TG March Chat Thread: Happy Saint Cuthbert's Day

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Dr. Quarex: Apr 18, 2003; I'M A BIG DORK WHO POSTS TOO MUCH ABOUT CONVENTIONS LOOK AT THIS

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FactsAreUseless posted:

Q-Bert

Uhh, it is pronouncd "Q*Bert" :rolleyes:

# ¿ Mar 1, 2015 19:00

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Dr. Quarex: Apr 18, 2003; I'M A BIG DORK WHO POSTS TOO MUCH ABOUT CONVENTIONS LOOK AT THIS

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Splicer posted:

It's a stretch goal.

At $10,000 you can pick one image to stop breaking tables!

At $20,000 no more tables broken ever!

# ¿ Mar 2, 2015 00:01

Dr. Quarex: Apr 18, 2003; I'M A BIG DORK WHO POSTS TOO MUCH ABOUT CONVENTIONS LOOK AT THIS

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Every TORG book is a precious gift from our lord and savior

Well probably not Nippon Tech.

But those books are just so goofy and entertaining. Despite the system being hard to stomach even when new.

Cool card mechanics though.

# ¿ Mar 2, 2015 23:53

Dr. Quarex: Apr 18, 2003; I'M A BIG DORK WHO POSTS TOO MUCH ABOUT CONVENTIONS LOOK AT THIS

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I am not going to get into an argument about 4th Edition because I have still never played anything more recent than 3.5 (not even Pathfinder! Wow!), but my only gaming friends who took to 4th Edition are the only ones who read either this subforum or other D&D stuff online--the ones who hated it were the ones who are never going to spend their time caring what other people think about table-top role-playing. The guy I know who hates 4th Edition the most is the same guy who loathed 3rd Edition so much that after reading the rules he refused to play it until someone made up joke covers for the game to rename it because he was so adamant it was "not Dungeons & Dragons."

But whereas he fell in love with 3rd Edition's mechanics and ultimately had to admit it was great and he was wrong, he holds a special kind of anger for 4th Edition that is difficult to understand.

And in both cases, he played the game once, thought it basically sucked but was willing to give it a second chance, and then the second-play through started changing his opinion for 3rd Edition but crystallizing it for 4th. I recently learned the last straw was when he tried to heal someone out of combat and the GM told him that was not how the game worked and so he apparently got up and left the table (this was at PAX East). Googling has failed to answer the question for me of whether that GM had no idea what was going on or whether that is, indeed, how the game works.

Still what I am really saying is, I will never understand what happens in people's brains when they experience gaming mechanics.

I could probably play and have fun with basically any system if I liked the people I was playing with, but for some people you would think the specter of death loomed near any time the wrong mechanic for swinging a sword arose.

# ¿ Mar 3, 2015 02:03

Dr. Quarex: Apr 18, 2003; I'M A BIG DORK WHO POSTS TOO MUCH ABOUT CONVENTIONS LOOK AT THIS

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THAT FRIEND IS MEEEE no just kidding, he is definitely prone to dramatic overreaction, though the reason we are still friends is because he is also capable of admitting he was wrong and apologizing and even changing his mind with the appearance of new facts(!) (though apparently not about 4th Edition. To his credit? he also has zero interest in 5th Edition, haha)

I certainly had some vague awareness of the concept of "healing surges" but yeah I did not remember any of the stuff Gnome7 said well enough to be able to ask him if perhaps he was misunderstanding the GM.

# ¿ Mar 3, 2015 02:22

Dr. Quarex: Apr 18, 2003; I'M A BIG DORK WHO POSTS TOO MUCH ABOUT CONVENTIONS LOOK AT THIS

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MartianAgitator posted:

If you've got old Dragon magazines from 1991 or so lying around, go grab them and read the Forum section. You'll never guess the criticisms the readers of Dragon levy against 2nd Edition. Something about "dumbing it down" and making it "too much like a video game." Really. I wish I still had mine so I could quote them for you guys.

My 3rd/4th/5th-Edition-hating-friend also duly hated 2nd Edition, no worries--though interestingly I think he hated it more as time went on and the number of supplements you """needed""" grew at an apparently unacceptable rate. Even though I am sure the number of 2nd Edition supplements was not that different than the number of 3rd Edition supplements despite existing much longer.

I am trying to remember if he hated AD&D when it first came out since his first gaming group was playing Basic in 1980. I should ask.

# ¿ Mar 3, 2015 03:39

Dr. Quarex: Apr 18, 2003; I'M A BIG DORK WHO POSTS TOO MUCH ABOUT CONVENTIONS LOOK AT THIS

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gradenko_2000 posted:

Has there ever been a public official that was known to play D&D?

