore fit the bill? The only problem, of course, being that they don't make it any more.
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Jan 26, 2019 21:55
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S.J. posted:If we're counting Guild Ball as a War Game, I'd point to that one 100% of the time to meet those requirements. I'm not even a huge fan of it but it's a really well made game. The Guild Ball Kick Off box is a loving masterpiece of intro products. Two teams, board, terrain, dice, tokens, rules, measuring tools. Literally everything you'd need to play for like $50. It's insane.
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Jan 26, 2019 22:12
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I feel like desiring some platonic entry level product to get people into a hobby is tilting at windmills. The grand majority of RPG products are already intended as entry-level products. Few RPGs say "If you haven't played an RPG, this is not the place to start." Companies throw tons of money at trying to make entry level products, every beginner box, every quick-start, every demo starter, whatever. The notion of an entry level product is not some scarce rarity the hobby is lacking in. The core issue is trying to call down the lightning of getting a RPG (or board game) that hits outside of the mainstream hobbyists is mostly luck and circumstance. It's not something designers and theorycrafters would like to hear, but I don't think you can make the idea entry-level product because you can't make people decide to try it. And you can market and advert and publicize until you're blue in the face, but only a scant few of the folks that do that strike gold. That's not to say it's not worthwhile, but it's a crap shoot because so much is out of your control. Also, there is just the essential curse of starter boxes that they always seem... condescending. Maybe others feel differently, but as a kid I didn't want play Dungeons & Dragons, I wanted to play Advanced Dungeons & Dragons. It's advanced and I can play beyond level 3? Yes, please! I don't want the Car Wars Pocket Box, I want Deluxe Car Wars. If you want an entry-level product, the idea of selling a $20-30 starter box feels... weird. It feels like it should be as close to free as possible. I feel like the real market for a big starter box isn't people looking to start, but for people interested in trying to get people into the hobby as a gift.
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Jan 26, 2019 22:22
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Slimnoid posted:I'd argue that Shadespire comes pretty close. The base game is $60 and has models and cards for two players, and warbands have a set number of models that doesn't expand past what you get. A single game takes about 30 minutes on average, and you don't need terrain or even need to paint the models. Gotta clip them out of the sprue, but it's all push-fit so that's the only real effort in it. Except Shadespire is basically a boardgame, but with some tabletop-like combat mechanics, I think? It does have alternating activation, etc. but it's played on a hex board (provided), and it's a deckbuilding game as well. I realize there's probably a hairs-splitting difference somewhere between a boardgame and a tabletop wargame, but to me - and I haven't played it, so take this with salt - Shadespire is more in the vein of a board game than not. I'd say if X-Wing is a boardgame, so is this. Foolster41 posted:Star wars leigon also has a two-player starter box, and seems to be a pretty cool game. I haven't played a lot of it sadly though, because getting out to my LFGS when others are there hasn't work so well with my schedule. Definitely closer I think. You need to add terrain, but at $90 to start it's in the lower realm costwise and I hear it's a decent game. CaptCommy posted:The Guild Ball Kick Off box is a loving masterpiece of intro products. Two teams, board, terrain, dice, tokens, rules, measuring tools. Literally everything you'd need to play for like $50. It's insane. Definitely. It's a sports combat game, so it heavily emphasizes a different goal of play than just "murder the opponent" that your basic tabletop wargame starts with, but I'd say it's a decent intro to some of the types of mechanics you see in war games. But like Shadespire, to me Guildball is more of a boardgame with expansions and some freedom of customization... certainly if we think Blood Bowl is a boardgame, so is Guildball.
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Jan 26, 2019 22:25
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Alien Rope Burn posted:I feel like desiring some platonic entry level product to get people into a hobby is tilting at windmills. The grand majority of RPG products are already intended as entry-level products. Few RPGs say "If you haven't played an RPG, this is not the place to start." Companies throw tons of money at trying to make entry level products, every beginner box, every quick-start, every demo starter, whatever. The notion of an entry level product is not some scarce rarity the hobby is lacking in. Yeah I think I failed but I was trying to kinda get there with my question about entry point games. The point being made before, that you don't want to intro someone into a hobby with something that heavily emphasizes only one aspect (especially if that aspect isn't even part of many other examples in the hobby) isn't necessarily in conflict with the idea that basically all games are fine to start with in terms of introducing you to how to play, from scratch, without assuming you're already an RPG nerd. You'll note the people who replied with game ideas didn't all come up with the same one, to answer. I was sorta fishing for that. There doesn't need to be one and only one gateway drug to the RPG hobby, and I'd be shocked if everyone agreed on even a shortlist. quote:Also, there is just the essential curse of starter boxes that they always seem... condescending. Maybe others feel differently, but as a kid I didn't want play Dungeons & Dragons, I wanted to play Advanced Dungeons & Dragons. It's advanced and I can play beyond level 3? Yes, please! I don't want the Car Wars Pocket Box, I want Deluxe Car Wars. If you want an entry-level product, the idea of selling a $20-30 starter box feels... weird. It feels like it should be as close to free as possible. I feel like the real market for a big starter box isn't people looking to start, but for people interested in trying to get people into the hobby as a gift. I didn't feel that way about Red Box when I was 12, but by the time I was 14 I absolutely wanted to play AD&D. But (ignoring the arneson/gygax split) I think that's "working as intended." An intro product's purpose is to move you to the more But I do think there is a strong need to not condescend to your customers regardless, yes.
