TG as an Industry: A pendulum swing against the excesses of Rule 0 culture

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Traditional Games > TG as an Industry: A pendulum swing against the excesses of Rule 0 culture

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Halloween Jack: Sep 12, 2003; I WILL CUT OFF BOTH OF MY ARMS BEFORE I VOTE FOR ANYONE THAT IS MORE POPULAR THAN BERNIE!!!!!

Loxbourne posted:

Did anyone ever find Ryan Dancey's takedown of that rant? I keep hearing about this legendary comeback but nobody ever seems to find it. Has it been scrubbed from the Internet?

AFAIK it was only published on the RPGnet forums, and they had a big crash that just deleted years worth of archives. Which is very very good because I said some stupid poo poo when I was 13

# ? Sep 24, 2021 14:15

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# ? May 26, 2024 12:16

TheDiceMustRoll: Jul 23, 2018

EverettLO posted:

The part I liked best in that rant was getting mad at Kenneth Hite for giving his game Orkworld less review time than his first review D&D 3e in 2000. Imagining that those two things warranted equal air time is megalomaniacal even if you completely hate D&D. One was the first true rewrite of the D&D ruleset since the birth of the hobby and one is a forgettable 'what if orcs are really the good guys?' RPG with decent writing and mediocre mechanics.

Why the gently caress do so many RPG developers lose their loving minds when someone goes "I do not actually like this game" like who cares its an opinion

# ? Sep 24, 2021 14:35

Halloween Jack: Sep 12, 2003; I WILL CUT OFF BOTH OF MY ARMS BEFORE I VOTE FOR ANYONE THAT IS MORE POPULAR THAN BERNIE!!!!!

I did find this, though:

The Steve Jobs of MMO Marketing posted:

Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay � Corebook

This is a review of the new Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay (WFRP) core book published by the Black Industries division of Games Workshop, design and development by Green Ronin.

WFRP is a hardcover, full color, 256-page book. It carries an SRP of $39.99.

There are 5 other products already available for the line, including a multi-part adventure, and an arms & equipment guide. These products were examined in-store, but not purchased or read. All have the same basic quality and utility as the core book in this review.

What It Is:
This is the roleplaying game featuring the Old World, the setting for the Warhammer Fantasy Battles tabletop miniatures game.

History:
In the 1970s Games Workshop was a TSR licensee. They designed the Fiend Folio for AD&D. By the 1980s, Games Workshop had created a parallel fantasy brand (Warhammer Fantasy) and were devoting all their resources to developing it, and its sister science fiction setting, Warhammer 40,000. The Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay game was not a good strategic fit with the company's focus on miniatures wargaming, and as a result, the RPG has been something of a vagabond. It has been published and revised by several different entities throughout its lifetime, including Flame, Hogshead, and now Green Ronin. Green Ronin's version is being published and distributed by the Black Industries division of Games Workshop, but to the best of my knowledge, it is not yet being sold in GW stores.

The Property:
The Warhammer Fantasy world is a variant of Europe. Cultures are geographically linked to European history. The geography is a slightly distorted European geography. Proper nouns are anglicized local language derivatives ("Altdorf", "Sigmar", etc.) The core game is set in "the Empire" (Germany), and it is bordered to the east by Russian and Nodic derivatives, and to the west by Bretonnia (Norman France). The game features gunpowder weapons and rudimentary medical practice, but no overt science & technological development. In most other respects, it's a standard fantasy medieval setting.

The Bad Guys:
The Old World is threatened by a variety of monstrous opponents. In the far north there is apparently a gateway to the twisted, evil, realms of chaos, through which demonic forces periodically invade. The Warhammer property features a pantheon of demonic "gods" who represent the forces of evil (plague, war, mutation, disease, debauchery), and most of the Bad Guys in the Warhammer world have some connection to some or all of this pantheon. In addition to various chaos demons & their minions, the setting features orcs (and their unique Games Workshop associates the Squigs and Snotlings), Skaven (diseased rat-men), and a standard package of Undead lead by Vampire Counts. (Old World Bestiary provides information on a basic package of standard fantasy monsters to round out this menagerie.)

The Good Guys:
The Empire is a feudal monarchy, with the Emperor being first among equals and elected by the Counts who rule the provinces. The Emperor is usually the son of the previous ruler, but can be selected by election by and of the Counts. Religion in the Empire is pantheastic, featuring churches and organized clergy. The Cult of Sigmar, the founder of the Empire, is the semi-official state religion, but other gods are venerated in various levels of fervor on a province-by-province basis. There are various orders of Knights Martial associated with the Cults, the political/familiar structure of the Empire, and various combinations thereof. Everyone else is either a peasant, a tradesman, a merchant or a criminal.

Chaos:
In the Warhammer world, Chaos is a vital force that exerts its will directly on the world. Chaos is identified as "evil", and all bad things in the Warhammer world flow from Chaos. Chaos forces can mutate children, causing a range of malformations from minor to major. It also inspires madness, and the formation of cults who venerate the Chaos powers. These cults are intertwined with all aspects of the legitimate authorities, planting seeds of corruption everywhere. The Empire (and by logical extension, its neighbors) are festering hotbeds of barely controlled Chaos. Keeping a lid on the problem has been accomplished by heavy-handed arbitrary use of force, superstition, and institutionalized fear and paranoia.

