TG March Chat Thread: Happy Saint Cuthbert's Day

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Traditional Games > TG March Chat Thread: Happy Saint Cuthbert's Day

Effectronica: May 31, 2011; Fallen Rib

neonchameleon posted:

I really shouldn't bother replying to Plutonis. But. You're wrong on almost every point.

First, anyone talking about "the absolute simplicity of Apocalypse World" doesn't have the first clue what they are talking about. If you want a system with absolute simplicity, pick something like FUDGE. Or even the simple binary resolution mechanics of D&D or WoD. Don't pick something with massively versatile outcomes, that exploits the nature of the bell curve, and that uses a class system to better effect than any other RPG I am aware of (in second place: BECMI - as far as I know Apocalypse World is the first decent innovation in class based RPGs since oD&D in 1974). The design is elegant and has yes-but resolution mechanics.

Second, if you are relying on the system to provide the inspiration for long run campaigns you might as well be playing RISK. The only reason heavier systems do better here is because you spend more time not paying attention to what is going on and instead wrangling with your character sheet. Ultimately most long campaigns in my experience are like 50s Monster Of The Week shows, doing the same thing over and over and no one saying cut despite the cheesy Sfx and the fact we've seen this same plot at least two dozen times before. With combat being filler sections (and AW is ruthless at getting rid of filler).

But Apocalypse World (and even more so Monsterhearts) provides inherent character arcs in a way few other games do (and none I am aware of prior to My Life With Master). In Vampire: the Masquerade you effectively don't have a character class. In oD&D if you are a fighter you are a fighter until you die or you retire and start leading a keep. Later versions of D&D take away the endgame and try to have you dungeon crawling forever. In Apocalypse World you have midseason advances with which you can literally change how your character approaches the world (this is even more pointed with Monsterhearts' Growing Up Moves). You have genuine character growth built into the rules of Apocalypse World. Which makes it much more of a character driven character arc-run game than a sitcom with a reset button. More like films than a syndicated TV show.

And why do people compare it to improv? It isn't. The rules are actually very trad most of the time. What it has is excellent pacing. With improv RP there is a rhythm when you hand over to other players. Apocalypse World is designed such that every single roll the system calls for takes place at one of these natural handover points. This causes as little disruption in the flow of improv-RP as possible. And because of the non-binary resolution mechanics, it adds things other than a simple pass/fail outcome. Meaning that the mechanics not only minmally disrupt improv RP, they add richness, detail, and inspiration. But only where you would stop and hand over to another player. Getting that degree of pacing and variety in the resolution mechanics is not simple design either. But once again it is elegant.

You might claim to have given up childish ways, but so does a teenager in the middle of painting their bedroom black.

Plutonis is right, not that any of you would accept it, and all this going gaga over ternary resolution and proclaiming it as making D&D obsolete is sad.

# ¿ Mar 3, 2015 19:37

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# ¿ May 10, 2024 15:09

Effectronica: May 31, 2011; Fallen Rib

Impermanent posted:

I know that posting in D&D has bad effects on short term memory but you do remember he had points before that, chief?

Who? Plutonis, the interchangeable voice of Trad Games Consensus, the man that only exists in your tiny GBS brain?

# ¿ Mar 3, 2015 19:49

Effectronica: May 31, 2011; Fallen Rib

Lemon Curdistan posted:

Stop replying to the Imp Zone shitposters, you idiots.

I guess that with February over, post history racism is OK again.

(USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)

# ¿ Mar 3, 2015 21:15

Effectronica: May 31, 2011; Fallen Rib

"It's My Party Too", if you've got a Runepriest, Seeker, are using Monster Manual races, etc.

# ¿ Mar 3, 2015 22:37

Effectronica: May 31, 2011; Fallen Rib

Glorified Scrivener posted:

It does suck when the Magic User in the group is decides it's better to memorize Knock instead and crap on the thief's parade instead of say, preparing stinking cloud, yes.

I'm not being facetious, nor am I going to defend the class balance structure of older D&D as a paragon of good game design. But I think its a little hyperbolic to dismiss what balancing mechanisms there were out of hand though.

In the older D&D campaigns I've played in, whenever spell casters prepped spells that duplicated the class abilities of thieves, they were spending limited resources (spell slots) that otherwise would've allowed them to do things other classes couldn't. In effect the trade off the the spell caster operates as a crappier spell caster whenever they use resources to fill in for another class. I only ever saw Knock prepared after a thief had botched an open locks roll - nobody wanted to prep it just to have on hand, since even at 2nd level there were cooler spells.

