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Kai Tave posted:The point is that this guy has the most uncanny ability to come up with a premise that sounds good on paper (cyborg freedom fighters versus fascists, eco-warriors stopping billionaires from burning earth to cinders in a mad dash to escape to Mars) and making each and every one of them suck rear end. Feels like the thing where liberals co-opt leftist ideas that are gaining traction and quickly water them down into meaninglessness and 'But at what cost???' incrementalist excuses to do nothing. Or basically just Horseshoe Theory: The Game.
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Apr 28, 2023 05:48
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I don't think the guy is deliberately trying to co-opt causes ala Occupy Wall Street, I just think that he has both a really cooked view of revolutionary politics which is hard stuck in very specific contexts which he tries to apply to literally everything and also that he's really in love with revolutionary violence as an aesthetic.
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Apr 28, 2023 05:54
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Yeah this dude is evoking the Doomed Struggle so you can only slightly succeed. That’s fine for noir or horror but maybe the world has enough stories about fighting the system being doomed. And you know who ELSE loved the doomed struggle? That’s right. Landing Strip.
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Apr 28, 2023 06:25
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Nessus posted:"Landing Strip." Is that the Nazi who shaves their pubes into a little rectangle?
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Apr 28, 2023 07:06
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joylessdivision posted:I want to play this game. for the record: you can (if you replace Hitler with Genghis Khan), it's a storyline straight from a Shadowrun adventure called Dream Chipper https://shadowrun.fandom.com/wiki/Source:Dreamchipper edit well you can't as written, because the Jack the Ripper fight usually is a TPK lol
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Apr 28, 2023 08:37
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Liquid Communism posted:The Old Men are former soldiers, cops, and other violence workers. Their beef with the Regime is that it’s unconstitutional. It's like real world Italian resistance movement.
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Apr 28, 2023 10:02
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Arivia posted:tossing in getting rid of alignment is an excellent choice.
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Apr 28, 2023 10:03
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moths posted:Is that the Nazi who shaves their pubes into a little rectangle?  Goa Tse-tung posted:for the record: you can (if you replace Hitler with Genghis Khan), it's a storyline straight from a Shadowrun adventure called Dream Chipper https://shadowrun.fandom.com/wiki/Source:Dreamchipper
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Apr 28, 2023 15:21
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Kobold's core fantasy playtest pack 3 was just put out. Looks like it's the bestiary. As with a lot of these other things it's basically I Can't Believe It's not 5e.
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Apr 28, 2023 17:18
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I'm pretty disappointed about that. They talked a good game, having it turn out to be a 5e heartbreaker is sad.
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Apr 28, 2023 17:40
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Goa Tse-tung posted:for the record: you can (if you replace Hitler with Genghis Khan), it's a storyline straight from a Shadowrun adventure called Dream Chipper https://shadowrun.fandom.com/wiki/Source:Dreamchipper When we played that one, we had a rigger flying top cover over the bait and two snipers. The bait was a phys adept with all the covert body armor we could cram on her. Griffin hit her twice with the sucker punch and then got two anti-material rounds through the head.
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Apr 28, 2023 19:20
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Liquid Communism posted:I'm pretty disappointed about that. They talked a good game, having it turn out to be a 5e heartbreaker is sad. With this particular project, I think this was all it was going to be. Basically a non-OGL version of the 5e rules, as like them as early 80s IBM clones were like IBMs.
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Apr 28, 2023 19:30
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Hell yeah they are killing ability scores too.
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Apr 28, 2023 19:55
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Ash Rose posted:Hell yeah they are killing ability scores too. who is?
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Apr 28, 2023 21:01
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Finster Dexter posted:who is? Kobold Press. Their bestiary playtest pack has abilities being +2 or -1 rather than 14 or 8.
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Apr 28, 2023 21:04
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That's still ability scores they're just removing granularity.
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Apr 28, 2023 21:08
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Kurieg posted:That's still ability scores they're just removing granularity. No, it's just the bonuses, which is the only thing anyone uses for anything.
