quote:

I still have all my 1st and 2nd edition book, which are all the core and source books. I also have DMZ and about 60 minis to boot. I haven't needed to change my game for a long time. When 3rd came out it made it easier for anyone to play and I didn't like that. I spent a good long time making a matrix deck and a custom character generator in BASIC to have it all slated as obsolete because FASA closed down and someone else couldn't just reprint and add to the world that was already established. I applaud Jordan for getting his stuff back and giving it some love, and I play MWO, MWT and I plan on buying whatever Shadowrun PC game comes out, but I already have all my books on my shelf I plan on buying... unless I find a Universal Brotherhood for a good price.

quote:

It's really weird for me to read that. Why is it a bad thing for a game to be more accessible? That means there's more players, and that's a win for everyone.

quote:

Because it took me and my group a long time to understand and run the matrix and foci correctly, and after years of playing and finally understanding the rules they threw them out the window. I had a lot invested in the system and it made sense at that point. Everyone that I played with were in the same boat too. No one in my area changed from 2nd to 3rd, and a lot of hardcore Shadowrun players at the time felt the same way. Only new players bought 3rd. It created a big divide. We had a pretty big FASA supporter in our area at Challenge Games, Forest Brown was a developer for a lot of FASA products and even had a hand in making Axis and Allies. I enjoyed the fact that people were playing Shadowrun 3rd, but they wouldn't play second because of the mechanical differences. I don't think a game has to be made easier for it to be accessible.

quote:

But if the rules are so crappy (read "complex and hard to understand" there) that it takes your group a long time to master them, isn't it a fantastic thing that they were later streamlined? The newer rules don't remove the joy you guys got from your 1st & 2nd ed Shadowun games, of course, and I get that having your system mastery of the old rules no longer apply would be annoying. But accessible rules that are also fun help bring in new players, and new players keep a game alive.

A good example for me is the old "higher ACs should be negative ACs" discussion when 3rd ed D&D launched. Having AC -10 was quirky, but it was also confusing and positive ACs are flat-out better game design because they're so much more intuitive. A lot of folks bridled about the change regardless. I get that change is scary and can suck, but that was one of those arguments that just didn't seem to make sense.

Anyways, thank you for explaining. I only played 2e Shadowrun once, largely because the rules seemed impenetrable, so I may be biased.

quote:

My point exactly!

Winson_Paine posted:

First casualty of not reading the OP.

quote:

These figures pretty much guarantee that the entire size of the serious Storygamer hobby is well under 3000 people. He's pretty much their most successful writer, and he's never sold 3000 copies of even his most successful games.

This site alone has about 2000 more members than the entire Storygames movement.

And this is not just now; its EVER. Even at the height of the Forge.

Which leads you to ask: why the gently caress is anyone who's interested in making commercially successful RPGs listening to anything these assholes have to say?

RPGPundit

quote:

What makes me roll my eyes is when I read stuff to the extent of "there's absolutely NO DIFFERENCE between Dungeon World and D&D! It totally is a traditional game! It's the same thing, but cooler!" That's nonsense.

quote:

quote:

The numbers of old-school and story gamers that I saw there last year seems consistent with these numbers.

You mean the number of RPGers and shared narrative gamers, right? You may as well be talking about the number of tennis and hockey players.

quote:

I like DnD because it is a mechanic I can put down and pick up whenever, without have to try and remember a lot of complicated stuff. It is a system that gives me a rich choice of character options (even more when used with all the only stuff etc.) that means I can play almost any character I wish, and due to its flexibility I can build in flaws and character traits into my character that enable me to either roleplay the character, or when having a bad day and things in cranium are not working optimally just pick up a dice and roll play the character.

quote:

So I was trying to get people on board for PnP games recently but... well I ran into a Major problem: Even with Call of Cthulhu or even Unknown Armies, is there a way to get people on board in games where all your actions add up to nothing... or is this the wrong kind of hobby for the "hopeless-focused" person?

quote:

... tough crowd then... I'm making it hard on myself by picking a theme not many want to try... and harder when you find out that you can't get anyone on board then...

So... I guess there's not much I can do for now except hold out until trends change...

quote:

Well, after alot of failures, I really do not want to revisit these ideas that fail... mainly because they bring back bad memories...

quote:

I do however think it'll be cool to do Lovecraft in Golarion (PF's default setting) though, just to give me the honor of declaring "Cthulhu devours 1d6 characters, no Save, PCs get priority over NPCs" otherwise...

Old Geezer posted:

I am already playing a game full of hopelessness where my every action will be futile.

It's called "real life."

quote:

quote:

quote:

*Clears throat*...Joten gang rape, Ebon Dragon Lolita Cunnilingus just to name a few things.

Let's not forget the part where Infernals who have issues with one another challenge each other to a game of "rape the deformed little girl" to see who wins and who loses.

Sounds exactly like something anime-inspired demon beings would do. Where's the problem with that?

You guys HAVE seen some of the material that the Yozi's were inspired from, right?

Neo Rasa posted:

quote:

Personally, I would prefer it if they drop the "expected to level every X sessions" it's the first step on the road of entitlement and I would much rather have it nipped in the bud, I think that player advancement rate should have it's own subsection in the DMG with all the different methods of earning XP.

trechriron posted:

I just want to state for the record that I find all these threads on TBP about sex, brothels, prostitutes, naked art, boobies, penis, vaginas, misogyny, and the like to be loving ridiculous. Not just silly. Not just useless. loving beyond ridiculous.

I appreciate there are people who don’t want to deal with these subjects in RPGs. Or in real life. Fine. But what if I do? I’m not a loving villain because there may be a brothel in my city or a prostitute NPC or because two PCs have a relationship or a race of ugly horrible monsters rape women to breed chaos creatures to overthrow the world (didn’t invent that one either, for the record).

Being psychoanalyzed as to why I put those things in my game is loving offensive. I put stuff in my game because I WANT it in there you naïve pencil-dicked gently caress-tard. It’s not a loving mystery. I. Put. It. In. There. I am not ashamed of liking naked people and sex and prostitutes in my games. It’s part of life, it comes up in all kinds of art, stories, movies, TV; and I’m not going to ban subjects in my game because a bunch of self-righteous rear end fucks on an internet forum tell me to.

I like gritty alternative pulpy in your face sexy things. Movies, porn, books, TV. I like boobs. I like naked art. I like sex. There is a LONG history of some bad poo poo regarding humanity and sex. I didn’t loving start it. I didn’t invent the bad stuff. I don’t perpetrate bad stuff on other people. I am also not going to be placed in the corner with the tall pointy “monster pervert boobie-toucher” hat. People have sex. Naked people happen. So does marriage, children, kidnapping, disease, murder, robbery, graduation, weather, baked goods and loving pizza.

I am so loving tired of reading the “Why are men boobie-humping gorillas?!?!?!” bullshit I could loving gag. I am not a rapist, or a misogynist, nor a child molester, nor a violent criminal and I hardly imagine HAVING a penis somehow qualifies me for annual criminal background checks and mandatory psycho therapy sessions. gently caress you. I am quite happy with my penis and I don’t need you telling me what I can think about, write about, or put in my games.

This is for all you self-deprecating whiney near-do-wells who think it’s ok to ram your holier-than-thou delusions of grandeur up my rear end – Go gently caress yourself. You can hide behind the bullshit veneer of political correct nonsense on the TBP to push your agendas but some of us will keep on loving the girl boobie sex prostitute brothel penis vagina RPG stuff until we die. Assholes.

RPGPundit posted:

These figures pretty much guarantee that the entire size of the serious Storygamer hobby is well under 3000 people. He's pretty much their most successful writer, and he's never sold 3000 copies of even his most successful games.

This site alone has about 2000 more members than the entire Storygames movement.

And this is not just now; its EVER. Even at the height of the Forge.

Which leads you to ask: why the gently caress is anyone who's interested in making commercially successful RPGs listening to anything these assholes have to say?

RPGPundit

thedungeondelver posted:

RPGPundit posted:

RPGPundit: Which one would it be?
How would you change it?

RPGPundit

Monster Manual II. Modrons - out. Daemons - out. Demi-elementals - out.

BedrockBrendan posted:

Ladybird posted:

Yeah, that's cool, no arguments here. It just relates to a similar thing to the Desborough thread, though; "I understand what this issue is about and have decided I don't like it" is a different thing to, and more valid than, "I have read forum chinese whispers about this and have decided I don't like it".

Well, I think if I was going to campaign against people playing it, sure I would have a responsibility to play the game. But I do not need to play or read AW (or desborough's stuff) to decide I don't want to play it because it has things that seem pretty immature. My opinion of the sex moves thing is mostly formed by asking people who play the game rather than just taking what critics say at face value. To me the fact that its in there is a deterent to play for me. I think that is a valid reason to consider a game a bit strange and not to my taste. I even think it is a valid reason for me to decide Baker's games are probably not for me.

jibbajibba posted:

BedrockBrendan posted:

Was speaking about having sex moves in an rpg. Those I find strange. I am sure some people find that appealing, but I have trouble taking a game seriously when it has that kind of stuff (to me it is up there with VD charts).

agreed its the sort of thing you stop doing when you are 13

The Traveller posted:

Filthy dirty, a brothel on every streetcorner.

