TG As An Industry - Past, Present, Future - The Something Awful Forums

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Traditional Games > TG As An Industry - Past, Present, Future

S.J.: May 19, 2008; Just who the hell do you think we are?

Maybe he'll go work for a better company. Or make his own RPG! If he developed the second monster vault, I like that guy.

# ¿ Jun 8, 2016 05:49

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# ¿ May 3, 2024 21:50

S.J.: May 19, 2008; Just who the hell do you think we are?

Slimnoid posted:

Looks like he's moving on to greener () pastures.

Getting paid > tabletop RPGs

# ¿ Jun 8, 2016 22:43

S.J.: May 19, 2008; Just who the hell do you think we are?

Aaod posted:

Stupid question but why are board games more profit compared to RPGs? I would think with more physical media the profit margins would be not that amazing.

You're going to sell a fuckload more copies, RPGs are for loving nerds

# ¿ Jun 9, 2016 05:14

S.J.: May 19, 2008; Just who the hell do you think we are?

FMguru posted:

FFG makes really nice boardgames with excellent artwork and high-quality components and they sell really well.

And every time my group buys one we have to go to BoardgameGeek and download and print out the multi-page errata document and highest-rated collection of fan rulings because their rulebooks are such rear end.

The official FFG errata/FAQ document for Arkham Horror is a 43 page PDF.

FFG isn't anywhere that bad for some time now, and Arkham Horror is one of the worst examples you could use because that game is poo poo piled on top of poo poo for a long time now. It's almost the board game version of D&D supplement bloat. And it will stay that way for mostly the same reasons that people keep buying 3.5 bloat even today.

And a lot of games that end up requiring FAQ/errata actually, ya'know, have them. For the most part you don't see board game designers answering issues with the equivalent of 'lol I dunno just have fun okay'

S.J. fucked around with this message at 06:39 on Jun 10, 2016

# ¿ Jun 10, 2016 06:35

S.J.: May 19, 2008; Just who the hell do you think we are?

Countblanc posted:

If you have friends playing 4e years after it has stopped being officially supported then I think it's pretty safe to assume your friends who like Pathfinder will likely continue to play it when a few stores comment that it's harder to sell now.

I want Pathfinder 2e to finally get announced so Paizo can lock down their own rules system they don't have to share with anyone and mostly so I can see all the tears and mental gymnastics.

# ¿ Aug 12, 2016 20:02

S.J.: May 19, 2008; Just who the hell do you think we are?

Mors Rattus posted:

Won't happen. They had their chance with Unchained and deliberately didn't take it.

Not really. They've said, privately, that they'll be doing one at some point. It's just a matter of time. They know as well as anyone they can't keep this up forever.

# ¿ Aug 12, 2016 20:35

S.J.: May 19, 2008; Just who the hell do you think we are?

I can really only speak for myself but I've had a whole lot of new / returning from 15-20 years ago people getting into 5e.

# ¿ Aug 12, 2016 21:11

S.J.: May 19, 2008; Just who the hell do you think we are?

FastestGunAlive posted:

I'd planned on buying a bunch of the WHFRP stuff during the next dtrpg holiday sale but RIP I guess

A bunch of it was on schedule for reprints. I wouldn't be surprised if they did a fantasy RPG in Terrinoth or w/e the Descent world is, now.

# ¿ Sep 6, 2016 17:46

S.J.: May 19, 2008; Just who the hell do you think we are?

Evil Mastermind posted:

Yes, that.

I just want them to have actual abilities/powers in the game again. That's one of my biggest disappointments with Star Wars. You don't get that unless you're a force user.

# ¿ Sep 6, 2016 18:40

S.J.: May 19, 2008; Just who the hell do you think we are?

Serf posted:

In the game I'm currently running, the team of mostly non-Force powered people regularly take down Force users because hokey religions and ancient weapons are no match for a good blaster at your side, kid.