Tone:
The stated objective of the Warhammer Fantasy brand is to depict "a grim world of perilous adventure". The material provided in the core books is sufficient to indicate that this is to be accomplished in two ways: First, by seeding evil and chaos virtually everywhere, and second, by allowing the forces of evil and chaos to initiate violence virtually any time. The impact of these two conditions is that all people & places in the Warhammer world are assumed to be locked into a state of siege mentality and constant distrust. The game has a sort of "X-Files" feeling about it: Not only do you know there is a conspiracy, but you suspect there may be many conspiracies running in parallel, and the conspirators may be working with and against each other simultaneously. The obvious brand proposition for the Warhammer world is "trust no one".

The Real Deal:
The Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay game shares many similar design goals to D&D 3rd Edition, and uses a "basket" of mechanics and mechanical design choices that are clearly influenced by the design of D&D 3rd Edition. This reviewer's opinion is that this represents a positive and successful attempt to marry a valuable and loved heritage with a state of the art design philosophy. The game also features a number of other systems that are either unique to the WFRP game, or are borrowed from other successful RPGs. These include the innovative, incremental character advancement system, a brain-blasting insanity system, and a metagaming "hero point" system. Integration between all these sub-systems is good, and the complete game works well as a cohesive whole. The game is set in a world that combines basic Tolkien-inspired fantasy elements with an alternate history Earth. Given the materials in these two books, it would be easy to use the Warhammer world as a campaign setting for a D&D campaign. It would be reasonably easy to use the WFRP rules with any D&D or D20 campaign setting. It would be easy, and interesting, to use the WFRP rules as the basis for a Lord of the Rings game. This m�lange of D&D, Lord of the Rings, and Earth is the raw material from which most fantasy roleplaying games of the past three decades have been constructed. If you find these elements compelling, you'll likely find WFRP a compelling product. Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay details:

The book is divided into twelve chapters, plus designer's notes. It has an index but no glossary.

The book mixes "flavor" elements (short stories, first-person accounts, etc.) with game rule text. The artwork is of mostly good quality, with much recycled from other sources. There are very few diagrams or technical illustrations. The font is easy to read, the background is unobtrusive, and the graphic design is utilitarian and workable.

Character creation is presented in Chapter II, and consists of 10 pages of material, followed by Chapter III Careers in 34 pages and Chapter IV Skills & Talents in 8 pages. Equipment is described in Chapter V in 19 pages. Combat is detailed in Chapter VI, and weighs in at 15 pages. The magic system is presented in Chapter VII, and includes the mechanics and the spell lists in 29 pages.

Most of the rest of the book (Chapter I Introduction, Chapter VII Religion & Belief, and Chapter X The Empire) is primarily flavor and background on The Empire and the Warhammer World. Chapters IX and XI (The Game Master and The Bestiary, respectively) are added to round out the book and make it a fully playable game.

The basic system of WFRP is roll percentile dice under a target number. Most target numbers are inherent to the acting character, and may be modified by circumstance or external factors. Rolling lower is almost always best, with some exceptions. The game can be played with just 2 10-sided dice.

Chris Pramas, who heads Green Ronin, was a part of the Wizards of the Coast R&D team who developed D&D 3rd Edition, and he subsequently designed the Chainmail miniatures rules which were tightly coupled to the D20 System engine. Since leaving Wizards to found Green Ronin, he has been self-publishing a wide variety of D20 System products designed in house, by freelancer, and by outsiders on spec. Several of the Green Ronin products have won industry awards, and Green Ronin is considered one of the top D20 publishers - and it would be very fair to say one of the top RPG publishers in general.

Chris is credited with Design & Writing for the Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay game, and his influence on the system will extend to all the other products in the line, which makes the decisions made in creating the basic rulebook the template for all of the Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay products. His background experience at Wizards of the Coast and as a D20 publisher is therefore exceptionally relevant to the following observations. Chris understands many of the research efforts that were performed prior to writing D&D 3e, and he understands the mechanical trade-offs, player information load, and rules complexity issues that shaped the D&D 3e design. He has clearly applied much of that knowledge to WFRP.

WFRP is a close cousin to D&D 3rd Edition. The two games share many common aspects, and a lot of common design philosophy. Many terms are interchangeable between the two games, and many game systems are extremely similar to each other. The use of the "roll under / percentile" system in WFRP tends to mask some of these similarities - the presentation of character & monster abilities are very different, which leads to a greater sense of mechanical difference than actually exists. In fact, in most cases, WFRP could be converted to a simple D20 System game by just setting all DCs to 20, and converting percentile scores to bonuses (divide the bonus by 5 and round up). This is further facilitated by the fact that most percentile values in the game are evenly divisible by 5, and external effects are presented in increments evenly divided by 5 as well, allowing fast, on-the-fly conversions without a lot of prep work.

