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hyphz posted:Yet more evidence that the RPG industry and market no longer give a poo poo about design. The market has never given a poo poo about design. Half-assed attempts at cashing in on something popular have always existed; the OGL/5e supplements gluts are just the modern incarnation of crappy clones. Claiming the industry doesn't care about design when we live in a golden age of indie RPG design is ridiculous. Lemon-Lime fucked around with this message at 13:27 on Feb 3, 2022 |
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Feb 3, 2022 13:23
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When I skimmed it I thought Position was a separate resource from Health, which I thought was kinda neat - something that you can spend to do cool stuff, but if it drops below a threshold leaves you open to danger could be a nice risk/reward mechanic. But merging it with Health makes no drat sense.
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Feb 3, 2022 13:51
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Strom Cuzewon posted:But merging it with Health makes no drat sense. Nothing about this game does, it's embarrassing for everyone involved.
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Feb 3, 2022 13:57
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It's a shame they couldn't just license the OTHER Dark Souls roleplaying game that came out in Japan like... five years ago? https://blogofarcanesecrets.wordpress.com/2018/09/29/my-experience-with-the-dark-souls-tabletop-rpg/
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Feb 3, 2022 15:04
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Hel posted:Nothing about this game does, it's embarrassing for everyone involved. Steamforged made one good game that they killed after Mat Hart got salty about losing, they're absolute trash tier.
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Feb 3, 2022 15:04
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Position being "spendable HP" is such an obviously bad idea that I won't even get into it, but what is the drat deal behind it refilling randomly? I couldn't get past the first boss of Dark Souls 3 to save my life but even I know that Stamina is always full at the start of an engagement and that every move that consumes Stamina does so at set-and-predictable rates depending on the move involved.
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Feb 3, 2022 15:08
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gradenko_2000 posted:Position being "spendable HP" is such an obviously bad idea that I won't even get into it, but what is the drat deal behind it refilling randomly? I couldn't get past the first boss of Dark Souls 3 to save my life but even I know that Stamina is always full at the start of an engagement and that every move that consumes Stamina does so at set-and-predictable rates depending on the move involved. Hopefully that's the only thing they took.
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Feb 3, 2022 15:11
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gradenko_2000 posted:Position being "spendable HP" is such an obviously bad idea that I won't even get into it, but what is the drat deal behind it refilling randomly? I couldn't get past the first boss of Dark Souls 3 to save my life but even I know that Stamina is always full at the start of an engagement and that every move that consumes Stamina does so at set-and-predictable rates depending on the move involved. The most charitable interpretation I can come up with is that this is meant to emulate the Souls experience of walking incautiously around a corner right into a bunch of enemies and having to immediately burn a bunch of stamina to dodge/block their opening attacks (or, failing that, burn a bunch of health when they stab you in the face). Even if that's the goal I don't think this is a good way to approach it, though.
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Feb 3, 2022 15:16
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hyphz posted:Yet more evidence that the RPG industry and market no longer give a poo poo about design. One developer that frequently makes terrible licensed games is not indicative of the entire industry, that's a ridiculous position.
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Feb 3, 2022 15:17
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ShallNoiseUpon posted:One developer that frequently makes terrible licensed games is not indicative of the entire industry, that's a ridiculous position. The number of developers moving to 5e clones is, though. I can think of only a handful of games that are trying to evolve the wargaming style RPG design: PF2e, Fragged and Zafir. PF2e has an obvious break which Paizo seem to have no interest in fixing, presumably because they don’t care about design. Otherwise it’s all nar or OSR.
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Feb 3, 2022 16:12
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It's like the D20 glut all over again.
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Feb 3, 2022 16:15
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MonsieurChoc posted:It's like the D20 glut all over again. And the AD&D heartbreakers before that, but with even less innovation each time.
