Halloween Jack posted:

Speaking of which, I think one of Ken Whitman's early debacles was printing Traveller stuff he didn't have the rights to. Do other games have "bootleg editions?"

Rand Brittain posted:

Do people have problems with the way the book is written? Most of the complaints I remember are about him as a person, and amount to "he won't do this thing that would really be helpful for me even though doing it would be very easy."

quote:

Shade
Every ability number in Burning Wheel is accompanied by a letter. This letter indicates the "level of potential," or shade of that ability. The letters, in turn, correspond to both a color and a number. B is black shade and means the player rolling for that ability needs 4s or better for successes. G is gray shade and needs 3s or better for successes. Grey shades indicate heroic potential. W is White shade and needs 2s or better. White shade is for supernatural potential.

Having a G or W shade ability is the only time the difficulty number for a roll varies from 4 (or B shade). Changing an ability's shade is discussed in the Character Burner and Artha sections of this book.

jakodee posted:

I know he doesn’t plan to ever make PDFs of his books (they exist), but the way people talk about him makes it seem like he killed their dog.

Edit: And yeah the way people talk about it seems like people have a problem with how the book is written.

Mors Rattus posted:

A lot of it has to do with the time he decided he would write all Kickstarter updates in the voice of a wizard, and would be extremely nasty and rude to people asking him to do things like 'clarify what he was saying about shipping dates because the wizard voice is not helpful.'

Mors Rattus posted:

A lot of it has to do with the time he decided he would write all Kickstarter updates in the voice of a wizard, and would be extremely nasty and rude to people asking him to do things like 'clarify what he was saying about shipping dates because the wizard voice is not helpful.'

Heliotrope posted:

Yeah the kickstarter is here and one of the questions in the FAQ is "Hey can you just say in plain English what the book will have in it?"

RiotGearEpsilon posted:

We're also gently but firmly encouraging her to write it such that Jo Q. Dungeongamer can parse and play successfully without feeling like they're wading through the toxic runoff of a whimsy factory, and I THINK we're succeeding?

Heliotrope posted:

Yeah the kickstarter is here and one of the questions in the FAQ is "Hey can you just say in plain English what the book will have in it?"

moths posted:

Here's a good example of Luke turning a basic mechanic into a TED Talk:


That's a lot of ink to say that the default difficulty is 4+, but heroic abilities succeed on 3+ (and supernatural abilities on a 2+.)

All the shade stuff is just extra. This letter is this shade, which means this word? That's not needed.

That segment comes immediately after he explains how he uses the word "exponent" to mean "dice" and not "exponent." Just call them "dice," you coward.

E: shade is actually one more level of complexity dumber than I said. It's "This letter is that shade, which indicates this word, which means that number."

Kestral posted:

Burning Wheel with all its bits and bobs fully engaged is complex, and it's impossible to learn the system without actually playing a lot of hours and reading the (thankfully now-restored) BWHQ forums, but the shade mechanics aren't exactly complicated: they're just clearly part of content you didn't read.

Kestral posted:

Burning Wheel with all its bits and bobs fully engaged is complex, and it's impossible to learn the system without actually playing a lot of hours and reading the (thankfully now-restored) BWHQ forums,

Liquid Communism posted:

He's effectively describing poo poo D&D handled 30 years ago.

Monokeros deAstris posted:

Wait why are you trying to deny me my toxic whimsy runoff addiction

Kestral posted:

Burning Wheel with all its bits and bobs fully engaged is complex, and it's impossible to learn the system without actually playing a lot of hours and reading the (thankfully now-restored) BWHQ forums, but the shade mechanics aren't exactly complicated: they're just clearly part of content you didn't read.

moths posted:

Yeah I'm not saying the mechanic is complicated. I'm saying that write up is overwrought trash, and a pretty fair example of why Crane is a bad writer.

Kurieg posted:

His answer there is basically "if you can't put up with this then you probably aren't going to be able to understand the book."

Which, well, yes.

Zurui posted:

moths' rant is enhanced by the fact that, in Mouse Guard (and I believe BW), "coward" means failure.

Zereth posted:

is there a way I can go back in time and somehow back this book even less than I did, which is zero? because holy poo poo.

quote:

Lo, friend. Think of what you ask. If you and I cannot come to an accord here, through this simple medium, how will things go once we begin to summon the powers arcane? Think carefully on your decision then to support us here. It could be deleterious.

But do note from the text above: And it shall contain: the paths and ways of the Roden, Trolls and Great Wolves; an encyclopedia of traits and skills; an arcane library of magical ways; a libram of magic artifacts; and detailed commentary on nearly every aspect of the urtext itself.

LatwPIAT posted:

Chivalry & Sorcery. After a 3rd and 4th edition by two different companies, one of the original authors published his own revised edition of 1st edition C&S. Since he no longer owned the rights to C&S, this caused a conflict that was solved by letting the author republish C&S 1e as "The Red Book" (with all the Tolkien stuff removed).

Soon thereafter, the original revised C&S 1e started circulating again as an underground bootleg RPG with numerous additions made by a self-proclaimed fan group. For free, but very much violating the copyright on C&S.

Kurieg posted:

moths posted:

Here's a good example of Luke turning a basic mechanic into a TED Talk:


That's a lot of ink to say that the default difficulty is 4+, but heroic abilities succeed on 3+ (and supernatural abilities on a 2+.)

All the shade stuff is just extra. This letter is this shade, which means this word? That's not needed.

That segment comes immediately after he explains how he uses the word "exponent" to mean "dice" and not "exponent." Just call them "dice," you coward.

E: shade is actually one more level of complexity dumber than I said. It's "This letter is that shade, which indicates this word, which means that number."

Zurui posted:

moths' rant is enhanced by the fact that, in Mouse Guard (and I believe BW), "coward" means failure.

jakodee posted:

I mean I guess it’s overwrought but:
1-Shade is a useful concept to indicate that “heroic” or “supernatural” are tiers indicating more than just number.
2-I don’t really get why this drives people crazy?

Like this is such a minor gripe compared to the kind of absolute dreck that gets published in the major rpg space, that I can assume people pay attention to it because Luke Crane has managed to deeply, deeply aggravate a large number of people.

Kurieg posted:

Zereth posted:

that is exactly why I want to have negative copies of this book.

quote:

Will you offer PDFs? Why no PDFs?

We do not offer PDFs of Burning Wheel books. We have tried, but the words mystic held therein cannot be contained in this shell of software. The files appear as blank, a slate that questions our very sanity.

jakodee posted:

I mean I guess it’s overwrought but:
1-Shade is a useful concept to indicate that “heroic” or “supernatural” are tiers indicating more than just number.
2-I don’t really get why this drives people crazy?

Like this is such a minor gripe compared to the kind of absolute dreck that gets published in the major rpg space, that I can assume people pay attention to it because Luke Crane has managed to deeply, deeply aggravate a large number of people.

Liquid Communism posted:

Because inventing a whole new lexicon to explain common tabletop concepts is both bad because it creates a bar to entry for players, and pointless extra work that could have instead been used in applying those concepts better.

jakodee posted:

I’m a proponent of creating new terms because of how often rpgs share concepts that are *almost* but not exactly the same, and using new terms helps avoid mixing up rules between different games.

jakodee posted:

I do think that “shade” is kind of a baffling way to describe the mechanic attached to it and that Luke Cage seems to be a deeply annoying person.

Zereth posted:

dude came up with three different terms for the same thing in three games which are using the same basic dice system (and the thing is part of that dice system)

he is absolutely not doing this