I just hate that your options with non-force users kind of boil down to 'attack the thing' or 'not attack the thing'. There aren't a bunch of cool attack/defense powers like in WHFR3e.

# ¿ Sep 6, 2016 19:37

S.J.: May 19, 2008; Just who the hell do you think we are?

ImpactVector posted:

There is however a pretty big mechanical crunch/decision gap between Jedi and non-Jedi.

There are a few nonstandard actions scattered around the jobs, but they're pretty rare.

It was something I also missed from WFRP3, though I do think that game seems to take it a bit too far in the other direction for all but the heaviest crunch-loving group.

Even just two or three special actions per talent tree would have been really cool IMO. If they were spaced decently you could pick them or not depending on how much you want to interact with the mechanics.

Yeah, this was my point. I get not wanting to go crazy with specific abilities you have to manage, but if you aren't playing a Jedi, a lot of the classes feel like 3e fighters - I attack the [thing] with [the thing I built my character to attack with], with some conditional stuff you might have to worry about.

# ¿ Sep 7, 2016 04:28

S.J.: May 19, 2008; Just who the hell do you think we are?

Valatar posted:

What are you hoping for instead? Star Wars is essentially a modern setting in that most disputes are settled through firearms, so "I shoot that guy in the face" is going to sum up most people's actions in combat. There've been some combats where my techie character's been doing techie stuff while the party covers him, for example, but if he wanted somebody dead in short order, he has a blaster rifle modded into a blaster shotgun and would probably opt to use that.

Your gear and clothing to actually customize what your character is capable of and how your character views himself or others outside of +1/-1s. It's perfectly reasonable to give special actions/abilities/modifiers based on the styles, brands, and types of gear your characters choose, their methods of transportation, and their backgrounds, and is thematically appropriate. Weapons and armor in Star Wars are very thematically and really mean something beyond just cool visuals, and it would be neat to have that be a bigger part of what is a really awesome narrative system. A lot of the skill trees also boil down to conditional modifiers rather than abilities that give you new ways to interact with the party/NPCs/enemies/whatever.

Don't think that I'm calling it a bad system, I'm playing in a game right now and I'm really enjoying most of it. It just doesn't feel quite complete to me.

# ¿ Sep 8, 2016 06:09

S.J.: May 19, 2008; Just who the hell do you think we are?

Tuxedo Catfish posted:

I play tons of actual videogames with the equivalent of "crunchy" system mastery / optimization, I like it in my RPGs too.

I mean, I'm still very much of the "maximum depth at minimum complexity" school of thought, not more for more's sake, but I want more D&D 4E and the RPG equivalent of Warmahordes (in terms of elegance of the rules, not so much directly porting those rules to an RPG format which worked out... less well.)

The Warmahordes RPG is a lovely RPG version of the tabletop universe, quite frankly. Every time I think about it I get upset.

# ¿ Sep 9, 2016 04:04

S.J.: May 19, 2008; Just who the hell do you think we are?

Alien Rope Burn posted:

I have to wonder if the people that handled D&D's international versions are even still with WotC given the level of employee erosion they've had. They don't seem to have any more full-time employees than a company like Evil Hat or Palladium. I think Paizo is actually bigger if you're just counting actual employees.

I assume we're only comparing D&D and Pathfinder as opposed to all of the WotC employees in MTG?

# ¿ Mar 25, 2017 00:18

S.J.: May 19, 2008; Just who the hell do you think we are?

I'm excited for starfinder because it will hopefully mean sci-fi/not-fantasy themed maps and pawns. That's really it though, the game sounds exactly the god-damned same.

I'm assuming wizards will have psychic/tech powers and fighters will be too stupid to get anything like that.

But that's not why Paizo's a good company. They're a good company because they can sell this poo poo. And they're really good at selling the adventure paths and paraphernalia surrounding the game.