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Feb 3, 2022 16:27
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The main difference between the D20 Glut and now is that it's mostly digital and POD, which spurs the creation of even more content since there's much less risk. But thanks to crowdfunding, heartbreakers (that actually meet Edwards' definition of a heartbreaker) are back in a big way. It's never been easier to bankrupt yourself producing something that could have just been a PDF. I have to agree with hyphz here--there's actually a lot of innovative stuff being done in the D&D genre, but most of it is low-budget indie stuff. From where I'm standing, the most overblown Kickstarters are often for extremely derivative cargo-cult dross. Halloween Jack fucked around with this message at 16:36 on Feb 3, 2022 |
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Feb 3, 2022 16:34
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BinaryDoubts posted:Steamforged Games just put up a blog post discussing the new mechanics they've added to 5e for the official Dark Souls RPG. Let's take a look, shall we? I got the same impression of the mechanics descriptions as you did, but the death mechanics sound especially frustrating. Because I can't imagine how the bonfire respawning/party wipe, start over from the beginning would work in a way that's not lovely to play through in a TTRPG or completely weightless and kind of tonally dissonant from Dark Souls. Okay, so one of the PCs dies and respawns at the last bonfire waypoint.... how do they get back to the party? Do we just presume everyone hikes back through hopefully empty dungeon hallways and disabled traps to pick them up? Make the 1 or 2 people who died jog to catch up? If you are carefully clearing an area in a Souls game, sure all the dangers between you and the bonfire you started at are dead, but that's a pretty thorough mopping to be doing in a tabletop dungeon crawler. Unless it's area hazards you can't trigger once to disable? Because those are a common feature in the Souls games, too. Do the enemies respawn when you "load back up" at the bonfire? Or is it only when there's a party TPK under the rules of the game? If you're starting over is it just like the Souls games where all the non-unique enemies have respawned in their exact same positions? Are you going to have to completely re-crawl the dungeons? Because that sounds really unfun to do in a tabletop game. Or is the area still cleared out because they're not committing to the respawn mechanic? Is it all empty rooms now or is the GM restocking it with different encounters instead so that there is at least some variety of fights in the rooms they've already visited, looted, and flagged traps in? Nuns with Guns fucked around with this message at 17:02 on Feb 3, 2022 |
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Feb 3, 2022 17:00
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This is the first I've heard of Zafir. The character sheet raises my eyebrow (in a good way). Thoughts?
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Feb 3, 2022 17:19
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Halloween Jack posted:The main difference between the D20 Glut and now is that it's mostly digital and POD, which spurs the creation of even more content since there's much less risk. Yeah, there is a lot of extremely interesting design work going on in RPGs. Outside of D&D, games like Fellowship, Panic at the Dojo, and Strike! do a great job of refining previous designs, just to pick some by trad games forums authors. And I know there's many more - I can't keep up with all the interesting developments and schools of thought in RPGs right now. However, "recognizable brand name + existing system" is a reliable way to rake in cash. It seems like Modiphius' basic model at this point and it makes bank on kickstarter.
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Feb 3, 2022 17:22
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Modiphius is so weird. On one hand, kudos to them for being so willing to take their house system and really tweak it into whatever they need for the IP they're adapting. On the other hand, some of their adaptations are absolute garbage-tier shovelware.
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Feb 3, 2022 17:29
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CitizenKeen posted:This is the first I've heard of Zafir. The character sheet raises my eyebrow (in a good way). Thoughts? The main thing I noticed about it is that the rules assume full 3D throughout. On the one hand, dealing with d20’s half assed 3D combined with flight is a huge pain, on the other hand, it expects you to use lego for your play map..
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Feb 3, 2022 17:46
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CitizenKeen posted:Modiphius is so weird. On one hand, kudos to them for being so willing to take their house system and really tweak it into whatever they need for the IP they're adapting. On the other hand, some of their adaptations are absolute garbage-tier shovelware. How would you rank their various games? Any standouts, for better or worse?