Oh you mean sanitary-wise? Depends.

flyingmice posted:

I totally read this thread as "Are your fantasy titties dirty or clean?"

-clash

Bobloblah posted:

Benoist posted:

Silverlion posted:

Because I don't like D&D?

Now THIS is an honest answer.

It's ok. There's lots of people who don't like D&D. That's why they made 4E.

Remember that guy The Traveller who tried to start a goon witch hunt and got checked by Tarnowski and Benoist? lol posted:

Then there's nothing shared-narrativey I can see about this game. It's a different style of game, one I haven't seen before except in gamebooks, for example as krakajak says moves have a very broad scope of action and resolution, they need to because there aren't many of them, and you can't have many of them because you'd have to spend half the game referencing desciptions (the tradeoff), but he is mistaking the normal player driven sequence of a roleplaying game for narrative control - these have two completely different meanings.

GEExCEE posted:

The "So, I played Dungeon World last night..." thread on theRPGSite is amazing.

quote:

I'm sorry to keep doing this to you people out there who haven't the opportunity to see these videos wherever you may happen to be, but lately I've just been feeling very visual, I've been seeking out lecture videos on youtube (which is a marvelous, time-consuming exercise) and its terribly convenient to be able to point out to people, "See, I'm not crazy, really brilliant people think so too!"

A fellow asked me recently why it was that I was driven to create this complicated environment for my players, in depth and elaborate in the extreme, but I continued to embrace the sort of clumsy cardboard framework of character classes.

I explained that the reason for this had a lot to do with choice.

It is generally believed by the friendly fuckwits at WOTC, and the many, many fools who frolic there, that increasing 'choice' into the fabric of the game cannot help but improve the game. This is a natural extension of a lot of different sociological factors that began with the Me Decade of the 1970s and carried forward into marketing and so on ... an ever accelerating process which is loosely connected to the subject we've been talking about the past few days, that being market research. Generally, market research was designed to identify what people wanted, so that markets could then produce those wants and therefore target people's needs in a way that would make them very happy. The introduction of 3.0 and 3.5, concentrating as it did upon many classes and many races, along with skill sets that offered hundreds of ways in which to fabricate a character for YOU personally, was a natural extension of something that was exploding in the marketing culture.

(Here you thought D&D was an 'underground' phenomenon. Shame on you)

This has backfired. Of course, I don't expect you to believe me that it's backfired, so let me have Barry Schwartz explain it to you:



In general, for those who can't hear the video, Schwartz makes two fundamental points. The first is that having choices - a great many choices - produces paralysis. People feel, particularly where they have little or nothing to base a choice upon, that they are almost certain to make the wrong choice. This has the consequence of making them feel inadequate in the face of change, causing them to either make choices for the sake of just getting past making the choice (and being disappointed) or of making no choice at all. In D&D, this is commonly expressed in farming the choice out to someone at the table, usually the DM, who has far more experience than the player. Depending upon the DM, this can be either a good thing or a bad thing, but the principle issue is that it isn't the player making the choice.

Schwartz's other point is that increased number of choices causes individuals to concentrate more upon the choices they did not make rather than the ones they did. So the character who, as part of the creation of their character, has decided upon the skill of making armor, discovers too late that fishing would have been more useful and valuable given the campaign they're in, and are therefore dissatisfied with their choice to the point where they blame their own shortcomings. This is a much bigger problem than most campaigns realize, as the words "I've been loving stupid," are somewhat anathema to the game, producing players who are sullen and unhappy with the characters they had the freedom to create.

I would argue, for anyone familiar with the original class system, and familiar with the later skill-choice system, that their memories of the game are that people in general, particularly less experienced players, are much less happy with the characters they ran in 3.5 than characters in earlier game-systems.

Look at the elements of human nature. We as people are almost entirely unable to choose who we are. The skill sets we have when we reach the age of 18 are largely those things which our families happened to know. If your father was not a great cook, you're probably not much good in the kitchen. If your mother was wild about fishing, and took you into the woods to fish every summer, you probably know quite a lot about fishing. For the most part, you're just not familiar with things that haven't been dangled in front of you, and this is even more true of someone growing up three generations ahead of you, who did not have access to most modern media.

So who you are and what you know is something you simply have as you become a young adult, and except for some envy issues you probably have about friends who get given cars by their rich parents, you're probably content that you know how to play hockey or basketball or curling or what have you. Yes, you may not know how to sail, but you're not bitter about it when you first encounter a sailboat. You never got the chance to learn. It's not your fault.

So if the game includes a powerful restriction on who you are - i.e., a rigorous class structure of fighter or mage or thief - you're prepared to live with that. Moreover, every fighter is the same, every mage is close to the same (the hard part is choosing spells) and every thief is the same. You're not punished for not picking the "right" elements of the fighter that lets you fight differently from other fighters. And once you're used to fighters, a fairly shallow learning curve, you're comfortable playing them.

The world, on the other hand, for you in reality, is a wide open vista. You don't want to live in a cage. You want a big, massive, complicated world because that is the world you live with everyday. Having a million choices in the world is more comfortable for you, because the world actually offers you a million choices. Yes, sometimes you'll make the wrong choice, but since you're not identifying your personality on the choices you make in the world, you're more comfortable when you make the wrong choice.

So in general, it is better to make the character creation process more stale and predictable, because your players will be happier. And it makes more sense to make the actual game world more elaborate and complex, because your players will be happier. Those players who are familiar with the variety of choices, who have parsed them out in depth, will grumble about the lack of their choices, but the base line for ALL your players will be improved.

Schwartz is talking to an audience in the hope of making the whole world understand this entirely proveable concept against their gut instinct, which is making all of us - daily - less happy. But for your world to improve on the basis of his argument, the only person who needs to believe this is YOU.

Halloween Jack posted:

I love it. No one is interested in learning about the game; they're investigating it for Swine heresy.

quote:

We played it once, and I wouldn't do so again. There's no initiative system, so everything comes down to whatever a-hole decides to shout the loudest.

I also didn't like the limitations on players picking the same class in a group (everyone has to pick a different class), the asinine practice of picking a character's name from a provided list, or the relative high starting power level of characters.

It just seems like an awful lot of effort to try to get a certain amount of rules to run a certain way. I can make a block engine Chevy power my refrigerator, , but that doesn't mean it's useful or desired in any sense.

Dungeon World is a poor, badly flawed game that does nothing that other games don't do better for me. I don't care what label or politics you wish to ascribe to it, but it just isn't a very good game.

MadScientistWorking posted:

I always wonder why people always blow a gasket over this one thing in that game.

quote:

People wonder why I've called this blog the "Tao" of D&D. And some have asked that if I had no intention of speaking about Taoism, why did I name the blog as I did? My conception of Tao is that it is a path. I don't propose to know what Tao is. No Taoist does. The path itself is the process. I don't claim that there is "a way" to play D&D ... I only claim that I am "on the way." I'm examining the intricacies of what the game offers or suggests.

That offering or suggestion cannot be found in the rule books. It cannot be found in the words of this blog, either. All I can do is say, "Here is a Hex. Here is a means to filling that Hex. Apply thyself."

Whether I am sketching tables or offering image patterns, or I am ripping into to some poor soul along the way for failing to live up to the principle, it is no different. All that is written here is "content." It is foolish to argue that there are "content" posts on this blog and "drama" posts. Every word written here addresses some angle of the game, whether its the flat and mundane placement of roads on a map or the slapping around of some dumb soul bent on decrying the usefulness of putting roads on a map. It is not enough to make propositions. If propositions mean anything, they or worth defending.

quote:

I know this topic has been posted, but I want to ask what does VtR have in the way that makes it better or atleast
better to you all then its parent VtM? When VtR came on scene and took over VtM, I bought the core book, the NWOD book and even the city source book New Orleans. After reading through I like the Covinent aspect, but did not care for about 2-3 of the clans (Nos, Ven and Gangrel were ok for obvious reason) I made the efforts to do a story and my old group pretty much disbanned (never got the game off, well the first session but thats it) the books found their way on to a shelf and have lived their ever since.

So I ask what about VtR is better then VtM to those who have played both. I have just come back to VtM over the last month, and since I have a whole new group they may even be willing to try VtR.

Things I like about VtM (that I dont think VtR has)

1- Sects, from what I remember they are not in VtR (I may be off as it has been 5-6 years since Ive even opened a book)

2- More Clans, varitey in VtM, VtR has 5 clans seems less of a choice 13>5.

3- Generation, means more in VtM, VtR is only Blood pool size.

4- History, seems richer in VtM, VtR seems obscured.

quote:

At their core, they're the same game. Requiem is essentially a return to the themes of 1st edition Masquerade, being a generic vampire roleplaying game about being a tortured immortal antihero suffering from conflicting urges that ultimately lead to his salvation or damnation, before all the cruft and bloat about ancient conspiracies secretly controlling world affairs and the awakening of vampire cthulhu stole the spotlight.

The Blood & Smoke book is basically just Vampires vs. Zombies.

quote:

This game is very sexist.