Not only that, some have even been D&D CHAMPIONS.

http://boingboing.net/2012/03/27/norways-new-minister-of-inte.html

Also as far as I can tell technically any "officer" of a government is an "official" so yes, hello

# ¿ Mar 3, 2015 18:06

Dr. Quarex: Apr 18, 2003; I'M A BIG DORK WHO POSTS TOO MUCH ABOUT CONVENTIONS LOOK AT THIS

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FactsAreUseless posted:

Or "Get The Party Started" by Pink, but you have to play this one before the session begins.

Andrew W.K.'s "Party Hard" could work in a system that has poorly balanced mechanics.

# ¿ Mar 3, 2015 23:20

Dr. Quarex: Apr 18, 2003; I'M A BIG DORK WHO POSTS TOO MUCH ABOUT CONVENTIONS LOOK AT THIS

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I actually think, and I am being fairly serious here, the balancing mechanism for the wizard in earlier versions of Dungeons & Dragons was the fact that anyone who always played the same character class was seen as a boring jerk, so everyone got to be the mage once in a while, or had to be the cleric/thief once in a while.

It really is great to think back to how the cleric was actually seen as the worst class for nearly every group I ever played with, despite it magically ascending to be the best class somewhere along the lines when I was not paying attention. Probably again due to the social contract nature of the cleric's job being HEAL EVERYONE ELSE, STOP MAKING YOUR OWN DECISIONS

Also when I think back, a lot of campaigns I have played in were in settings where it was seriously challenging to find new magic-user spells--another way the gamemaster could obviously toy with how overpowering wizards were in the particular setting.

I had one friend who honestly did a decent job balancing classes in 3rd Edition merely by allowing PCs to play large characters, since once you can take a greatsword and move it up one size category for racial size and one size category for whatever that stupid feat was (monkey grip?) you are doing like 4d6 base every attack and actually starting to put out enough damage to compete with the wizards.

Well, for a few more levels than before, anyway.

Sometimes it seems like a purely ideological dilemma. I have absolutely no problem with completely unbalanced games, because the game is always secondary to the people I am playing it with. But similarly of course I am intrigued by balanced games, rather than complaining they are not true to whatever vague idea of gaming I developed at age 8. Basically Captain Rat we should talk more about Apocalypse World

# ¿ Mar 5, 2015 00:53

Dr. Quarex: Apr 18, 2003; I'M A BIG DORK WHO POSTS TOO MUCH ABOUT CONVENTIONS LOOK AT THIS

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Thanks for introducing me to Rythlondar, Jigokuman (and seconding the recommendation, ProfessorCirno). This is pretty entertaining stuff. It really also helps explain almost entirely the encounter design as seen in the earliest CRPGs.

Kai Tave posted:

Straight from Mike Mornard aka Old Geezer, a guy whose (constant) claim to internet elfgame fame is "I used to game with Gary Gygax back when he had this hip new thing called Dungeons & Dragons" this was a thing people literally did. Oh, a new hire? Welcome to the party! Here, hold this sack full of 3,000 gold pieces for a minute. Oh, that ding sound? That's just you leveling up, gratz.

To be fair, not that this is any more impressive likely to the average person here, but he actually played in Gygax's AND Arneson's original campaigns. And Googling him just now apparently he also played in M.A.R. Barker's original campaign, but that is kind of like randomly placing a $10 bill on top of a funnel cake. I mean, all of these things are great, but you kind of want them in their own contexts.

Actually reading what he did I kind of think he has squandered an opportunity (assuming he is still alive) to write an actual big hunk of text about all three and combine it with reminiscing about The Old Days. But I suppose his credentials do not necessitate any degree of writing talent.

# ¿ Mar 7, 2015 00:16

Dr. Quarex: Apr 18, 2003; I'M A BIG DORK WHO POSTS TOO MUCH ABOUT CONVENTIONS LOOK AT THIS

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I remember when all this was fields

Also playing in a play-by-post campaign ... on a BBS.

That was my first and last play-by-post campaign.

I think we got as far as the first combat before it stopped forever.

AD&D 2nd Edition was not meant for play-by-post.

Kai Tave posted:

If the idea of "I'm worried that this game is going to go nowhere and resolve unsatisfactorily" is keeping you from playing then it's possible you're in the wrong hobby. I have never, not once, had a game either face-to-face or online resolve with any sort of narrative finality or even on a solid cliffhanger. Games that achieve a satisfactory conclusion in this hobby are in a stark minority compared to games that peter out and quietly die.

