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YggdrasilTM posted:Just use a "mind" stat and a "body" stat. Str <-> Con and Int <-> Wis have always been the fuzzy ones folks have a hard time grasping the differences of. Cha is properly separate.
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Jan 12, 2023 01:03
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Bottom Liner posted:Str <-> Con and Int <-> Wis have always been the fuzzy ones folks have a hard time grasping the differences of. Cha is properly separate.
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Jan 12, 2023 01:15
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I mean, i assume the original idea of your stats, in addition to determining lots of crunchy things, was to aid roleplaying. If I have a 18 int and low wisdom and charisma, I’m probably that rear end in a top hat that knows a lot of poo poo but gets destroyed in any sort of argument because I don’t have context/applied data or the ability to state it in a way that doesn’t come off as me being a complete rear end in a top hat. But these days it feels like they’re largely just +s and -s and folks RP their character however, which makes them feel very superfluous and able to be condensed.
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Jan 12, 2023 01:32
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And now we're back to Mind, Body, and Soul. Tri-Stat DX had it right all along!!! (no, no it did not, and there's a reason that particular trio is literally a meme for designers who remember a particular era)
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Jan 12, 2023 01:35
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i think the stat system in masks is pretty cool
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Jan 12, 2023 01:36
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ItohRespectArmy posted:i think the stat system in masks is pretty cool Masks is probably the game other modern games should learn from the most, even if the final product isn’t even my favorite PBTA game.
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Jan 12, 2023 01:46
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Bottom Liner posted:Masks is probably the game other modern games should learn from the most, even if the final product isn’t even my favorite PBTA game. There's a lot to like about it. The only time I've seen Masks truly crash and burn was being used as a standard superhero RPG. Everyone was trying to use Unleash Your Powers when that should only be a thing for a couple of playbooks, nobody was really interacting, just a terrible scene all around.
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Jan 12, 2023 01:47
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Dawgstar posted:There's a lot to like about it. The only time I've seen Masks truly crash and burn was being used as a standard superhero RPG. Everyone was trying to use Unleash Your Powers when that should only be a thing for a couple of playbooks, nobody was really interacting, just a terrible scene all around. nobody interacting in masks sounds really horrible. I've always felt very lucky to only have masks games where people are super locked in to the teenage heartfelt drama side of it.
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Jan 12, 2023 01:52
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My friend bought Masks without doing much research, expecting a fairly standard supers RPG. Thankfully he just sold it instead of trying to hammer it into the shape he wanted and we had a fun few sessions of Marvel Heroic instead. Masks is great but I bet a lot of people like my friend buy it.
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Jan 12, 2023 01:55
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Splicer posted:If you just moosh con and str together then you have a stat pretty comparable to dex. The only reason to subsequently recreate the str/con problem by splitting dex is if they had no actual understanding of the str/con issue but heard it as a thing that people complain about, so here's your combined str/con but you gotta have three physical stats it's tradition!!! Just moosh str and con and leave dex alone the world won't end if they only have five stats! Oh, undoubtedly. I'm big on DTAS personally. I was just trying to meet Pathfinder on its own terms there, including keeping stats at 6, but frankly the Dexterity-Agility split is superfluous even by those merits. I'd also rename Intelligence and Wisdom to Knowledge and Awareness, to finally divorce them from doubling as personality traits. But that's just me.
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Jan 12, 2023 01:57
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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. Fair enough. I should have said it as, D&D was designed on the basis of being at least 'meh' for everyone. Indies tend to be much more vertical market, of being 'yeah' for some and 'heck no' for others.
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Jan 12, 2023 02:10
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Kestral posted:And now we're back to Mind, Body, and Soul. Tri-Stat DX had it right all along!!! Soulbound uses Mind,Body, and Soul
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Jan 12, 2023 02:32
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MonsterEnvy posted:Soulbound uses Mind,Body, and Soul This is not a point in its favor, unless that was a deeply considered thematic and mechanical decision. Edit: Looking at this character sheet, Soulbound appears to be an Age of Sigmar licensed game that is some unholy hybrid of D&D and AoS, but with graphic design stolen directly from Exalted 3e in all the worst ways. I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say that its having Mind/Body/Soul is another good example of using that split as a red flag for bad game design, rather than an exception to the rule. Kestral fucked around with this message at 02:48 on Jan 12, 2023 |
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Jan 12, 2023 02:43
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hyphz posted:Fair enough. I should have said it as, D&D was designed on the basis of being at least 'meh' for everyone. Indies tend to be much more vertical market, of being 'yeah' for some and 'heck no' for others. Part of me wonders how much of this is by design and how much is people being used to stretching it to fit what they want, though. In a world where DnD wasn't already the baseline system, would we find running a political campaign where 90% of the rules are ignored as strange as, say, running an Avengers movie plot in Masks?
