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Absurd Alhazred posted:And what happens when those corporations go bankrupt and nobody else can do anything to support or fix them O god that’s really rough. The F is awful.
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Dec 19, 2022 00:08
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mossyfisk posted:...were any of those things different in the 80s? That's part of the secret of classic cyberpunk. It's a mix of "things that were already there in the 80s," "things so visibly right around the corner in the 1980s that anyone with a Newsweek or Popular Science subscription was reading about them on the regular," "noir tropes going back to the 1940s," "things they got fantastically wrong like jacking in at pay phones or the Soviet Union lasting longer than the US," and just a dash of eerily prescient future prediction. But every sci-fi genre is like that.
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Dec 19, 2022 00:59
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Killer robot posted:That's part of the secret of classic cyberpunk. It's a mix of "things that were already there in the 80s," "things so visibly right around the corner in the 1980s that anyone with a Newsweek or Popular Science subscription was reading about them on the regular," "noir tropes going back to the 1940s," "things they got fantastically wrong like jacking in at pay phones or the Soviet Union lasting longer than the US," and just a dash of eerily prescient future prediction. But every sci-fi genre is like that. yeah, cyberpunk games don't need to be updated to modern day computer tech or whatever, they work the best if you make them 80s as balls
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Dec 19, 2022 01:03
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Wait so what's the like alternative for the whole iron lung thing, because my understanding is it was somewhat of a last resort so people wouldn't die.
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Dec 19, 2022 01:06
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Telsa Cola posted:Wait so what's the like alternative for the whole iron lung thing, because my understanding is it was somewhat of a last resort so people wouldn't die. As in what do we do now so they aren’t necessary? We have polio vaccines. The secret is not getting it ever because it’s god drat polio and it was almost eradicated before we hosed it up.
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Dec 19, 2022 01:10
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Xiahou Dun posted:As in what do we do now so they aren’t necessary? We have polio vaccines. It was more why was it used as an example of a cyberpunk dystopia thing. Yes I get that they got phased out which caused issues, but I'm struggling to see an actual alternative here. Like I get it, new technology brings with it new issues, but the overall post seems a tad ludditee to me. Telsa Cola fucked around with this message at 01:25 on Dec 19, 2022 |
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Dec 19, 2022 01:21
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Telsa Cola posted:It was more why was it used as an example of a cyberpunk dystopia thing. Yes I get that they got phased out which caused issues, but I'm struggling to see an actual alternative here. Ah I misunderstood the question then, sorry. In fact, I still don’t understand.
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Dec 19, 2022 01:26
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moths posted:In Shadowrun, it was mostly a balancing mechanic so you couldn't be an awesome wizard AND full of hardware. Even CP:2020's humanity loss was a balancing mechanic so you couldn't just keep loading up on new gear. The whole "trade your humanity for a technological edge" thing is largely an invention of cyberpunk roleplaying, much like how "Vancian" magic only has the thinnest of connections to how magic works in the Dying Earth series. When it appears in cyberpunk fiction, it's a more figurative thing, like how Molly sells her self to afford her implants.
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Dec 19, 2022 01:34
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PeterWeller posted:Even CP:2020's humanity loss was a balancing mechanic so you couldn't just keep loading up on new gear. The whole "trade your humanity for a technological edge" thing is largely an invention of cyberpunk roleplaying, much like how "Vancian" magic only has the thinnest of connections to how magic works in the Dying Earth series. When it appears in cyberpunk fiction, it's a more figurative thing, like how Molly sells her self to afford her implants. And a lot of that stuff has aged all too well if you see it through the lens of DRM, spyware, and planned obsolescence. Though more works should actually make that explicit. As the old saying goes; cyberpunk didn't get outdated, it came true.
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Dec 19, 2022 06:39
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Needing to hack your cybereyes because even though you'd gladly pay the 15¥ a day for LensCraftersPlus you just can't because the servers are permanently offline is pretty loving metal. This all reminds me that I should buy Hard Wired Island, but I'm never ever ever going to play it or basically any RPG again, so I don't know why I'd bother.
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Dec 19, 2022 13:02
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Magnetic North posted:This all reminds me that I should buy Hard Wired Island, but I'm never ever ever going to play it or basically any RPG again, so I don't know why I'd bother. My perpetual hot take is that it's fine to buy RPGs just for the sake of reading them. Normal, even.
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Dec 19, 2022 13:08
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There’s also the people hacking their insulin pumps because the built in software is terrible.