I mean, if all those "What is roleplaying?" sections in RPG books were halfway honest this is a thing they'd be telling new players. "All those dreams you have of epic stories that come to a triumphant close after years of regular play, you better temper that poo poo." Going into roleplaying with an attitude of "I'm gonna try and have fun with this for as long as it goes" is, I've found, a lot more satisfying than getting bummed every time a game fizzles out because a lot more games are going to fizzle out before you find one that goes somewhere.

It is not that I think you are wrong, since I have no doubt this is your experience, but this does not sound like my gaming world. Does it maybe depend on when you start gaming? Probably less than a quarter of campaigns started in my group (with the intention of being campaigns anyway, with a continuous narrative and an actual story) have ended before reaching something approximating that conclusion.

Perhaps some measure of group expectations are related here? I can think of one time a Vampire game was clearly starting to peter out (in no small part because it was a Vampire game) and we basically demanded the gamemaster skip to whatever ending he had in mind for the next session, and it was certainly more enjoyable that way than just quitting in the middle, even if not as much as getting there organically. Though most campaigns did indeed come to their conclusions in a very orderly (if not timely) manner.

If it is not a product of starting when you are like 13, maybe it is a product of having a group of 6 "core" people, at least 4 of which were in any game run for a period of about 10 years? Somewhere between group pressure, good luck, determination, and uhhh, not living in an exciting major metropolitan area, exists The Secret.

# ¿ Mar 10, 2015 00:42

Dr. Quarex: Apr 18, 2003; I'M A BIG DORK WHO POSTS TOO MUCH ABOUT CONVENTIONS LOOK AT THIS

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Kai Tave posted:

And even assuming that you and your group are super tight and work great together and all, playing out a "typical" RPG campaign takes a long loving time. Even if you meet every week like clockwork there's a good chance that, if you go by the book, you're looking at like a year of playing the same game over and over again, maybe more. Yes, there are games that are designed for shorter, more self-contained arcs, but those are the exception and not the rule.

On top of this, "narrative" is kind of a dirty word in a lot of elfgaming circles. An RPG isn't meant to drive towards a narrative conclusion, it's an endless Choose Your Own Adventure where you blaze a trail of dungeons and monsters and wacky hijinks until you get bored and retire I guess. If a narrative grows out of that or around that then great! But it's entirely left as an exercise to the players what the hell to actually do with it most of the time.

Oh and to be fair this is an excellent point and a big part of it, too--my gaming group would be disappointed if the gamemaster did not have something in mind of where the game COULD end, equally so if the gamemaster would refuse to let the game deviate naturally from that ending. But we certainly have never played any "West Marches"/"Points of Light"-style "hey, sandbox, go for broke, we quit when it gets boring" games.

# ¿ Mar 10, 2015 00:47

Dr. Quarex: Apr 18, 2003; I'M A BIG DORK WHO POSTS TOO MUCH ABOUT CONVENTIONS LOOK AT THIS

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dwarf74 posted:

Some dude made a thread where he said, "I'm losing interest because digital support isn't there and there are like no releases." And man... He's getting bitched out for it over like 60 pages.

I can tell I am not quite as involved with gaming as I used to be given that in my mind D&D Next just came out but I am now realizing it came out long enough ago that even people who liked it are already getting sick of it.

I really do need to get around to trying 4th Edition one of these days :haw:

Kai Tave posted:

Wasn't there also supposed to be a Numenera game by the old Planescape: Torment crew that everyone was super hype for? Whatever happened to that?

IT IS GONNNNNA BEEEEEE AAAAAAAAAAWESOOOOOOOOOOOOME STILL HYPED

I even bought all the Numenera books in a Gen-Con Auction deal JUST SO I CAN UNDERSTAND THE VIDEO GAME PREEMPTIVELY

Even though I have no doubt it is nothing particularly revelatory or fascinating. I mean, I also own a copy of Mercenaries, Spies, and Private Eyes solely because they based one of my favorite video games on its rules. Basically I am a computer game fanboy who likes paintings of barbarians

Covok posted:

As someone who has never played rolemaster, care to explain?

Rolemaster has a supplement book that is all critical hits

It also has a supplement book (technically system-agnostic but still) that is just endless lists of equipment.

I freely admit that I own both of these things, but honestly I have more often cited them in academic papers than gamed with them.

# ¿ Mar 10, 2015 22:50

Dr. Quarex: Apr 18, 2003; I'M A BIG DORK WHO POSTS TOO MUCH ABOUT CONVENTIONS LOOK AT THIS

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PurpleXVI posted:

Between Numenera being a Monte Cook creation and the sales pitch for the videogame sounding like an explicit ripoff of PS:T trying to ride nostalgia for a good game, I have zero expectations for that game being worth a drat, but that's just me.

