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I have enjoyed several PbtA games, but there are a lot of bad homebrews for it, and a lot of bad homebrew for existing games. It's a bit akin to 4e in that the system is straightforward and it's easy to homebrew, but the bar for really adding anything good and useful is much higher and requires a higher degree of competence. It also disappoints me that I can't think of a way to houserule existing stuff without rewriting it, and I don't have the design skills to reformat playbooks.
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Jan 31, 2019 19:31
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Plutonis posted:Doubt. Blades?
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Jan 31, 2019 19:35
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Are we talking about Kaidan: A a japanese ghost story?
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Jan 31, 2019 19:52
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Subjunctive posted:Blades? Coincidentally, I’m also playing in a weekly Legacy 2e campaign, and it’s amazing too, even while in a different manner. Foglet fucked around with this message at 12:14 on Dec 23, 2019 |
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Jan 31, 2019 19:54
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Pollyanna posted:Those are fine too! I kinda wish we had more ZX games. PM terminusest13, he got done with a Mega Man X -esque RPG not too long ago. He may have posted about it on his blog too, I don't remember.
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Jan 31, 2019 19:55
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Halloween Jack posted:Hot take: PbtA is the indie D20. This take feels pretty lukewarm tbh. Like... you're not wrong. (And I say this as someone who loves PbtA and has written a fairly successful game based on it.)
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Jan 31, 2019 20:07
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Is there a Monsterpocalypse thread floating around? I couldn't find one.
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Jan 31, 2019 20:23
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Foglet posted:Coincidentally, I’m running a weekly Blades campaign right now, and Blades are amazing, even if their PbtA affiliation is debatable I figured being listed here meant something, but I could be wrong http://apocalypse-world.com/pbta/games/title/Blades_in_the_Dark
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Jan 31, 2019 20:23
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MinionOfCthulhu posted:Is there a Monsterpocalypse thread floating around? I couldn't find one. We just talk about it in the warmachine/hordes thread
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Jan 31, 2019 20:39
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I like City of Mist, even if the core book is way too loving long.
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Jan 31, 2019 22:53
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Subjunctive posted:I figured being listed here meant something, but I could be wrong It doesn't use the exact system but it uses the general design principles and GM principles, and is considered a PbtA game both by Harper and Baker.
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Jan 31, 2019 23:08
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Lemon-Lime posted:It doesn't use the exact system but it uses the general design principles and GM principles, and is considered a PbtA game both by Harper and Baker. I’ll take it!
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Jan 31, 2019 23:33
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PBTA is by design a pretty sparse framework which can be adapted to a lot of different genres and forms of play by putting a lot of extra effort in to model the concepts you want. This is the opposite of what D20 was trying to achieve, which was large-scale inter-compatibility; something that was a failure state for D20 is something that PBTA acknowledges from the start. If I were going to disparagingly compare a rules-light system to D20 it would probably be FATE, which can model anything! But whatever it models will always play like FATE. 
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Jan 31, 2019 23:53
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I didn't want to be too cruel to a broad swath of indie games, but I've had more fun hacking FUDGE itself into different things than trying to get people into Fate. Fate kinda rubs me the wrong way because of how it was sold to people when it came out. It was a breath of fresh air compared to D20, but...so I read a simple "How to Grok Fate" pamphlet, and it's like "PC tags his Aspect to get a bonus. He asks the GM if this NPC has a specific Aspect, the GM says sure whatever, so he tags that to get a bonus. Here's an overcomplicated example of how to inflict a negative Aspect so you can tag it." Halloween Jack fucked around with this message at 23:57 on Jan 31, 2019 |
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Jan 31, 2019 23:54
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Tuxedo Catfish posted:If I were going to disparagingly compare a rules-light system to D20 it would probably be FATE, which can model anything! But whatever it models will always play like FATE. As much as generic systems suck, Fate is at least 100% upfront about what type of stuff works well with the way Fate plays.
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Jan 31, 2019 23:56
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Pollyanna posted:Rick and Morty fans, bad opinions, sky blue Yeah that would be a fun idea, seems like the kind of thing that Strike would be perfect for, that or some slight tweaking of Battle Century G Roadie posted:The next one will be a gritty supernatural noir game where all the PCs are empowered by astral spirits of tokusatsu giant monsters. That actually sounds kinda cool though
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Feb 1, 2019 00:04
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Dawgstar posted:The creator may have Both Sides'd Snack Zabbath's awfulness, but Masks is really good. Publisher, not creator. Masks was created by Brendan Conway and published by Magpie, the owner of which, Mark Diaz Truman, wrote the essay you're talking about.