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Dec 19, 2022 14:55
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Clarste posted:Yeah, which is why the corporations owning the stuff is still a problem (and patents and right to repair and whatnot making it impossible for anyone else to fix it). It's not about patents or proprietary rules about repairs, it's about just straight-up there aren't the technicians or doctors who know how to safely deal with it. You want to mess with it, you gotta do it by yourself from scratch. And if you want an MRI, it's anyone's guess how you go about that. Telsa Cola posted:Wait so what's the like alternative for the whole iron lung thing, because my understanding is it was somewhat of a last resort so people wouldn't die. For the most part, the main option is Don't Get Polio, and it's because we got rid of the disease that the machine has gone largely obsolete and there are no longer many experts and technicians left for working on the few machines left. The way Polio worked is that it could cause cases of paralysis in parts of the body or in organs, so when the lungs got paralyzed, all you could do was try to artificially keep pumping air. After the disease passes, parts of the paralysis can go away, but sometimes they don't, so if your lungs don't heal back up, well you're stuck using it. Modern medicine does have more options for some other things that iron lungs were used for, and it's more common to use "positive pressure ventilators" (as opposed to the iron lung being a negative pressure ventilator) to solve some of the other things that iron lungs were used for, and they're much more common and easier for doctors to use, but they also cover up the mouth, so using it long-term means you can't use your mouth for anything else, which can be a problem. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gplA6pq9cOs https://www.npr.org/2021/10/25/1047691984/decades-after-polio-martha-is-among-the-last-to-still-rely-on-an-iron-lung-to-br
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Dec 19, 2022 18:38
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Haystack posted:My perpetual hot take is that it's fine to buy RPGs just for the sake of reading them. Normal, even. i have no sources for it, but my take is that this is the main market these days
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Dec 19, 2022 20:45
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Collecting RPGs, reading RPGs, and playing RPGs are three distinct and unconnected hobbies.
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Dec 19, 2022 21:34
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ChubbyChecker posted:i have no sources for it, but my take is that this is the main market these days It 100% is. And I mean I get it, there's people that are just into the world building kind of stuff, or the aesthetic of the book. Like I have a few friends I know will never run or play MÖRK BORG but I showed them the book and they bought the book. I definitely have ones I got just because the setting cover and setting seemed rad. If that wasn't the case you wouldn't have licensed ones for so many properties too since I assume the audience for them is almost more fans of the property than just people who are already into tabletop games.
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Dec 19, 2022 22:01
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Haystack posted:My perpetual hot take is that it's fine to buy RPGs just for the sake of reading them. Normal, even. I do this with Old World of Darkness and Pathfinder. It's a lot of fun. Of course I play the video games but that's different.
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Dec 19, 2022 22:15
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TheCenturion posted:Collecting RPGs, reading RPGs, and playing RPGs are three distinct and unconnected hobbies. People play RPGs? As in the tabletop books and not the videogame ones? 
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Dec 19, 2022 22:54
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ChubbyChecker posted:i have no sources for it, but my take is that this is the main market these days I think it's always been the main market. I still maintain that 4E D&D's real failure was that its books didn't make for good casual reading.
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Dec 20, 2022 00:26
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a good RPG core book (and most supplements that aren't completely narrative and/or system-agnostic) should read and be organized like a reference manual the only reasonable alternative is a tutorial but in my experience players don't read that poo poo anyways so might as well prioritize lookup time (which is to say, as usual, 4E's "failure" was mostly a product of doing things right) Tuxedo Catfish fucked around with this message at 00:44 on Dec 20, 2022 |
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Dec 20, 2022 00:37
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PeterWeller posted:I think it's always been the main market. I still maintain that 4E D&D's real failure was that its books didn't make for good casual reading. Yeah. Shadowrun 1e and 2e books are fantastic reading.
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Dec 20, 2022 00:42
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Tuxedo Catfish posted:a good RPG core book (and most supplements that aren't completely narrative and/or system-agnostic) should read and be organized like a reference manual Those aren't mutually exclusive things, though. It doesn't matter what "players" do, it needs to provide tools for someone learning the system to actually put it into practice, whether it's just a GM or all the participants together. Reference manuals are great once the standard operation of something is already straightforward for you, they're a terrible way of learning how to do your very first laundry.