I cannot say much about the first part, but I mean, they did put together as much of the original Planescape: Torment team as they were able. It is not quite like when Beamdog was like "hmm, we made some OK tweaks to Baldur's Gate I and II, I bet WE could make Baldur's Gate III!" which is really much more worrying to me.

# ¿ Mar 10, 2015 23:12

Dr. Quarex: Apr 18, 2003; I'M A BIG DORK WHO POSTS TOO MUCH ABOUT CONVENTIONS LOOK AT THIS

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Evil Mastermind posted:

I just want a modern not-poo poo version of Torg. Is that too much to ask?

Yes.

But I, too, wake anew each morning full of the same fervid hope.

Just as I know to dread once more the search for Gen-Con TORG games only to, as always, find "All Hail King Torg" as the only near-hit.

Still, Ulisses-Spiele must have something good planned for the future, right?

# ¿ Mar 10, 2015 23:56

Dr. Quarex: Apr 18, 2003; I'M A BIG DORK WHO POSTS TOO MUCH ABOUT CONVENTIONS LOOK AT THIS

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dwarf74 posted:

The system is overwhelming and intrusive despite its forward-thinking stuff like narrative-changing cards. It's super crunchy as only a late 80's game can be. It takes a fun concept and sucks all the fun out of it.

It is not that this is objectively wrong, as obviously the absorption rules in practice seem to exist to ruin your character. But if you treat TORG as a super-lethal game akin to Call of Cthulhu rather than an epic adventure like Dungeons & Dragons, it makes more sense.

Night10194 posted:

Which is funny because, you know, why else would you be playing The Game of Magic Dimension Hopping Action Heroes except to ride a dinosaur into cyber-france?

There are certainly compelling stories to tell without bumping into the "roll two 1s in a row and stop having fun" mechanic, but, yeah. If you can imagine, the seemingly most common TORG house rule was "unlimited absorptions." That pretty much singlehandedly solved the "why would I want to get invested in this campaign" problem, even if not the "exploding dice means your ninja dies for sure if he gets hit" mechanic.

Between the amazing setting (which is easy enough to steal and use in any game system with multiple available settings; both the D20 and Savage Worlds TORG-inspired campaigns my gaming group has done were hilariously fun) and the cards and the 1990s gaming zeitgeist, it was just fantastic. But yeah, it needs help now. PLEASE, GERMAN COMPANY! FIX IT!

# ¿ Mar 11, 2015 01:33

Dr. Quarex: Apr 18, 2003; I'M A BIG DORK WHO POSTS TOO MUCH ABOUT CONVENTIONS LOOK AT THIS

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dwarf74 posted:

I double-dog-dare you to make a spell.

Maybe this is why nobody was ever from Aysle.

# ¿ Mar 11, 2015 02:04

Dr. Quarex: Apr 18, 2003; I'M A BIG DORK WHO POSTS TOO MUCH ABOUT CONVENTIONS LOOK AT THIS

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ProfessorCirno posted:

Thing is, this is exactly what most 3.x fans want in my experience. For far too many people, minutia and metagaming is what constitutes as "immersion."

I am not one of these people, but it is easy to see how people whose gamemasters are not experts at thinking on their feet and who want to play in a sandbox-type game would benefit from endless roughly-sketched worldbuilding material.

Me, I find that creating a list of interesting character names and just making a note when you assign that person to join the story at random is the totality of gamemaster planning needed for vaguely believable worlds. Since otherwise you end up accidentally having the players meet a half-dozen people with the same name

# ¿ Mar 11, 2015 03:18

Dr. Quarex: Apr 18, 2003; I'M A BIG DORK WHO POSTS TOO MUCH ABOUT CONVENTIONS LOOK AT THIS

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Well those are quite the definitively final Tweets. Though obviously not made by him. Hardly impacts their effectiveness though.

This must be a good time to ask if any of the Discworld-related games were any good. Also for someone to make a cracking new licensed game.

Evil Mastermind posted:

That's why I have a copy of the Story-Games Names book.

Oooooo!!!

Galaga Galaxian posted:

I find this link very useful.

Oooooo!!!

Well, all my problems are now solved.

Covok posted:

Seems you're right. I just assumed Shannon was a girl's name.

The American South has some interesting influences on male designers' names. Between Shannon and Shane Lacy Hensley. I mean, I know as many women as men named "Shane," and "Lacy" speaks for itself. Though sometimes I wonder if there is any way to delineate male and female names that is not generally just infantilizing to women.