I mean... women too should kill, murder, steal, torture, pillage and rape. Not just men.

I just feel like half the people out there don't even know what sexism actually is. They've been brainwashed by "political correctness" to the level where anything can be deemed sexist. We are now at the point where anyone can wave the sexism flag to somehow prove a moral superiority for any reason with no explanations required.

Don't put women in your game, you are sexist.
Put a single woman, you did not put enough.
Make them over 50%, you put too much and are probably a pervert.
Make them exactly 50/50, you pictured some of them with boobies too big...
And the fun fact: if you were a woman, none of this would apply.

You have a no-win scenario. People will always find something to complain.

Designers now have to actually distort history to appeal to the "sexist witch-hunt" to make women act in leading roles where they were not historically. I swear if there's ever a game about Ghengis Khan, they'll find a way to prove his mistresses were great war leaders... (okay, this might be a tad of an exageration... ).

quote:

And if you get the women quota down then you are certainly missing:
-Someone with glasses
-Someone old and someone young
-Someone skinny and someone fat
-Someone disabled
-Someone of every religion
-Someone of every ethnicity

Also, remember not to make anyone stereotypical (besides white males) cause that's *ism too.

quote:

The Power Gamer-also known as Twinky, Twink, Warmonger is a main stream player type and is usually the first step before becoming a PK'er.. Of course I've run into hundreds of players just like this.

Make no mistake this person will use any means and I mean ANY means possible to maximize his or her advantages in any game setting. They can commonly be found with their heads buried in source books tweaking thier next or current character to unthinkable levels ending results. Usually the names of the characters themselves are the same as the last character from a different game.

Example of structured power gaming:

There was one storyteller I knew who got sick of a few pking players in his group and told me to bring a heavy hitter to bring some protection and fair play. At first I said "NO." and braught in a homid child of gaia hippy and got killed for no reason IC in a crowd of people without even even being known as a supernatuaral or not. So I caved and warned the storyteller that my methods would be considered power gaming but the storyline would match the immense power the character will wield with do reason and the fail safe would be: Dark Fate:"Soul is called home his body crumbles to dust." at ST's discression.

And so the ancient named "Exodus Moonsilver" was created for play: an incredibly enlightened and powerful wolf from the beginning times made I made with the bygone bestiary to be one of the first Kinfolk ever recorded. I gave him Years 5 "You told eve not to eat it but she had to know everything", Treasure 5 "A ceramonial honor chamber of preserved garou pelts, Garou litany, weapons, ancient armors, Lores written on the very walls an open ceiling where luna shines to show her kindness on rare occasions, and every special oil known to shapechanger kind with the simple fact every pelt is from a child he sired that was chosen by gaia to became a garou and each one agreed to be returned to the cerimonial hall under Moonsilvers command upon death. All Pelts of True ancient tribe Get of fenris so much Fenris himself visits the chamber every 10 years and offers the ancient the privelage of mating with the fiercest ranking females of highest pedigree as the Totem is most anxious to maintain such a potent bloodline of the highest breed and in exchange he would offer favor.

The storyteller grinned thinking it would be a great idea to educate the the garou players about their lineage and if pressed, spank Power gamers if they got too roudy but to the OOC naked eye it was just a suernatural wolf who could be taken down by aggrovated damage without soak even if unaging which is what I wanted to portray outside of good gaming to set the effect now I just needed the cause. ST awarded me additional starting points since im considered underpowered in comparison to all the other players starting the game.

I took max flaws and a merit: kinfolk. The advantages set up I chose gave it a solid chance to protect the character from almost every type of magical, discipline, gift, numina, etc attack, his speed rating allows him to act 3 times in a turn at will. Its attributes of stamina and strength are pushed well over 5 up to 8. He has armor "thick hide", terrible claws and a wicked bite. Also being 1 1/2 sizes biger than any other wolf along side kinfolk skills like soul stealing and the like to buff health levels and compliment his status as ancient kin. Unable to be harmed by Silver or die of old age due to certain advantages as explained by the very litany written on his chamber walls "Exodus has been named now and forever he will never suffer by the touch of Luna".

So starting the stoyteller gives me an intro explaining how the ancient can feel the pain of his children who are still alive. Thier death is your anger expressed by a very keen sensory beyond even your explinations. However you are not to allowed to act until the death of all of your children. After a few game sessions a majoriy of the powergaming characters had slaughtered almost all the standard players. Four of them just happened to be the last decendents of Exodus. And so all those murderers were marked spiritualy and could be tracked. Once the last decendent died in siberia the Ancient enacted use of his Background Rituals of 5 which just happens to be the rite to become a garou and in his storylines case it is more than justified with out wyrm taint and the boon hand me down immunity to silver into a silver immunity.

Its at this point as a full blown Garou Crinos Get of Fenris of undeniable physical stature he tasted mothers rage like a fine wine. Fenris appeared and was taken as direct totem in decloration of war with little to no effort out of favor. Other garou looked at him in awe then aided his cause. The ensuing destruction from that session on was terrifying to even myself with no remorese no forgiveness no stopping.. it was a force of nature leaving every Pker in pieces. and when it was over Dark fate kicked in and all was well.

quote:

I happen to have accidentally run across this .... and, apparently, this is a commonly-expressed sentiment, and has been since the beginning of 4e:

4rry posted:

The second biggest advances of 4e is the fact that you can easily reflavor things. (the first is balance).

Since when is reflavoring your poo poo all of a sudden goddamned revolutionary?! I've been doing that poo poo since I started back in '94.

Somebody, please explain this to me.

quote:

4E invented "shouting at people to just change the flavour of stuff if it's not in the game yet". When the game dropped, people had some real questions that needed answering:

Where are the Monks?
And if I wanted to play a Druid...?
How the gently caress am I supposed to play a Necromancer?
I liked Bards. And Gnomes. Would you be so kind as to explain this poo poo?
Where the loving gently caress is...

Given the game, designers and fanbase were going out of its way to tell you to "stop loving around with lovely old editions you stupid 3aboo WIZARD EDITION LOL grognards, start playing BEST EDITION", it had a loving lot to answer for. Not only in regards to "Okay so we dump our old game that we liked and start afresh, I want X" but also in the sense of "Fine, we'll do as you say and convert our game to 4. How the gently caress can we represent anything anyone was ever playing?"

The automatic answer was "A Monk is a 2WF Ranger who just wields his fists! Pretend the magic swords are fists or weeaboo blades! A Druid is just a Cleric of plants or a Feylock! Reflavour the powers to be more tree themed! A Necromancer is just a Wizard, Cleric or Warlock, reflavour them! No you can't have a loving pet skeleton, that breaks the game. PRETEND ALL THE OTHER PCs ARE YOUR SKELETONS!"

Some people did take the piss, explaining that you could refluff things as completely retarded concepts, or indeed "Sure, X options actually suck dick, so just play (a Laser Cleric or whatever) and reflavour it as (the thing that sucks)!" in an effort to show how stupid it was. And this is justified.

Actually, maybe it's not that 4E is the first game that made such a big deal out of telling you to reflavour everything, more that it's the first game where it was so necessary.

quote:

"Story Games" is a term from the Forge. As such, it doesn't actually mean anything. The Forge specialized in coining words that sounded like they meant something but then "defining" them with rambling twenty thousand word essays that were not internally consistent. That should be an exaggeration, but it isn't.

The basic idea of a "story game" is that it is like an RPG, but "more story focused". Now, an RPG is by definition a "cooperative storytelling game", so really if you want to make it have "more story" the only real way to do that is to reduce the emphasis on the "cooperative" part (making it more railroady) or reduce the emphasis on the "game" part (making it more freeform). As such, I am always extremely leery when someone tells me that their latest heartbreaker is a "Story Game".

But that doesn't have to be bad. Mouseguard is decent enough at what it does, and considers itself to be a "Story Game". It's just that the movement that it comes from is intellectually bankrupt.

-Frank

quote:

In yesterday's post I proposed a moral dilemma: if there are two adjacent cultures possessing markedly different technologies, so that one is vastly superior militarily than the other, what action might a D&D party in a campaign take? Should the party distribute weapons to the destitute culture, or should the party work towards keeping the status quo? It should be noted that choosing to do nothing is in fact choosing the second option.

The DM can make this more uncomfortable by having the party witness a slaughter of the weapons-inferior culture by the weapons-superior culture. The DM can make it more uncomfortable if it is made clear that the weapons-inferior culture appears to be more ethically in line with the players' view of the world (not the characters, mind, but the actual players at the table).

It's also easier to back the weapons-superior culture if the weapons-inferior culture is "evil" ... nobody minds crossing the border and killing a group of orcs. However ...

If you really want to screw up a party, consider:

What if the weapons-inferior culture is simultaneously harmless and yet morally reprehensible? If I propose a culture in which incest is commonplace, abandonment of babies is widespread, prostitution and drug use is rampant and local political unrest/corruption is in the mainstream, what then? Should a loathsome culture be tolerated and defended because it is obstensibly harmless? What if the "harmless" element of this proposed culture refers only to its military ambitions? To what degree does one accept the transmission of sexually transmitted diseases or the smuggling of narcotics into the military-superior culture? And what if all attempts to peaceably educate the inferior culture end in dismal failure? How does one stop emigration, and thus the spread of inferior morality and ideas? At what point do you decide that genocide against helpless people is an acceptable choice?