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Jan 12, 2023 02:53
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YggdrasilTM posted:Just use a "mind" stat and a "body" stat. You have two stats: Criminal and Bear.
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Jan 12, 2023 03:16
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gradenko_2000 posted:https://twitter.com/doctorow/status/1613200704511819776?t=vUa_w1lx5jvt-xRW6kmSYg&s=19 I don't think this will amount to anything and I don't think this should amount to anything. I don't think game designers, already underpaid, will benefit much from their work being on "open" licenses, and I don't think the games will get much better simply because any random idiot can integrate their ideas. Knockoff D&D will not get all that much better because it's possible to publish Knockoff D&D Now With Beekeeping instead of the Beekeeping Expansion for Knockoff D&D. TTRPGs are in many ways already "open" by design, so you don't need a license to let people implement whatever tweaks they want.
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Jan 12, 2023 03:33
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Kestral posted:This is not a point in its favor, unless that was a deeply considered thematic and mechanical decision. You would be wrong, it’s actually a very good game.
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Jan 12, 2023 03:39
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hyphz posted:Fair enough. I should have said it as, D&D was designed on the basis of being at least 'meh' for everyone. Indies tend to be much more vertical market, of being 'yeah' for some and 'heck no' for others. That's the way I've always felt. Oh poo poo...I'm agreeing with hyphz! But seriously, it's a middle-of-the-road thing that just about every gamer is familiar with, and some might even like as their favorite. I don't have too much of a problem with d20-derived games, but I like some of the other indie systems mentioned in this thread considerably more and otherindie systems that have been mentioned in this thread a lot less.
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Jan 12, 2023 03:42
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Bottom Liner posted:Maybe the people that built businesses and entire companies off of this have a reason for being a bit more concerned than you.
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Jan 12, 2023 03:57
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LatwPIAT posted:I don't think this will amount to anything and I don't think this should amount to anything. I don't think game designers, already underpaid, will benefit much from their work being on "open" licenses, and I don't think the games will get much better simply because any random idiot can integrate their ideas. Knockoff D&D will not get all that much better because it's possible to publish Knockoff D&D Now With Beekeeping instead of the Beekeeping Expansion for Knockoff D&D. TTRPGs are in many ways already "open" by design, so you don't need a license to let people implement whatever tweaks they want. In this video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Vz9ogq7JTg) Ryan Dancey discusses why he made the OGL in the first place when he did. He compares TTRPGs to telephones, where the device itself is worthless if no one else has a telephone but it becomes more useful the greater the network of telephones that are out there. Before the OGL, gaming was divided up in bubbles based on the game system being played and these bubbles didn't interconnect or network with each other, so when a game company went tits up, those bubbles would slowly shrink and die. The purpose behind the OGL was to bring lots of gamers under a single bubble, and would allow developers at many different companies the chance to sell their ideas inside that bubble. Maybe the internet has changed things since then? We'll have to see. The OGL 1.1 shatters that bubble, so it's a question of whether sufficient networks exist for all the separate companies to still be able to pull in new gamers to keep all the new bubbles intact.
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Jan 12, 2023 04:06
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Coolness Averted posted:Since you've said this point a few times Huh? That was the first time I remarked about it at all. But I also don't buy your theory that people that have made their bread on the back of D&D are itching to go at it alone and are making a grand conspiracy out of this.
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Jan 12, 2023 04:13
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ItohRespectArmy posted:nobody interacting in masks sounds really horrible. I've always felt very lucky to only have masks games where people are super locked in to the teenage heartfelt drama side of it. Well, it was a PBP game and those already are on shaky ground when it comes to players interacting with each other because I think it's easier to ignore other players' posts and just look for what the GM's said. Still, the GM didn't exactly encourage what we shall call the Masks playstyle and just wanted us to investigate a haunted asylum or something.
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Jan 12, 2023 04:13
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Anonymous Zebra posted:In this video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Vz9ogq7JTg) Ryan Dancey discusses why he made the OGL in the first place when he did. He compares TTRPGs to telephones, where the device itself is worthless if no one else has a telephone but it becomes more useful the greater the network of telephones that are out there. Before the OGL, gaming was divided up in bubbles based on the game system being played and these bubbles didn't interconnect or network with each other, so when a game company went tits up, those bubbles would slowly shrink and die. The purpose behind the OGL was to bring lots of gamers under a single bubble, and would allow developers at many different companies the chance to sell their ideas inside that bubble. I think that’s great for telephones. I’m less sure it’s good for TTRPGs. Telephones work by the universal standard of “transmit human speech clearly”. There’s no such universal standard of what a TTRPG should actually do. Even within the d20 ecosystem you couldn’t use a Spycraft headset to talk to someone on OSRIC. OGL didn’t create a universal communications protocol, it created a monoculture.
