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Arivia posted:The English layout is by Luke Crane, so that makes perfect sense.
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Feb 8, 2022 13:13
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Coolness Averted posted:or the mutant swordsman guy is covered in dicks, right? They're worms, you uncultured swine. The limited edition from the KS is much, MUCH better for not having that godawful cover. I assume it's the original cover, I can't imagine Andy picking it on his own, let alone commissioning it.
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Feb 8, 2022 13:19
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thatbastardken posted:sure, but I'm asking about systems that reward player expression with mechanical benefits. i already know about systems where attempts to be cool and stylish are suboptimal.
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Feb 8, 2022 14:32
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Humbug Scoolbus posted:Running an Earthdawn game for the first time since the 90s. Such a weird system. The original has some uh... balance wonkiness... And it has a giant talent list of which 2/3 is hot garbage... But I still have the step table pretty well memorized.
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Feb 8, 2022 14:34
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NinjaDebugger posted:They're worms, you uncultured swine. I think they had to use that cover for the standard edition based on a dictate from the original publisher. And that's part of the reason they made a slip case option. In the Director's Guide of supplemental essays, I think Andy refers to it as the diaper girl cover. But the limited edition has just sweet red and black kanji and is still in stock at Indie Press Revolution.
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Feb 8, 2022 14:50
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Galaga Galaxian posted:Thats a bit disappointing then, because it honestly didn't contain much information. Just a general overview of the organization. Nothing like places they're located, notable figures, history in anything but the broadest of strokes, etc. It was mostly just Overall organization, rules, broad philosophy/practices, ranks etc Yeah, there's no real organization per se; the chantries tend to be mostly independent, only beholden to the mages who support them. They're technically a guild, but beyond some internal stuff they're not super concerned with the outside world. Most of the time you'll find out more information from the individuals in the various kingdoms, Melderyn in particular. Major cities have chantries, and there's usually a blurb about them in the appropriate book. Harn's a pretty tightly focused setting, usually. People don't travel a hell of a lot, because it's hard and dangerous and feudalism, so groups tend to be focused on regional stuff, so that's where most of the detail is placed. The big picture books are pretty sketchy, as you've noticed.
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Feb 8, 2022 16:14
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PurpleXVI posted:I tried to read up on TBZ because someone I know was airing the idea of running a game of it a bit back and... goddamn the books are just unreadable. Like there are obviously some cool concepts in there, but the layout and presentation are just horrendous. I've never gotten so little information(either rules or setting) out of so many pages. The TBZ books are like a big mash together of a bunch of rules from various supplements for the original Japanese game, iirc, which is going to be a mess yeah. You can like put some post it notes in to help find the rules but it’s all over and those guys are trying I’m sure but some translation boggarts always pop up in their stuff. Arivia posted:The English layout is by Luke Crane, so that makes perfect sense. I thought you were joking but then I opened up my pdf and oh my god.
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Feb 8, 2022 17:13
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dwarf74 posted:Man, that brings me back. I've still got my whole collection. I ran and played the hell out of that game in the 90's. It seems to be holding up okay so far. The way Talents are being handled as Magical versions of the Skills works pretty drat well.
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Feb 8, 2022 17:14
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...should I know who Luke Crane is? Because my brain keeps telling me he's a Marvel comics character, but that can't be right.