S.J. fucked around with this message at 03:11 on Mar 31, 2017

# ¿ Mar 31, 2017 03:07

S.J.: May 19, 2008; Just who the hell do you think we are?

homullus posted:

The FFG Star Wars RPG is pretty much WFRP 3.5 though

Except without most of the interesting decisions re: character abilities and the associated customization options.

# ¿ Mar 31, 2017 03:52

S.J.: May 19, 2008; Just who the hell do you think we are?

Right now? I'd bet around 5.

# ¿ Mar 31, 2017 06:12

S.J.: May 19, 2008; Just who the hell do you think we are?

Lightning Lord posted:

I guess Starfinder is the true test? They said it's going to be a new system.

"evolved from the Pathfinder rules"
"designed to integrate easily with the Pathfinder roleplaying game"

# ¿ Mar 31, 2017 19:12

S.J.: May 19, 2008; Just who the hell do you think we are?

I have no faith in them creating an actual new rules set. It's just going to be another d20 clone.

# ¿ Mar 31, 2017 19:18

S.J.: May 19, 2008; Just who the hell do you think we are?

PJOmega posted:

Wait, XWing was already out by that point. Isn't that kind of unavoidably a miniatures game?

They weren't allowed to make miniatures for GW-IP games that could compete with GW's existing miniatures, they weren't disallowed from making any kind of miniature game at all. Hence why they made busts for the characters in Relic rather than miniatures like in Talisman. They also did not have the board game rights to the Star Wars IP, but that's a separate issue.

# ¿ Mar 31, 2017 21:26

S.J.: May 19, 2008; Just who the hell do you think we are?

The market will never be ripe for a 2E reprint.

# ¿ Apr 3, 2017 22:54

S.J.: May 19, 2008; Just who the hell do you think we are?

Halloween Jack posted:

I'm amazed that Robert Schwalb created something as good as Shadow of the Demon Lord, because shortly after leaving WotC, he wrote a blog post in which he made clear that the Essentials team had no understanding whatsoever of the appeal of 4e to its player base. They thought that people played 4e because they liked complicated rules and playing with character creation as a game unto itself.

Holy poo poo. Had they never built a wizard in 3.x before? Dear Lord

e: or literally any character at all

# ¿ Apr 4, 2017 17:25

S.J.: May 19, 2008; Just who the hell do you think we are?

I still believe 2E is the better experience only because 'being crazy powerful' isn't intrinsically gated behind being a spellcaster

Though hindsight being what it is 2e and 3e are both just kinda bad

# ¿ Apr 4, 2017 17:31

S.J.: May 19, 2008; Just who the hell do you think we are?

I just wonder if it'll be set in the Old World or the Age of Sigmar. And I want a new 40k RPG more than anything

# ¿ May 25, 2017 22:54

S.J.: May 19, 2008; Just who the hell do you think we are?

Cease to Hope posted:

they've said it's old world

thank god

although i already own all of 3e, i'm still willing to check this out

# ¿ May 25, 2017 22:57

S.J.: May 19, 2008; Just who the hell do you think we are?

homullus posted:

So FFG is finally going to unshackle the narrative dice system Jay Little made for WFRP3e from other people's IPs. I have never played a Android/Netrunner game, but with all the art they have built up, I think that art and this system could be a good match. They certainly imply so in the release.

I'm happy about this, but unless they do something more substantial with the character building, the actual PCs are going to be just as boring as they are in the Star Wars RPG. If they have a system in place for you customize your characters more like WHFRP3e then this will be sick.

# ¿ Jun 28, 2017 00:35

S.J.: May 19, 2008; Just who the hell do you think we are?

I'm excited for Starfinder for one reason: sci-fi themed maps and pawns.

# ¿ Jul 9, 2017 19:47

S.J.: May 19, 2008; Just who the hell do you think we are?

ProfessorCirno posted:

You don't just pour ranch on top of pizza like some kind of horrifying waterfall.