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Apr 28, 2023 21:23
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gradenko_2000 posted:I believe Halloween Jack mentions Assad because the faction design was based on loosely on the relative positions and relationships of groups involved in the Syrian Civil War, but transposed (clumsily) into an American context.
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Apr 28, 2023 21:38
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Halloween Jack posted:No, I don't know much about the Syrian conflict. I'm just talking about the practice of labeling a whole movement based on impressions from an insignificant number of people on social media, who could be lying or nonexistent. For example, lately I see people claiming that the Left supports Putin, but they can never point to a single prominent leftist figure who supports Putin. It's always vague impressions from randos. Here in Italy we have some Extra-parliamentary far left parties that are currently pro-Putin. They are very minor groups though
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Apr 28, 2023 21:46
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3 Action Economist posted:No, it's just the bonuses, which is the only thing anyone uses for anything. ^^ this The legacy rules use the actual ability scores for almost nothing.
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Apr 28, 2023 21:51
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sasha_d3ath posted:I felt this way about Spire I would have thought very strongly about saying it if you hadn't. Even blooming Feng Shui went that way. It's almost as if random RPG authors can't come up with an authentic way a revolution could succeed in a way that doesn't go full circle, and certainly not a setting in which random players could come up with that. But they have to pretend they can. And yes, I think the point of the PF2 "reboot" is to try and remove all the vestiges of anything that might inherit the OGL from the system, so that they'll be the first books under ORC. This may be slightly difficult, as Blue Rose also deleted the ability scores and was OGL, and the OGL is infectious.
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Apr 28, 2023 22:01
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hyphz posted:I would have thought very strongly about saying it if you hadn't. Even blooming Feng Shui went that way. "Maybe. Is your game going to be in large part about what comes after the revolution? Or will you be wrapping up shortly afterwards?" If you heroically free the halflings and goblins from the toils of bondage and build a new workers' republic in place of the old monarchy, sure, maybe in thirty or three hundred years it'll fall apart, be retaken, turn into something new and bad. But did YOU do right, by what was in front of YOU, and give a thought to that future in your actions? If so, then you won. Congratulations!
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Apr 28, 2023 22:14
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Realistically the last act of any game about revolution should be fighting back against a global or regional hegemon trying to either reinstate the original tyrant or install their own new tyrannical puppet. That's usually one of the causes for the revolution eating itself after all. Slap in your choice of thinly veiled stand-in for the US, UK, Russia, or1800s Austria.
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Apr 28, 2023 22:40
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Lamuella posted:With this particular project, I think this was all it was going to be. Basically a non-OGL version of the 5e rules, as like them as early 80s IBM clones were like IBMs. It is hard to take them serious when they keep copy pasting the SRD into the wrong spots in their packets and don't even proof read their playtest packets at all before releasing them. 
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Apr 28, 2023 22:43
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Vire posted:It is hard to take them serious when they keep copy pasting the SRD into the wrong spots in their packets and don't even proof read their playtest packets at all before releasing them. Finally, a game that caters to fans of xianxia fiction.
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Apr 28, 2023 22:55
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Nessus posted:I think the real answer would be to have a side bar to the effect of "But don't all revolutions end in the slime of a new bureaucracy, eat their own children, and other aphorisms?" to be clear The Spire says basically none of the things these posts are insinuating it says. What I think sasha_d3ath is referring to is a section at the beginning where it says "This is going to kill you" which, to me, reads far more as a note about how to play your character (as a Blades-style desperate scoundrel) than anything philosophical on revolutions. the book calls out explicitly in multiple sections that you're going to do horrible things in the name of revolution and that's fuckin' fine.