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Feb 8, 2022 17:16
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thatbastardken posted:are there tabletop games with good/meaningful dressing up? i guess it's trickier in a less visual medium. Have you looked at Costume Fairy Adventures? Dressing up is pretty much the core mechanic. https://penguinking.itch.io/cfa-core-rulebook
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Feb 8, 2022 17:21
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PurpleXVI posted:...should I know who Luke Crane is? Because my brain keeps telling me he's a Marvel comics character, but that can't be right. guy behind Wheel of Time, Torchbearer, Mouseguard was held in pretty high regard on the back of those games being fairly well designed, but in recent years has torched (pun intended) his reputation, first due to a complete inability to drop the Wizard-speak even when dealing with kickstarter backers trying to handle administrative/business concerns, and then more recently due to trying to smuggle Adam Koebel* into a TRPG kickstarter he was headlining * Koebel presided over one the players in his Twitch stream gaming group getting sexually assaulted in-game
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Feb 8, 2022 17:23
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gradenko_2000 posted:guy behind Wheel of Time, Torchbearer, Mouseguard Burning Wheel
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Feb 8, 2022 17:29
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gradenko_2000 posted:guy behind Wheel of Time, Torchbearer, Mouseguard
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Feb 8, 2022 17:32
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gradenko_2000 posted:guy behind Wheel of Time, Torchbearer, Mouseguard Burning Wheel. Wheel of Time is the fantasy novel series with the Amazon show. Also it's worth noting that a big part of Crane's fall from grace in recent years was that he kept acting like he was the avant-garde wizard-punk indie RPG creator he was when he started when he was also the head of Kickstarter's tabletop division and generally considered one of the elder statesmen of indie RPG design. (Trying to sneak Adam Koebels in as some kind of weird statement on cancel culture is still the worst part. It's just important context for why him making some kind of weird indie zine kickstarter was so annoying before that happened.) Lurks With Wolves fucked around with this message at 17:38 on Feb 8, 2022 |
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Feb 8, 2022 17:33
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uhhhh whoops that was a big brain fart, beg pardon Burning Wheel, not Wheel of Time
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Feb 8, 2022 17:34
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gradenko_2000 posted:uhhhh whoops that was a big brain fart, beg pardon It's funnier this way. 
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Feb 8, 2022 17:36
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PurpleXVI posted:...should I know who Luke Crane is? Because my brain keeps telling me he's a Marvel comics character, but that can't be right. On the comics side you're probably thinking of Luke Cage (Power Man).
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Feb 8, 2022 17:39
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I'd really love it if someone would OSR/DOGS Burning Wheel.
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Feb 8, 2022 17:46
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CitizenKeen posted:I'd really love it if someone would OSR/DOGS Burning Wheel. I actually own this book, but never finished reading it. It's my go to when people think of TTRPGs with "lol skill lists". I thought Palladium was bad. I had to look stuff up to see if some of those were the correct terms for what they described.
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Feb 8, 2022 18:04
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I was thinking 'I don't remember the cover for TBZ being that bad' so I looked it up and oof. That hasn't aged well at all.
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Feb 8, 2022 18:04
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Humbug Scoolbus posted:It seems to be holding up okay so far. The way Talents are being handled as Magical versions of the Skills works pretty drat well. I agree that Talents being inherently magical is extremely cool.
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Feb 8, 2022 18:17
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That cover is atrocious, yeah. Like Sionak said, it was the original Japanese cover and they had to use it, so Andy just stuck it on the slipcase and the actual books are much better. Or you can get the deluxe edition, which looks gorgeous and I'm still sad I passed up a copy I saw in a store so a friend could buy it.
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Feb 8, 2022 18:21
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mllaneza posted:Out of 30 handguns, there's one that clearly superior and nobody will ever carry anything else. There are 24 AK-47 variants with identical stats. This is "realistic" and builds "verisimilitude". Which is allegedly good. If the system is simulationist enough you can have basically identical guns with very minute functional differences. Online FPSs do that all the time.
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Feb 8, 2022 18:25
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Tsilkani posted:Have you looked at Costume Fairy Adventures? Dressing up is pretty much the core mechanic. You can also make Cyberpunk grognards look uncertain by referring to cybergear porn as "dressing up". (I did wonder if they'd do a cyberware themed set for CFA at one point..)
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Feb 8, 2022 18:26
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gradenko_2000 posted:first due to a complete inability to drop the Wizard-speak even when dealing with kickstarter backers trying to handle administrative/business concerns Got any examples of that? It sounds like it'd be worth a read to laugh at him.