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Jan 12, 2023 04:26
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Bottom Liner posted:Huh? That was the first time I remarked about it at all. Weird, my awful app must've been doing something wonky in remembering my last read, because it put me a page or so behind your post a couple times today. I blame my lovely connection at work. I'm not saying there's some 3D chess thing going on here and someone's plan as soon as they heard about One D&D was to make RoadNoticer, but I do think there's a financial incentive to get themselves on the map, especially if WotC cuts off their revenue and they think there's gonna be a niche in being the next alternative forerunner. Just like Paizo didn't trick WotC into canceling their contract for Dragon or switching to the GSL. However Paizo had a ton of purchased art and content in the hopper for D&D that was rendered worthless. They sure as heck played up how virtuous and in touch with the community Paizo was compared to WotC as they spun up for Pathfinder. I also think some of the player outcry being voiced is more a preemptive justification for being a grognard than genuinely taking a moral stand. E: I mean the alternative is this is the D&D online community right now.  Could also substitute 'racism' with 'protecting abusers' Coolness Averted fucked around with this message at 04:57 on Jan 12, 2023 |
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Jan 12, 2023 04:47
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LatwPIAT posted:I don't think this will amount to anything and I don't think this should amount to anything. I don't think game designers, already underpaid, will benefit much from their work being on "open" licenses, and I don't think the games will get much better simply because any random idiot can integrate their ideas. Knockoff D&D will not get all that much better because it's possible to publish Knockoff D&D Now With Beekeeping instead of the Beekeeping Expansion for Knockoff D&D. TTRPGs are in many ways already "open" by design, so you don't need a license to let people implement whatever tweaks they want. I think the argument has been pretty well presented in this thread and elsewhere that a game designer/company putting out a license to work with their stuff that isn't full of weird rug pull gotchas is, broadly, a benefit to hobbyists and other designers, regardless of the actual legalities of the whole "well you can't copyright game mechanics" thing, if only from the perspective of it being an unambiguous "we won't bully you with lawsuits for doing this" encouragement. I'm sure nothing would stop people from working with things like PbtA or Lancer even if the creators didn't come out and say "yes you can do stuff with these" but the fact that they did definitely hasn't hurt the development of communities around those games or the creation of 3rd party projects. And to be perfectly honest, if the issue with the OGL comes down to "WotC left provisions in it to yank it back and redo it into a shittier format" then going with something like Creative Commons licensing which is explicitly irrevocable isn't the worst suggestion rather than trying to reinvent yet another OGL.
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Jan 12, 2023 06:30
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LatwPIAT posted:I think that’s great for telephones. I’m less sure it’s good for TTRPGs. Telephones work by the universal standard of “transmit human speech clearly”. There’s no such universal standard of what a TTRPG should actually do. Even within the d20 ecosystem you couldn’t use a Spycraft headset to talk to someone on OSRIC. OGL didn’t create a universal communications protocol, it created a monoculture. I also think that with how the internet has evolved since the mid nineties with the invention of social media and streaming that there is less of an issue with getting cut off and hobbies dying out the world has changed so its probably not necessary anymore even if you wanted to make the argument that it was before.
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Jan 12, 2023 06:31
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Vire posted:I also think that with how the internet has evolved since the mid nineties with the invention of social media and streaming that there is less of an issue with getting cut off and hobbies dying out the world has changed so its probably not necessary anymore even if you wanted to make the argument that it was before. Yeah I also do agree with this point, "before the OGL" was also before the age of widespread online social networking to the degree that exists today. Games can still have niche fandoms, but it's no longer the case that your pool of interested players and GMs is limited to your particular geographic residence and whatever local game store is in reasonable driving distance.
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Jan 12, 2023 06:33
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Bottom Liner posted:Str <-> Con and Int <-> Wis have always been the fuzzy ones folks have a hard time grasping the differences of. Cha is properly separate. They should split Agility off of Dex. Merge Wis and Cha (not Int), and keep Con but rename it something dumb that's not even a real word. Then add in derived stats which are the averages of 2 or 3 other stats. Throw in a couple of stats which are determined solely by a questionnaire about your character's backstory and you've got yourself a Real Game.
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Jan 12, 2023 06:54
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Jimbozig posted:They should split Agility off of Dex. Merge Wis and Cha (not Int), and keep Con but rename it something dumb that's not even a real word. Strength should really be rebranded as Puissance. It would bring a little bit of class to the genre
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Jan 12, 2023 07:22
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Pvt.Scott posted:Strength should really be rebranded as Puissance. It would bring a little bit of class to the genre no-one playing TTRPGs are getting puissance.
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Jan 12, 2023 07:25
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Just combine the stats and the classes: I've got +4 in Fighter and +3 in Rogue, but -1 in Bard. Then you can yeet both systems into the dustbin at once.
