|
FMguru posted:1) It takes a lot of effort (and some specialized book-production knowledge) to make a good index
|
#
?
Apr 24, 2020 17:48
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 11, 2024 19:01 |
|
|
Warthur posted:Add 3) Lots of people run from searchable PDFs these days, and being able to Ctrl-F to find a term is arguably more convenient than using a standard index anyway. As a side note, part of the reason I find Blades in the Dark so difficult to use as a reference work is because there aren't enough distinct terms in it for me to Ctrl-F with any degree of precision.
|
|
#
?
Apr 24, 2020 19:05
|
|
|
potatocubed posted:As a side note, part of the reason I find Blades in the Dark so difficult to use as a reference work is because there aren't enough distinct terms in it for me to Ctrl-F with any degree of precision. As opposed to, say, some early White Wolf books of the "three broad chapters with vague names" school of table of contents construction.
|
|
#
?
Apr 24, 2020 19:53
|
|
|
My friends just dropped this off. I will go through it later.
mango sentinel fucked around with this message at 20:40 on Apr 24, 2020 |
|
#
?
Apr 24, 2020 20:00
|
|
|
Three volume set, BULLSHIT?
|
|
#
?
Apr 24, 2020 20:03
|
|
|
Is there a goon consensus for what's the most fun Tabletop Mini Wargame? From a fluff and nostalgia perspective, I love 40k... but GW isn't the best at writing rules and the folks I've talked to have stated that it's kind of dull gameplay. Not a lot of interesting decisions game to game. I'm aware this question is both super vague and super subjective. I wanna make and paint models, and hopefully there's a fun game to go with it 
|
|
#
?
Apr 24, 2020 20:50
|
|
|
JIZZ DENOUEMENT posted:Is there a goon consensus Nope. There are a jillion minis wargames out there, and what's most fun for you is going to depend on your preferences. Are you looking for something historical or fantastical? Crunchy or simple? Inexpensive or full of jewel-like objects of wonder? A less subjective answer is that if you have a local scene for a particular game, play that even if it's not "the best" at whatever. Otherwise pick whatever you think has the coolest models that will sustain your engagement by themselves, because you're going to be playing every couple of months at best.
|
|
#
?
Apr 24, 2020 21:01
|
|
|
JIZZ DENOUEMENT posted:Is there a goon consensus for what's the most fun Tabletop Mini Wargame?  Seriously though, you need to be a little more specific on what you're looking for. Do you care about setting? What scale of combat do you want, skirmish or army? How many minis are you looking to paint? 40k is actually in a solid place right now but if that's not doing it for you, Age of Sigmar has simpler, breezier rules and great models. The various GW Skirmish games (Necromunda, Underworlds, Warcry, and Adeptus Titanicus) all have their own flavor and probably some of the most interesting models GW is making currently. You also have the advantage of them being some of the most ubiquitous games and easy to find players for. If you're not averse to historicals, the demos I've seen of Chain of Command, Sharp Practice, and Bolt Action have all seemed fun but I haven't played. A bonus to historicals though is once you have an army you can shop around rule systems until you find one you prefer.
|
|
#
?
Apr 24, 2020 21:05
|
|
|
JIZZ DENOUEMENT posted:Is there a goon consensus for what's the most fun Tabletop Mini Wargame? From a fluff and nostalgia perspective, I love 40k... but GW isn't the best at writing rules and the folks I've talked to have stated that it's kind of dull gameplay. Not a lot of interesting decisions game to game. If you want 40k with more sensible rules and model counts check out Kill Team, it's squad-level 40K and is honestly more fun than it should be.
|
|
#
?