But of since course every single campaign ever in any system using Vancian spell casting has relied on a compact between the DM and Players to maliciously subvert that spirit of that action economy, I guess its a moot point. I swear, y'all are so bitter that sometimes I just want to get a Gurps hit location chart and ask y'all where the mean adversarial Dungeon Master touched you...

The issue is that there's really no reason for spells that specifically are better than class abilities to exist in the game at all, and class abilities that are effectively obsoleted by spells should be made more useful to compensate, or replaced with something better. This didn't happen because D&D's design was a mess barring a few periods, but it's something that should be taken into account rather than just porting over spells because they were in previous editions of the game.

# ¿ Mar 4, 2015 19:27

Effectronica: May 31, 2011; Fallen Rib

Glorified Scrivener posted:

I agree that a lot of periods of D&D have been a mess, but not entirely with the logic behind spells that can duplicate class abilities not existing in pre-4th edition D&D. They mostly tie into games not taking place in a vacuum and random ability score generation. I�ll try to roll those reasons into an effort post for later.

I'm not saying that. There are a lot of spells that can "duplicate class abilities", depending on how we interpret class abilities. Knock, however, is essentially superior to picking locks even in the hypothetical state where thief abilities are auto-success, since it can burst welds and can be used from a safe distance (I can't remember if it was 2e or 3e that ditched its "secret door radar" function). Playing a mage who picks their spells carefully is better than playing a thief for doing most thief-y things like opening doors and stealing treasure and all that, especially since you can add in other spells to knock out guards etc. There's no reason for it to exist, and it should be made substantially weaker if it stays in the game, or somehow transitioned into something different from a spell (4e does this partially by making it a ritual).

Similarly, if Mordenkainen's Sword was able to effectively obsolete fighters, then it should not exist, and so on.

The second part is this, though- class-specific abilities should be superior to their knockoffs. Rangers should be able to out-track any other class. Thieves should be the best at sneaking around. Clerics should be the best at healing. Once we have a thing that a class does, it should be the absolute best at doing it. One of the key problems D&D has constantly faced since AD&D is that fighters and wizards don't have any niche, anything they do that's uniquely theirs. Every other class feels like a subclass of one or the other, or occasionally a hybrid, with the slight exception of 4e, which at least produces some mechanical/thematic niches for them, finally.

# ¿ Mar 4, 2015 20:31

Effectronica: May 31, 2011; Fallen Rib

Megaman's Jockstrap posted:

Another thing that D&D worldbuilding just totally ignores: Every second-rate magic user has access to Charm Person. This would radically, radically change society, down to the core. Just start thinking about this. Think about commerce, diplomacy, hell even courtship.

Yeah, I'm envisioning the dictatorship of the proletariat that would emerge after crushing wizards and smiling.

# ¿ Mar 4, 2015 22:01

Effectronica: May 31, 2011; Fallen Rib

TheLovablePlutonis posted:

Or run Pendragon. I want to play Pendragon a lot after I read a game thread.

I will run Pendragon, as I'm rereading Le Morte D'Arthur right now.

# ¿ Mar 6, 2015 01:16

Effectronica: May 31, 2011; Fallen Rib

TheLovablePlutonis posted:

It's p. much a dead industry now that videogames exist and honestly there won't be anything bigger than a few dudes selling pdfs in less than 10 years.

Roleplaying is much stronger than it's ever been. Tabletop games are becoming chic. There's plenty of room for P&P and eP&P games to thrive.

# ¿ Mar 10, 2015 23:20

Effectronica: May 31, 2011; Fallen Rib

Len posted:

Has anyone experienced a player being an rear end in a top hat about the 4 hour rest time of elves? (D&D 3.5) We have a player who uses that four hour rest and then crams as much into the day as he can. He calls the DM and talks for hours having essentially a mini-session about what he does during the time the party isn't awake. The DM is getting tired of it and has been trying to come up with a way to essentially say "gently caress you. You have to sleep with the party." But hasn't come up with a way yet.

My googling tells me Pathfinder got rid of that? If that's the case we can probably just add that rule in. The guy is playing a Pathfinder class ("the game is so much better than 3.5 we should play that instead" type of player) so if that's the case he should be okay with losing that ability.

Any ideas?

Just have him submit it in writing, no more than five hundred words.