Remember, this is D&D! Hitler had to invent reasons to kill gypsies and jews; but you have it in your power as DM to create a race of creatures - call them 'the Mesta' or whatever you want - that actually HAVE these characteristics. If its possible to conceive of pixies and elves, chimera and lizard men ... then why not moral deviants and creatures that are biologically irredeemable? Every conceivable moral trait chosen by the human species can be inculcated into a race of creatures ... but does that make it okay to kill or imprison them if they are not outwardly aggressive?

Where is the party prepared to draw the line?

Let us suppose they stumble across a group of nomads who are outwardly friendly and generous. The party is invited to join their fire, to share in their food, to hear a few stories. But as the evening goes on, and the nomads grow drunk, things begin to get out of hand. One of the cooks accidentally breaks one of the party's lanterns. The party discovers someone has thrown up in one of their backpacks. A horse goes missing and an apologetic nomad brings the horse back, saying he just wanted to 'try it out' ... but now the horse is lame. The party thinks about leaving, but the nomads get a bit miffed and insist angrily the party MUST stay and eat a little more. The nomads have NO agenda! They are simply incredibly inconsiderate ... to the point that they begin to follow the party, and they keep turning up again and again, to wreck plans for the party, to insult people the party happens to meet, to slip into the party's camp to "borrow" things or accidentally kick a burning log on the fire into the mage's spellbook.

How long would a party let this go on? Especially if the nomads are NEVER aggressive, not in the least bit. It's just the little problem that they will not listen to reason.

And what about a shopkeeper who won't sell something to the party the party desperately needs? Not because he wants more money, but simply because he doesn't like the party's skin color - or their foreign-backgrounds, or the fact that they ride horses? What happens when the party is constantly thwarted in clean, decent behavior because the locals are simply too irrational to understand that horses CAN'T go about without shoes (despite a local ordinance about the use of metal for "luxury," as defined by the town council), or that healing potion ISN'T an intoxicating beverage, or that your female character isn't willing to cut her hair because this is the local rule? How many stupid and inconvenient requests have to mount up before your party begins to recognize that not every aggressive action starts with using a weapon? And what if, when the party pulls out their swords, everyone flees? Is it okay for the party to use that aggression to start bossing everyone around? It's an excellent opportunity to bring up the might makes right question - after all, who is in the right here?

These are difficult adventures to run - but oh so engaging! There's nothing like a party so frustrated they're ready to start screaming, while at the same time restraining themselves from hauling out sword and commencing to butcher. It's equally pleasant to let them do it, since that gives you, the manipulative DM, the moral high ground in whatever comes next - that is, the inevitable justice that must descend for a moment of poor judgment on the party's part. I can tell you from experience ... there's no moment more pleasant than having the moral high-ground over a party when they KNOW you deserve it.

(sadly, there are many DM's who simply co-opt that position ... but that's another post)

My point is that passive aggressiveness can be a nasty turn in your world, in that it always compels a decision, but never a clear cut decision. Just as you can't decide how much longer you're going to tolerate the antics of your roommate or life partner, tolerating a village or harmless group of NPCs can drive a party crazy to the extreme.

It can also be a lot of fun - as while the fighter is getting his backpack filled with vomit, the mage and cleric gain a moment to enjoy the "at least it's not me" perspective. Watching bad things happen to other people is always a laugh riot.

Guilty Spork posted:

Meanwhile, Mr. Trollman has opinions on Story Games:

quote:

Help! My PC's jumped to the end of the adventure!

Please help with suggestions! I'm gaming pretty soon and I need ideas for a climactic encounter!

Here's the situation: My PC's are storming a Frost Giant fortress in pursuit of the Troll King's ring of teleportation that was stolen by the Frost Giant shaman Ashaya. I had designed a whole complex series of scaling encounters to get them to level up (APL is 13) before facing Ashaya on the other side of the fortress.

However, instead they have bypassed the entire thing by using flight, some lucky skill checks in the high mountain winds, and some EXTREMELY lucky escapes from the ancient white dragon guarding the fortress' airspace.

Anyway, they reached Ashaya's tower by the skin of their teeth, and are about to enter her lair/workshop below the tower. Only problem is, I have no encounter planned! I thought I would have several sessions before I needed to nail down the specifics! Normally I would just wing it and it would be fine, but events have been building up to this fight for a while and it really needs to be special (I gotta top the airborne escape from the ancient white dragon)!

Ashaya is statted out as a female frost giant boreal bloodline sorcerer 11 (CR 20!) with ice spells of course (though the party will ignore those, considering all the anti-cold buffs they've got going). There definitely needs to be some sort of twist to make it a little easier on the party if they can be clever.

I'm thinking some sort of enormous cave with icy ledges and chasms lined with shelves for her giant-sized books, with maybe icicles dangerously perched on the roof? But why would she go around with dangerous icicles in her library? Maybe this encounter can be more memorable with something completely different?

I need some new inspiration, please help!

quote:

Worst advice of the day u.u

quote:

I find your post hilarious, really. " I am the DM and if you do not do exactly th thing I have planned for you then I will kill your Pcs".

If they get TPKed while fighting the BBEG that is fine provided the DM run the encounter fairly, not for DM-rage as you advice.

quote:

Players should be punished for having good ideas and avoiding encounters that aren't necessary to engage in?

Wha?

That's the weirdest thing I've read on here for ages. And I've been checking out some of shallowsoul's posts...

quote:

9_9

Do you also herd your PCs towards any hidden treasure they may have missed? You did 'hard work' putting it there, after all...

Please read the following translation in the voice of the Soldier from TF2.

"How DARE you attempt to use 'intelligence' or 'strategy' to skip my painstakingly-crafted fights, mister! Now, get BACK on those rails and GRIND until I SAY you are ready for a boss fight!"

quote:

Give them the XP for bypassing the encounters.

It's bad practice to only give xp for killing things.

You should give them the experience for overcoming challenges, i.e. negotiating their way through something instead of just fighting, finding a way around a problem instead of just breaking through it.

Of course, if they later come back to those encounters and kill the creatures there, don't give them double the xp per creature.

quote:

You gotta know what the enemies are and you have to be in the vicinity. If you fly over an entire stage without setting foot in it, no XP because you skip the stage. If you're in the stage, and there's a fork in the path, and you go left, and there are no monsters there, but there were monsters on the right fork, no XP because you didn't go the direction that would have made the encounter relevant to begin with. If you walk into a room full of sleeping monsters, and instead of fighting you use Stealth to sneak past them, you do get XP because you were in the encounter area and actually had to use skills specific to that particular encounter.

From reading the book. Where are you getting any idea to the contrary? Take my example, where my PCs took the back door to the boss room and skipped all the other encounters. There were about ten encounters, total value of several million XP. You're suggesting that I should give the PCs that XP because they got around them, despite not knowing what any of the encounters were to begin with.

There is not a single RPG in existence that works like that, this one included. Sorry. RPGs would be in a sorry state if you got rewarded for outright skipping content.

RobertaYang posted:

Level grinding is the funnest thing ever, I recommend telling the PC's to turn around and grind the Sunless Citadel until their numbers are big enough to permit them to return to the original campaign. Tell them the delay is their own fault for daring to actually move toward their objective, and murder them all if they refuse to waste time on pointless nonsense. In fact, kill them anyhow. They deserve it for ruining your game world. Probably.

I'm the worst GM on the entire planet and I approve this message.

quote:

I sat down and tried to write up a 4E D&D character without using the D&D character creator, after 30 minutes I quit! I don't see how anyone can make up a PC in this game without resorting to some type of computer generation program, writing up what all these powers you select is a chore and my pencil started to burst into flames from all the writing.......Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaagh! Now I know why I threw these books in the closets darkest area, never to see the light of day, so back they go. On a finer note, I made a Dragon Age character in under 15 minutes, TADA! done...

WoW, what was I thinkin'? gotta lay off the Tramadol.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Current Games I Am GMing: M&M 3E/DCA, Mystery Men! & RQ 6.

RPGNet the place Fascists hangout and live.
"The multitude of books is making us ignorant" - Voltaire.
"Love truth, pardon error" - Voltaire.
"It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong" - Voltaire.

quote:

They don't really want a sandbox. They just say that. Players are stupid - they don't know what they want. Yeah, I said it!

... what they WANT is a narrative, they just want to have complete control over what that narrative is through the initial plot choices.

Once those plot choices are made, you'll start making a narrative just like any conventional game. The only difference is the initial prime movement is caused by one player or another saying - 'I wanna do something', rather than you sticking them all in an inn and forcing it.

The term 'sandbox' in RPGs, to me, really just means flailing around for a narrative until the group settles on one.

It's rather like a weird, surreal version of a writing room.