Evil Sagan posted:

I'm now realizing that none of my D&D campaigns have ever featured violent union disputes. That's a shame.

A player once decided his character arc required him to kill this one public figure even though it was nominally a good-aligned game, the gamemaster decided to roll with it and just have the assassin's guild come after him for an unsanctioned public killing (hilariously, at first just by leaving a bill in his sleeping bag without alerting him one night, and then when he refused to pay his dues they predictably did try to kill him, but still).

# ¿ Mar 13, 2015 00:52

Dr. Quarex: Apr 18, 2003; I'M A BIG DORK WHO POSTS TOO MUCH ABOUT CONVENTIONS LOOK AT THIS

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I think there is some fundamental joy created by having a reason to roll enormous numbers of dice. So I cannot help but think that Champions might have occasionally had fun combat for its own sake. But of course the moment you think about combat in the context of the rest of the game and the level of complexity that went into creating a character...yeah I am not sure if you can separate "I love having a 30d6 energy blast" from "oh god do you stack 'independent' and 'no conscious control' when calculating the point discount for elemental control, or are they mutually exclusive?"

# ¿ Mar 14, 2015 03:01

Dr. Quarex: Apr 18, 2003; I'M A BIG DORK WHO POSTS TOO MUCH ABOUT CONVENTIONS LOOK AT THIS

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ProfessorCirno posted:

Have there been situations where this hobby has interacted with the real world outside it's bubble and didn't come off as a poor joke?

You mean through its representation of the real world?

If you mean purely interacting with the real world and not coming off as a poor joke ... maybe? For as much as there is always some implied eye-rolling at the material whenever Dungeons & Dragons comes up in pop culture, I do not think the Community episodes seemed to make fun of it any more than would be expected given the comedic nature of the show. There are surely not very many examples, though. Stephen Colbert's Gygax memorial was pretty sincere, but that is kind of expected.

# ¿ Mar 14, 2015 22:16

Dr. Quarex: Apr 18, 2003; I'M A BIG DORK WHO POSTS TOO MUCH ABOUT CONVENTIONS LOOK AT THIS

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bunnielab posted:

To be more serious, I, as someone who is trying to get back into gaming, find it kinda weird how serious this stuff is being taken. I assume back when I was a kid and into this stuff there were people posting on BBS's getting all mad about things but it just seems so strange to get worked up about such an innocuous seeming pastime. Maybe I am just old.

You are not old if you were too young to use BBSs :haw:

Let me tell you what I remember the BBS discussions about D&D from my childhood being like:

I CAN'T BELIEVE T$R IS BANNING PEOPLE MAKING WEBPAGES*, DON'T THEY KNOW THEY ARE KILLING THE HOBBY
HAHA YOU STILL PLAY D&D? ARE YOU LIKE 12? VAMPIRE: THE MASQUERADE IS GAMING FOR ADULTS
VAMPIRE IS FOR LOSER GOTH CRYBABIES, REAL GAMERS PLAY CHAMPIONS/DARK CONSPIRACY/CYBERPUNK/SHADOWRUN/GURPS/RIFTS**
AT LEAST WE CAN ALL AGREE THAT THE MAGIC: THE GATHERING KIDDIES ARE THE WORST, GOOD THING THAT FAD WILL BE OVER IN SIX MONTHS

So not that different, really.

*Yes, I used the Internet and BBSs simultaneously for like 5 years. The World Wide Web was a much less all-encompassingly useful place in the 1990s.
**It would not surprise me if there were some degree of regionalism inherent in what was seen as the "other important RPG" at this point. I mean, Tunnels & Trolls was seemingly always a little popular in... you know... Arizona. I sincerely doubt Champions was really that popular anywhere, but man, in Central Illinois, there were dozens of campaigns active in the mid-1990s! BUT WHY???

Dr. Quarex fucked around with this message at 22:34 on Mar 14, 2015

# ¿ Mar 14, 2015 22:30

Dr. Quarex: Apr 18, 2003; I'M A BIG DORK WHO POSTS TOO MUCH ABOUT CONVENTIONS LOOK AT THIS

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ProfessorCirno posted:

I guess I mean more the industry rather then the hobby. Like, have there been many - or any - cases where people deep in this industry suddenly have outside attention put on them and they don't immediately ruin everything?

No.

Though it seems like if 60 Minutes' Dungeons & Dragons segment had not been a carefully-orchestrated hit piece, then Gary Gygax' testimony would have probably made him look pretty good. He was certainly capable of walking in the normal people's world, as he really did treat D&D like a game virtually no different than any other game, as opposed to a lifestyle choice. Well, in public, anyway.