# ¿ Mar 11, 2015 14:48

Effectronica: May 31, 2011; Fallen Rib

Ferrinus posted:

pre:

                              Dinosaurs Rule The Earth!
                               /                     \
                              /                   Eastern Epic +
                  Western Epic             Chinese Novels
                 /           \                 |        \
                /           Classical          |         \
      Lord Dunsany       Histories             |     Floating World
                \            /                 |         Prints
                 \          /                 Wuxia       |
                 Pulp Fantasy                    \       Anime
                /           \                     \     /
      Riverworld*    Pulp Revival                  CRPGs
               \             |                       /
                \            v                      /
                 +-----> Exalted <-----------------+

# ¿ Mar 12, 2015 02:21

Effectronica: May 31, 2011; Fallen Rib

Evil Mastermind posted:

After picking up Star Realms and the Ascension "Apprentice" pack, I've discovered that I apparently like deckbuilding games like these.

What else is out there that's a) fun, b) inexpensive, and preferable has c) solo play options?

Dominion, except for "solo play"

# ¿ Mar 13, 2015 17:25

Effectronica: May 31, 2011; Fallen Rib

Kwyndig posted:

Yeah just having non boss monsters unable to crit never seems to cross the minds of a lot of designers.

This makes a lot of assumptions, doesn't it? I dunno, I think 4e's method is much better as a compromise between "boss + nonthreatening mooks" and its unnamed opposite

# ¿ Mar 15, 2015 19:00

Effectronica: May 31, 2011; Fallen Rib

bunnielab posted:

Not being a jerk but how are cards a batter way to involve randomness then dice? Just new a different?

Dice are more random than cards. If you have a deck of twenty cards, nineteen A's and one B, your chance of drawing a "B" increases steadily until you draw it. However, on a d20, you have a flat 5% chance for any particular number no matter how many times you roll. You will, on average, roll it one out of twenty times, but you can see streaks where you roll it eight times in a row (which will happen about once in every 26 billion sets of eight rolls) and where you don't roll it in fifty or sixty rolls (this happens about once in every 22 sets of sixty rolls). So cards allow you to strictly control the randomness with the deck size and how often it's cycled, whereas dice are more purely random.

# ¿ Mar 16, 2015 23:03

Effectronica: May 31, 2011; Fallen Rib

bunnielab posted:

Well, to get super grogey here, gold old Advanced Squad Leader does this very well imho. You roll two different colored d6s and you consult a row on a table based on total attack strength. This same roll also determines a few other things (ROF for special weapons, cowering, etc) and with one table you get a hugely tuneable range of effects. Now, there are a million specific things that modify this dice roll which is why the game is so hard to learn. But I was pleasantly surprised that attacking and resisting is only two die roles per attack action.

I would think that with a system that removes card from a deck would strongly reward card counting to the point where you more or less have to keep track.

Well, yeah, that's the point. You know that your number will come up sooner or later.

That being said, I think that using boardgame reasoning for RPGs is kinda, well, this is a shamefully academic and tweedy analogy, but it's basically fetishism in the Marxist sense. Having bounded randomness is important for boardgames (and arguably wargames, card games, etc.) where the space of play is built around taking strategic actions within a ruleset, but RPGs are usually built around collaborative creation and experience of a story with the ruleset existing to shape which actions may be taken and how to perform them. Unbounded randomness thus serves an important part in creating a sense of suspense. This is also why the possibility of outright failure, in my opinion, needs to exist in order to have a good role-playing game (not necessarily via dice or even in the normal flow of the game- see Fiasco for an example of the latter), but that's because I believe RPGs work best when they're indeterministic.

# ¿ Mar 16, 2015 23:23

Effectronica: May 31, 2011; Fallen Rib

Kai Tave posted:

A deck of cards also gives you multiple values in a single draw...what suit the card is, whether it's red or black, the value of the card itself, whether it's a face card or not, etc. It gives you a lot more potential avenues for determining various factors in a single draw than rolling a die.

Plague of Hats posted:

Any given card also results in more usable information, like suit, face up or down, "tapped."

These are not essential to cards though. You're thinking in terms of using playing cards or something else with a lot of potential sources of information. You could put at least a hefty chunk of this onto dice as well if you were willing to make custom ones.

# ¿ Mar 16, 2015 23:25

Effectronica: May 31, 2011; Fallen Rib

FactsAreUseless posted:

No, storygames are built around "collaborative creation and experience of a story," roleplaying games are about exploring and surviving in a fully-realized, immersive world.

hahaha

# ¿ Mar 16, 2015 23:26

Effectronica: May 31, 2011; Fallen Rib

FactsAreUseless posted:

RPG: I am Hrothgar, King of Axes, and because of this, I will make the game happen.

Storygame: You are Hrothgar, King of Axes, and here is what happens to you.