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Feb 1, 2019 07:30
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Halloween Jack posted:I remember there was this guy on the RPGnet forums who was like "It's obvious that CoC D20 is meant for running action horror games" and used it to play Resident Evil, and posted Actual Plays, and his fun drove people loving crazy.
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Feb 1, 2019 12:15
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Halloween Jack posted:I remember there was this guy on the RPGnet forums who was like "It's obvious that CoC D20 is meant for running action horror games" and used it to play Resident Evil, and posted Actual Plays, and his fun drove people loving crazy. this guy owns
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Feb 1, 2019 12:25
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American Badass is an RPGnet legend. Some stay he's still playing "balls out" to this day.
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Feb 1, 2019 13:11
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American Badass was honestly my favorite poster and I still miss him.
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Feb 1, 2019 15:49
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I meant to add that the phrases "Savage Worlds plays FAST and FURIOUS!" and "I'd use Adventure!" still make my blood pressure rise for no good reason.
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Feb 1, 2019 15:58
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Kai Tave posted:American Badass is an RPGnet legend. Some stay he's still playing "balls out" to this day. I can only hope this is right. Godspeed.
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Feb 1, 2019 16:12
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Halloween Jack posted:I meant to add that the phrases "Savage Worlds plays FAST and FURIOUS!" and "I'd use Adventure!" still make my blood pressure rise for no good reason. Something about Savage Worlds saying that is pretty funny considering it has a boating skill. Death to skill lists.
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Feb 1, 2019 16:18
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Wasn't one of American Badass' games about people running around shooting monsters in a swamp? I can only picture him as Florida Man on a fanboat with fistfuls of dice.
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Feb 1, 2019 16:19
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Halloween Jack posted:I meant to add that the phrases "Savage Worlds plays FAST and FURIOUS!" and "I'd use Adventure!" still make my blood pressure rise for no good reason. My group used Adventure! For everything in college and we had a drat good time. 
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Feb 1, 2019 17:48
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LeSquide posted:My group used Adventure! For everything in college and we had a drat good time. Yes well my group used BESM for everything college and we had a drat good time that, in hindsight, seems impossible.
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Feb 1, 2019 17:51
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The Deleter posted:Death to skill lists. Speaking of, does anyone know of any hacks of the FG SWRPG that keep the dice but jettison the skill lists? Im a big fan of the dice system of the game but less than thrilled with...pretty much everything else about it.
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Feb 1, 2019 18:00
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there was a great funeral for drizzt and jimmy played stairway to heaven on his electric guitar, there was not a dry eye in all of mythril hall as the etherial song eccoed throughout it. Call of Cthulhu D20 is the best edition.
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Feb 1, 2019 20:24
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who the gently caress is elminster
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Feb 2, 2019 07:08
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Farg posted:who the gently caress is elminster Spanish for the minister
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Feb 2, 2019 07:11
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oh he's a meta plot dude in forgotten realms. has anyone ever cared about a meta plot? It seems so gosh gently caress stupid of an idea for a game
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Feb 2, 2019 07:21
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some realms should stay forgotten
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Feb 2, 2019 08:29
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Farg posted:oh he's a meta plot dude in forgotten realms. has anyone ever cared about a meta plot? It seems so gosh gently caress stupid of an idea for a game RPGs in the 90's were all about the metaplot. To the point that many splats were designed around how your pcs could be there when the real heroes did the important things, or had plot explanations for why they couldn't be there (including 'actually this was charlie work, the important stuff was happening elsewhere) but sometimes if you were lucky you were rescuing the real important characters or fetching something for them.
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Feb 2, 2019 08:35
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Coolness Averted posted:RPGs in the 90's were all about the metaplot. To the point that many splats were designed around how your pcs could be there when the real heroes did the important things, or had plot explanations for why they couldn't be there (including 'actually this was charlie work, the important stuff was happening elsewhere) but sometimes if you were lucky you were rescuing the real important characters or fetching something for them. Can you name a particularly egregious example? I want to track one down and see this for myself
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Feb 2, 2019 08:50
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BattleMaster posted:Can you name a particularly egregious example? I want to track one down and see this for myself Deadlands was a fun one, where there were rules for one of the big bads of the setting to actively start hunting down your characters once they got too strong.