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Apr 28, 2023 22:59
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Lamuella posted:With this particular project, I think this was all it was going to be. Basically a non-OGL version of the 5e rules, as like them as early 80s IBM clones were like IBMs. IMO it's worse than that. I don't think they care either way if anyone else uses it, it's more like an ashcan copy, something that occupies a category even lower than "shat out" for purely legal reasons. It exists not to be good or useful to anyone but to let them keep publishing "Fifth Edition Roleplaying Game" content without being dependent on Wizard's terms. It's just far too garbage to be anything else. In that case why would they make such a big show about a playtest? I'm pretty sure it's just grandstanding to put it out there on the record that they disapprove of what Wizards is doing. Not that they're wrong that Wizards sucks, but that alone doesn't make it any good.
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Apr 28, 2023 23:03
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hyphz posted:I would have thought very strongly about saying it if you hadn't. Even blooming Feng Shui went that way. Removing ability scores isn't related to the OGL, those mechanics aren't copyrightable anyway, from my understanding. They're removing them because they do nothing and, since they have to remove things anyway, now is a good time.
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Apr 28, 2023 23:04
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3 Action Economist posted:No, it's just the bonuses, which is the only thing anyone uses for anything. Eastmabl posted:^^ this "Ability scores" isn't a brand name. Just because the ability scores go from -1 to 5 and don't need any conversion for actual use they're still ability scores. Call me when they actually get rid of ability scores. e: ability scores Splicer fucked around with this message at 23:23 on Apr 28, 2023 |
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Apr 28, 2023 23:19
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hyphz posted:And yes, I think the point of the PF2 "reboot" is to try and remove all the vestiges of anything that might inherit the OGL from the system, so that they'll be the first books under ORC. This may be slightly difficult, as Blue Rose also deleted the ability scores and was OGL, and the OGL is infectious. It is not laterally infectious. If Mary writes an OGL game using a dice pool mechanic, that does not obligate other games with dice pool mechanics to use the OGL. I’m very curious as to whether or not Paizo will use D&D mechanics under the CC-BY license or not. I don’t think they have to. Neither do they: before WotC decided to use Creative Commons, Paizo said they felt they could publish PF2 without the OGL. Kevin Crawford has produced an awful lot of D&D derived material without using any licenses. If they don’t, it’s a nice nail in the coffin of the assertion that you can copyright mechanics. Fingers crossed.
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Apr 29, 2023 00:16
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BattleMaster posted:IMO it's worse than that. I don't think they care either way if anyone else uses it, it's more like an ashcan copy, something that occupies a category even lower than "shat out" for purely legal reasons. It exists not to be good or useful to anyone but to let them keep publishing "Fifth Edition Roleplaying Game" content without being dependent on Wizard's terms. It's just far too garbage to be anything else. Pretty much, yeah. It feels like legal rear end-covering first, a platform to make a ton of noise from second, and an actual viable product third. The monster design seems a lot better than their player facing design, at least. But IIRC that's always been Kobold's strength, and I kinda wish they stuck to it.
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Apr 29, 2023 00:56
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admanb posted:to be clear The Spire says basically none of the things these posts are insinuating it says. What I think sasha_d3ath is referring to is a section at the beginning where it says "This is going to kill you" which, to me, reads far more as a note about how to play your character (as a Blades-style desperate scoundrel) than anything philosophical on revolutions. Yeah my recollection of Spire is that it never really goes hard into any sort of editorializing about specific political ideologies with regards to playing revolutionaries, and that's a thing you could critique for certain, but it basically just says "the high elves are huge assholes and have taken over your city, which used to be run by you when you were also huge assholes, and you want it back" and leaves you to your devices what that entails.
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Apr 29, 2023 02:07
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Kai Tave posted:Yeah my recollection of Spire is that it never really goes hard into any sort of editorializing about specific political ideologies with regards to playing revolutionaries, and that's a thing you could critique for certain, but it basically just says "the high elves are huge assholes and have taken over your city, which used to be run by you when you were also huge assholes, and you want it back" and leaves you to your devices what that entails. I agree with you from a rhetorical standpoint, but I think I prefer Spire's approach to what most writers try to do where they OVER-politicize their setting and we get the crazy stuff posted earlier in the thread. Leave it ambiguous, and let me provide the rational ideologies. As a side bonus, it makes it slightly more marketable to weirdos that want to roleplay teaming up with the KKK or whatever, so there's that, I guess.