Apr 24, 2020 21:15
|
|
|
grassy gnoll posted:Lemme preface this by saying I'm not getting lovely at you, I'm getting lovely at people who suck at layout - I'm 100% with you on the rants about RPG writers not understanding the basic features of their desktop publishing software, and that it's relatively simple to learn how to auto-create an index. But I gotta disagree on making a good, useful index. That requires a fair degree of thought and understanding and some practice; what sorts of terms to flag, when and where; how to go through the index you've generated later and notice and eliminate circular references, prioritize the most important references and remove trivial ones, and (especially) spot gaps and missing terms where maybe you never flagged it in the index because of an oversight or maybe because your actual content for that term isn't appropriately labeled in the text so you never had a good place to highlight the term and add it to the index. Really good indexes have "see also"s, highlight key/most important reference points while including additional "for more info" type reference points with some sort of hierarchical presentation, never send the reader to 30 places a term shows up when there's one specific place where that term is defined, avoid repeating or trying to replace the function of the table of contents, and keep themselves reasonably short to avoid chewing up expensive pagecount. It's also a task that should be done as late in the production as possible, to avoid building an index and then having content changes mess it up (and to incorporate content from all contributors, for collaborative books); but, that's also the moment when your project is at its most behind-schedule and you're likely at your biggest rush to finally finish the drat thing and get it out the door. These days, most people are used to using search to find things instead of using indexes or even TOCs. I think indexes are still cool, and I use them, but they're dying out. The RPG industry is behind the times in still publishing stuff in books at all, as compared to online repositories of interlinked/associated topic-based writing, mostly because it's a lot easier to sell a book than to get people to pay for access to online docs (or just provide docs online for free). I don't exactly know how indi RPB publishing survives what I view as the inevitable complete shift to online-accessible searchable content model for all written information, but if it does, it probably won't have books with pages of indexed terms. Leperflesh fucked around with this message at 21:22 on Apr 24, 2020 |
|
#
?
Apr 24, 2020 21:20
|
|
|
Leperflesh posted:I'm 100% with you on the rants about RPG writers not understanding the basic features of their desktop publishing software, and that it's relatively simple to learn how to auto-create an index. I agree with you on pretty much all of those points, but this is mostly an issue of function, rather than intent and future trends. If your typical small-print book publisher is a general practitioner, and you're coming at this from the viewpoint of a surgeon, RPG layout artists are Creepy Luke, who wants to take back to his alley to exchange your phlegmatic humors with antifreeze. In this tortured analogy, indexing tools are asking Luke to wipe off the needle before he sticks it in our neck.
|
|
#
?
Apr 24, 2020 21:41
|
|
|
Yeah basically! That's a really good way of putting it. One more thing about indexing: no matter how much time and effort and expertise you put into it, one single customer will fail to find the specific term they wanted to find, and then declare very loudly and publicly that your index sucks, and that will become the permanent assessment of it by everyone forever, and possibly stick to your entire line of content and not just that one book, too. Meanwhile, 100 customers successfully used your index to find something, instantly forgot about it, and never went online to complain. Guess which of the above has an impact on your sales?
|
|
#
?
Apr 24, 2020 21:50
|
|
|
JIZZ DENOUEMENT posted:Is there a goon consensus for what's the most fun Tabletop Mini Wargame?
|
|
#
?
Apr 24, 2020 22:27
|
|
|
JIZZ DENOUEMENT posted:Is there a goon consensus for what's the most fun Tabletop Mini Wargame? From a fluff and nostalgia perspective, I love 40k... but GW isn't the best at writing rules and the folks I've talked to have stated that it's kind of dull gameplay. Not a lot of interesting decisions game to game. Play Kill Team, or if you prefer tiny mecha, Adeptus Titanicus for a better 40k experience. If you want historicals, yeah, Too Fat Lardies have good rules.
|
|
#
?
Apr 25, 2020 00:51
|
|
|
It also kind of depends what sort of experience you're looking for. Are you wanting a skirmish type game where each model has a number of skills and options each turn? Or do you want something that's bigger units that have to coordinate? Do you want something very granular, or something a little more abstract? Do you want the feel of the wargame to be closer to actual conflict, where things like morale and communicating orders are important, or something that's more just about the actual strategy of fighting, with that stuff ignored or downplayed? Do you want a ruleset built around a setting, or something setting agnostic that you can apply to whatever models you have? There are rules sets all along those that might be up your alley, depending.
|
|
#
?
Apr 25, 2020 02:53
|
|
|
Is there a thread to talk about listening to recordings of tabletop gameplay? Or asking for recs of such? I've been listening to Rycon Roleplays on youtube - their Z-Land series was pretty drat good (if grimdark as hell) until it shifted from zombie apocalypse genre to more mad max-esque grimdark. So I'm looking for a place where I can commiserate and/or ask for recs of similar horror/survival games to listen to.
|
|
#
?
Apr 25, 2020 03:41
|
|
|
StrixNebulosa posted:Is there a thread to talk about listening to recordings of tabletop gameplay? Or asking for recs of such? I've been listening to Rycon Roleplays on youtube - their Z-Land series was pretty drat good (if grimdark as hell) until it shifted from zombie apocalypse genre to more mad max-esque grimdark. So I'm looking for a place where I can commiserate and/or ask for recs of similar horror/survival games to listen to.
|
|
#
?