True gamer: I prefer the former.

lmao

# ¿ Mar 17, 2015 01:28

Effectronica: May 31, 2011; Fallen Rib

OtspIII posted:

All this, but unironically.

Kind of.

Like, "I'm playing this to simulate running into fun challenges and steal a bunch of gold" is fundamentally a different thing than "I'm playing this to tell a story about a guy who has a bunch of adventures", but pretty much all RPGs/Storygames support and encourage both, and the fun of RPGs comes largely from constantly transitioning between the two modes mid-play. Different games emphasize and support each of the two to different degrees, and even more than that different players favor one or the other mode.

Basically, the distinction between RPGs and Storygames is real, but it lives more in players than games, and tends to be pretty fluid even then.

it isn't, and a lot of games go wrong in thinking that there's a difference between the two, imo

# ¿ Mar 17, 2015 02:45

Effectronica: May 31, 2011; Fallen Rib

OtspIII posted:

You don't see a difference between problem-solving and story-telling? I don't think they're at odds with each other, but I don't think they're the same thing.

The vast majority of stories, and 99.9% of stories with plots, are about solving problems to get rewards. A dungeoncrawl is very highly procedural and probably wouldn't make good TV, but it's still ultimately a story about how a set of characters go and do something that is created by the process of solving these problems and getting those rewards. I guess you could have purely faceless pieces you move around and which you don't invest in as yours, but that's not something that's really been seen since before OD&D in RPGs, and is largely relegated to certain kinds of board game, many of which still have some player investment in their little characters. But a lot of people tend to assume that there is a gap, because we think of stories largely in terms of dramas. But, hell, if your characters have any kind of interaction or you crack jokes, it's basically an episode of Law and Order set in a dungeon.

EDIT: This is actually not a "grog" thing, really, because it's something just about every major RPG-theory group (this is mostly publishers/fanbases) is guilty of. We value certain kinds of stories over others and we let these prejudices influence how we think about RPGs and the stories we create with them.

# ¿ Mar 17, 2015 03:00

Effectronica: May 31, 2011; Fallen Rib

OtspIII posted:

I don't know, I feel like there's a pretty fundamental experiential difference between when I'm intentionally leading my character down a doomed path in Fiasco and when I'm trying to figure out how to trick an ogre into telling me where the dragon's hoard is. Stories definitely come out of both of the two situations, and the stories might even be kind of similar if poo poo goes bad with the ogre, but in one the story is my focus and in the other it's a by-product.

Like, there's stories and then there's stuff happening. A story is when you take stuff that happened and then organize it to speak to some larger issue. A person talking to another person and then getting beaten up isn't a story, while a person who thinks they're smarter than they really are who tries to trick a guy into a scam and gets their rear end beat over it is.

Or maybe that is what you call a story. This is kind of a frustrating thing to talk about because every circle I've moved in has used different (usually opposite) words for different parts of this. There are plots, stories, narratives, and events, and everyone seems to use different words to talk about different things. I hope I'm making the distinction between "unordered events" and "a structured narrative" clear, though. I think that when people try to make the distinction between RPGs and Storygames they're making the distinction between play that focuses on interacting with raw events versus ones that interact with narrative arcs.

And again, you're almost always going to be dealing with both modes in a game. But I think there is a difference between taking an action because you want the treasure versus taking an action because you think it and its fallout will have interesting things to say about the nature of wanting treasure, even if in both cases I narrate taking the exact same actions in the same ways.

I mean, Fiasco is very, very different in how it does things, because it uses lots of distancing effects, so I dunno how good an example it is :v:

.

I think this really deserves its own thread, but I'll say that I'd personally say (boy that's an ugly phrase) that a structured narrative, as you're describing it, is sort of a danger zone when it comes to a game's quality. Because on the one hand, I do believe it's possible to start out with "We're gonna use themes x, y, and z in this campaign" and have it work, but there's also the danger (and this is why I dislike fail-forward) of cutting away what makes RPG stories genuinely fascinating by killing the real suspense that emerges through play.

More importantly, I think that what you're describing as two modes are more about how you play the character rather than the game. In the events mode, you're acting your character and serving as audience to everyone else, whereas in the narrative mode you're acting your character while also serving as audience/director to your own performance. I think there's something to formalizing this split, but I dunno whether it says anything meaningful beyond the different ways people play characters. Because I, personally, tend to operated in the narrative mode when playing, but only partway, because I like to play comedic characters, and an important part of that is gauging reactions and correcting the performance.

Of course, when you're running a game, you're much more in the narrative mode just because you have to do directorial work by describing things and so on. Shall we take this to its own thread, or PMs if you'd prefer?