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Apr 29, 2023 04:58
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Finster Dexter posted:As a side bonus, it makes it slightly more marketable to weirdos that want to roleplay teaming up with the KKK or whatever, so there's that, I guess. How is this any kind of bonus
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Apr 29, 2023 05:24
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I think the idea of "overpoliticizing things" and "a game about playing revolutionary freedom fighters/terrorists" are directly at odds, even Star Wars has a political bent. The problem with Sigmata isn't that it's "too political," the problem is the creator's politics appears to be complete incoherent dogshit. Spire isn't anywhere near as dumb, but it's fair to ask "okay what does this game about revolutions have to say about revolution?" and while Spire does touch on some things which other games don't always do (that revolutions are messy, often violent, and difficult if not impossible to conduct "cleanly") it's otherwise kind of hands off about things to an extent which you could generously say gives you the freedom to paint your own themes and elements onto an open canvas, or less generously say punts on the sorts of things a game about revolution should not. My critique of Spire has been that while the setting and classes are all very evocative and cool, the actual gameplay support it extends to "you are a revolutionary cell fighting to oust the rulers of the city" is thin to nonexistent, at least in the core book. In that regard it has about as much support for "being revolutionaries" as D&D does.
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Apr 29, 2023 05:37
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BattleMaster posted:IMO it's worse than that. I don't think they care either way if anyone else uses it, it's more like an ashcan copy, something that occupies a category even lower than "shat out" for purely legal reasons. It exists not to be good or useful to anyone but to let them keep publishing "Fifth Edition Roleplaying Game" content without being dependent on Wizard's terms. It's just far too garbage to be anything else. It should be noted that they are producing a full core book etc and kickstarting it next month for release next year. https://talesofthevaliant.com/ The stuff in the playtest packs do far has been basic but it was always going to be.
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Apr 29, 2023 05:43
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Lamuella posted:It should be noted that they are producing a full core book etc and kickstarting it next month for release next year. I just wished they launched with something more . . . Them, y'know? Release something that only Kobold Press could. Use that to get tons of eyes on them. Then have it tie into a new, incoming system. That's what Cubicle7 is doing with their Broken Weave setting, for example, where you can either backport it into 5E's mechanics or use it with their upcoming C7D20 revision. Instead, the first impression they're giving after all this talk and excitement is the 5E PHB with some pieces scrambled around.
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Apr 29, 2023 06:10
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Yeah, the whole idea that you can have political themes without actual politics is a very dangerous mindset and genuinely part of why modern politics is such a mess.
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Apr 29, 2023 08:10
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Kai Tave posted:My critique of Spire has been that while the setting and classes are all very evocative and cool, the actual gameplay support it extends to "you are a revolutionary cell fighting to oust the rulers of the city" is thin to nonexistent, at least in the core book. In that regard it has about as much support for "being revolutionaries" as D&D does. One of the disconnects with Spire is that it's not really a game about being revolutionaries or planning a revolution - it's a game about being undercover operatives for a political-religious caste that sees you as expendable pawns and will quite happily betray you to your death if your actions jeopardise their (unseen and unmentioned beyond a vague "get the occupying enemy forces out of here" objective) political project, or even just if it's convenient. Tonally, it's going for subterfuge and betrayal, not glorious revolution. You, the players, and you, the characters, are involved in this revolutionary cause because from both your perspectives, it's self-evidently righteous and noble, but you're being used. The absence of mechanics to handle the revolution actually accomplishing anything feels intentional (if not necessarily fully deliberate), for the same reason. I wouldn't be surprised if Spire were drawing from British TV spy fiction combined with media dramatisations of the Troubles, more than any other revolutionary conflict. Lemon-Lime fucked around with this message at 14:48 on Apr 29, 2023 |
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Apr 29, 2023 14:31
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Lynx Winters posted:How is this any kind of bonus It's a bigger bonus for profit-driven CEO's.
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Apr 29, 2023 15:26
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