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Feb 3, 2022 18:02
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Absurd Alhazred posted:How would you rank their various games? Any standouts, for better or worse? I've never heard anyone say a kind word about Dishonored. I've got Dune on my shelf but haven't been able to get a game together. The book pulls in a lot of lore from the Brian Herbert prequels, which is a huge strike against it, but I may be able to forgive that if the gameplay is good
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Feb 3, 2022 18:07
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I like my 2d20 crunchier than Modiphius does. Conan is good, though I think it's been replaced by Achtung! Cthulhu as my favorite implementation. Star Trek Adventures is a bit light for my tastes, but it really nails the show in a way you don't usually see in adaptations. Dishonored is, as noted, hot garbage. Fallout is pretty weak, in my mind, as well - the only one I haven't bought. John Carter of Mars is way too light for my tastes, but it seems to be where Modiphius started really "figuring out" 2d20 (or STA). Mutant Chronicles was the first pass, too crunchy and clunky. Infinity is my favorite level of crunch (currently up for dissection at F&F), but its layout is garbage and it's a bit too much work for me to adapt to another property. Dune is a great book; it's too light a 2d20 for me, but they really did some things with it with regards to "zones" and positioning and stuff that I think are pretty clever and I want to get to the table to see if I can steal them. The Homeworld quickstart looks good, too - about the same crunch as Achtung!, and the nostalgia for the IP alone makes it an insta-buy for me when it drops. I'm just waiting for a good "high fantasy" or supers setting and it'll probably become my default generic system. Mors Rattus' F&F of Infinity starts here Modiphius thread here. CitizenKeen fucked around with this message at 18:43 on Feb 3, 2022 |
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Feb 3, 2022 18:39
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mellonbread posted:Star Trek and Conan are the fan favorites. I've barely looked at Dune's system, but the thing that stands out most to me of what I've read is that, apart from the narrative quality of the prequel lore (  ), the history section of the book is extremely poorly written and edited. Lots of repetitive sentences one after the other. Way too much information about the Butlerian Jihad* that is at once way more detail than you should want outside of a dedicated section or supplement, but still incomplete enough to make you go "why the gently caress are you even telling me this?"It's really weird, because the rest of what I've read is at least basically competent at first glance. I cannot get over the giant sidebar with a tiny amount of text in it saying "these guys are all powerful and cool, but we've already talked about the important ones, the rest don't really matter and here's a list of their names." * I gave up on the BH+KJA stuff after reading the first chapter of their first book, so this game is the first I'm reading that they chucked out the far more interesting semi-canon from the Dune Encyclopedia, which is very disappointing but hardly surprising.
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Feb 3, 2022 18:45
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Awesome, thanks for the info and overview!
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Feb 3, 2022 18:47
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To be fair to Modiphius, based on what I read about the abortive D20 Dune, I think that BJH and KJA basically have it set up so that you can't make a Dune adaptation unless you bring them on in a "consultant" role and include their lovely Dune EU stuff, or at the very least don't conflict with it. I'm sure that a film studio has a lot more leverage than a tabletop company.
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Feb 3, 2022 18:54
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I have one of the Dune prequels somewhere. It was so bad, but I don't want to throw it/give it away because it was a gift. 
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Feb 3, 2022 18:58
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What makes Dishonored so bad, apart from the obvious-in-retrospect complete insuitability of the source material to group-based gameplay?
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Feb 3, 2022 19:01
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Absurd Alhazred posted:I have one of the Dune prequels somewhere. It was so bad, but I don't want to throw it/give it away because it was a gift. Reading about the 'CyMeks' (Cybernetic Mechanisms you see) in the Dune RPG made them sound like Dr. Who villains but in a bad way.
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Feb 3, 2022 19:01
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My Lovely Horse posted:What makes Dishonored so bad, apart from the obvious-in-retrospect complete insuitability of the source material to group-based gameplay? Hey BITD works, so it's not like the source material is actually at war with group TTRPG play.
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Feb 3, 2022 19:03
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My Lovely Horse posted:What makes Dishonored so bad, apart from the obvious-in-retrospect complete insuitability of the source material to group-based gameplay? They basically skipped straight from "first pass at a playtest doc" to "layout", skipping all the steps in between. The rules referred to rules that weren't there, explicitly contradicted themselves, didn't work as explained, and when you got through that a lot of the subsystems were just... bad. They've tried to clean it up in further PDFs when there was outcry, but it's went from "hot garbage" to "not worth money when there's so much other good poo poo". Also, Modiphius can sometimes phone in the lore a little, but Dishonored gives you zero information you wouldn't get watching a two hour Let's Play of the games. There's nothing in it for fans of 2d20 or of Dishonored.
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Feb 3, 2022 19:14
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That Old Tree posted:I've barely looked at Dune's system, but the thing that stands out most to me of what I've read is that, apart from the narrative quality of the prequel lore ( I skimmed all the fluff in the book because I feel that section should just be "see the appendices in Dune", but I do really like the system and how it boils all conflict--a knife fight, a tense negotiation, the infiltration of an enemy site, even a massive battle--down to basically the characters' values and what resources they have or can make available. That feels very appropriately Dune to me. I also like that there seems to be enough flexibility baked into the system to run a campaign that barely even mentions Spice, Arrakis, the Atreides and Harkonnen.
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Feb 3, 2022 20:18
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CitizenKeen posted:I like my 2d20 crunchier than Modiphius does.