Example:
A WFRP character who wanted to try and hear a noise would roll 2d10, and try to roll under their relevant stat percentile value. A D20 character who wanted to attempt this task would roll 1d20 and add a bonus vs. a DC of 20. Assume the stat in question was 35% and no external modifiers apply. In WFRP a 2d10 roll of 34-01 would succeed. In D20, a 1d20 roll with a +7 modifier (35% divided by 5) vs. a DC of 20 would succeed on a roll of 20-13. The results are mechanically identical.

WFRP does not have stand-alone saving throws. Instead, effects that in D20 would require a save are explicitly bound to ability score checks. Bonuses or penalties may be applied by the effect or the GM depending on circumstances. This is similar to D20's system for ability-score linked saving throws.

The WFRP combat system will be very familiar to anyone who has played a D20 game. Combat begins with a determination of initiative, which remains static throughout the combat encounter. Characters are essentially "flat footed" until their first opportunity to act. Characters can delay their action in order to affect initiative order. When a character acts, it can take a full-round action, or two half-actions (one attack and one movement/miscellaneous). Many common D20 combat actions are represented and work in a virtually identical way to their behavior in D20.

Armor in WFRP reduces damage.

The WFRP combat system does assume that characters will often be dodging or parrying, which are more effective actions than in the D20 games in general.

WFRP characters may have a Toughness bonus, which reduces damage. If an attack is successful, and the damage inflicted is greater than the Toughness and the Armor of the target, damage is inflicted to the target's Wounds. If the total damage inflicted is more than the target's Wounds, the target suffers a critical hit. Critical hits are determined on a hit-location table (head, arms, torso, legs), then a sub-table is used to determine the actual effect, which may range from minor inconvenience (drop a held item) to messy and catastrophic instant death.

In a nice twist, the critical hit system is how characters die in WFRP. Losing all a characters' "Wound Points" doesn't kill a character - but it does mean that the character will suffer critical hits on all further damage, and the critical hit tables are deadly. A variant rule is provided to determine if a critical hit kills a character without requiring multiple rolls on multiple tables to speed up game play.

The most substantial difference between WFRP and D20 is the character advancement system. This system is a hallmark of the WFRP game line and has been present in some aspect or another in all the game's previous incarnations. It could easily be adapted to a D20 System game with very little work.

Here's how the system functions:
At character creation, a character takes one of many "templates" which represent occupations in the Warhammer World. These templates specify maximum potential bonuses to the character's stats. The character does not get all these features immediately, but must earn them incrementally via XP awards. Increasing a percentile aspect by 5% costs 100XP. A template that allowed a 15% total increase would require the player to "buy" that increase 3 times to achieve the maximum result.

The WFRP character system also features Skills & Talents (which are essentially identical to D20 System "Feats"). Character templates also indicate which Skills and Talents are available to that template, and those aspects can also be purchased for an XP award.

When a player decides that a character has finished progressing in a given template, a further XP cost can be paid to switch to a new template. Some templates are thematically linked, and the cost to switch is lower than switching to a completely unrelated template.

In a nutshell, this system allows a player to customize the PC by taking bits and pieces of various "classes" and accumulating them at a slow, but steady rate, incrementally. This is a very flexible approach to character generation and will result in a wide variety of character abilities and ability levels.

The downside to this system is that presenting it to the reader is very complex, and tracking all changes to a character over time requires diligent and careful paperwork. A GM cannot quickly glance at a character sheet and determine if all the math has been done to spec - the whole sheet would need to be reverse-engineered to check all decision points. It will also be very hard for a GM to scale a challenge for a group of characters who are widely dissimilar: One character may have focused all XP expenditures on min-maxing combat ability, while another may have dabbled in a wide range of character options - leaving him weak and defenseless vs. an opponent the first character would mow down without much effort.

WFRP is a game that will benefit greatly from integrated parties who are created together, adventure together, and who work to reinforce each other's weaknesses. It will not be a good game for people who want an ad hoc quickie one-shot adventure with a "bring your own PC" approach.

The range of templates is wide and varied, from the mundane to the mystical. Clearly a lot of history and a lot of thought has gone into the preparation of the templates, and the result will be a fantasy world populated by a diverse cast of characters who are much more descriptively detailed than the generic characters that populate most D20 System worlds.

The magic system of WFRP is similar to the system in Call of Cthuhlu. Characters cast arcane spells they have acquired via the advancement system, and risk catastrophic negative effects each time they use magic. Some of these effects are sufficient to render a character essentially unplayable. Thus, spellcasting members of the party are both an asset, and a liability, and magic will often be an option of last resort. Divine spells are slightly less dangerous, and slightly less powerful. Magic in general in WFRP is less powerful than that in D&D. Spellcasters can help in combat, but they likely cannot win it outright. They can buff the party, but the buffs will not feel "required". And the range of magical effects is mostly limited to things that can happen on the battlefield - no plane-walking, ethereal travel, animal awakening, etc. for WFRP.