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Feb 2, 2019 08:52
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BattleMaster posted:Can you name a particularly egregious example? I want to track one down and see this for myself White Wolf was king and queen of dumb metaplot, and Aberrant in particular had a ridiculously high proportion of "watch NPCs cooler than you do stuff" adventures. Deadlands also chronically suffered similar problems. That said, most of White Wolf's metaplot was less about forcing PCs to do certain things, and more just the writers smashing their favorite action figures together and acting like everyone else should care. And boy, no matter how totally irrelevant to most games they were, they sure built a sizable audience of people who did indeed care. Don't get me wrong, it could be dumb fun following and piecing together that stuff, and every rare once-in-a-while even going bugfuck enough with a game to make those things relevant to at-table play. It was just also one of those things White Wolf and their ilk did that made their games such a self-contradictory mess. The most egregious White Wolf example not from Aberrant is probably the Samuel Haight storyline, which absolutely dripped with "your PCs actions for this entire adventure module turn out to be pointless, now please watch this 30-minute cutscene of all the important NPCs getting poo poo done." Haight was also one of the weirdest, worstest over-the-top NPCs. Here's a rundown I did from the WoD thread: That Old Tree posted:
That Old Tree fucked around with this message at 09:03 on Feb 2, 2019 |
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Feb 2, 2019 08:58
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7th Sea had a metaplot where it turned out that the source of magic in the fantasy swashbuckling RPG was aliens.
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Feb 2, 2019 09:02
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Even going back to the Gygax era there was lovely "And the gods and rulers of the setting are my players' old characters! And those cool spells are named after them!" But it was really the 90's where it ramped into the metaplot bleeding into the adventure modules. Although Planescape started the whole thing off with Lady of Pain as the ultimate unbeatable ruler you could never really outsmart, but could hopefully avoid the wrath of. White Wolf is where all of the worst examples I can think of come from. Partially because it was the nerdgame line I really liked. I was going to mention Sam, but That Oak Tree pretty much covered it, and it's funny because yeah his first introduction was in a pretty decent adventure supplement that had 4 different adventure stories that all ended on pretty rail-roady terms and left storyhooks. He's just the big bad of the 3rd story as a "Most Dangerous game" sort big game hunter that's behind a murder mystery, and yeah makes a decent-ish villain specifically setup so you can either decide his 'escape' kills him, or use him again as a recurring villain now that he's a werewolf too. Were you sure about the ash tray thing though? I thought that was Hitler. But yeah the Wraith writers specifically really hated most of the crossover junk and were where most of the folks who could reign in the most puerile urges of the other White Wolf writers and players wound up, so you'd see them pretty consistently writing the "No, you can't use <real world human monster> as the villain in your game. They're confirmed dead, and confirmed soulforged into furniture." type errata But a few things to add for context Sam served as a way for them to link their games. I previously had an old 1st or 2nd e book with an advert for "The Chaos Factor" and it was primarily hyped as the first full crossover splat/adventure for all of their WoD games. Since they'd built him up as a guy that had made enemies among every faction/game. This was also before Changeling launched and I think just after wraith. The "Oh it was a gag character, not meant to be taken seriously" is bullshit, or at least something where some writers didn't get the memo and the company was more than happy to milk it for cash. At best I see it as a "He's a parody of the players we hate the most." One quirk about the oWoD was the writers made hybrids terrible or insta-die as a solution to their players gravitating towards cliches and silliness like "I wanna be a vampire elf! Or my werewolf also has reality altering magick!" The few that were able to actually exist were all nuetered and social outcasts. But people still kinda liked that as a concept (especially since their main demographic were the angsty gothy or punky nerds). So they wrote this NPC who not only got to be a full on hybrid the players weren't allowed to be, but got a buttload of the benefits you weren't allowed and almost none of the downsides. Sam had the ritual that basically made him a werewolf, but wasn't technically one, so got magick (limited to living humans in oWoD) but also got access to vampire stuff by being a ghoul (human who drinks vampire blood and gets some powers but gets addicted/becomes a slave to any single vampire the feed from multiple times) vampire hunter. And since he was born kinfolk and learned hedge magic (weaker stuff any mortal can learn) he knows enough about how the WoD works. Although I nominate their entire White Wolf historical lines for being even worse in the "You're just set pieces for the metaplot NPCs," since these games were all launched after the modern game settings and were part of the main timeline. So baked into the canon of say Vampire: the Dark Ages you've got; which clans survive, and which modern factions are founded by which powerful NPCs who are alive in the modern setting and running them (unlike your PCs). Still though, you could always hope the Storyteller let you at least have impact and legacy, like maybe your characters sired the NPCs who run your modern game's city, or were there when the treaties that created the modern Camarilla and Sabbat broke down! You couldn't influence it, but you could be there. Wraith: the Great War gets special mention for wrapping up with "And then there's a memory wipe, so the entire period you played in (and therefore your PC's entire contributions) are forgotten" Coolness Averted fucked around with this message at 10:33 on Feb 2, 2019 |
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Feb 2, 2019 10:24
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The Lady of Pain's kind of a different thing, because her whole point is to let low-level PCs do low-level PC things without getting constantly owned by the local Elminsters. This may not have been executed perfectly or consistently.
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Feb 2, 2019 10:44
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