That's not to say it's bad. It's an interesting way of letting players define key aspects of story and theme, in an interactive way. Just, it's not -really- a sandbox beyond the first session IMO.

quote:

As far as memorizing the Powers, sorry, I was actually writing up a ranger. The powers for the rangers was what the problem was, noting what each ability did without the room to do it on the sheet was a pain in the rear end. As far as memorizing 1st edition and OD&D spells, I played the poo poo for 30 years no need to memorize, I know it like the back of my hand. Never played much 2E didn't really like the changes much and 3.x just ehhh, whatever, looked didn't buy. I just picked up 4E cause my kids wanted to play it, I think it's just me and I am just so use to B/X and 1E AD&D, I can't see this as D&D I guess not to mention the classes seem a bit too narrowed and I don't like the multiclass system in it, but I am reading it trying to keep my eyes from exploding from stress right now, before I try making another character for this thing. OMG, I hope they don't want to play D&D Next or 5th or whatever the next nightmare is going to be, just because it has color pictures.

TristramEvans posted:

Warthur posted:

Were the Dragonlance modules a storygame?

No, of course not. A module isnt a game, so it cant be a storygame or otherwise.

flyingcircus;642486 posted:

Wouldn't know, never played those. I went from OD&D, 1E AD&D, OSRIC, now bought but never tried 4E, just broke it out to give it a whirl and found it a mess to me, sorry but I'm not a fan of the powers, too World of Warcrafty to me.

Exploderwizard;642487 posted:

That isn't a fair comparison. Warcraft has crafting skills. 4E doesn't.

tristranevans posted:

Let me explain then. Yes, the system itself is not a storygame system. White Wolf games to do impose3 storygaming style on players via the mechanics. I would never call Werewolf or any White Wolf game a "storygame". However, storygaming is a style of play, defined by viewing the PCs as characters in a story and making choices to that effect. In the example, this is very much the case. Not only because the GM is railroading them through a plot, but because the players are very aware of this. They play in sets of games corresponding to seasons of a TV show, there's a predetermined effect of their actions, and as there is a set ending that is inevitable, and as the example makes clear, the players have had their character's choices limited specifically to reflect the ending.

For example, in a sandbox game where players have control over their characters decisions, even with a railroady GM, they still have the option of rejecting the plot. A player group could decide to leave the city, to pursue other goals, to reject the "plot" or "story". Plot in a traditional RPG has the meaning of "plan" or "scheme". Its events that are going to happen unless the players interfere. Plot in a storygame, as clearly evinced in the example, is a predetermined set of events that the players will "act through" but is not based on their decisions or actions, and views the course of events in the game as conforming to a narrative structure.

The style of gaming referred to now as storygaming is not dependent on the system. Its existed for decades. It was described and definined in both trifold game theory and GNS. The difference, post-Forge, is that now there are games made specifically to cater and enforce this style of gaming, hence "storygames".

Courtney Campbell posted:

+Ian Burns You're right. I am a bit upset.

I was taken advantage of and I should have known better. I've grown wiser from the experience and have not contributed anything to any project without compensation since then.

I do believe that knowingly exploiting people is a big deal however. Whether that's agreeing to do a project and then disappearing for months, registering a domain and taking work from people then letting it all disappear and expire, or asking someone for a favor to spend a few hours doing art for a project that you then throw away.

Robert Parker posted:

Courtney Campbell You want to talk about being taken advantage of?

How about Flying Buffalo and Rick Loomis?

http://hackslashmaster.blogspot.com/2012/09/on-thursday-trick-paranoid-party.html <- How about Various Killers of Paranoids, p. 51 of Grimtooth's Traps.

http://hackslashmaster.blogspot.com/2012/09/on-thursday-trick-mimics.html <- Or the fountain trap / floor creature from p. 49 of the same book, which you also stole the art from?

http://hackslashmaster.blogspot.com/2012/09/on-thursday-trick-peephole.html <- Or the Eye-Catching Trap, on the opposite page (48)?

http://hackslashmaster.blogspot.com/2012/07/on-thursday-trick-fatal-illusionary.html <- Or the trap Illusions, on p. 4?

http://hackslashmaster.blogspot.com/2012/07/on-thursday-trick-natural-hazards.html <- Or the Hot Rocks on p. 38?

There are more examples; should I go on?

You stole from Rick, a small press publisher and an old man, from a book still published today. Then you took credit for it. Who is exploited now?

Courtney Campbell posted:

Yeah, if you'll look harder, you'll find Steve Crompton commenting about how he's happy about someone remembering his contributions to the old school aesthetic.

I'm fairly open about how what I'm doing is taking old traps from Grimtooth and Undermountain and discussing how to run them using player agency.

As far as bringing attention to their work, I cannot see how that's a bad thing, considering how wonderful it is.

Also, as I'm sure you're well aware, ideas cannot be copyrighted, only specific implementations of those ideas. Also, you are familiar with the doctrine of fair use?

I attempt to credit every image I use on my site (unless it happens to be one particularly well known, or if I can't find the artist). What's that?! Cromptom's name, right under the use of his art! How terrible!

If they feel harmed by the discussion and attention given to ideas similar to the ones they published, why they are free to take me to court to attempt to sequester every last cent I made from those articles.

They would lose, of course, because there is nothing illegal or wrong about my actions but if they did win, what is 100% of 0$ anyway?

...

More to the point +Robert Parker, it seems you have an axe to grind.

What action could I take so that you might feel mollified that I wasn't taking advantage of anybody. I'd be glad to entertain that disscusion.

In any case, specifically asking me to do art via e-mail for free (when it is part of how I make my living) and then throwing that art away to me seems of a different scale.

+Michael S said anything else I might wish to say.

Chaltab posted:

The distinction between storygames and RPGs is so nebulous even to these stalwart defenders of the faith that they can't agree on what it is.

Mike Nystul posted:

So here's the thing. I screwed up. I started a game company and proceeded as though the cash flow and production speed would keep pace. They did not. I’ve tried to keep you informed and up-to-date, but most of all I’ve tried to deliver on expectations. So far, all you’ve seen are delays and broken promises. I take this situation very seriously.

The long and the short of it is that Cairn and Axes and Anvils have become troubled projects. We are out of money, due to some poor decisions on my part. People have asked for refunds I can't possibly give them.

Some 40% of RPG Kickstarters fail, their sponsors simply disappearing with the money. Good people don’t ever see the projects in which they put their faith, and they don’t receive refunds. That number haunts me. That will not happen here.

Cairn could use more work to make it what it should be. I was rushing to get it out and turned in some inferior work. I just wanted to get something out the door and into your hands. Axes and Anvils has suffered because I was thinking like someone running a company and has too much going on at once.

We have discussed ways in which to get something into your hands – maybe ashcans like the old D&D White Books. It’s not the finished project, but it lets you see what we’re doing and lets you start playing with it as soon as possible.

I believe in these games. I will move heaven and earth to get it out, and into your hands. Every promise made will be honored – every tankard and every last stitch on every last plush. This company and it's products will NOT be numbered among the 40%. I and everyone involved in the project are completely committed to that notion. All I can do is be completely honest with you, and ask you all to forgive my my stupidity and bear with me as I make it right.

I tried to salvage the company with my well intentioned, but poorly received, IndieGogo campaign. I see the point of the people who objected - I was not an effective custodian of your investment in the first place. Why invest more? An excellent point. All I can really say is my goal here has nothing at all to do with money.

Case in point - one of my bad decisions was DwarfCon. We didn't have the money or manpower to mount a first year Convention. Based on optimistic projections of where I thought we would be it seemed like a good idea. I shut it down and took a big hit. Because my first priority is the people who supported the idea I'm mounting NonCon instead. For free. A way to try to make good without asking for anything but your moral support.

Moving forward, I am searching for ways to fix these problems that don't call for anyone to invest further or take a leap of faith. I may try another IndieGoGo but this time for a complete in-hand game. Not a promise. A product. I will be working as hard as I know how to dig myself out of the hole I find myself in. My heartfelt thanks to everyone who has been patient and understanding.

posted:

Lunars are now and have sense their creations THE most Noble, loving and tenacious of the ruling bodies of creation bar none.

1. The eve of the dawn of the first age found the Lunars training side by side with the solars not as a sidekick but as equals.
2. The dawn of the age of man finds Lunars not standing back watching solars fight as many teach but standing side by side with them in face to face with primordials. Though not recorded some may well have struck The killing blow. It is recorded that many gave their lives that the war may end as it did.
3. When this war was over Lunars with their love for creation with nobility and lack of arrogance stepped aside and allowed the solars to rule unchallenged.
4. When Solar ruled they had nothing to fear of the Lunar that ruled as their second.
5. When the dragon blooded and sydreal sought to destroy the solars the Lunar stood on and often at the solars side even to the point of loosing their lives.
5. The records bare out that many Lunars died seeking revenge for the wrongful death of the solars.
6. When the great contagion broke out many Lunars died seeking a cure.
7. When the Fey invasion the Lunars where with out a doubt the ones that saved the day attacking the fey from the back and outflanking them. Dispite the Scarlet Lady that never really fired the realm defenes.

These acts are not the acts of a side kick many where done by Lunar alone. With no aid from Solar or Star Children.