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Feb 8, 2022 18:31
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A game inspired by The World Ends with You, where fashion actually changes your stats. Hell to design or play, but an interesting thought experiment.
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Feb 8, 2022 18:49
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FirstAidKite posted:Got any examples of that? It sounds like it'd be worth a read to laugh at him. While it was egregious it was largely one infamous exchange, which I'm not going to find because even on desktop searching for specific content on Kickstarter outside a whole project is terrible. It's also not long or terribly engaging. In summary, a backer (a goon I think?) asked an innocuous, straightforward question about shipping or something. Crane gave an unclear response because part of his gimmick for that Kickstarter was being the same rear end in a top hat he always is except in flowery wizard-speak this time. All the time, for the whole Kickstarter. The backer complained/made fun of it on Twitter and Crane kicked them out of the project with a refund. Then Crane bragged about doing so on his own Twitter.
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Feb 8, 2022 18:51
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Legit I'm pretty sure it was Warthur or I may be thinking about another time Warthur pulled their pledge and the kicker pulled some huge thing about it.
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Feb 8, 2022 20:14
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Oh good, glad we moved on from piss discussion. Thread title should really be Trad Games Chat - Arivia posted: Here's a dumb DM question: my group plays 5e, but we don't really want to play 5e, if you know what I mean. It's the only thing everyone knows, but combat is a real slog no matter what I do. Any time I make the players roll initiative it should be a big deal narratively. This raises a few topics that I've always struggled with, and that hopefully smarter 5e DMs have answered: -How to run a quick battle without initiative or a grid; anything where the PCs will expend some resources (hp, spell slots, ki) but won't die -Making proper battles more interesting and challenging, so the people who did optimize for combat get the satisfaction of using their big money spells -Encounters that don't involve battle at all, but still risk player resources
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Feb 8, 2022 21:09
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FirstAidKite posted:I just remembered that I have Blackvale, a d&d setting from kickstarter that is based on Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The whole idea is that it's kinda treated like Pittsburgh exists tucked away between some mountains and has been mostly skipped over by the rest of the world and that it's currently a fantasy medieval reclamation of the original city. Is there a Romero analogue in this too?
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Feb 8, 2022 21:11
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Captain Walker posted:Oh good, glad we moved on from piss discussion. Thread title should really be Trad Games Chat - Arivia posted: Is "play a system that supports this" not acceptable? Not snarky, that's a very important question to clarify because "how do I kludge this system into doing what I want as much as it can" vs. "finding a more appropriate system that my players will be willing to learn" are very, very different questions.
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Feb 8, 2022 21:14
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MonsieurChoc posted:A game inspired by The World Ends with You, where fashion actually changes your stats. I went looking through my copy of Ryuutama and sadly it let me down here. While you can buy stylish or cute gear (or outdated or tacky gear) it's just a cost multiplier. Being appropriately dressed for the weather does boost that all-important condition check, but I suppose it's fair that in the end rain doesn't care about how your poncho is an enormous paisley mess.
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Feb 8, 2022 22:54
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Captain Walker posted:Oh good, glad we moved on from piss discussion. Thread title should really be Trad Games Chat - Arivia posted:
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Feb 8, 2022 23:04
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MonsieurChoc posted:A game inspired by The World Ends with You, where fashion actually changes your stats. I think it's only really hell to design/play if you follow the game's underlying logic, i.e. human parseable is optional but machine parseable is mandatory. One of the better moments in a recent DW campaign I was in had the PCs participate in a parade (one of our members was minor royalty), and so we spent a good chunk of the session describing our fits. This had no mechanical benefit, but it would be pretty easy to make a system where the GM or the table collectively award stat bonuses for good descriptions of fits. Each player has 3 votes that they can distribute among other players in any way so long as they don't vote for themselves, votes lead to some sort of mechanical benefit. This is actually a place where TTRPGs, being games parsed by humans instead of machines, are at a significant advantage. Even if every item of clothing you're wearing is the most fashionable, you can still look like a dipshit if they don't cohere, and getting a machine to recognize "oh this is hideously clashing" is way more of a pain in the rear end (and less reliable) than human judgment (this is kinda tautological, human judgment is the best tool for discerning how humans judge things). Now if you want to draw it we're now entering into experimental game territory and though I would hate to play that I'd love to see it. ...I'm actually rather fashion ignorant but I do like Bernadette Banner's youtube and now I want an RPG that is built more around the norms of that channel than say Tod's Workshop.
