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PHIZ KALIFA posted:Are there any major new (as in, not a re-release, not part of a series) well made high-crunch TTRPGs even being produced these days? All the major flagship standbys are coming up on almost 10 revisions apeice, and all I'm reading is that there's no clear idea as to how to shepherd the game into the kind of experience people want? But otherwise yeah, it's the province of heartbreakers
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Dec 13, 2019 00:30
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NMage is still pretty crunchy, it’s just that it’s an engine used to build free form effects, like Ars Magicka. And Chronicles in general seems to be sliding towards more rather than less crunch? Promethean, for example, and Demon.
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Dec 13, 2019 01:01
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PHIZ KALIFA posted:Are there any major new (as in, not a re-release, not part of a series) well made high-crunch TTRPGs even being produced these days? All the major flagship standbys are coming up on almost 10 revisions apeice, and all I'm reading is that there's no clear idea as to how to shepherd the game into the kind of experience people want? CofD never went from having nine Attributes to three? Tabletop WoD didn't either. Maybe the LARP rules did, and I vaguely recall there might have been a V5 tabletop playtest that had three(?), but it ended up with nine. Exalted of any currently existing stripe is too much crunch for my tastes these days, but I still understand the appeal. Some folks like character creation becoming a kind of little happy shopping spree, and there's satisfaction in having put a bunch of pieces together and getting a particular playstyle out of the result. Deviant: the Renegades runs in one direction, with an involved character creation system of customizing and reskinning Variations, which then becomes pretty straightforward in play, because while the list of available Variations is pretty big and wide, any individual character won't have too many of them. I had fun in a game of Panic at the Dojo which ran in the other direction, where character creation is a small handful of choices to make, but the result is an interconnected set of abilities that you really think about how to deploy effectively during play. Sometimes you want the rules to get out of the way so you can describe what your guy does. Sometimes you want the game to be, well, a game in itself to enjoy. Sometimes you want something in the middle.
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Dec 13, 2019 02:01
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This crunch and gross sex powers discussion is good and cool, but I'd like to remind everyone that we have a thread for Exalted. Don't make me start mage chat. I've also added a few quotes from those of you who have played Coteries to the OP. EDIT: Anyone who kickstarted and read the rules want to do a write up on Mummy 2E? Soonmot fucked around with this message at 02:10 on Dec 13, 2019 |
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Dec 13, 2019 02:07
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panic at the dojo oh my lord that's a good nameI Am Just a Box posted:CofD never went from having nine Attributes to three? Tabletop WoD didn't either. Maybe the LARP rules did, and I vaguely recall there might have been a V5 tabletop playtest that had three(?), but it ended up with nine. Sorry, I was thinking of the jump from chrond to 5E. And y'all make some good points with Mage's freeform effects and the new styles of character design. When I was thinking of crunch, I was thinking of pages and pages of spells/charms/feats/extremely niche reference charts, which is all probably better described under the banner of "bloat." I'm very interested in Panic at the Dojo's character creation system, it was always aggrivating trying to design a character in Wod/ChronD where you pick your skills, then your magic woobly powers, then you go back to change your skills to support the cool woobly powers because you don't know what skills are going to impact what abilities.
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Dec 13, 2019 02:33
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Soonmot posted:EDIT: Anyone who kickstarted and read the rules want to do a write up on Mummy 2E? Short version:
I Am Just a Box fucked around with this message at 03:13 on Dec 13, 2019 |
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Dec 13, 2019 03:08
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PHIZ KALIFA posted:Are there any major new (as in, not a re-release, not part of a series) well made high-crunch TTRPGs even being produced these days? All the major flagship standbys are coming up on almost 10 revisions apeice, and all I'm reading is that there's no clear idea as to how to shepherd the game into the kind of experience people want?
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Dec 13, 2019 03:41
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PHIZ KALIFA posted:Sorry, I was thinking of the jump from chrond to 5E. WoD and CofD are two separate sets of games, so the jump to 5E would be from 20th Anniversary WoD. But 5E still has nine Attributes. Shrecknet posted:GURPS exists my man. I would posit that the system literally called the Storyteller system, whose flagship game is 'a tale of personal horror' is literally antithetical to a high-crunch system You would be wrong, historically these games have at least been pretty moderately crunchy.
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Dec 13, 2019 03:52
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Shrecknet posted:GURPS exists my man. I would posit that the system literally called the Storyteller system, whose flagship game is 'a tale of personal horror' is literally antithetical to a high-crunch system The Storyteller system being rules-lite is charitably a nice plan that doesn't survive contact with the enemy (of playing the game), and uncharitably a branding exercise.
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Dec 13, 2019 04:04
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It's Rules-Medium.