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Jan 26, 2019 22:28
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One would think that the ideal entry level product would be both simple to learn and tied to a license that pretty much everyone knows and is into, but despite that, D&D is it, and Star Wars, Ghostbusters, and less simple but still the product that hooked me, Ninja Turtles and Other Strangeness, isn't.
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Jan 26, 2019 22:30
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Leperflesh posted:Definitely. It's a sports combat game, so it heavily emphasizes a different goal of play than just "murder the opponent" that your basic tabletop wargame starts with, but I'd say it's a decent intro to some of the types of mechanics you see in war games. But like Shadespire, to me Guildball is more of a boardgame with expansions and some freedom of customization... certainly if we think Blood Bowl is a boardgame, so is Guildball. This is the weirdest hair splitting I've seen in a very long time. Like, Guild Ball is entirely a war game in rules and play (the rules share a LOT of DNA with Warmachine), except some of the theming involves scoring goals with a ball.
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Jan 26, 2019 22:31
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Like I guess we can have a dissection of what exactly is a tabletop minis wargame but maybe it's a tangent of a tangent and not worthwhile, so I'll just concede the point if you prefer, because we both agree guildhall is cool and good anyway.
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Jan 26, 2019 23:31
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Leperflesh posted:Except Shadespire is basically a boardgame, but with some tabletop-like combat mechanics, I think? It does have alternating activation, etc. but it's played on a hex board (provided), and it's a deckbuilding game as well. I mean, Battletech is also played on a hex board, but no one considers that a board game. Similarly, deckbuilding also ends up in Malifaux by way of their Poker-like gameplay, and that is definitely a war game. To say nothing of every time 40k and WHFB have used cards over the various editions. Not to say that Shadespire doesn't have boardgame elements, it absolutely does, but there's a lot more wargaming in it than not. I can understand where you draw that distinction though, and if that's how you want to consider it then I'm not going to like, try and change your mind or anything.
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Jan 26, 2019 23:38
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Alien Rope Burn posted:Few RPGs say "If you haven't played an RPG, this is not the place to start." Out of curiosity, are there even any that do? The closest thing that comes to mind is the whole “this isn’t your daddy’s D&D, rookie. heh  ” that used to be common in certain 90’s edgelord games.
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Jan 27, 2019 00:17
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Comrade Koba posted:Out of curiosity, are there even any that do? PARANOIA. Since the whole idea makes no sense unless you know what it’s inverting.
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Jan 27, 2019 00:25
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Comrade Koba posted:Out of curiosity, are there even any that do? 13th Age starts by saying that it assumes the reader is familiar with d20 systems and D&D
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Jan 27, 2019 00:27
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ProfessorCirno posted:One of the issues with D&D being the gateway RPG is that it is very rules heavy. I've met a lot of ttg players who only really play D&D not because they just think D&D will always be the best, but because there's such a huge buy in, in terms of time and effort to fully understand the rules, they assume all other games will likewise take up the time and effort, and to be honest they're usually right. There's a whooooole lot of "I'll just play ______." For all its flaws, Dungeon World is loving amazing for this. You can go from character idea to killing your first baddie in like 5 minutes. You want to play a wizard? Here's the wizard sheet, where did you study magic? You want to play a Knight? What are your holy vows? A tortured monster hunter? What sort of torture? I also really like PbtA's (and BitD) trend of wearing their influence on their sleeve. In any fantasy setting someone is gonna try and create Aragorn, so why bother pretending thats not the case? You can look at the suggested names for any class and get an instant idea of how it's gonna play. Gandalf, Dumbledore, Galvatorix vs Geralt, Buffy, Van Helsing vs Corvo, Kelsier, Kalam.