Now those of you that read the books wrong or the wrong books stop calling Lunar sidekicks, stop saying they set by the side for 1500 years. They didn't the books say they lead great armies against the fey. Where did those armies come from, creation I think not. They had them in the wylde with them. Why, well maybe they knew more then the Star Children think they knew. Maybe they had other plans for those armies but we may never know. What we do know is that Lunar are now and have sense their creations the most noble, loving and tenacious being to walk creation. There my friends is the Lunar. That is their nitch. Glorious knights in silver armor with an immortal code of noble lover of creation and argent generals there of.

MiltonSlavemasta posted:

Ron Edwards railed against roleplaying — playing a role in character — and immersion in a fictional world. He said it as a form of proto-gaming, not a real endeavor. He insinuated that it couldn't actually be done, and that people who claimed they could were "brain damaged."

Ron Edwards called people who claim to roleplay in character brain damaged.

He said that people who run these kinds of campaigns damage the brains of their players and are committing something akin to sexual abuse.

Ron Edwards said that running a traditional roleplaying campaign is morally the same as sexual abuse.

This isn't a matter of Edwards accidentally mislabeling a new approach. (Shared story-writing is far older than the Forge.)

This isn't a matter of bright, brave, bold new adventurers who accidentally and insignificantly trod on the toes of grumpy old fuddy-duddies.

It's about a man and his allies deliberately trying to discredit and undermine roleplaying. He hated it, and wanted it destroyed.

So, your "oh, Pundie, it's not all that bad" is nice and goodhearted, but springs from a woeful lack of knowledge about Edwards, the Forge, and GNS.

I don't think you're a bad person, and I'm not attacking you. I'm just pointing out some of the history here.

Have a nice day.

quote:

don't worry Zousha.

keep in this mind: I Like Exalted and I feel exactly the same way.

I have tried asking everyone possible about this. the people on these forums, the people White Wolf Exalted forums, the people on RPG.net….even the developers!

no answer was satisfactory. there are like a dozen different viewpoints on Exalted. most of them contradictory to one another. the game itself is highly interpretive, supposed to contain "deep themes" that you are supposed to get somehow from reading it, that no one explicitly states.

all you will get… is the passion-filled ramblings above. half of the stuff they are saying, is like only half serious, those stuff is filled with exaggerations, they are often talking about the Exalted they want and see and not what it actually is, one man's awesome is another mans suck in Exalted.

and the fans think that they are helping when they do this. they are not. they are only confusing things further. I have tried, for a YEAR to figure Exalted out.
a YEAR. that above? is all I get!

didn't work! the fans will say completely different things, they will argue over the smalls of details about the canon, these people agree on almost nothing.

so, trust me, when I say this: Don't ask the fans. don't get involved with pointless arguments over canon, don't ask what Exalted is about. keep your head down, play the game however you want, and have fun, without seeking anyone's opinion over whether it is being done right. just…make them what you want them to be, don't care about anyone else's desires of what they want, and play the game. don't make my mistake.

and honestly? sometimes I think that you either get Exalted immediately, or never get it at all.

Plague of Hats posted:

Is that really grog? I mean, taking the clashing conspiracies for Control of RPGs seriously is to the max, but Ron Edwards bought into that and said those things. He made it a central part of an essay, had a long conversation about it, and when confronted by people he respected enough to make him reconsider his position, he came back from his mountain top contemplations with a "Nope, I was right. White Wolf makes you retarded."

John Wick posted:

I sign every book I sell. I try to make each signiture unique, but sometimes they overlap. Theres L5R banners and 7th Sea t-shirts everywhere I look, and every one of them stops when they see Orkworld and drops down cash.

Before I know it, my pile of 88 books has shrunk down low. Before I know it, I have twelve books left. I look to see how the jewelry is doing.

Out of the twenty-five pieces I brought, all for a buck, only two remain.

Im almost sold out. And its only noon. On Thursday.

I want to grab Eric, but hes busy and theres a group of five L5R players making their way to the booth. I know this because theyre wearing L5R t-shirts, Clan buttons and have banners tucked into their backpacks. They must be playing in the tournament downstairs.

They rush up to the booth. I know at least three of them. We shake hands. They ask how Im doing. They tell me the game isnt the same since I left. I thank them.

Then they say, So, this is Orkworld?

I start to give them the pitch, but one of them already has his money out. Ill take one, he says.

Great! How bout someone else?

No, says one of them. Hes our GM. Well just read his copy.

There is no spoon.

You know, in the electronic gaming industry, thats called piracy, I tell them. And its the reason the adventure game industry will never come out of the basement. Because theres a whole ton of gamers out there who dont support their favorite authors or game lines because they wont shell out the cash because theyll just read their GMs copy.

They look stunned. Im just getting started.

Do comic book fans think like this? No. They dont borrow copies of their friends comic books, they go out and support their favorite publisher. Do music fans do this? No. They go out and buy every single last album, single, B-side and rarity because they want to support their favorite band. And even the ones who do borrow tapes and books go out and get the CD if they like it. But do gamers? Hell, no! Theyre very happy to let their GM shell out all the money and enjoy my book at his expense.

Some of them start shifting their feet.

You know, Ill probably sell 3,000 copies of Orkworld. Lets pretend for a second, and say that half of those 3,000 people are Game Masters. That means 1,500 of them have a gaming group of around four people. That means theres an additional 6,000 players who wont buy the book because theyll borrow it from their GM. Thats an additional 6,000 books I could sell, and at $22 a copy, thats one hundred and thirty two thousand dollars in my pocket. But instead, Ill sell 3,000 copies, barely cover my expenses and never do another RPG because theres no [expletive deleted] money in gaming because gamers are cheap!

Thats when I realize theyre all looking at me like I just but a bullet in Ghandis head.

Im about to apologize when a guy steps out of the crowd and up to my booth. He drops twenty-five bucks on the table and says, I dont know who you are, and Ive never heard about your game, but youre [another expletive deleted] right.

Then, he walks away.

I look at the L5R fans. They look at me. Thats when the laughter starts.

I love Gen-Con.

FMguru posted:

Act I: An artist complains about being ripped off


Act II: Reversal of fortune!


Act III: No, see, it's entirely different when I do it.

FMguru posted:

More great moments in Kickstarter RPGs. Mike Nystul (yes, The Mike Nystul of Nystul's Magic Aura fame) launched a series of retro-D&D projects (Axes & Anvils, Cairn, and Infinite Dungeon) and raised a total of $75,000 to publish them.

He's managed to run out of money without shipping a single thing, not even a PDF of a rough draft.
Seventy-five thousand smackeroos, all gone in less than six months.

quote:

So, it is my world and the ogre has six hit dice. It's nine feet tall, it weighs 728 lbs., and therefore it has a d6 and a d8 per hit die ... and the +1 bonus is applied to every hit die as well. So the big guy has 58 hit points.

The party consists of a 5th level halfling thief, Olie; a 5th level human fighter, Sharper; a 4th level elven mage, Demifee; a 2nd level dwarven cleric, Sven; and a first level human ranger, Molly. With Olie leading the way, they enter the enormous cave, which truly dwarfs them. They know the ogre is present, as they've just recently bitch-slapped a small kobald settlement nearby, and in desperation the kobalds explained that all their treasure has been taken by the ogre for years now.

They find the ogre asleep inside the second cave, upon a bed ten feet long and six feet above the floor. The party makes their plans. The thief will sneak up, climb the bed and attempt to do triple damage. The mage and the rest of the party will move within range. The mage woefully underestimates the danger and chooses to cast burning hands. They all make their rolls to approach, and as the Olie is climbing the bed, Demifee screws up and gives the game away.

Olie misses with a stab, then leaps from the bed and makes his check, taking no damage. He runs towards the rest of the party, and the ogre blunders, half asleep, right into Demifee's spell. Which singes him a bit, but no more. It turns, finds its gigantic godentag on the wall, and starts into combat.

It's big, its fast, and it hits like a mule that's nine feet tall. A godentag that's 3 and a half times bigger than one that does 2-8 should do, in my opinion, 2-16 ... and that does not include the damage bonus from the 18/00 strength. The ogre hits every time it swings and very quickly the party is in trouble. The second hit on Molly kills her, everyone is soon down to less than 20 hp and prospects of survival look grim.

The thief and the cleric decide to run. Demifee has been doing well with her whip spell, but she's looking to get out, too. But the 5th level fighter decides to go one more round, and the mage sticks by her. And here is where things get interesting.

Truth is, I gave the party the opportunity to go when the ranger died. It was also their last opportunity. The ogre moved fast enough to ensure that once the mage and fighter tried for that "one more round," it could hammer them both without letting either escape ... remembering that a good hit in my world causes the loss of a round, where you cannot take any action. Fact was, by staying one round too many, the fighter and mage were almost certainly dead.

And here is the question - why did they stay? In my world, with my experience system, they were already due to gain experience for what they'd done so far. They'd done damage, they'd taken a lot of damage (more than 80 points, all told, by then), and if they escaped with their lives at that point, they would have done all right. They might have regrouped and come back another day. That was certainly Olie and Sven's plan.

It's not enough to say that parties "don't like to run." The question is, why? The fighter said afterwards, she didn't like the idea of losing. I find that very interesting ... since, in fact, the almost certain way of 'losing' was to stay and die. If we define the win as survival, then the win at that point was to run away.