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Dec 13, 2019 04:16
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Something can be really crunchy without being combat-oriented. Chronicles games are pretty combat-ready, but (for example) having an elaborate system for constructing spells in NMage is not a combat subsystem but is absolutely the crunchiest part of the game. Combat math for Mage is way less involved than elaborate ritual wizard math. And I think in general one of the great, if mixed, successes of the Chronicles line is constructing crunchy mechanical frameworks that push games towards themes and styles of play while still being more or less character-decision-driven rather than authorial on the players' parts (with some exceptions; getting EXP for bad things happening to you means there's an extra-diegetic pressure to make bad decisions that works out well for keeping things active and interesting). Non-combat crunch can be a real joy.
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Dec 13, 2019 04:42
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Ars Magica is all about that non-combat crunch. And I'll never get to play it. 
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Dec 13, 2019 05:49
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MonsieurChoc posted:Ars Magica is all about that non-combat crunch. Extremely same.
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Dec 13, 2019 14:33
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The trick to playing Ars Magica is being the GM and offering to walk players through chargen. e: hell, i'm always willing to walk players through chargen for it even when i'm not the gm
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Dec 13, 2019 14:54
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Didn't the original Ars Magica actually predate the World of Darkness and Mage? As in, it was one of the first games some of the people who became WW developed?
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Dec 13, 2019 14:58
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That was my understanding, with the Hermetic houses, including the tremere.
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Dec 13, 2019 15:04
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Night10194 posted:Didn't the original Ars Magica actually predate the World of Darkness and Mage? As in, it was one of the first games some of the people who became WW developed? Yes, but early Ars Magica is...rough. It didn't take its current focus on actual historic accuracy until...somewhere shortly before 4th edition. I don't like 3rd but some of its stuff is well researched. e: but yeah original Ars Magica was Mark Rein*Hagen, Jonathan Tweet and Lisa Stevens.
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Dec 13, 2019 15:08
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My big stumbling block to Ars Magica is that, while it is indeed the perfect game, it requires a really huge amount of buy in from your group. Much more so than most games do. The corebook is also pretty dry compared to the source books, on account of all the rules. So many rules. The system is actually very simple, but the huge amount of additions to rolls makes the formulas look way more scary than they actually are. House Tytalus forever frankly. I managed to sell one player on the game by describing Darth Sidious as a very easy Tytalus character concept.
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Dec 13, 2019 15:19
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House Tytalus: The secret to power is withstanding abusive childhood and then organizing spy rings in an effort to encourage the rise of medieval anarchism.
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Dec 13, 2019 15:24
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It's funny to see that Ars Magica was a big inspiration for Dominions, because I've often felt the World of Darkness feels like the aftermath of a Dominions game. Some Colossal Stone Head rear end in a top hat became Pantokrator and now we've got a God Machine.
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Dec 13, 2019 15:24
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Mors Rattus posted:House Tytalus: The secret to power is withstanding abusive childhood and then organizing spy rings in an effort to encourage the rise of medieval anarchism. My god, we've transcended standard Mage chat 
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Dec 13, 2019 15:28
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If you want to get into the wild poo poo, House Criamon is amazing.
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Dec 13, 2019 15:30
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House Criamon: The secret to power is that we are all imprisoned in an eternal time loop due to one rear end in a top hat's decision to invent cannibalism. Break the prison of time! Free all existence from the tyranny of suffering! ATTICA! ATTICA!
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Dec 13, 2019 15:37
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Ugh, this is making me want to reread all my Ars Magica books and try to slap a campaign together again.
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Dec 13, 2019 15:39
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I can do this for literally any house and several other orgs.
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Dec 13, 2019 15:43
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Kurieg posted:Legit question for rural vampires- how do I kill the 30-50 feral lupines that raid my Haven within 3-5 mins while my Childer perform rituals to my magnificence? Uh you don't
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Dec 13, 2019 16:30
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House Tremere: In any decently-organized civilization it would be madness to put us in charge, but this is medieval Europe so we're probably the best option.
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Dec 13, 2019 16:30
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I'm a big fan of Hosue Ex Miscellenea. Us weirdoes gotta stick together.
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Dec 13, 2019 18:42
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It would be amazing to play Ars Magica, but it’s hard enough to find people to play an Awakening game, I don’t know enough people with the amount of reading time to make AM even an option. If I did, I would definitely buy those books and read them. Until then it would just work it’s way into my brain much like Shadowrun did in the early 00’s where it became a perfect game in my head that I have still never gotten to play. Now there is no game that could ever live up to my imagination. I’ll just stick to occasionally throwing cyberpunk stuff into my Awakening game.