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Jan 27, 2019 00:29
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Warthur posted:There's also the way that GURPS seems to have been hijacked entirely by those who really liked high levels of crunch, and the major releases for it seem to pander to that crunch, whereas back in the glory days of 3rd edition (which feels like GURPS' peak in terms of reach and visibility) you didn't go to GURPS for a thick, expensive, glossy, colour book full of crunch - you went to it for cheap and cheerful supplements which covered a particular genre or setting, and unpacked them with a sufficient level of insight that the books were drat useful even if you didn't use them with GURPS itself. The "glory days" of 3e were also the days of GURPS: Vehicles 2nd edition, which fifteen years after a new edition still haunts the game. The current 4e line spans the range from Action to Technical Grappling. Dungeon Fantasy is probably the most popular sub-game of GURPS and was also popular enough to be released as a game of its own that cuts away the detailed rules of GURPS. I'd say GURPS has never been as diverse and tooled towards low-crunch play as it currently is. They do need more setting/genre books though, that I agree with. The hurdles you have to go through to use GURPS for a simple science fiction game can be downright ridiculous: Basic Set + Space + Ultra Tech + Spaceships is the bare minimum for your standard sci-fi setting, and that's four books and a PDF-only supplement.
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Jan 27, 2019 01:42
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Leperflesh posted:Definitely. It's a sports combat game, so it heavily emphasizes a different goal of play than just "murder the opponent" that your basic tabletop wargame starts with, but I'd say it's a decent intro to some of the types of mechanics you see in war games. But like Shadespire, to me Guildball is more of a boardgame with expansions and some freedom of customization... certainly if we think Blood Bowl is a boardgame, so is Guildball. e: nevermind, I apparently didn't catch up on the convo before I posted S.J. fucked around with this message at 02:22 on Jan 27, 2019 |
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Jan 27, 2019 02:20
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Comrade Koba posted:Out of curiosity, are there even any that do? It's not so uncommon for indie games now.
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Jan 27, 2019 02:24
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Spellbound Kingdoms is explicitly mystified as to how a neophite came to be reading the book in the first place, and cheerfully recommends that they google roleplaying.
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Jan 27, 2019 02:39
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Bruceski posted:Amen. So many deckbuilders/minis games have died for me because the conversation goes "I just found this neat new game" "cool, let's play a match" "well first you either need to buy your own set, or play with the leftovers from what I built when there's only one of the good cards, or we can put a lot of effort into splitting what I've got in half when the game wasn't built to handle that small of a deck." This is what left the FFG L5R stillborn with my friends. There aren't any prebuilt starters; the best you can do is buy three intro boxes and netdeck a good core starter deck. Which sucks because I really loving love the game.
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Jan 27, 2019 02:42
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Haystack posted:Spellbound Kingdoms is explicitly mystified as to how a neophite came to be reading the book in the first place, and cheerfully recommends that they google roleplaying. HoL explicitly tells you to play Dungeons & Dragons first in order to get any of the humor. (Well, apart from, "gently caress this noise. This is not going to be someone's first game. Like someone said, hey, cribbage is getting kinda stale, let's get something with lots of blood and death in it.")
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Jan 27, 2019 02:59
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Halloween Jack posted:Pelgrane Press' Dying Earth and Demon Princes RPGs have a disclaimer at the beginning saying "If you don't know what a RPG is, congratulations, you've stumbled across a niche product for Jack Vance fans. I'm afraid you'll either have to get a friend to explain this to you or try something else first." 13th Age also does this, assuming that the players have familiarity with d20-era D&D (because it's a derivative of those games)
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Jan 27, 2019 03:03
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Leperflesh posted:Mantic's new Vanguard game doesn't come in a sweet box with all the trimmings, but a couple of war bands plus the rules is cheaper, gives you two very balanced forces, and is a better tabletop game to boot. For that matter, basically any skirmish game with a low model count is a better intro than a massed game, particularly at 28mm scale. the fact that it does come in a sweet box with all the trimmings is kind of the point? Like, I'm sure someone has all of these things enumerated in a listicle forum post somewhere, but the reason why my interest was piqued was that the one big box was Right There on the shelf and I didn't have to google for a dozen different things to track down separately
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Jan 27, 2019 03:07
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remusclaw posted:One would think that the ideal entry level product would be both simple to learn and tied to a license that pretty much everyone knows and is into, but despite that, D&D is it, and Star Wars, Ghostbusters, and less simple but still the product that hooked me, Ninja Turtles and Other Strangeness, isn't. It also has to be a license people want to step into, which is a tough distinction. The biggest issue is that long-term licensed RPGs are rarities- most end up being flash-in-the-pan. I honestly can't think of any real exceptions to that. Call of Cthulhu was perhaps the luckiest, taking a generally unknown author and pretty much becoming the lens HPL was viewed through. Star Wars and Robotech have had the most staying power of any licenses that I can think of otherwise. TSR was the only one to hang onto Marvel for more than a fart's span; ditto for DC and Mayfair. Licensed RPGs are a real tough gig and have broken more than a few companies over the years. Edit: Speaking of which, crazy note: Palladium actually was given another shot at the TMNT license by Nickelodeon, but balked because it'd have to be based around the then-current TMNT show (the first Nickelodeon revival) and passed on it based on that and other likely restrictions (I would presume the overt violence of the B&W comics would be right out, for example). Alien Rope Burn fucked around with this message at 03:33 on Jan 27, 2019 |
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Jan 27, 2019 03:30
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gradenko_2000 posted:the fact that it does come in a sweet box with all the trimmings is kind of the point? Like, I'm sure someone has all of these things enumerated in a listicle forum post somewhere, but the reason why my interest was piqued was that the one big box was Right There on the shelf and I didn't have to google for a dozen different things to track down separately Sure and that makes it similar to D&D in that it's also a game that is well advertised and packaged and easy to get and ubiquitous, but also not particularly good and kinda a bad way to introduce someone to tabletop wargaming; but also add in that it's very expensive, and the forces you actually get in the box are not balanced against each other at all. I'm worried we're on the precipice of discussing whether or not Age of Sigmar is a good game, and I'm really really hoping we don't have to go there.