There is a magic supplement available, and it is reasonable to surmise that the supplement expands the range and nature of the spells available to spellcasters, so this limitation may be addressed with an additional purchase. The spells provided in the core book are a reasonable basis for running the game.

The core book describes a short list of common monsters, and advancement tables for those monsters, plus a range of animals needed for a medieval fantasy (horses, in particular).

WFRP concludes with Chapter XII: Through The Drakwald, which is a starter adventure, a prelude for the two-volume published adventure also a part of the line.

WFRP is a simpler game than D&D, but it is not a simple game. Characters are humans, elves, dwarfs (sic), and halflings who become more powerful over time as they kill monsters, take their stuff, and power up. Its play pattern will be instantly familiar to virtually anyone who has ever played D&D or a fantasy RPG. "Grim & Perilous" may have been uber-cool in the mid-1980s, but it remains to be seen if that tone still resonates with today's gamers. Warhammer Fantasy is a large, well loved, and richly detailed world, and the game is certain to generate a large and active player network.

There are some materials that would have improved this product, including:
* A system for using Warhammer Fantasy Battles as the mass-combat engine
* A system for creating magic items, and more magic items (there are only 2 magic items presented in the core book, and neither of them are very interesting mechanically)

# ? Sep 24, 2021 14:45

Comrade Koba: Jul 2, 2007

Halloween Jack posted:

AFAIK it was only published on the RPGnet forums, and they had a big crash that just deleted years worth of archives. Which is very very good because I said some stupid poo poo when I was 13

sadly it seems to have been fixed because I just checked and my godawful hot takes on WoW and GURPS 4E from 2004 are still there

# ? Sep 24, 2021 14:59

Dawgstar: Jul 15, 2017

TheDiceMustRoll posted:

Why the gently caress do so many RPG developers lose their loving minds when someone goes "I do not actually like this game" like who cares its an opinion

Wick truly believed Orkworld was something special, devoting great chunks of his blog to its development and took it as a personal affront nobody cared. He even sent a nasty email to a friend that used to review RPG products who was much lower on the chain than somebody like Hite.

# ? Sep 24, 2021 15:08

Kai Tave: Jul 2, 2012; Fallen Rib

Warthur posted:

Houses of the Blooded is a fine example of this. As I recall, Wick hyped this up as his D&D-killer, despite the fact that it ticks almost none of the boxes anyone would look to D&D to tick and was largely based around fairly PvP-intensive social politicing of a sort which D&D was never really about.

In fairness Houses of the Blooded was explicitly meant to be an anti-D&D, that is to say it very much was not Wick trying to ape D&D, it was him trying to make a game that was the opposite of D&D in as many respects as possible. Instead of wandering adventurers with no attachments, characters are bound up in webs of social intrigue and familial obligations. Instead of combat being an affair where you shrug off X number of hitpoints of damage, combat is dangerous and deadly. Etc. Now the rest of what you're saying is true, it basically hits every issue Wick's games historically have, there's an F&F review that goes into more extensive detail, but I don't know that even Wick himself really thought that Houses of the Blooded was going to compete with D&D.

# ? Sep 24, 2021 15:12

Splicer: Oct 16, 2006; from hell's heart I cast at thee
🧙🐀🧹🌙🪄🐸

admanb posted:

Technically at this point neither of those are FFG properties.

Asmodee's been VC held for eight years now, so while you're not wrong about the vulturehood it's been a slow spiral so far.

A few years ago I got a badly cut set of tokens in a game. I emailed customer support with pictures and they sent out copies of the sheet in the mail.

Last year I got another dodgy sheet and I was informed they'd changed policies and I was to go hassle the point of sale for a full return/replace.

So yeah there's been quite a slide from my perspective.

# ? Sep 24, 2021 15:16

Kai Tave: Jul 2, 2012; Fallen Rib

Splicer posted:

A few years ago I got a badly cut set of tokens in a game. I emailed customer support with pictures and they sent out copies of the sheet in the mail.

Last year I got another dodgy sheet and I was informed they'd changed policies and I was to go hassle the point of sale for a full return/replace.

So yeah there's been quite a slide from my perspective.

Ooof, seriously? Man, it's been years since I've played X-Wing but FFG was pretty famous for having extremely reliable and helpful customer service when it came to replacing lost or damaged components. That's a pretty big step down.

# ? Sep 24, 2021 15:28

DalaranJ: Apr 15, 2008; Yosuke will now die for you.

Unsurprisingly the axis on which John Wick swung away from D&D when he made Houses of the Blooded in the 90s were the ones that made it more like Vampire:The Masquerade. I�ve long questioned whether the name of the game was a joke about that, but I don�t think Wick is that self aware in the end.

# ? Sep 24, 2021 15:35

Cessna: Feb 20, 2013; KHABAHBLOOOM

Halloween Jack posted:

AFAIK it was only published on the RPGnet forums, and they had a big crash that just deleted years worth of archives. Which is very very good because I said some stupid poo poo when I was 13

I did the Big Purge back in 2008. The only posts removed were from Tangency, the off-topic forum. No gaming or game-related posts were removed.

