hyphz posted:

Not necessarily. Bear in mind that those four players' enthusiasm will potentially be dampened seriously by the fact that they know the fifth either isn't enjoying themselves or was pushed out of participating by their preference. In practice groups choose compromise much more often than turn-taking. And 5e may well have been designed to be the easiest compromise.

Tsilkani posted:

If you're gonna ignore four players' enthusiasm just to get the fifth guy going 'okay, I guess' you are doing a grave disservice to all 5 players.

Thanlis posted:

Oh god, they're rumored to be using the same lawyers who drafted the first OGL.

OtspIII posted:

I think this is true, but I also think it's more complicated than it sounds.

Like, people are into the flavor and setting of D&D, not Forgotten Realms. There is something about the vibe of D&D that resonates with people, but it's not at all tied to any specific D&D setting. I think it's a mix of half "generic fantasy" and half "natural 20s and the dumb poo poo that happens because of the tension between narrative and mechanics".

Anonymous Zebra posted:

LOL, you weirdos, this is an entirely non-existent dynamic anyway. No players are saying "meh" to DnD5e, or to a less extent Pathfinder. Completely the opposite, those games are getting the enthusiastic "Yeahs!", to the point where there are too many drat players for the number of DMs. My local gaming store has a "Learn D&D night!" once a month and the owner has DMs come in and run games for newbies and every time he needs to post on the Discord that the room's full, please come by to shop, but there's no more room at the tables for DnD.

Anonymous Zebra posted:

LOL, you weirdos, this is an entirely non-existent dynamic anyway. No players are saying "meh" to DnD5e, or to a less extent Pathfinder. Completely the opposite, those games are getting the enthusiastic "Yeahs!", to the point where there are too many drat players for the number of DMs. My local gaming store has a "Learn D&D night!" once a month and the owner has DMs come in and run games for newbies and every time he needs to post on the Discord that the room's full, please come by to shop, but there's no more room at the tables for DnD.

Arivia posted:

HEY

Terrible Opinions posted:

Why would you be playing with randos from a game store instead of any existing friend group?

Have you never had a game group that lasts for long enough for people to want a system change?

CitizenKeen posted:

The EFF has arrived.

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/01/beware-gifts-dragons-how-dds-open-gaming-license-may-have-become-trap-creators

quote:

For example, if I want to describe a magic spell that turns someone invisible in a game, a non-copyrightable way to do it might be:

Invisibility spell: You must speak magic words and touch your target. When you do, they become invisible for one hour. You may end this spell whenever you wish. This spell ends automatically if your target makes an attack or casts a spell.

While there are different word choices that could be made in some places, this is a functional description of how the spell works as a game mechanic. You have to speak, so it doesn’t work if you’re gagged. You have to touch the target, so you need to be close to them. And so on. Functional descriptions aren’t copyrightable.

Here’s a different version:

Kit’s Shroud of Concealment spell: Incant “stars’ blight upon all sight” and touch your target. When you do, the spirits of the constellations descend to wrap them in an unearthly mist that makes them invisible for one hour. You may send the spirits home whenever you wish, ending the spell. The spirits depart automatically if your target makes an attack or casts a spell. This spell was developed by the Sorceress-Lawyer Kit when she negotiated the contract between the Tower of Sorcery and the Constellation Spirits in the year of the Fallen Mountain.

If all that additional text is just fluff with no game consequences, this version probably contains some elements that are copyrightable.

Siivola posted:

I'm sorry, who?

Anonymous Zebra posted:

LOL, you weirdos, this is an entirely non-existent dynamic anyway. No players are saying "meh" to DnD5e, or to a less extent Pathfinder. Completely the opposite, those games are getting the enthusiastic "Yeahs!", to the point where there are too many drat players for the number of DMs. My local gaming store has a "Learn D&D night!" once a month and the owner has DMs come in and run games for newbies and every time he needs to post on the Discord that the room's full, please come by to shop, but there's no more room at the tables for DnD.

OtspIII posted:

You actually managed to sell me pretty well on Forgotten Realms! But it does seem true that podcasts do better with D&D than other systems, but also that they don't get any boost from using an established setting over their own homebrew.

(For context, Ariva ran a FR game for a while way off away from the main zone that was actually really fun and interesting.)

Tsilkani posted:

Look, I know D&D is absolutely gonna get 'yeahs' all around the table, but if someone wants to use it as the 'meh' example when talking about shutting down the majority's enthusiasm in service to the Geek Social Fallacies of including everyone, I'm just going to roll my eyes and move on to pointing out the other absurdities in the example.

Terrible Opinions posted:

Why would you be playing with randos from a game store instead of any existing friend group? The dynamic you're calling non-existent is playing with your friends, and your friends having opinions.

Have you never had a game group that lasts for long enough for people to want a system change?

MadScientistWorking posted:

Where did this come from?

Dexo posted:

For what it's worth I think a number of the changes they are making to ODD are pretty smart and good changes.

It's going to be very funny when they manage to make a much much better game that everyone hates because of dumb business decisions again.

Octavo posted:

French OSR company The Merry Mushmen have decided to strip the new edition of The Black Sword Hack of the traditional names for the six ability scores and they’re going to publish without the OGL. It’s interesting that people think Hasbro will sue over any game that has the 6 ability scores. They’re probably right.