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Feb 8, 2022 23:05
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Tulip posted:This is actually a place where TTRPGs, being games parsed by humans instead of machines, are at a significant advantage. Even if every item of clothing you're wearing is the most fashionable, you can still look like a dipshit if they don't cohere, and getting a machine to recognize "oh this is hideously clashing" is way more of a pain in the rear end (and less reliable) than human judgment (this is kinda tautological, human judgment is the best tool for discerning how humans judge things). Seems this would be a good venue for machine assistance, if they could generate a picture of the character to make that human judgment easier rather than doing it using just text.
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Feb 8, 2022 23:10
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Captain Walker posted:Oh good, glad we moved on from piss discussion. Thread title should really be Trad Games Chat - Arivia posted: Play another system is the first choice. But another idea is to abstract tiny battles as "Dice Piles" or dice pools as they might be known in an purpose built system. So you have a selection of d20s that each represent a hazard. The players can reduce the size of the die by one "level" (d12 to d8 to d4) by passing a relevant check or expending resources. One player contribution per "stage" would be the default assumption. Any leftover die deal, potentially typed, damage to a specific player that sticks around until after the next fight/major rest. For fights they just don't have time to heal between being barraged by arrows, leaping the flaming pits, and clearing out skirmishers before the boss. For more environmental hazards they just can't recover from frostbite/famine/melted armor until they can eat at a buffet/sleep inside the guts of a great beast/visit a proper forge. You can add a bunch of complications with splitting the party between fronts or having multiple stages. But this is half remembered from another goon's attempt to fix 5e so I won't elaborate.
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Feb 9, 2022 00:22
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thatbastardken posted:are there tabletop games with good/meaningful dressing up? i guess it's trickier in a less visual medium. Spellbound Kingdoms has social combat rules (which are fairly important in the larger scope of the game), and fashion items can give bonuses. For instance: 
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Feb 9, 2022 00:43
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RE: TBZ, diaper girl being an original content creator mandate is correct. If you bought the electronic edition or kickstarted the game, you should have the print-friendly version that's a little easier to consume, at the price of not having some of the pretty rad interior illustrations. But also less of the kinda sketch illustrations, too. E: Also, if you think TBZ's got bad layout, holy moly Mouseguard is loving impenetrable. It actively resists being processed and internalized as a teaching document and as a reference document. grassy gnoll fucked around with this message at 00:53 on Feb 9, 2022 |
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Feb 9, 2022 00:49
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Nuns with Guns posted:I thought you were joking but then I opened up my pdf and oh my god. I literally have never looked at TBZ myself, I just checked out the cover on the DTRPG page myself to go with the discussion and saw that amazing fact.
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Feb 9, 2022 01:05
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grassy gnoll posted:RE: TBZ, diaper girl being an original content creator mandate is correct. If you bought the electronic edition or kickstarted the game, you should have the print-friendly version that's a little easier to consume, at the price of not having some of the pretty rad interior illustrations. But also less of the kinda sketch illustrations, too. Hard agree. I so wanted to enjoy and run Mouse Guard and the art from the comic is gorgeous. But the Mouse Guard RPG does not want to share its contents and heaven help you if you need to look something up at the table. Sionak fucked around with this message at 01:59 on Feb 9, 2022 |
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Feb 9, 2022 01:54
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