|
I'm debating running a short Last Stand game for my EDF-loving friends before one of them leaves town, I'm just having a hard time coming up with adventure ideas beyond "there are bugs, fite". After that...? Well, I really want to run Breakfast Cult, but that has to come out properly first. I also want to do something with 13th Age, but I totally can't decide on what. Been looking to try and find unique takes on fantasy to try and inspire something I find more interesting than dwarf kings and archmages.
|
#
¿
Mar 1, 2015 09:18
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ May 10, 2024 04:08 |
|
|
Quarex posted: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. Generally my major issue with 4e is that it's still D&D and so it was still a train of supplements with diminishing returns of value. And though it's a lot better than 3e for balance and optimization in that it's really hard to make an outright bad character, it's still very possible to make ridiculous min-maxed builds that nova or stunlock and reduce combat to a series of equations that just leave less math-divined characters twiddling their thumbs. I think there are fantastic lessons to be learned from it design-wise but it still carries a lot of baggage with it (the feat system, magic items, high-level play, overwhelming crunch, some clunky design in the core material, etc.) that keep me away. I'd love to play it seriously in tt at some point but that's probably never going to happen now. It's just too much of an investment for a single game both in terms of time and money. Covok posted:Do they still write books about that guy? Does anyone under the age of 40 even read them? There's Ice-T- - wait, he's closing in towards 60 now? Huh. Nevermind!
|
|
#
¿
Mar 3, 2015 05:43
|
|
|
Slimnoid posted:If I recall correctly, TSR published something close to 500 books in the timespan of 2nd edition. 3rd came nowhere near that close, unless you count all the third-party stuff people churned out. There was a period where I mathed it and realized at some point they had to be putting out like a book or two a week. I'm not sure any game line will be able to repeat the level of mismanagement that was necessary for that to happen, but we must watch for the madness and never let it grip us again.
|
|
#
¿
Mar 3, 2015 05:47
|
|
|
Ningyou posted:my major issue with 4e is that it's not TORG TORG TORG TORG TORG TORG? TORG TORG TORG. TORG, TORG TORG TOOOOOOORG~ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JyqGlpGCSho
|
|
#
¿
Mar 3, 2015 12:12
|
|
|
Moving from CCP to Goblinworks was not a step up.
|
|
#
¿
Mar 9, 2015 18:33
|
|
|
Whether or not OGL material can be used for a video game hasn't been put to the test. Does that card game still use rust monsters and other distinctly D&D critters? That seems like it could be an issue for translating adventure paths to a card game and then into a video game.
|
|
#
¿
Mar 9, 2015 21:53
|
|
|
It was very loosely based in the SW RPG of the time, yes, but took a lot of liberties. It was also officially licensed. If Rusty the plush rust monster had issues with WotC legal, I can't imagine what they would think of an effectively house ruled and unvarnished 3e being used for a video game.
|
|
#
¿
Mar 9, 2015 23:12
|
|
|
A question that came up tonight after the game (Last Stand, for the record): are there signs of anybody playing 5e? I don't even know anybody that owns the books in person. Is Pathfinder pretty much just kicking its rear end, or what?
|
|
#
¿
Mar 10, 2015 04:32
|
|
|
PresidentBeard posted:Even as someone who likes 3.5 I agree that the naturalist language is terrible. They are idiots who now populate the paizo site and complain endlessly about "rules bloat". Seemingly wanting Paizo to commit corporate suicide and just stop producing books. And here I thought rules bloat was Pathfinder's singular appeal.
|
|
#
¿
Mar 10, 2015 19:09
|
|
|
Covok posted:Rolemaster? Yes, Rolemaster. Aka "the true father of D&D 3e".
|
|
#
¿
Mar 10, 2015 22:24
|
|
|
Covok posted:As someone who has never played rolemaster, care to explain? Rolemaster is a very different game mechanically, though 3e inherits some things like move / standard / full actions from it or numerical attributes to power types to dice bonuses derived from attribute scores. The main thing it inherits from Rolemaster in my opinion is the idea that you have to represent everything mechanically, using a modular design for everything, and not only that, but that those horrendously overwrought mechanics can be translated to cyberpunk or space... it's a design attitude that if there is a thing, it will have rules for it, and those rules will be modular and that everything is pretty strictly "constructed" out of them, even if it isn't particularly useful, like with 3e's monster design.
|
|
#
¿
Mar 11, 2015 06:11
|
|
|
Simian_Prime posted:It is. It's a shame. So far as I've been reading today, here are the things that seemed better: Combat Lethality Mounted Combat Mass Combat Anima Effects And here are the things that felt like they still had problems to me: Character Creation Experience Costs Experience Gains Training Times Death Spirals Brawl vs. Martial Arts Character Balance Combat Complexity Charm Bloat Mutations Merits / Flaws System Mastery Mote Economy Penalties vs. Difficulty Stunt Mechanics Honorable Mention For A Mechanic That Makes My Eyes Do A Barrel Roll: Selective Pregnancy
|
|
#
¿
Mar 13, 2015 00:46
|
|
|
TheTatteredKing posted:Well I think I learned all I need to know about the game It was very much "Really? You need a merit to say your character doesn't spawn? Isn't that like, something you can't just work out around the table? Is that a preview of the new Sexual Combat rules, or what?"