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Feb 3, 2022 20:20
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So we had our 13th Age Session Zero yesterday and... I think it turned out okay? Looks like the Wyrm and Archmage will be kmpo, with Druid and Three on a close tier. We've got a Human (with gills!) Cleric of the Shark God; a standard Human Paladin; a Halfling Bard who cooks in battle instead of singing, a Half-Orc Monk, and a Tiefling Chaos Mage from... Athas? Anyway it was fun getting them to push their OUT and Backgrounds beyond "safety." Like the Paladin was a "sole survivor" but I talked him into being resurrected by... Someone. Same with backgrounds - more flavor less boring! I'm looking forward to next week!
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Feb 3, 2022 20:33
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CitizenKeen posted:I like my 2d20 crunchier than Modiphius does.
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Feb 3, 2022 20:45
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LaSquida posted:What's up with Zones and Positioning in Dune? Basically, you win conflicts by moving Resources into Zones where there is nothing to counter them. So for example, an knife fight involves moves to trick your enemy into moving their blade into the wrong defensive zone (left/right, high/low) so they can't counter you when you move your blade into their body zone and stick them. This same fundamental concept of feints and misdirection applies to all conflict in the game. Basically, everything is a knife duel, but the knives can be spies infiltrating a location, armies moving to secure a region, or a well placed word in the right ear at a social gathering.
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Feb 3, 2022 20:50
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PeterWeller posted:Basically, you win conflicts by moving Resources into Zones where there is nothing to counter them. So for example, an knife fight involves moves to trick your enemy into moving their blade into the wrong defensive zone (left/right, high/low) so they can't counter you when you move your blade into their body zone and stick them. This same fundamental concept of feints and misdirection applies to all conflict in the game. Basically, everything is a knife duel, but the knives can be spies infiltrating a location, armies moving to secure a region, or a well placed word in the right ear at a social gathering. Dune posted:"In a way, it's like the arena," Feyd-Rautha said. "Feints within feints within feints. You watch to see which way the gladiator leans, which way he looks, how he hold his knife."
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Feb 3, 2022 21:02
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LaSquida posted:What's up with Zones and Positioning in Dune? I don't have the time/energy to give it a full write-up, but the whole Dune zone management mini-game involves controlling your assets. So it's similar to any other game's zones (which are used in other 2d20 games like Infinity), except you might have multiple "things". Now, the obvious "things" might be "spies in a city", wherein each zone is a neighborhood or something. But they do some cool stuff with, say, dueling, where your "things" might be "the knife" and so forth. So you're moving your knife in under their guard, trying to throw them off balance, and instead of using tags like other games, or merely escalating die rolls, you can get a sense of how a duel is going at this moment. Like, someone could come back from a bathroom break, find out the conflict on the board in front of them is a duel, and be like "Oh poo poo, her knife is at your throat!" It's a much better, more refined idea of using zones for things other than tactical combat, since I last encountered them in Fate ten years ago.
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Feb 3, 2022 21:07
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dwarf74 posted:Anyway it was fun getting them to push their OUT and Backgrounds beyond "safety." Like the Paladin was a "sole survivor" but I talked him into being resurrected by... Someone. Same with backgrounds - more flavor less boring! What are the Shark God's tenets of faith?
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Feb 3, 2022 21:34
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Hostile V posted:2d20 Fallout is the best possible adaptation of a Bethesda Fallout game because it's alright to play but there's so much either missing or just a waste of time to bother with. I would never run it but it's an alright time for one of my regular Sunday games and I get to improve Fallout by ignoring huge chunks of it. Ll it literally only has Fallout 4 stuff. Fallout 1, 2, 3, New Vegas? Get out of here!
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Feb 3, 2022 22:10
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dwarf74 posted:a Halfling Bard who cooks in battle instead of singing, I'm picturing hobbit Julia Child and I'm very, very happy. Well done them.
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Feb 3, 2022 23:44
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My Lovely Horse posted:Hey, I used "has been resurrected" as a OUT once! I wanted to establish both that being resurrected is a really big deal (see also that whole recent discussion we had), and that he was important enough to someone to spend a resurrection. Yeah, I've always thought the heavy narrative weight of resurrection in 13A makes it an ideal candidate for OUTs. One of my recurring character ideas for the game has the OUT of "my village was wiped out by disease when I was a small child, but I (and only I) was resurrected by someone at the Cathedral; nobody will tell me who or why."
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