Effectronica fucked around with this message at 05:12 on Mar 17, 2015

# ¿ Mar 17, 2015 05:04

Effectronica: May 31, 2011; Fallen Rib

Glorified Scrivener posted:

No. 3d6 in order as Gawd intended.

All other stat generation methods, especially point buy, are sops to weaklings who can't handle having to play a character that isn't their special snow flake fiction crush of the moment. Even worse, other methods encourage players toward an egalitarian paradigm of thinking of characters as homogeneous collection of stats that are balanced in regard to one another, instead of the doomed individuals to whom the cruel fates have granted boons and banes in accordance with their whimsy.

Or you know, whatever works are your table.

Don't quit your day job just yet.

# ¿ Mar 17, 2015 17:04

Effectronica: May 31, 2011; Fallen Rib

Evil Mastermind posted:

This may be the most work I've ever seen put into a heartbreaker. Seriously, I don't even know where to start with this.

I do. Let's applaud them for going back to fighting-man, thief, and magic-user, and ditching the cleric completely

# ¿ Mar 17, 2015 19:41

Effectronica: May 31, 2011; Fallen Rib

Tomb of Horrors is probably the most thematic module AD&D ever had, it's just that nobody really wants to play through a gory horror film as the victims unless it's laughable. I can easily see someone that assumes it's a horror module doing really well without knowing the module at all, just from operating on horror-film logic.

# ¿ Mar 21, 2015 03:51

Effectronica: May 31, 2011; Fallen Rib

Loki_XLII posted:

Well, there is the fact that the segments are all the same size because the harm clock groups hours together. It might not be an homage (I don't see why it couldn't, though), but it's clearly the same shape.

For one thing, the harm clock has six sections, not five...

# ¿ Mar 22, 2015 05:51

Effectronica: May 31, 2011; Fallen Rib

PresidentBeard posted:

For those unfamiliar what happened with Mikan?

Harassed repeatedly, decided to quit designing completely.

# ¿ Mar 24, 2015 19:08

Effectronica: May 31, 2011; Fallen Rib

gnome7 posted:

Sorry dude, games are inherently political. If you think a game is apolitical, you are simply blind to the inherent politics of that game. A lot of analyzing games at anything deeper than a surface or mechanical level involves analyzing the politics of those games.

I can't believe you just said mechanics were apolitical. What the gently caress. We need to schedule a struggle session, pronto.

# ¿ Mar 25, 2015 00:00

Effectronica: May 31, 2011; Fallen Rib

TheLovablePlutonis posted:

Changing the original chariot and elephant pieces to bishops and rooks: cultural appropriation of the original Indian game?!

And they even genderwashed the vizier!!

# ¿ Mar 25, 2015 00:33

Effectronica: May 31, 2011; Fallen Rib

TheLovablePlutonis posted:

Bring back Liesmith, happyelf and etherwind and start a new Golden Age instead of this crap where people post stupid debate and discussion stuff.

*plutonis watches eagerly as the last finger closes on the monkey's paw as I chuckle from off screen*

:happyelf:

# ¿ Mar 25, 2015 03:18

Effectronica: May 31, 2011; Fallen Rib

Serf posted:

Yeah, looks like the chat thread is doing a great job of revealing exactly the people I would never want to game with. So in that respect: great job chat thread!

Who are these people?

# ¿ Mar 25, 2015 03:20

Effectronica: May 31, 2011; Fallen Rib

chaos rhames posted:

liesmith was great but if you wanted to be rid of terrible debate stuff Happyelf doesn't even have the decency to be right

I didn't think I was gonna read anything dumber than the guy who doesn't get comedy at all tonight, and yet here we are.

# ¿ Mar 25, 2015 03:23

Effectronica: May 31, 2011; Fallen Rib

TheLovablePlutonis posted:

See, by making emptyquotes on a serious discussion forum you show you don't respect the forums, Winson. I am quite glad that someone with this kind of attitude is not a mod anymore.

I'm reasonably sure he posted in your thread, and yet you didn't recognize him? SMH.

# ¿ Mar 25, 2015 03:36

Effectronica: May 31, 2011; Fallen Rib

TheLovablePlutonis posted:

I didn't saw him post on the tasteful discussion about Hentai thread.

The Imp Zone traditional games thread, the one that you made. This is why you're still so far from enlightenment, Plutonis...

edit: Never mind, it was only in the other IZ trad games thread that he posted for a long time alongside you, with nary a sign of recognition.

Effectronica fucked around with this message at 03:46 on Mar 25, 2015

# ¿ Mar 25, 2015 03:43