There was a recent problem a couple of days ago, but nothing was lost; all was rebuilt.

I only know this second-hand, though, I haven't logged in in nearly a year.

# ? Sep 24, 2021 15:43

Arsenic Lupin: Apr 12, 2012; This particularly rapid💨 unintelligible 😖patter💁 isn't generally heard🧏‍♂️, and if it is🤔, it doesn't matter💁.

Whoever came up with the thread title: :discourse:

# ? Sep 24, 2021 15:52

MockingQuantum: Jan 20, 2012

Kai Tave posted:

Ooof, seriously? Man, it's been years since I've played X-Wing but FFG was pretty famous for having extremely reliable and helpful customer service when it came to replacing lost or damaged components. That's a pretty big step down.

FFG used to have a fair amount of floorspace devoted to dealing with misprints or missing components, basically a mini-warehouse of bins of game components, so they handled everything internally (and for a while, I think it was basically 2-3 people who did all of it, though I can't swear to that). I'm pretty sure that when they ran out of a component, they'd literally go grab another boxed copy of the game from the warehouse, open it up, and separate out the components to their respective bins.

At some point in the last couple of years I think their customer service department was pretty much eliminated and either mostly outsourced or stapled on to sales somehow, I'm not sure.

# ? Sep 24, 2021 16:14

Alien Rope Burn: Dec 5, 2004; _{I wanna be a saikyo HERO!}

Loxbourne posted:

Did anyone ever find Ryan Dancey's takedown of that rant? I keep hearing about this legendary comeback but nobody ever seems to find it. Has it been scrubbed from the Internet?

I believe this is it:

Ryan Dancey? posted:

And there, for me, is the key issue. I always liked John. John was a fun guy who had some very good (if not quite complete) ideas for games, was always interested in having a fun game, and would come and game with the lowly fans at cons.

The Wick, otoh, was an idiot. He was rude, incoherent, self-righteous, and worst of all lacking in good points or humor.

I'd like the Wick to die. John, otoh, I'd like back.

# ? Sep 24, 2021 16:42

Hel: Oct 9, 2012; Jokatgulm is tedium.
Jokatgulm is pain.
Jokatgulm is suffering.

Alien Rope Burn posted:

I believe this is it:

What's that quote about the shithead bring the real guy and the nice person being the mask or whatever? I think it usually comes up here in connection to zak.

# ? Sep 24, 2021 16:51

Chakan: Mar 30, 2011

MockingQuantum posted:

FFG used to have a fair amount of floorspace devoted to dealing with misprints or missing components, basically a mini-warehouse of bins of game components, so they handled everything internally (and for a while, I think it was basically 2-3 people who did all of it, though I can't swear to that). I'm pretty sure that when they ran out of a component, they'd literally go grab another boxed copy of the game from the warehouse, open it up, and separate out the components to their respective bins.

At some point in the last couple of years I think their customer service department was pretty much eliminated and either mostly outsourced or stapled on to sales somehow, I'm not sure.

I demo'd for FFG in the demo hall for a few years, starting in 2009 and this is exactly correct. They had extra copies of the game broken down and binned in case you needed part X for game Y, not just at conventions but for commercially bought stuff as well. And just like you said, the customer service team was gutted a while after the Asmodee acquisition and now it feels like they're just keeping a small section of the games from each name they bought. FFG was always terrible about having product for sale online but I looked last month and everything on the FFG site just redirected to the Asmodee shop where they only have ~6 games advertised, though I guess those specific ones were in-stock.

# ? Sep 24, 2021 16:56

EverettLO: Jul 2, 2007; I'm a lurker no more

TheDiceMustRoll posted:

Why the gently caress do so many RPG developers lose their loving minds when someone goes "I do not actually like this game" like who cares its an opinion

I can't find the old Gaming Outpost review (I'm sure someone saved it somewhere), but from my 20 year old memories I don't even think it was a bad review. He was just pissed that it didn't warrant as much air time as an epochal event in gaming.

My own memory of it is also almost two decades old but it was a Wick product through and through. It had some compelling ideas, such as community character generation and simply the idea of treating elves as being so magically powerful and long lived as to appear to mortal races like alien greys appear to modern people. It had some bad ideas, such as community character creation being tied into a point pool that meant the better your community was, the worse your character was. And it had a lot of mediocre ideas, such as making orks a fairly traditional, even if well explored, noble savage archetype.

It was a breed of game that's almost entirely extinct - a 300 page book that made it, in print, to gaming stores around the country despite not having the backing of a major publisher. I have no idea how these things were ever profitable enough even to get printed.

# ? Sep 24, 2021 17:29

FMguru: Sep 10, 2003; peed on;
sexually

Orkworld seemed like a rehash of the early 1980s RuneQuest supplement Trollpack.

# ? Sep 24, 2021 17:45

Parkreiner: Oct 29, 2011

FMguru posted:

Orkworld seemed like a rehash of the early 1980s RuneQuest supplement Trollpack.