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Dec 13, 2019 20:17
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aside: Shadowrun: Anarchy is the perfect Shadowrun game, because it throws out most of the cruft and only commits a few sins of hand-waving abstraction. I really like it as a pick-up-and-play RPG, there's about 50 pages of pregens that are actually cool and fun with story hooks instead of just the DM's home game PCs. I still think Fiasco! is the better "non-gamer but a creative type" RPG, but drat if Shadowrun:Anarchy doesn't hit every note you'd want a game to hit to convince people RPGs are cool
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Dec 13, 2019 21:06
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Jhet posted:It would be amazing to play Ars Magica, but it’s hard enough to find people to play an Awakening game, I don’t know enough people with the amount of reading time to make AM even an option. Ars Magica is one of the reasons I have never really gotten on well with any version of Mage. Obviously the settings are really different, but the Ars Magica system is a lot simpler while also allowing you to do whatever you can imagine. I think the granularity of having 10 nouns and 5 verbs makes it very clear as to what you can do. Mage the Awakening is a huge improvement over Ascension in terms of structure for sure. The addition of Atlantis as the thing relating everyone together as opposed to 9 random groupings of people that happen to be wizards.
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Dec 13, 2019 21:18
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Shrecknet posted:aside: Shadowrun: Anarchy is the perfect Shadowrun game, because it throws out most of the cruft and only commits a few sins of hand-waving abstraction. I really like it as a pick-up-and-play RPG, there's about 50 pages of pregens that are actually cool and fun with story hooks instead of just the DM's home game PCs.
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Dec 13, 2019 21:39
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http://theonyxpath.com/v5-cults-of-the-blood-gods-coming-soon-to-kickstarter/ This sounds great and I'll probably Kickstart this. Also apparently Fall of London is out soon but meh.
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Dec 13, 2019 21:46
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neaden posted:Shadowrun Anarchy is pretty hosed up though. The pregens are mostly built under old versions of the rules so have various errors, the Cue system is poorly implemented and most people just drop it, it doesn't have enough background in it for it to be your first shadowrun purchase, the story points are implemented oddly, and a bunch of other issues. I wanted to like it but like most stuff Catalyst does it needed a good editor and another couple months of writing.
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Dec 13, 2019 23:02
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Shrecknet posted:aside: Shadowrun: Anarchy is the perfect Shadowrun game, because it throws out most of the cruft and only commits a few sins of hand-waving abstraction. I really like it as a pick-up-and-play RPG, there's about 50 pages of pregens that are actually cool and fun with story hooks instead of just the DM's home game PCs. Shadowrun: Anarchy is an inconsistent, very incomplete, and largely unedited/tested game that is essentially baby's first attempt at writing a "rules lite" Shadowrun by someone with very limited exposure to RPGs outside of SR and D&D-esque RPGs it reads like a partially-written fan-made SR heartbreaker that you'd find in a google docs folder, but sold for full price as a complete product it its favor I will say it has some genuinely good ideas, is a definite step in the right direction for SR, is indeed playable & represents a reasonable jumping off point for bashing your own SR heartbreaker together, and is unambiguously loads better than SR 6e (which is admittedly one of the most damning-with-faint-praise statements in tabletop gaming) LGD fucked around with this message at 23:36 on Dec 13, 2019 |
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Dec 13, 2019 23:11
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Somebody was asking for confirmation for this a while back: https://twitter.com/JCVIM/status/1205554300958543872
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Dec 14, 2019 00:40
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PHIZ KALIFA posted:Are there any major new (as in, not a re-release, not part of a series) well made high-crunch TTRPGs even being produced these days? All the major flagship standbys are coming up on almost 10 revisions apeice, and all I'm reading is that there's no clear idea as to how to shepherd the game into the kind of experience people want? I give you JAGS, AKA Just Another Gaming System. Bonus the .pdfs are free.
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Dec 14, 2019 01:22
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Fall of London Chronicle drops for preorder and PDF on December 17th, per Modiphius' release calendar. https://www.modiphius.com/release-schedule-test.html For those who might want that link. MoonKnight fucked around with this message at 02:14 on Dec 14, 2019 |
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Dec 14, 2019 02:09
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Dawgstar posted:Somebody was asking for confirmation for this a while back: gently caress yes. This is actually a really fun show to watch. There's been a whole bunch of spin offs from other groups (Including at least one from the guy who plays Victor.) trying to pick up on the popularity of it but they don't have that professional look that helps sell it as more than just a bunch of badly done streams by super nerds. The Penny Arcade one in particular is atrocious in its production values. This is despite Jason Carl also being the GM for that one and doing his damnedest to try and make it work in spite of the lovely mics making it a pain to listen too and the PA folks being...Well, the PA folks. 
Archonex fucked around with this message at 19:31 on Dec 14, 2019 |
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Dec 14, 2019 19:22
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Archonex posted:The Penny Arcade one in particular is atrocious in its production values. This is despite Jason Carl also being the GM for that one and doing his damnedest to try and make it work in spite of the lovely mics making it a pain to listen too and the PA folks being...Well, the PA folks. You absolutely can do a comedy RPG stream, but comedy is hard and honestly I think the best choice for at the least a watchable RPG show is just to make the buy in and play it straight. Even if LA By Night has some things to raise an eyebrow at, stuff like Erika Ishii's character coping with her new un-life really sells it.
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Dec 14, 2019 19:58
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