She meant, obviously, losing the battle. In that moment, she would rather stay and die rather than run and live ... and I don't think it was just because it was a game, and that dying didn't mean much. I estimate she'd invested almost a hundred hours to get her character to the level that it was; I do not run an easy world. It takes time and effort to gain experience. She has expressed her like for her character Sharper on many occasions. She would not have wanted Sharper to die. And still she was ready to gamble 100 hours of effort on five minutes of opportunity.

I've been talking about running a world in which a player playing the game does more than just roll dice and succeed or fail; they're given the opportunity to question who they are ... and in doing so, surprise themselves. For that is really the high point of the game. Not that you brilliantly solve some puzzle, or cleverly talk your way past the guards ... no, no, no. It's when you find yourself doing something really stupid, for reasons that you can't begin to explain, and suddenly realize that you've just hosed yourself.

Let me emphasize: the player behind Sharper's decision did not say, "... because I thought I could win." In fact, she was almost immediately certain there was no possible way she could. When the thief and the cleric ran; when the mage was hit and slammed into negative hit points ... the fighter suddenly understood that it was all over. It was too late to run, it was too late to do anything except to be really, really lucky. She was toast, and she knew it.

How often are we there in real life? We've gone too far and we've quit our job in a rush of emotion and anger; we've made a split second decision to go around that truck ahead and now something is flying way too fast at us; we've decided to eat that sandwich that's been a bit too long in the fridge, and now our stomachs are really beginning to bother us. Momentary stupidity. It tells us so much about ourselves, about our decision making ability and about our judgment. We don't just learn from our mistakes; we learn from our really stupid mistakes.

Maturity results from making a lot of them.

We're not gambling that the sandwich is okay. We know it probably isn't. But it looks tasty. And we're more or less certain of our own invincibility. So we eat it, and it isn't until its too late that we think, wow ... what the gently caress were we thinking? We're not laying on the couch stuffing Tums in our mouths thinking, "Hm, I gambled and lost ... well, win some, lose some." No, we're thinking, "Why can't I ever learn?"

Introspection is such a bitch. Even those not prone to it sometimes have it thrust upon them.

This game, this D&D game, has the opportunity to portray these moments like no other game in the history of the universe. All the more so when players have the opportunity to make their own game. This ogre did not exist as part of a greater 'campaign.' The party did not need to kill it to get to the next stage. There are other adventures, other monsters, other treasures, scattered all over a great big world. Nothing about this particular ogre cave said, "You MUST kill this ogre to progress." No. Kill the ogre, don't kill the ogre, it makes no difference. If you don't kill it, you'll find treasure somewhere else the next time.

All the more reason to really, truly wonder why in this instance, in this moment, in the mind's eye of the player, this ogre must die. It's life. It's true life. Where nothing is ordained. Where, as Rorschach says,

"Stood in firelight, sweltering. Bloodstain on chest like map of violent new continent. Felt cleansed. Felt dark planet turn under my feet and knew what cats know that makes them scream like babies in night. Looked at sky through smoke heavy with human fat and God was not there. The cold, suffocating dark goes on forever and we are alone. Live our lives, lacking anything better to do. Devise reason later. Born from oblivion; bear children, hell-bound as ourselves, go into oblivion. There is nothing else. Existence is random. Has no pattern save what we imagine after staring at it for too long. No meaning save what we choose to impose. This rudderless world is not shaped by vague metaphysical forces. It is not God who kills the children. Not fate that butchers them or destiny that feeds them to the dogs. It’s us. Only us. Streets stank of fire. The void breathed hard on my heart, turning its illusions to ice, shattering them. Was reborn then, free to scrawl own design on this morally blank world. Was Rorschach."

Alien Rope Burn posted:

Vintage Grog: If you share an RPG book around the table, you're destroying gaming!

quote:

DNPC

For those of you who don’t recognize DNPC, it stands for “Dependent Non-Player Character”. I understand it’s a fairly common Disadvantage among players, but after this little stunt, I had a severe shortage of DNPCs in my campaign.

One of my more resourceful heroes was a young lady named Malice. She was a martial artist who had a poison touch. She was fast, deadly and very lucky. She was also a big, fat thorn in Carter’s side. She was getting too close to his secret, so he decided to retire her.

When she wasn’t running around in black tights, Malice was taking care of her aging grandmother. Grandmama was not too fond of those costumed heroes, especially that Malice girl. She looked like a hussy in that tight little costume. And what right did they have to do a police man’s job? Grandpa was a police man, after all (and the main inspiration for Malice to turn to a life of adventuring). In short, it would break Grandmama’s heart if she found out about her granddaughter’s secret.

By now, you should be getting the picture. Just show Grandmama pictures of her granddaughter getting into the Malice costume and everything will be hunky dory, right?

Wrong.

When Carter does things, he does them with style.

On Grandmama’s seventieth birthday, Malice took her out to her favorite restaurant. In the middle of the meal, one of Malice’s most hated enemies showed up on the roof with a bomb. Of course, Malice made an appearance. Her enemy (who knew she would show up) was prepared. He had a single agenda and he stuck to it. In the middle of the fight, he hit her with a paralyzing ray, ripped off her mask and threw her through the glass ceiling – right in front of Grandmama. The combined shock of seeing her granddaughter get thrown through the glass ceiling, fall fifty feet and slam to the floor was shocking enough. Add to it the realization that her granddaughter was that masked hussy was a bit too much for Grandmama to handle.
Her heart seized, and as Malice watched on, trapped in her paralyzed body, her grandmother died.

Malice retired the very next day and nobody ever bought a DNPC again.

quote:

Luck

“Okay,” you say. “That’s just fine taking advantage of a character’s disadvantages. That’s no new trick. So what?”
All right, how about using a character’s advantages against him?

“Talents” can be a Champions character’s worst enemy. Luck is a great example. Players buy Luck for their characters all the time. Its like a little security blanket. It makes them feel as if they have something to fall back on if everything goes bad.

The definition of Luck is “… that quality which helps events turn out in the character’s favor.” Okay, that sounds fine, but trust me, a good GM can find bad in just about anything.

Remember, Luck isn’t contagious. Making a character Lucky does not make the whole group Lucky. Characters who buy Luck tend to be a little self-centered. After all, they would rather spend points on something that will get them out of trouble, rather than something that would compliment or aid the group. So, get the group in trouble, let the Luckster roll his way out of it, then make him wish he didn’t. It’s called “the frying pan and fire technique” and here’s how it works.

Imagine the group getting hit by some area effect weapon. Of course, the Luckster wants to roll his way out of it. You tell him that’s fine and he makes his luck roll. He flies out of the effect and looks back to see his buddies frying.

(Feel free to apply guilt here. After all, he could have grabbed someone to fly out with him, right?)

Then, right after he’s out of the blast radius, have him notice that he’s flown right into a mob of supervillains, just ready and willing to pound on one lone hero. Let’s see him Luck his way out of a combined total of 1,500 points of hard-hitting villains. If only he had stayed behind …

Or perhaps by Lucking out he’s put his buddies in deeper trouble. For instance, let’s use the area effect weapon again. Perhaps one of his powers could have countered the effect? If he had stayed behind, he’d have been able to help them out. But he chose to Luck out, and now his buddies are frying. Good thing he’s Lucky, isn’t it?

Another example. The character is in an airport. He’s in the rest room and he stumbles across an envelope somebody dropped. He opens the envelope and discovers its filled with thousand dollar bills. Get you get any more lucky? Of course, the money belongs to a crime syndicate or something even more diabolical, and they’re going to be looking for that money and who “found” it (of course, they believe the hero stole it). And all of this trouble because the character was Lucky.

Immunity

Immunity gives a character supernatural immunity to diseases and poisons. It’s a very popular advantage. Of course, Mr. Carter had to do something about that.

I had his scientists come up with a disease that would kill off anyone with the “super gene” that meta-humans had. Carter had a cure, of course. The only problem was all those super fellows who bought Immunity were, well, immune to it.

MiltonSlavemasta posted:

I mean, yeah, Ron Edwards said and did that stuff. For context, this is someone saying why "storygamers" and "rrrreeeaaaal rpgers" shouldn't just try to get along and share the hobby. Because Ron Edwards was kind of a pompous and pretentious dick at times, there is a rift between storygamers and real roleplayers which can never be breached. Never forget the attempted genocide of our people. That's why I considered it grog.

But that's not fun, is it? So my advise? Go crazy. Like really, properly crazy. Not just manga crazy, or wuxia crazy! Go completely bonkers. Go Exalted crazy! Impress enemies and firends alike with your long, brown leather trench-coat and "brooding LA detective" look! Kick rear end while smoking cigarets. Go other side of crazy- wear brithly coloured dresses or technicolour miniskirts! Use boots with zippers and fantastically shaped earrings that would be impossible to make in Creation. Tophats and monocles! Blue tuxedos! And if someone (GM included) tells you it's impossible ask them WHO THE HELL DO THEY THINK YOU ARE?! AND BEFORE THEY CAN ANSWER, SHOUT: TENGEN TOPPA GURREN LAGANN!

(USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)

quote:

I really have to disagree here (I'm sure to no one's surprise). It is a sad world where Ghost Sound and Mage Hand are mind-boggling powerful out-of-combat utility effects, and speaks more poorly of the scope of the game than of the power of wizards.

quote:

I could say that Tide of Iron generated bolts of electricity that somehow do normal damage and not Lightning damage, though.

Or that it generated peals of flame that dealt normal damage.

Or that it involved conjuring 1,001 tiny leprechauns from an extradimensional space to tickle the target, and that's how they take damage. From their giggles. HP are emotions in 4e, yeah?

The story is completely superfluous to the mechanics. Which has good points and bad points.

....

Nah, they're just more rules that interact with each other and don't care about how you justify it. All lightning damage comes from tiny frogs. Thunder is the sound of one hand clapping. Ninjas are summoned with martial powers to do the work for you. None of that affects the mechanics.

"The Wick posted:

Santa Vaca: Game Balance

(Opened to the general public at jediwiker's request)



Listening to people talk about the fourthcoming (intentional) edition of D&D, I hear a lot of the same thing: balancing out the classes.

I hear the fighter will deal out the most amount of damage up close while the thief (I will not say "rogue") deals the most amount of damage from behind while the magic-user deals out the most amount of damage from a distance and yadda yadda yadda.

I console myself with the knowledge that the new D&D design team is finally giving up the ghost. D&D isn't a roleplaying game; it's a very sophisticated board game. This is a bit of a paradox because D&D is the first roleplaying game. Yet, it isn't a roleplaying game. Like being your own grandfather, this takes some explaining.

I've been thinking a lot about the "What is a roleplaying game?" question. Thinking in the same way Scott McCloud thought about "What is Comics?" in his absolutely brilliant Understanding Comics graphic novel. I've been thinking about it because something about the new D&D struck me sideways strange.

I think it's important to note that any game can be turned into a roleplaying game. You can turn chess into a roleplaying game by naming your King and giving him an internal dialogue. You can turn Life into a roleplaying game the same way. In fact, you can turn any board game into a roleplaying game that way. But you have to add something to do it. You have add the character and his motivations.

I'd also argue you have to add another element. The "character" must make choices based on personal motivations rather than strategic or tactical advantage. This is the "My Character Wouldn't Do That" factor. The correct move in chess may be Queen's Pawn to Pawn 4, but if the King decides, "I want to protect my Queen more than I want to protect my Bishop, even though the smart move is to protect my Bishop," then we have a roleplaying game.

It isn't that you play dumb. You could make every smart move put before you. But if you actively consider your character's desires and motivations first, then I think you've got what we're talking about.

But a game like chess doesn't reward you for making choices that don't directly or indirectly lead to victory. In fact, no board game does. That's what differentiates a board game from a roleplaying game, I think. A board game rewards players for making choices that lead to victory. A roleplaying game rewards the player for making choices that are consistent with his character.

Likewise, most board games don't have a sense of narrative: a building story. Now, please note that I said "most." Some board games certainly do. And I don't mean a story in an abstract way that's up to interpretation. I mean a real story complete with everything we expect from stories. Plot, narrative, exposition, the third act betrayal. The whole kit and caboodle.

Now, some board games have a sense of narrative, but players are not rewarded for moving the narrative forward. On the other hand, the whole point of a roleplaying game is to do just that: move the narrative forward. It has mechanics that assist the players in doing just that.

Therefore... "A roleplaying game is a game in which the players are rewarded for making choices that are consistent with the character's motivations or further the plot of the story."

(At this point, I predict Faithful Readers to point out that this is not the definition most people understand as a roleplaying game. I will pre-empt this retort by asking them how the majority of Americans misuse "I could(n't) care less," misunderstand evolution, and mispronounce the word "nuclear." Including the man sitting in the White House who fucks up all three.)

This is a working definition. It is far from complete and I'm not entirely happy with it, but it's a good starting point. Notice the distinct lack of miniatures or dice as necessary to playing a roleplaying game. Some roleplaying games use miniatures and some roleplaying games use dice. Not all. The chief question is: "Can you play a roleplaying game without dice and/or miniatures?" My answer is, "Yes. I have. And I've been doing it for at least twenty years."

(It is at this point I reminded how a certain individual very important to the origin of the RPG told me--to my face--that I wasn't playing a roleplaying game at all, but I was just a "wanna be community theater actor." But we shall not speak ill of the dead.)

Dice and maps and miniatures are not neccessary to play roleplaying games. (Yes, Matt. I'm using the word in that sense.) Some players prefer them, but others do not. It is also not neccessary to play a game without them. Do they add to the experience? Yes, they can. They can also detract from the experience, inhibit the experience or limit the experience. But they are not necessary.

What I feel is essential for a roleplaying game--what defines a roleplaying game--is that players take the roles of characters in a game that has mechanics that enable and reward story and character choices. That is a roleplaying game.

And with that definition in mind, I look at what D&D 4 is going to look like and I've come to a conclusion: it will not be a roleplaying game.

You can make it a roleplaying game, but in order to do so, you'll have to add elements that do not exist in the rules. If you play the game by the rules, it is not a roleplaying game.

D&D has mechanics for rewarding you for making the best strategic and tactical choices, but it does not have mechanics that help the players move the plot forward. It has mechanics for movement and damage and healing and everything else Talisman does, but it does not reward a character for making decisions that aren't focused on winning the game.

At the end of Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, Indy gives up "treasure and glory" to heal the village. He surrenders the magic stone to the old man, completing that transformation from greedy, selfish bastard into the hero we knew from the first film.

In D&D4, there is no advantage in the choice to give up that treasure. Hell, in D&D3 there's no mechanical reason for him to do it, either. No strategic or tactical reason. He should take the magic stone, add it to his current stash of magical treasures, and go on to the next adventure. Likewise, he shouldn't have turned over the Arc of the Covenant to the US Government and he shouldn't have stopped to heal his dad. He should have run out of that temple as fast as his little feet could carry him and cash in on finding the cup of Christ. That's the only way to get experience points. That's the only way to "win."

That's how you win D&D. More treasure to kill bigger monsters to get bigger treasure.

Which brings me to the whole point of this post in the first place. Game balance.

D&D3 was obsessed with obtaining game balance. The fact that stats are randomly generated demonstrates what a Great and Massive Failure this is. (If we add up our stats and you have even one point more than me, our characters are unbalanced.) What kind of damage can a fighter do before he falls down, what kind of damage can a wizard do before he falls down, what kind of damage can a thief do before he falls down... all of these questions are missing the point. Especially in a roleplaying game. Addressing the symptoms, but not the disease. Hacking at the limbs rather than the roots.

"Game balance" in a roleplaying game doesn't come down to hit points or armor class or damage or levels or feats or skills or any of that. Game balance in a roleplaying game comes down to a simple question: "Is each character fulfilling his role in the story?"

D&D addresses this issue in a small tactics mindset. The fighter fights, the theif steals, the cleric heals and the wizard is the artillery. Make sure each character's role--as D&D sees it--is filled.

But what about motivation? What about personal stakes? Let me show you what I mean.

One of my adventures in the RPGA involved a first level thief. He was the son of a tavern keeper who had gambled himself into deep debt. My character learned how to be a theif because he was the bruiser at the tavern. He knew how to pick pockets because he had to look out for it. He knew how to hide in shadows to keep himself out of sight. And he knew how to backstab because he needed to move quietly up to a troublemaker and hit him hard enough to knock him out without starting a fight. That's my thief.

(I should note that the game itself demands I do none of this. There is no rule or mechanic that requires it and there is no rule nor mechanic that rewards me for it.)

I went on the adventure with my little thief. As we walked, I chatted with the other characters. I was chatty. They chastised me for slowing down the adventure. Not my character, but me. They chastised me for roleplaying. Obviously, I was playing the wrong game.

We killed some kobold bandits, gathered some treasure. The other players were not playing as a group well (despite my suggestions) and argued and bickered the whole time.

Meanwhile, I stole as much of it as I could. When I found something in private, I kept it. I was going to save my father's tavern and it didn't matter who stood in my way. Again, acting in character but against the group goal of sharing the treasure. As far as Tav saw it (his name was Tav), these people hired him to do a job. They were rude to him and did not go out of their way to protect him.

At the end of the adventure, I had a large chunk of silver, gold and treasure. I even got a +1 short sword. The fighter didn't want it. And when the adventure was done, I said, "I retire!"

They all looked at me with disbelief. I reminded them that the only reason I did this was to save my father's tavern. I got a bunch of gold and a magic sword worth thousands of gold pieces. I was set for life. A peasant sees 1 gold piece per year and I got a few thousand. I was done. I filled my role.

Now, my story about Tav helps me illustrate a lot of things. Almost every choice I made with him was based on his backstory--right up to his retirement. All the choices were based on things that weren't on my character sheet. The things that, as far as I can tell, are the most important things about a character.

Game balance isn't about hit points or armor class or spells per day or any of that. Game balance is about helping the player tell his character's story in such a way that he doesn't eclipse the other characters. Mechanics that reward and assist players in doing just that.

At least, that's how I see it.

And I'm still not entirely happy with the definition.