To the point Wick claimed he went up to Greg Stafford to thank him for the inspiration, and I recall thinking Stafford must be one hell of a class act to not take that as an insult.

# ? Sep 24, 2021 17:58

Warthur: May 2, 2004

Kai Tave posted:

In fairness Houses of the Blooded was explicitly meant to be an anti-D&D, that is to say it very much was not Wick trying to ape D&D, it was him trying to make a game that was the opposite of D&D in as many respects as possible. Instead of wandering adventurers with no attachments, characters are bound up in webs of social intrigue and familial obligations. Instead of combat being an affair where you shrug off X number of hitpoints of damage, combat is dangerous and deadly. Etc. Now the rest of what you're saying is true, it basically hits every issue Wick's games historically have, there's an F&F review that goes into more extensive detail, but I don't know that even Wick himself really thought that Houses of the Blooded was going to compete with D&D.

Thaaat's right, I remember now.

I think my misremembering came from the following logic chain:

- Houses of the Blooded is explicitly hyped up as an anti-D&D.
- As such, its marketing spend a lot of time talking about how different it is from D&D.
- Most games which base their marketing around being "totes not D&D" and are based in the fantasy genre are utter heartbreakers which are 100% just D&D with the author's house rules added.
- My brain mashes up the above facts and misremembers Houses as being promoted as a superior replacement to D&D, not an anti-D&D.

# ? Sep 24, 2021 18:43

Warthur: May 2, 2004

DalaranJ posted:

Unsurprisingly the axis on which John Wick swung away from D&D when he made Houses of the Blooded in the 90s were the ones that made it more like Vampire:The Masquerade. I�ve long questioned whether the name of the game was a joke about that, but I don�t think Wick is that self aware in the end.

The whole thing where it's about playing the aristocracy of some fabulous ur-civilisation which is better than any subsequent culture, and who I think (the book was, IIRC, a little vague on this point) were meant to be more than human, reminded me a lot of Exalted. Or rather, a version of Exalted written by someone who disliked anime tropes but really liked Clark Ashton Smith stories.

Parkreiner posted:

To the point Wick claimed he went up to Greg Stafford to thank him for the inspiration, and I recall thinking Stafford must be one hell of a class act to not take that as an insult.

Stafford 100% was a class act on the basis of all the stories I have heard about him, and my own interaction. (I bought a copy of Prince Valiant off him on eBay and asked him to sign it dedicated to my Pendragon PC, which he did happily.)

Hel posted:

What's that quote about the shithead bring the real guy and the nice person being the mask or whatever? I think it usually comes up here in connection to zak.

It's from Patrick Stuart's post responding to Mandy's original callout of Zak, which was the last of a chain of posts in which Stuart first semi-defended Zak whilst pointing out he was being an rear end in a top hat and then progressed to just realising Zak was an rear end in a top hat.

Here's the quote.

not the guy who played Picard posted:

There's this person who's such a great guy, and so interested in you personally, so talented, intelligent, charming and funny, with rare good taste.

And then there is this other guy. The one that comes out in text form usually. In arguments about nerd stuff. This guy is condescending, aggressive, clever and manipulative. This guy will say anything to win some loving internet argument and never, ever, ever admits wrong, backs down or recognises the humanity in his opponents.

The first guy has friends who like him. They second guy has tools, things he uses, doling them out like playing cards or little army men.

At first it seems like the vituperative poo poo online is just a flaw in the larger person. Something you will have to put up with, a manageable flaw in an otherwise good man.

It takes a long loving time to work out that the second guy is the real actual guy. That is the person making the decisions and for whom the decisions are made. The first person, the good guy, is just a set of behaviours he puts on like clothes.

# ? Sep 24, 2021 18:51

Loxbourne: Apr 6, 2011; Tomorrow, doom!
But now, tea.

EverettLO posted:

It was a breed of game that's almost entirely extinct - a 300 page book that made it, in print, to gaming stores around the country despite not having the backing of a major publisher. I have no idea how these things were ever profitable enough even to get printed.

They weren't. That's one of the traditional reasons why a heartbreaker was called a heartbreaker - because for all the energy and effort and optimism put into one, the author was likely facing financial ruin.

# ? Sep 24, 2021 18:51

KingKalamari: Aug 24, 2007; Fuzzy dice, bongos in the back
My ship of love is ready to attack

Loxbourne posted:

They weren't. That's one of the traditional reasons why a heartbreaker was called a heartbreaker - because for all the energy and effort and optimism put into one, the author was likely facing financial ruin.

So discussing the original, intended definition of a "Fantasy Heartbreaker" is always a big ol' can of worms, but my understanding was that the "heartbreaker" aspect as outlined in the original essay was the fact that these systems were universally rehashes of D&D but each contained some singular, potentially innovative mechanic. Essentially all of the heartbreakers had something in them that was potentially interesting, but was lost because the rest of the product was just mindlessly aping D&D.