You dip it.

actually you just don't use ranch with anything because it's disgusting

# ¿ Jul 15, 2017 00:46

S.J.: May 19, 2008; Just who the hell do you think we are?

gradenko_2000 posted:

Warhammer Fantasy was rather blatantly ripping off Blizzard's Warcraft series though, so there's that.

I'm kidding

no that makes sense, go on

# ¿ Aug 8, 2017 16:57

S.J.: May 19, 2008; Just who the hell do you think we are?

Lord_Hambrose posted:

This is backwards. Warcraft was originally going to be set in the Old World and GW pulled out so Blizzard made it their own IP.

Good work, GW

That's, uh, the joke

# ¿ Aug 10, 2017 01:58

S.J.: May 19, 2008; Just who the hell do you think we are?

Evil Mastermind posted:

Well, Ulisses has gotten The Dark Eye published stateside, and they were behind the very successful Torg: Eternity kickstarter.

Are these games any good?

# ¿ Aug 11, 2017 22:50

S.J.: May 19, 2008; Just who the hell do you think we are?

homullus posted:

Do you feel games have gone downhill since the 1990s?

Oh. Ohhhh.

# ¿ Aug 12, 2017 00:36

S.J.: May 19, 2008; Just who the hell do you think we are?

ProfessorCirno posted:

Minmaxing gets a bad rap because nerds - like everyone else - are loving stupid, yet cannot comprehend the idea that they may not know everything. It will always exist for this same reason.

Because the core root of the problem is that the game is poorly made. And yet, admitting that would be admitting that maybe A Thing You Like isn't perfect. What makes this worse is that, most of the time, the ones whining about minmaxers would absolutely do the same if they knew how. But they don't. Cue nonstop 3.x jokes about "you gotta stop minmaxing" followed by poo poo like "ban warlocks" or "don't let them multiclass more then once," as if those were ever problems.

People who actually understand the mechanics know the game is at fault. Morons who assume they fully understand the mechanics blame the players.

In the end, in the vast majority of cases, people getting mad at minmaxers is the same as people getting mad at someone who finds a real easy or broken character or combo in a fighting game. They aren't actually mad you're ruining the game. They're mad you beat them at something they prided themselves in.

every loving person who tells me about their OP monk in 3.x

# ¿ Aug 25, 2017 23:17

S.J.: May 19, 2008; Just who the hell do you think we are?

hyphz posted:

See, you're right it's not unreasonable, but at the same time it shows the problem. If you want a completely balanced challenge, flip a coin. What's the gain in making it "spend hours poring over the books to get the right combinations of powers, just to have the same result as flipping a coin would have had?"

This isn't even close to what a balanced gaming experience means in, like, any context.

# ¿ Aug 26, 2017 02:27

S.J.: May 19, 2008; Just who the hell do you think we are?

Ewen Cluney posted:

Also, while 4e was a high watermark in D&D edition warring, it's still amazing that people forget just how dumb and bad the discourse around 3rd Edition was.

There was a ton of poo poo talking about 3e's systems/design well before 4e ever got announced, and the edition warring back then was still both hilarious and sad

# ¿ Sep 13, 2017 17:10

S.J.: May 19, 2008; Just who the hell do you think we are?

Comrade Koba posted:

I prefer the 1E vs 2E edition warring, mostly because it was waged by regular mail to the Dragon Magazine letters section.

Both hilarious and sad.

# ¿ Sep 13, 2017 17:31

S.J.: May 19, 2008; Just who the hell do you think we are?

PHB3 was incredibly underwhelming other than the Shardmind and the Monk.

MM3 was amazing in every way.

# ¿ Sep 14, 2017 02:25

S.J.: May 19, 2008; Just who the hell do you think we are?

BENGHAZI 2 posted:

WotC has said many times that the numbers of product being bought and the numbers of people in tournaments don't come close to matching, and that the vast majority of magic players only play at their kitchen table

Yep. And then they eventually get thrown in the garbage or shoved in a white cardboard box that will never see the light of day again.

# ¿ Nov 27, 2017 02:04