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Jan 12, 2023 08:53
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LatwPIAT posted:I think that’s great for telephones. I’m less sure it’s good for TTRPGs. Telephones work by the universal standard of “transmit human speech clearly”. There’s no such universal standard of what a TTRPG should actually do. Even within the d20 ecosystem you couldn’t use a Spycraft headset to talk to someone on OSRIC. OGL didn’t create a universal communications protocol, it created a monoculture. there isn't a universal protocol, but you could argue that OGL is what created the current OSR ecosystem where it's not that hard to use modules from one system with a different system Siivola posted:Just combine the stats and the classes: I've got +4 in Fighter and +3 in Rogue, but -1 in Bard. I've been idly pondering the idea of trying to write a short D&D-ish Disco Elysium-like textgame where instead of the DE stats, the stats are Barbarian, Wizard, Rogue. (I am still waffling whether I'd want to include a fourth social class or just spread Intimidate, Logically Persuade and Deceive among the three other archetypes.)
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Jan 12, 2023 12:13
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Siivola posted:Just combine the stats and the classes: I've got +4 in Fighter and +3 in Rogue, but -1 in Bard. This is literally how the free game Warrior Rogue and Mage works, where those aren't classes but stats.
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Jan 12, 2023 12:22
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Jimbozig posted:They should split Agility off of Dex. Merge Wis and Cha (not Int), and keep Con but rename it something dumb that's not even a real word.
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Jan 12, 2023 13:58
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Frog God/Necromancer apparently put out a statement about the ongoing OGL thing (in addition to putting their entire catalog on sale for 50% off in an "OGL Sale" until Jan 25th):
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Jan 12, 2023 14:11
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Necromancer Games is also the same bonehead who thought WotC would burn down your 3x warehouse if you created anything for 4e.
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Jan 12, 2023 14:18
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moths posted:Necromancer Games is also the same bonehead who thought WotC would burn down your 3x warehouse if you created anything for 4e. I mean most people in charge of TPP's are weirdos, no? There was all that poo poo about Paizo in 2021, too. That said Necromancer games put out some really great stuff in the 3.0 OGL heyday, some of my absolute fondest memories with my group are from running their stuff.
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Jan 12, 2023 14:38
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bewilderment posted:This is literally how the free game Warrior Rogue and Mage works, where those aren't classes but stats. It was also how the retro game Dungeon Master worked. You had stats in Fighter, Wizard, Priest and Ninja.
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Jan 12, 2023 14:45
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Frog God is also headed by noted unruly alcoholic and occasional sex pest Bill Webb.
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Jan 12, 2023 17:51
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Kai Tave posted:Yeah I also do agree with this point, "before the OGL" was also before the age of widespread online social networking to the degree that exists today. Games can still have niche fandoms, but it's no longer the case that your pool of interested players and GMs is limited to your particular geographic residence and whatever local game store is in reasonable driving distance. By extension io it being pre-social networking, it was also in an age when the prospect of releasing D&D-compatible material was even more fraught and unlikely to turn a profit than it is now, since in 3rd edition era, while it wasn't impossible to release material digitally in a way that was easily monetizable, it was certainly less easy and universal than it is now. So by and large, releasing D&D-compatible material meant you were likely doing physical print runs, which is a huge outlay for an indie publisher, and the idea of gambling that cost on the possibility that someone at WotC won't read it and decide you included something that they could argue was copyright and needed to be sued over it. I know Dancey likes to argue that the OGL was about opening up the system for more contributions from 3PPs and building the hobby's presence (and it ultimately was, for better or worse), I think first and foremost it was a business decision, from the perspective that it didn't so much offer 3PPs anything they couldn't do before, it's literally just a document that says "we promise not to take you to court for using these specific things, and also you agree not to use these other things." As has been mentioned, it's actually more restrictive than what's deemed uncopyrightable under US law, but it gave 3PPs some safety in knowing they could throw money at printing in volume without worrying about legal headaches. I think it's only in relatively recent years that the OGL was seen as the basis for a wider D&D mod culture, mostly due to the prevalence of the internet making it possible to gamble on tossing out a system or a setting or whatever that derives from the OGL, that isn't going to rely on having an installed market at your local FLGS, so people have gotten more creative and adventurous with how the OGL gets implemented. It was certainly not written with that in mind in 2000, IMO. I think what Dancey claims the intention was is kind of a by-blow of it existing, and it's definitely an imperfect tool for supporting the work of creators who want to make modules or supplements that are compatible. And because it's not designed with that in mind, it's also why I think it disappearing wouldn't actually have a wide effect, we'd just see a bunch more "Compatible with your favorite fantasy roleplaying system" badges, though obviously creators are going to have to be much more careful about what they take wholesale from the (former?) SRD.
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