# ? Sep 24, 2021 19:01

BrainParasite: Jan 24, 2003

DalaranJ posted:

Unsurprisingly the axis on which John Wick swung away from D&D when he made Houses of the Blooded in the 90s were the ones that made it more like Vampire:The Masquerade. I’ve long questioned whether the name of the game was a joke about that, but I don’t think Wick is that self aware in the end.

There's actually a video somewhere where Wick explicitly talks about how HotB was meant to fix a couple major issues he had with VtM LARPs.

# ? Sep 24, 2021 19:01

Halloween Jack: Sep 12, 2003; I WILL CUT OFF BOTH OF MY ARMS BEFORE I VOTE FOR ANYONE THAT IS MORE POPULAR THAN BERNIE!!!!!

KingKalamari posted:

So discussing the original, intended definition of a "Fantasy Heartbreaker" is always a big ol' can of worms, but my understanding was that the "heartbreaker" aspect as outlined in the original essay was the fact that these systems were universally rehashes of D&D but each contained some singular, potentially innovative mechanic. Essentially all of the heartbreakers had something in them that was potentially interesting, but was lost because the rest of the product was just mindlessly aping D&D.

It was very much both. Fantasy heartbreakers are games that are extremely derivative of D&D, but had really interesting ideas, and were doomed commercially because they came out too late (1990-2001) for that to be viable in the market.

# ? Sep 24, 2021 19:17

neongrey: Feb 28, 2007; Plaguing your posts with incidental music.

Wick is really frustrating to me because I personally really like a combative/antagonistic style and for good reasons that's not exactly easy to track down. Wick as a designer really speaks to the sort of tension I like in play which is, yes, kind of dickish at best.

Of course, in this day and age, you need to acknowledge that you can't have play like that without building in safeties to ensure everyone involved is on the same page with expectations because boy howdy if less than literally everyone plays that way, it's gonna cause a world of hurt feelings, and you need to be careful even if everyone understands, expects, and wants this mode of play. And Wick's work sure as hell doesn't acknowledge any of that.

Bleh.

# ? Sep 24, 2021 19:53

Admiral Joeslop: Jul 8, 2010

I have two or three extra X-wing Miniatures ships that I got free from FFG because they were broken in the package or the acrylic stand that came with them didn't fit. I would just email them and a week later they'd send a brand new miniature (not in a retail package, just the ship itself) no questions asked. The broken ones were easily repaired, too.

I haven't played the game in almost three years for reasons unrelated to the game itself and I kinda miss it but I'm really not confident in Asmodee.

# ? Sep 24, 2021 20:07

Falstaff: Apr 27, 2008; I have a kind of alacrity in sinking.

EdsTeioh posted:

Man I bought a John Wick minigame years ago (Wilderness of Mirrors, I think) and it had some line in it about "You can figure out hit points and all that bullshit on your own."

lmao, that's so Wick.

# ? Sep 24, 2021 20:18

mellonbread: Dec 20, 2017

neongrey posted:

Wick is really frustrating to me because I personally really like a combative/antagonistic style and for good reasons that's not exactly easy to track down. Wick as a designer really speaks to the sort of tension I like in play which is, yes, kind of dickish at best.

Of course, in this day and age, you need to acknowledge that you can't have play like that without building in safeties to ensure everyone involved is on the same page with expectations because boy howdy if less than literally everyone plays that way, it's gonna cause a world of hurt feelings, and you need to be careful even if everyone understands, expects, and wants this mode of play. And Wick's work sure as hell doesn't acknowledge any of that.

Bleh.

One of the GM tips for Dogs in the Vineyard was that the GM can hit the player characters as hard as they want, whenever they want, because the system is designed to give the players the narrative tools to fight back and survive, and to choose what they're willing to sacrifice in order to succeed. It was a much better articulated version of the "adversarial" philosophy.

# ? Sep 24, 2021 20:42

That Old Tree: Jun 24, 2012; nah

Warthur posted:

Thaaat's right, I remember now.

I think my misremembering came from the following logic chain:

- Houses of the Blooded is explicitly hyped up as an anti-D&D.
- As such, its marketing spend a lot of time talking about how different it is from D&D.
- Most games which base their marketing around being "totes not D&D" and are based in the fantasy genre are utter heartbreakers which are 100% just D&D with the author's house rules added.
- My brain mashes up the above facts and misremembers Houses as being promoted as a superior replacement to D&D, not an anti-D&D.

I seem to recall he also made some weird manifesto around 3e's launch, where he framed himself as nailing a proclamation about good gaming to Wizards' door, and oh boy you'll see his next game will revolutionize everything. I don't know if that was a tease for what eventually became an actual game, or just really intense blowhardry. So maybe that's where the thought of him claiming to be a D&D killer comes from. In any case, it was insufferable.

# ? Sep 24, 2021 21:11

Coolness Averted: Feb 20, 2007; oh don't worry, I can't smell asparagus piss, it's in my DNA

GO HOGG WILD!
🐗🐗🐗🐗🐗

I vaguely remember Wick also having some good advice for GMing -just not in his book of GMing advice. Which is what makes it sad that he's consistently leaned into the lovely parts of his persona.
Like I think it was in hyping up and talking about how he ran Houses of the Blooded his talk about reinforcing stakes for players and specifically that he'd use terms like "mortal peril" as a keyword to say "yeah this is particularly dangerous, before you make rolls here are you sure you want to try that?" And only using that framework when the stakes were high.
For like 2010 or earlier when I read that, it was decent.