# ¿ Mar 14, 2015 22:31

Dr. Quarex: Apr 18, 2003; I'M A BIG DORK WHO POSTS TOO MUCH ABOUT CONVENTIONS LOOK AT THIS

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FastestGunAlive posted:

also, obligatory kobold video-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2T_yyLmRqFI

What the

I ... I do not remember any animated cutscenes in Baldur's Gate. And I played it through all the way more than once.

And yet ... there it is.

PurpleXVI posted:

"Tucker's Kobolds," which is a loving terrible kobold fanfic which bizarrely gets praised as being SO COOOOOOL despite being also an example of terrible loving GM'ing.

I can agree from what little I can find about Tucker's Kobolds that this was probably an example of some gamemaster who loved being an rear end in a top hat to his players, but it does make me think that "having some incredibly weak creatures who try to think like a group of PCs planning a devious ambush" could be pretty fun. Like, if you actually figure out where they are hiding, you can kill all of them almost immediately, but if not, then bad things could happen.

It would just have to avoid being "BWAHA IDIOTS WHY DIDN'T YOU CHECK THE TRAP ITSELF FOR A SECRET LEVER?!?! OBVIOUS!" or other scrub-level gamemaster trickery.

Bob Quixote posted:

But if Kobolds are cute that just makes murdering them for their 4 copper pieces and rusty daggers even sadder.

Can't they just be tiny monsters who are still awful in some other way - like maybe they are all really racist or they don't tip when they go to restaurants or something?

Kobolds have but one overriding passion: ethics in gaming journalism

# ¿ Mar 15, 2015 03:27

Dr. Quarex: Apr 18, 2003; I'M A BIG DORK WHO POSTS TOO MUCH ABOUT CONVENTIONS LOOK AT THIS

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It all makes so much sense! I finally understand!

But why do these arguments not come out to quickly shut down the "THIS IS WOW 4 BABBYS" when the Grognard diaspora appears?

I still remember when I first decided to start seriously posting in here and was like "hey I hear 4th Edition is kind of like World of Warcraft, is that true?" and the resulting assault made me want to block a half-dozen people or more. At the time tempers were still pretty flared about it, but saying "yeah, well, that is just meaningless hyperbole, 4th Edition is just an evolution of Dungeons & Dragons toward a system where every character class is balanced for in-and-out-of-combat purposes, taking another step away from the original 'roll some dice and hope something good happens and do not expect to live too long'" would have made me say "oh, O.K.!" instead of "WHY ARE YOU ALL SO HORRIBLE"

It also explains why people are so wholly convinced that 4th Edition was anti-role-playing, because conversely the only "system" that was really "balanced" in earlier versions was role-playing, in the sense that you just made it up as you went along. Of course it could be the focal point of the game, it was like every game had its own houseruled mechanics to make it function since there were basically no actual rules.

I am not entirely sure that any of this makes sense.

:regd08:

Edit: PurpleXVI, I think the pure "meatgrinder"-type campaign was falling out of favor throughout the 1980s, if my oral-history-style understanding of that era of gaming is any indication. I know by the time I first played in the 1990s the games where you knew you would run through an average of a character a week were already being spoken of as the way other people's games had been in the past, and people were thanking goodness that they did not still play like that. Though of course the people that preferred that style were surely still doing it.

# ¿ Mar 15, 2015 06:30

Dr. Quarex: Apr 18, 2003; I'M A BIG DORK WHO POSTS TOO MUCH ABOUT CONVENTIONS LOOK AT THIS

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gradenko_2000 posted:

1. While I don't know if people actually did jump ship from playing D&D to playing WoW, there is some merit to the idea that people would get their "sense of community" buttons pushed by being in a guild, while adventure modules are basically the predecessors of instanced dungeons and raids.

2. 4th Edition making every class competitive and giving them an equal share of the limelight tracks closely with WoW making every class "soloable" (to varying degrees of success in Blizzard's balancing)

The first point makes sense, though I do not think that is the perspective I had been told about. My information was all of the #2 variety, that each class basically had similar abilities (which I am sure is not actually true, and in any case would only be a big deal if you loved caster supremacy), and that there was only one "right" party composition to get through module content, making the role-playing equivalent of a video game FAQ necessary (and that information came entirely from a guy wandering around PAX East and overhearing different groups using the same plan of attack for the module final�).

So yeah once I learned a little more about 4th Edition I understood on some level why that comparison gets made, but also thought about how I am sure even in AD&D 1st Edition there would be "right" group compositions for any given module, it is just that communications technology was not sufficient for these ideas to be aggregated and settled on. Basically those weirdos hate 4th Edition for the same reason I stopped having a sense of wonder in MMORPGs by the mid-2000s, once literally everything in the game was already catalogued and ranked and all mystery was dead. Though I guess that would not explain why 5th Edition is any different.