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Jan 27, 2019 03:33
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The only RPGs that ever reached people who hadn't already played D&D is D&D and World of Darkness
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Jan 27, 2019 03:34
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Alien Rope Burn posted:It also has to be a license people want to step into, which is a tough distinction. The biggest issue is that long-term licensed RPGs are rarities- most end up being flash-in-the-pan. I honestly can't think of any real exceptions to that. Call of Cthulhu was perhaps the luckiest, taking a generally unknown author and pretty much becoming the lens HPL was viewed through. Star Wars and Robotech have had the most staying power of any licenses that I can think of otherwise. TSR was the only one to hang onto Marvel for more than a fart's span; ditto for DC and Mayfair. The idea is I guess is that you get a leg up by doing a licensed game, and you would think lacking the accumulated evidence of many years now that it never works that way, that a Star Wars game would easily outsell a Dungeons and Dragons game, which has no super popular tie in media, but from what I can see, they all pretty much under-perform compared to expectations, and that is the comparatively successful ones.
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Jan 27, 2019 03:38
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Dear Lord help me, I'm back on my bullshit. Tuxedo Catfish posted:Honestly I think there actually is something to the idea of "dissociated mechanics" and y'all are too quick to dismiss it just because it's being used by an idiot who uses it as a negative term. xiw posted:The other problem with it for me is that the base D&D combat system is massively 'disassociated' - the choices you make in combat in an attack-roll-based / hp system are a mile away from the decisions you'd make in a real fight. Nobody decides 'now i will hit the ogre for 1d8 damage, i know there is absolutely no way i can kill it with this swing but i need to whittle its 4 hit dice down' since hit points are such an abstraction. As an example, Hollowpoint makes the actual criticism you're talking about, much better and more succinctly. Hollowpoint posted:There’s a bank robbery scene in Michael Mann’s movie Heat (1995): the crew has robbed a bank and in the course of exiting they are bounced by the police. The crew has automatic weapons, great training, and willingness to cause harm and hurt others, but they are also professionals: their objective is to escape with the money. Comrade Gorbash posted:The reason it's a crap analogy is that you can immediately point to several concepts in football that do naturally fit limited uses of various kinds. The whole concept of defending and marking, has been criticized because "soldiers don't try to get hit!" These people don't understand the most basic stuff about ancient infantry tactics.
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Jan 27, 2019 03:45
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Sampatrick posted:The only RPGs that ever reached people who hadn't already played D&D is D&D and World of Darkness My first RPG was Car Wars.
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Jan 27, 2019 04:28
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Alien Rope Burn posted:My first RPG was Car Wars. holy poo poo same I'm not even kidding
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Jan 27, 2019 04:35
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My first was d&d, but in high school I brought a guy in to play rifts as his first, and another guy joined us for shadow run as his first, and two other guys played paranoia as their first. Actually now I think about it I'm pretty sure a guy I knew back in England had only ever played warhammer fantasy RPG.
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Jan 27, 2019 04:53
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My first was, somehow, the Serenity RPG.
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Jan 27, 2019 04:55
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Halloween Jack posted:0 "I will move between the victim and the perpetrator" and "if this person keeps fighting, they are now fighting me", respectively. If bouncers got trained in this stuff, this would be the 101 class. But they don't need to be. It just kinda naturally happens.
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Jan 27, 2019 04:57
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