# ? Sep 24, 2021 21:19

Comrade Koba: Jul 2, 2007

That Old Tree posted:

I seem to recall he also made some weird manifesto around 3e's launch, where he framed himself as nailing a proclamation about good gaming to Wizards' door, and oh boy you'll see his next game will revolutionize everything. I don't know if that was a tease for what eventually became an actual game, or just really intense blowhardry.

IIRC he just produced a hilarious short story that featured a wide-chested side character wide-chestedly doing various wide-chested things while offering wide-chested commentary.

# ? Sep 24, 2021 21:21

dwarf74: Sep 2, 2012; Buglord

So this may not seem at all TG but... There's a GaryCon connection and Luke Gygax is allllll over the pdf complaint.

I've got some friends who gamed with this dude, lol

https://buffalonews.com/business/lo...82d0ef7194.html

Apparently he siphoned funds from his company to pay for GaryCon? Amazing.

dwarf74 fucked around with this message at 21:49 on Sep 24, 2021

# ? Sep 24, 2021 21:31

Xiahou Dun: Jul 16, 2009; We shall dive down through black abysses... and in that lair of the Deep Ones we shall dwell amidst wonder and glory forever.

I can�t stop laughing at this :

quote:

Pirrone's lawsuit also alleged that Trbovich forced Pirrone to attend a pagan �bonding ceremony� between Trbovich and a woman during a business trip to Ohio to evaluate a potential acquisition

Just imagine how elementally awkward that must�ve been.

# ? Sep 24, 2021 21:50

dwarf74: Sep 2, 2012; Buglord

Lol in addition to being a nightmare misogynist just do a search for Gygax in the pdf.

# ? Sep 24, 2021 21:57

dwarf74: Sep 2, 2012; Buglord

Xiahou Dun posted:

I can’t stop laughing at this :

Just imagine how elementally awkward that must’ve been.

Oh man it's even worse!

92 has to be there as lawyer humor right?

# ? Sep 24, 2021 22:01

Absurd Alhazred: Mar 27, 2010; by Athanatos

dwarf74 posted:

So this may not seem at all TG but... There's a GaryCon connection and Luke Gygax is allllll over the pdf complaint.

I've got some friends who gamed with this dude, lol

https://buffalonews.com/business/lo...82d0ef7194.html

Apparently he siphoned funds from his company to pay for GaryCon? Amazing.

So, at this point, is there a good Gygax left? :smith:

# ? Sep 24, 2021 22:07

Parkreiner: Oct 29, 2011

neongrey posted:

Wick is really frustrating to me because I personally really like a combative/antagonistic style and for good reasons that's not exactly easy to track down. Wick as a designer really speaks to the sort of tension I like in play which is, yes, kind of dickish at best.

Of course, in this day and age, you need to acknowledge that you can't have play like that without building in safeties to ensure everyone involved is on the same page with expectations because boy howdy if less than literally everyone plays that way, it's gonna cause a world of hurt feelings, and you need to be careful even if everyone understands, expects, and wants this mode of play. And Wick's work sure as hell doesn't acknowledge any of that.

Bleh.

In what is possibly the only praise I'll ever give JW, Houses of the Blooded *does* have a line in it somewhere warning players to decide up front if their campaign will be a "friendly game" (i.e., PCs will only betray NPCs, not each other) or no holds barred.

My group spent about a year playing HotB, and I think that's the only rule or best practice in the book that worked as described. That game and its designer are still a running joke among us a decade later.

# ? Sep 24, 2021 22:11

Mors Rattus: Oct 25, 2007; FATAL & Friends
Walls of Text
#1 Builder
2014-2018

dwarf74 posted:

Oh man it's even worse!

92 has to be there as lawyer humor right?

this sounds less like a pagan ceremony and more like a larp

# ? Sep 24, 2021 22:21

Tuxedo Catfish: Mar 17, 2007; You've got guts! Come to my village, I'll buy you lunch.

Mors Rattus posted:

this sounds less like a pagan ceremony and more like a larp

there's a really obvious joke here i'm not quite mean enough to make

# ? Sep 24, 2021 22:23

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# ? May 26, 2024 12:16

KingKalamari: Aug 24, 2007; Fuzzy dice, bongos in the back
My ship of love is ready to attack

Tuxedo Catfish posted:

there's a really obvious joke here i'm not quite mean enough to make

Don't worry, I am...

Mors Rattus posted:

this sounds less like a pagan ceremony and more like a larp

I mean, when you really get down to it there's not much of a difference between neopagan ceremonies and LARPs...

# ? Sep 24, 2021 22:23

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Traditional Games > TG as an Industry: A pendulum swing against the excesses of Rule 0 culture

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