Apr 25, 2020 03:46
|
|
|
Hostile V posted:There's the AP thread. https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3743698 Thank you.
|
|
#
?
Apr 25, 2020 03:46
|
|
|
 Blogging for The Next Project (my D&D-inspired RPG clone) continues!The topic of today's post is the new setup for class customization. For those who might not have been following yet, there's always been a fair bit of homage to 4th Edition in TNP (although reading through old posts, I used to refer to it as a D&D NEXT retroclone.) There were some classes from 4e that I was never sure how (or if) I'd be able to fit in to the designs, but I've figured out the last few missing pieces of the puzzle. Today's post lays out how Archetypes and Domains are going to be implemented, but there's still lots of design work to be done on most of them; if you have any suggestions or other input on these new systems, there's still lots of time for me to take them and put them into the game. As usually, I'll end by saying that all somethingawful forum goons are welcome to join the TNP Discord server, so feel free to hit me up over there as well.
|
|
#
?
Apr 25, 2020 04:25
|
|
|
flakeloaf posted:A 3e DM hosed up the rule about mixing potions and decided well after the fact that two healing potions drank 3 rounds apart had fatally poisoned me. Party members put me in a portable hole to rez me later. I used the off-time to pore over my own DMG to show him the mistake, and he decided "well okay you weren't killed, you were just knocked out, so you're still in the hole with no air but now you're awake. Go." This one rules because it reads like the DM is trying to get rid of you without a confrontration but screwed everyone else over in the process because they didn't even plan it properly  (just talk to your players jesus)
|
|
#
?
Apr 25, 2020 04:26
|
|
|
mango sentinel posted:My friends just dropped this off. I will go through it later. Looks a lot more beat up than my set, also it doesn't have the woodgrain.
|
|
#
?
Apr 25, 2020 08:36
|
|
|
I like reading rpg source books and I’m wondering which RPG has the best constructed world? I wanna read an rpg that has as little relation to earth as possible, that is the cultures aren’t just vikings with the serial numbers off or whatever, and I want the source book to be thick, with lots of details Any recommendations?
|
|
#
?
Apr 25, 2020 08:57
|
|
|
PawParole posted:I like reading rpg source books and I’m wondering which RPG has the best constructed world? I wanna read an rpg that has as little relation to earth as possible, that is the cultures aren’t just vikings with the serial numbers off or whatever, and I want the source book to be thick, with lots of details Anything Tekumel? Glorantha will probably get a shout out too
|
|
#
?
Apr 25, 2020 09:04
|
|
|
I would have recommended Traveller, but they have actual vikings with the serial numbers filed off. Tekumel, Glorantha, and Spire.
|
|
#
?
Apr 25, 2020 09:09
|
|
|
Talislanta. Not based on quality necessarily, because I don't have a clue, but because they made four editions worth of books free so you can read that poo poo forever. Edit: nah, the website's down so I don't know if you can still get the PDFs.
|
|
#
?
Apr 25, 2020 09:55
|
|
|
mllaneza posted:I would have recommended Traveller, but they have actual vikings with the serial numbers filed off. loved traveller interstellar war, that was my second favorite after Gurps Infinite Worlds 90s Cringe Rock posted:Talislanta. Not based on quality necessarily, because I don't have a clue, but because they made four editions worth of books free so you can read that poo poo forever. the blurb lies, they have elves but they call it something else. Angrymog posted:Anything Tekumel? Will try both, thank u.
|
|
#
?
Apr 25, 2020 10:23
|
|
|
90s Cringe Rock posted:Talislanta. Not based on quality necessarily, because I don't have a clue, but because they made four editions worth of books free so you can read that poo poo forever. DriveThruRPG has some of the more important books up for free, and I'm pretty sure I have more or less the full set lying around somewhere on my laptop or one of my USB drives, so I'll try to go dig it up and upload it to MEGA or something
|
|
#
?
Apr 25, 2020 12:12
|
|
|
drrockso20 posted:DriveThruRPG has some of the more important books up for free, and I'm pretty sure I have more or less the full set lying around somewhere on my laptop or one of my USB drives, so I'll try to go dig it up and upload it to MEGA or something in fact with a little digging it turns out that while the site itself is down, one can still access the site's index and through that access pretty much all the files the site hosted; http://peedeepages.com/talislanta/
|
|
#
?