Evil Mastermind posted:

Me: "Okay, when you roll a natural 20, that's a critical hit and you do the maximum damage you can do on your dice."
Non-WoW people: "I see. Interesting." (nods head thoughtfully)
WoW people: "gently caress yeah! That's 50 damage! Suck it, drow!"

THESE GAMES ARE NOT FOR HAVING FUN; STUPID CASUALS

# ¿ Mar 15, 2015 17:41

Dr. Quarex: Apr 18, 2003; I'M A BIG DORK WHO POSTS TOO MUCH ABOUT CONVENTIONS LOOK AT THIS

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Len posted:

I would kick start that.

This sounds pretty good. Like the old Deadlands character creation except less complicated and potentially more fun!

# ¿ Mar 16, 2015 03:24

Dr. Quarex: Apr 18, 2003; I'M A BIG DORK WHO POSTS TOO MUCH ABOUT CONVENTIONS LOOK AT THIS

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Evil Mastermind posted:

Torg uses side-based initiative determined by a draw off a deck, but adds some twists to the formula by giving one side or the other (or both) special bonuses (everyone on this side gets a free roll-and-add) or drawbacks (everyone on this side takes fatigue damage).

They also had a pretty neat idea where there were "standard" and "dramatic" scenes. The cards were in the PC's favor on 2/3 of the cards for standard scenes, but were in the NPCs' favor on 2/3 of the cards for dramatic scenes.

TORG best.

Best.

Terrible, but best.

Nothing makes me nostalgic for the good times I did have in 1990s gaming like seeing the "trade dress" of the Deadlands books near a deck of cards, or seeing a deck of TORG cards. O.K. so apparently I only ever really liked RPGs that heavily featured decks of cards.

(The Savage Worlds Adventure Deck is pretty good, too)

Cyphoderus posted:

They've just announced a Dying Earth RPG bundle of holding. Is it worth it? It looks real interesting and I'm a fan of Robin Laws' work but I'm afraid it might fall in the Feng Shui trap of presenting cool ideas in an ambitious but ultimately poor system.

It is a fun game, but the fact that your character has basically nothing to do with success or failure is kind of a bummer if you are looking for anything but a hilarious romp of failure. Maybe we did not understand the system well enough, but the main D6 mechanic seemed to function as a coin flip nearly all of the time (1-3/4-6), so it was pretty much "I attempt to convince the guards that I am the King's Brother!..." "You succeed!" "Hooray! Now, I attempt to ask the palace cook for some carrots..." "Snarling, the cook attacks you." "Gahhhhh"

SunAndSpring posted:

I'm kind of tempted to find a copy of Tomb of Horrors and run it on a Play-by-Post here, getting a new player every time one ~~instantly dies to some obscure trap~~ suddenly retires from adventuring, but I think everyone has heard of the immense amount of ~~bullshit~~ fun contained inside of it.

I ran a Savage Worlds party through this module, converting everything on the fly, and was surprised that even though everyone had at least some vague memory of hearing something about the Tomb of Horrors ("uhh, I think ... I think that's an illusion? Wait, no, I think that's the only real one. Maybe everything is an illusion?") it was still pretty entertaining. Edit: Oh, the party was all people playing themselves (of course), which is why knowledge of the Tomb of Horrors being used in-game was fine.

# ¿ Mar 17, 2015 00:13

Dr. Quarex: Apr 18, 2003; I'M A BIG DORK WHO POSTS TOO MUCH ABOUT CONVENTIONS LOOK AT THIS

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FastestGunAlive posted:

Has anyone played Shadows of Esteren? I know they have had several very successful kickstarters; I jumped in on one last year to get the setting book. Just recently began reading it and I'm... underwhelmed by the fluff/setting. Splitting your main continent into "Religious Country", "Traditional Country", and "Magic-Science* Country" was not what I was expecting from this setting. There are hints of the wilderness, uncertainty, dark-but-not-grimdark, and slight horror I thought I was getting but the generic stuff is more prevalent. I haven't gotten to the mechanics section yet so I'm curious for others' opinions.

*the term used, "magience", sounds very dumb

Huh, I have been making a note to myself to buy every Shadows of Esteren book for a year or so now, and this does not sound that exciting, no. The downside of not reading too much about something before deciding you want it.

gradenko_2000 posted:

I believe it was Arthur C Clarke that said, "any sufficiently averaged rolling method is indistinguishable from point-buy"

haahahahah

Oh look at this demotivational poster for Fyxt! It seems that +5 slippers example was hardly an anomaly.