Anonymous Zebra posted:

What a bizarre question. Gaming stores run these kinds of things to introduce people to the game. I've never played in them because I learned D&D3e my freshmen year and have been the designated DM for something like 22 years, but plenty of people want to get into DnD without having someone to show them how the mechanics of the game works. Newbie sessions in the table room of gaming stores are great because you aren't wandering into some randos house, there are vending machines, and lots of other people having fun, and usually the DM is there to handhold and help the person learn the rules in a low-stress game.

I've been DMing some version of DnD3e/3.5/Pathfinder1e/2e for 22 years with lots of different friend groups with campaigns lasting years in some cases. Sometimes we take breaks and do random other systems for like Halloween or something, but most of these guys and gals just want to play D&D and aren't interested in learning a new system.

CitizenKeen posted:

One interesting thing to note: Modiphius's 2d20 Community Content License bans AI-generated images.

Finster Dexter posted:

A supplement filled with AI art feels like the TTRPG version of those awful Steam asset flips.

Terrible Opinions posted:

I am familiar with learning to play sessions at game stores. It's bizarre that you keep bringing them up when people are discussing regularly playing a ttrpg. You are presumably not going to treat players as interchangeable, and thus the preferences of your players are relevant. Also you're literally not playing D&D, you're playing a different TTRPG and calling it D&D as shorthand.

Bottom Liner posted:

I think it’d be the opposite; real art assets but filled with AI generated game (text).

I personally wouldn’t care if an indie game used AI art assuming they curated it to not look like poo poo and the actual game was good.

Circutron posted:

This is where it needs to be reiterated that AI art generators as they are now are cultivated by taking other people's art without permission and using it to make imagery.

Modiphius posted:

What art should not be used in products I create for 2d20 World Builders?

• AI Art (e.g. Midjourney, Dall-E). Until there is a system in place to recompense artists for their inclusion in AI art databases we do not approve of the use of AI art within content posted as part of this programme.

Leperflesh posted:

Bookstores that sell star wars and star trek and battletech novels tend to also sell those RPGs, and the ones that don't have those books in the SF/Fantasy section are less likely to carry anything other than D&D (or any RPGs at all). I'm much more likely to see warhammer RPG stuff in a random bookstore than Fate or Traveler.

Today sorta feels a bit to me like when TSR went under and Wizards picked them up in 1997. It felt like a sea change, a lot of people were terrified of what the Magic the Gathering people were going to "do to D&D", and there were lots of other systems to play that were becoming quite popular, especially world of darkness, which had tons of appeal to the goth subculture that arose in the 1980s and bloomed in the 1990s. As well as a recent proliferation of vampire movies and TV shows.

Then Wizards put out a playable edition of D&D, supported it, revised it fairly quickly, and the OGL gave dozens of small press publishers permission to slap a D20 logo on their supplements and that helped them get them onto racks at game stores much more easily than before.

I think the parallel I'm drawing is that the OGL1.1, if the leaked version is unrevised, may feed at least a short-term boost in sales to other game systems, especially ones that have strong cultural crossover. I don't know what that'd be exactly - maybe lord of the rings, which has been sustained with continuing movies and TV series, or maybe something anime-flavored, which is far more mainstream now than it was in 1997 america. Maybe it's a non-OGL-tainted Pathfinder, just because it feels like D&D, in a reprise of 2008's schism. I dunno.

But my bet is that it's not system that sells whatever might step into the market share. I think large swathes of people are attracted to a game for its flavor and its setting. Actual Plays feed into that, they (wisely) tend to elide exposing mechanical complexity in favor of the drama and storytelling that comes from the setting and its flavor. I'm an Old so I'm not well connected to whatever the biggest or rising subcultures are among younger people these days, I'd be interested in some conversation around that.

And I'd bet there's a good chance that D&D, in some form, would recover and reclaim the market inside 5 years or so. Nostalgia is incredibly powerful. It'd just have to be playable and supported with enough supplements to keep people engaged, whether those are third-party or first-party.

Splicer posted:

Actually if this led to "pathfinder 3E: gently caress it we're ditching CON" I'd be so down.

Thanlis posted:

Oh god, they're rumored to be using the same lawyers who drafted the first OGL.

Splicer posted:

Actually if this led to "pathfinder 3E: gently caress it we're ditching CON" I'd be so down.

hyphz posted:

That is already an optional rule in the PF2e DMG.

Splicer posted:

Yeah but did you see what their alternative spread is, it's somehow even worse. Also you can't just sub out the ability scores of a crunchy game designed (lol) around a different set of ability scores. Well, unless your game is so incredibly poorly designed and balanced that the ripple effects of completely reconstructing the foundations of the system are lost in the general morass of disorganised gibberish oh wait we're talking a d&d game carry on.

Bottom Liner posted:

The Bee posted:

For the physical stats, Dexterity ironically seems kinda anemic. It inherits Strength's problem of being useful only if you want it for attacks, and Thievery seems like way more niche benefit to pair with a stat that weak than Athletics and encumbrance. I think if you just pull the trigger on divorcing HP from Strength, you're almost there. It means every stat has something every character wants (Fortitude, Reflex, Will, Perception, and more skill access) instead of there being some universal easy dump. But I think you'd need to find something to give back to Dexterity in that case, and I'm not sure what you'd pick.

Bottom Liner posted:

Then do it for int and wis too. 4 stat supremacy.

Bottom Liner posted:

Then do it for int and wis too. 4 stat supremacy.

YggdrasilTM posted:

Just use a "mind" stat and a "body" stat.