Apr 25, 2020 12:22
|
|
|
PawParole posted:I like reading rpg source books and I’m wondering which RPG has the best constructed world? I wanna read an rpg that has as little relation to earth as possible, that is the cultures aren’t just vikings with the serial numbers off or whatever, and I want the source book to be thick, with lots of details Blue Planet is one of my favorite worlds, but it's related to earth in that it's set on a waterworld colony planet with uplifted cetaceans. Amazingly well written game though, I scored it for free from my FLGS in ~2001 and just read the sourcebooks several times without getting to play.
|
|
#
?
Apr 25, 2020 12:38
|
|
|
PawParole posted:I like reading rpg source books and I’m wondering which RPG has the best constructed world? I wanna read an rpg that has as little relation to earth as possible, that is the cultures aren’t just vikings with the serial numbers off or whatever, and I want the source book to be thick, with lots of details It's not quite what you're looking for but if we're taking detailed setting, Harn has to come up. It does have Vikings with the serial numbers filed off, but there's a plausible in-setting reason why they are the way they are. It's all done with care. The setting books aren't super thick but they contain varying levels of detail. The ones about a specific city ought to have enough detail for any taste.
|
|
#
?
Apr 25, 2020 15:31
|
|
|
PawParole posted:I like reading rpg source books and I’m wondering which RPG has the best constructed world? I wanna read an rpg that has as little relation to earth as possible, that is the cultures aren’t just vikings with the serial numbers off or whatever, and I want the source book to be thick, with lots of details Spire is very good and the writers for it are great at writing material that's simply entertaining to read.
|
|
#
?
Apr 25, 2020 15:39
|
|
|
PawParole posted:I like reading rpg source books and I’m wondering which RPG has the best constructed world? I wanna read an rpg that has as little relation to earth as possible, that is the cultures aren’t just vikings with the serial numbers off or whatever, and I want the source book to be thick, with lots of details
|
|
#
?
Apr 25, 2020 16:09
|
|
|
China Mieville's Bas-Lag books are novels, not sourcebooks, but only by virtue of missing a few tables and mechanics and poo poo.
|
|
#
?
Apr 25, 2020 16:14
|
|
|
From Modiphius' email newsletterquote:I wanted to send you all an update on Modiphius during the lockdown and have something special for our community to say thanks for all your support. I've long been passionate about John Carter of Mars since I was a kid so if you head over to our webstore and use the code BARSOOM at checkout you can score yourself a free copy of the John Carter of Mars RPG core book in PDF before the end of April. It's a really streamlined version of our 2d20 system so if you like what you see the code VIRGINIA will get you 20% off anything in the John Carter RPG & miniatures collection.
|
|
#
?
Apr 25, 2020 17:19
|
|
|
PawParole posted:I like reading rpg source books and I’m wondering which RPG has the best constructed world? I wanna read an rpg that has as little relation to earth as possible, that is the cultures aren’t just vikings with the serial numbers off or whatever, and I want the source book to be thick, with lots of details Jorune, the system is rear end but the world concepts are fascinating. Tales of Gargentihr, a Scottish game from the 1990s that is loving weird, and I really should do an F&F at least on the setting. Also seconding Blue Planet. This differs from the two above because the rules do not suck.
|
|
#
?
Apr 25, 2020 21:18
|
|
|
What was the Planescaps knock off where there’s a Sigil-esque city with portals to different planes of reality that rotate, turning the city into a constantly fluctuating madhouse of cultures and goals?
|
|
#
?
Apr 25, 2020 21:25
|
|
|
Sig
|
|
#
?
Apr 25, 2020 21:37
|
|
|
PawParole posted:loved traveller interstellar war, that was my second favorite after Gurps Infinite Worlds The Terran-First Imperium Wars are approximately Fleet Book 8 and 9 for Squadron Strike: Traveller. The good news is FB1 (available in a full boxed starter set) covers the 5th Frontier War, and FB2 (in playtesting/I'm still designing ships) will cover the Solomani Rim War and assorted Aslan incursions. Come blow up spaceships, https://vtt.mikezekim.com/
|
|
#
?
Apr 25, 2020 23:48
|
|
|
My parents want to play Apocalypse World. This is definitely some loving monkey's paw poo poo, right?
|
|
#
?
Apr 26, 2020 02:53
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 11, 2024 19:01 |
|
|
Xiahou Dun posted:My parents want to play Apocalypse World. You can play Apocalypse World, Burned Over, the recent hack vincent baker made that took out all the horny bits. It makes it generally a little more pg-13 but is also like, still a pretty drat good game, and honestly infinitely easier to pitch to a group.
|
|
#
?
Apr 26, 2020 02:56
|
|