Truly I look back on the days when I might have found "fluffy bunny" to be a hilarious stock phrase. Normally this is where you say "I was 12." No, I was like 6.

Megaman's Jockstrap posted:

Edit: the player videos are all dudes in their late 30s/early 40s. This is exactly the kind of thing that the group I know that still plays AD&D 2e would produce if they were industrious.

No, these people are 6 years old.

Doodmons posted:

What's worse is the idea of an RPG which is just a free website that does all the work for you, and you do rolls and have character sheets and rules online that you can access from any mobile device is a super good idea that I am astonished doesn't exist. Just... not like this. Not like this.

Yeah this is what gets me--look at all those great ideas he had as to how to actually get the game out there and have it be minimally obtrusive, and then look at everything else.

I guess I hope that some confusing part of the gaming market decides that this is amazing and gives him money and at that exact moment he realizes what he has done and stops?

# ¿ Mar 18, 2015 02:43

Dr. Quarex: Apr 18, 2003; I'M A BIG DORK WHO POSTS TOO MUCH ABOUT CONVENTIONS LOOK AT THIS

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Megaman's Jockstrap posted:

Tomb of Horrors is one of those grog touchstones where a bunch of old shits tell you how hardcore they were to survive it and then you go look at the actual module and start laughing a lot and saying "No, no way, no one could survive this. This is garbage poo poo for idiots."

hahahahahah

Yes.

Even letting my players make "Knowledge: Gaming" skill checks to try to avoid catastrophe, a couple of them probably would have died if not for the guy who said "hold on, any time you think you figured out the right answer in here it means you are about to die, do something else." Haha.

SunAndSpring posted:

I feel like Tomb of Horrors is funny as gently caress, but only if you get your players to get into a "Losing is fun!" mindset.

It really is hilarious if you play through it in anything other than the serious way in which it was intended. When you start reading the room description and the players take bets as to which seemingly innocuous element is secretly the deadliest thing in the room, you have truly won the Tomb of Horrors.

My group even did it right in a sense, as they happened to have dragged a half-dozen other people into the Tomb with them by accident, and they managed to get a few of them killed in believable fashion while of course really just checking for traps. Good times.

Also I am excited to see some love for D20 Call of Cthulhu. It obviously had unavoidable flaws due to its base system, but it really was pretty fun to run under the very limited circumstances where you do not want to spend even 5 minutes teaching a new system.

# ¿ Mar 21, 2015 00:05

Dr. Quarex: Apr 18, 2003; I'M A BIG DORK WHO POSTS TOO MUCH ABOUT CONVENTIONS LOOK AT THIS

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Benly posted:

The main application of Cards Against Humanity is weeding out who in your social group is quietly racist.

HAhaha. A fine way to put it.

I did have some fun playing Cards Against Humanity the one time I ever did, but honestly maybe less fun than my friends and I used to have playing Apples to Apples in the same spirit that you are supposed to play Cards Against Humanity. I remember we slowly weeded out all the cards that seemed like they could never possibly have offensive or horrific subtext, because the idea of playing that game seriously seemed ludicrous.

AHhahaha the developers of Cards Against Humanity honestly expect us to believe they were not inspired by Apples to Apples. Well wait, I guess is it really "inspiration" if it is "wrote over the original cards with Sharpies?"

# ¿ Mar 21, 2015 01:33

Dr. Quarex: Apr 18, 2003; I'M A BIG DORK WHO POSTS TOO MUCH ABOUT CONVENTIONS LOOK AT THIS

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Mr Tastee posted:

Just sort of curious but is there any good Earthbound-esque settings?

Infinitely Flexible
Players can role play exactly the characters and stories they want to play. Any genre, any character type, anything players can imagine.

# ¿ Mar 22, 2015 18:27

Dr. Quarex: Apr 18, 2003; I'M A BIG DORK WHO POSTS TOO MUCH ABOUT CONVENTIONS LOOK AT THIS

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MadScientistWorking posted:

Hahahah.... How quaint.... You honestly think they give a poo poo about their policies.

:iamafag: You can submit your apology in the form of a 4-day badge.

# ¿ Mar 26, 2015 02:58

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# ¿ May 12, 2024 19:48

Dr. Quarex: Apr 18, 2003; I'M A BIG DORK WHO POSTS TOO MUCH ABOUT CONVENTIONS LOOK AT THIS

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FactsAreUseless posted:

Terrible!

hahahahaha

# ¿ Mar 28, 2015 01:36

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