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Dec 20, 2022 00:49
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Absurd Alhazred posted:Those aren't mutually exclusive things, though. It doesn't matter what "players" do, it needs to provide tools for someone learning the system to actually put it into practice, whether it's just a GM or all the participants together. Reference manuals are great once the standard operation of something is already straightforward for you, they're a terrible way of learning how to do your very first laundry. this is true, but tutorials can be accomplished in a much shorter page count, doubly so if you don't assume that every game has to be written as if it's someone's first TTRPG ever, and imo their ideal format is a separate, free document while collections of mechanical options remain monetized
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Dec 20, 2022 00:57
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Tuxedo Catfish posted:a good RPG core book (and most supplements that aren't completely narrative and/or system-agnostic) should read and be organized like a reference manual Yeah, I should've put "failure" in scare quotes. My point is that 4E D&D's rulebooks are excellent instruction manuals for actually playing 4E, but aren't terribly entertaining sources of casual reading, and a lot of people who buy RPG books just do the latter.
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Dec 20, 2022 00:59
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That kind of follows previous editions of D&D. Traditionally, if you wanted good reading you didn't pick up the Player's Handbook or the Dungeon Master's Guide, you took the Monster Manual.
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Dec 20, 2022 01:02
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ironically the monster manual -- probably the one place where you really do want narrative and mechanical information densely packed together for practical reasons, in order to more easily construct adventures from whole cloth -- has mostly retreated from that model since AD&D (where virtually every monster has, like, ecology, history, and if applicable cultural background sections)
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Dec 20, 2022 01:05
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Schwarzwald posted:That kind of follows previous editions of D&D. Traditionally, if you wanted good reading you didn't pick up the Player's Handbook or the Dungeon Master's Guide, you took the Monster Manual. The monster manual was king for good reading, but don't sleep on the weapon and armor esoterica and spell lists from the PHB or the magic item lists from the DMG.
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Dec 20, 2022 01:12
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PeterWeller posted:The monster manual was king for good reading, but don't sleep on the weapon and armor esoterica and spell lists from the PHB or the magic item lists from the DMG. Honestly as a kid the 1e DMG was king and I don’t think anything’s ever gonna top it. Just so much everything.
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Dec 20, 2022 01:15
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TheCenturion posted:Collecting RPGs, reading RPGs, and playing RPGs are three distinct and unconnected hobbies. Look, I don't have World of Synnibarr, Kult, Violence & WoD: Gypsies because I want to run them Xand_Man fucked around with this message at 03:13 on Dec 20, 2022 |
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Dec 20, 2022 01:56
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Imagine if we were sentenced to run the systems we own. Yuck! I don't think I know anyone else who owns a Masterbook. And I won't be buying that used copy of Nightbane.
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Dec 20, 2022 02:24
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Halloween Jack posted:Imagine if we were sentenced to run the systems we own. Yuck! I don't think I know anyone else who owns a Masterbook. And I won't be buying that used copy of Nightbane. I would have a lot of trouble finding players for a Metabarons campaign.
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Dec 20, 2022 02:47
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Halloween Jack posted:Imagine if we were sentenced to run the systems we own. Oh God 
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Dec 20, 2022 02:57
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And then there's your white whales, like looking at King Arthur Pendragon and sighing.
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Dec 20, 2022 03:01
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Dienes posted:I would have a lot of trouble finding players for a Metabarons campaign. Hello.
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Dec 20, 2022 03:09
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As I recall, the problem with Metabarons is that you don't play them, you play hapless schmucks like John Difool.
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Dec 20, 2022 03:14
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Reminds me I need to finally finish the John Difool BD I have.
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Dec 20, 2022 03:16
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Ghost Leviathan posted:And then there's your white whales, like looking at King Arthur Pendragon and sighing. O Burning Wheel with every fiddly dial turned all the way up. Just to see it all for once.
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Dec 20, 2022 03:50
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Speaking of the intersection between tabletop games and politics, here is a quote for Republican Rep George Santos who was exposed the other day by the NYT as having fabricated pretty much his entire biography (and published after the election; thanks, NYT). https://twitter.com/ddayen/status/1604978812038443008
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Dec 20, 2022 05:08
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FMguru posted:Speaking of the intersection between tabletop games and politics, here is a quote for Republican Rep George Santos who was exposed the other day by the NYT as having fabricated pretty much his entire biography (and published after the election; thanks, NYT).  Code of the Harpers, page 118
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Dec 20, 2022 06:09
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Halloween Jack posted:Imagine if we were sentenced to run the systems we own ::looks in trepidation at the copy of HōL on his shelf::
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Dec 21, 2022 05:59
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