|
|
#
¿
Mar 13, 2015 01:57
|
|
|
Ticks and the Battle Wheel would be an interesting mechanic in a good game that used it well, but Exalted 2e is not that game. i mean it had ticks and flurries like some frankenstein game monster
|
|
#
¿
Mar 13, 2015 02:25
|
|
|
Zereth posted:Don't forget that weapons which used less ticks to attack generally also had higher Rate so you could fit more attacks in a flurry. So you got way more than twice as many attacks out of a weapon which was twice as fast. Yeah. Granted, there were better ways to break the game (mostly by cranking Overwhelming to the point of no return and then exploiting Solar charms to eliminate any defense that stopped your first attack), but combining flurries with speed reducers was a good way to make the combat grind down to the RPG equivalent of water torture.
|
|
#
¿
Mar 13, 2015 04:21
|
|
|
bunnielab posted:Here is an other old guy question; how is the Dragonlance setting viewed today? As a kid we dismissed it as "girl crap" but I kinda remember likening some,of the novels? Especially one that that had some lusty female dwarf merchant as a main character? When System Mastery did their episode recently about licensed games, they mentioned that the issue with a lot of licenses is that in some settings, the protagonists of that license are so powerful or influential that trying to play any other character ends up as a bit of a farce. Dragonlance really always had that issue for me, though it skips the need for a license to get there. It was mainly a world crafted for fiction instead of a game setting and inherits a lot of the weaknesses thereof. That isn't to say it doesn't have interesting ideas (having a D&D world actually be dragon-themed, tinker gnomes, uh, sailor minotaurs?), ultimately I think the target audience for it is "people who read the novels at 14 and don't ever get over them".
|
|
#
¿
Mar 15, 2015 07:49
|
|
|
I tried rereading Dragons of Autumn Twilight as an adult and couldn't get past the second chapter because it locked me into a state of full cringe.
|
|
#
¿
Mar 15, 2015 08:11
|
|
|
Lord Frisk posted:I've never seen someone enforce that, but I can see how it shakes out. Generally 4e fights aren't that out of balance, so it doesn't come up that often. Anyway, making someone roll twice is asinine and a poo poo mechanic. The whole "but you still hit even if you don't confirm" platitude was the worst. Motherfucker, I only roll dice like ten times a session, and I got a 20. I want it to mean something. Well, confirms do help by making crits against player characters harder, since a crit against a player is a lot more meaningful than a crit against a monster. Of course, the simple solution of giving different crit mechanics to NPCs and PCs doesn't... ever really seem to cross the mind of most games in the D&D family.
|
|
#
¿
Mar 15, 2015 18:46
|
|
|
You know what game thought of not having mooks crit? Fantasy Craft thought of not having mooks crit. Checkmate, D&D.
|
|
#
¿
Mar 15, 2015 19:06
|
|
|
There are few better things than a Rogue Modron Rogue.
|
|
#
¿
Mar 18, 2015 03:39
|
|
|
GrizzlyCow posted:I never tried M&M3e, but it looks like its another d20 game. Probably good or great in that context, but if you're trying to do something different from Dungeons and Dragons 3E and up, you may want to look at such games such as Icons and Godlike/Wildtalents. I haven't played the latter, though I always hear good(ish) things about it, but the former is a decently fun game. It uses a d6-d6 task resolution system, and though you can build a character in like 3 to 5 minutes, I wouldn't say it is rules light or anything better than 13th Age or whatever. M&M doesn't resemble D&D 3e any more than, say, 13th Age does. Less so, in fact. It's a really solid superhero game if you like the old style of games like Champions but with radically less math and far less fiddly 80s design involved.
|
|
#
¿
Mar 19, 2015 12:44
|
|
|
Quarex posted: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. I was never a fan of Call of Cthulhu d20, but I never understood that hate for it given that it's not a vast shift from BRP.
|
|
#
¿
Mar 21, 2015 07:04
|
|
|
I'm reminded of how I got to talk to Heinsoo about the awful dungeon for 13 True Ways, and I mentioned pushing against having it filled with goon jokes. It turned out was very grateful for that sort of thing, because he looked at those early ideas filled with goonery and was like "How the hell am I going to write that up?". 
|
|
#
¿
Mar 21, 2015 07:50
|
|
|
Helical Nightmares posted:Huh. You certainly could, but bear in mind Hillfolk is about conflicts between people, so the focus would be on conflicts within the tribe rather than dealing with supernatural threats. That's not to say you couldn't have mad shamans and their ilk, but the emphasis would be on how the tribe reacts than a procedural "how do we stab the shaman?" sort of adventure.
|
|
#
¿
Mar 23, 2015 17:30
|
|
|
Error 404 posted:Speaking of lacking nuance, hi Zak. It's certainly possible to have humor loaded with racist or sexist nonsense that's still funny in context. There are a lot of humorists that use it to either make a genuine statement or just as a means to absurdism. But if you're going to take up that battle, Cards Against Humanity isn't a great place to draw your fuckin' line.
|
|
#
¿
Mar 24, 2015 16:45
|
|
|
MartianAgitator posted:That's just where the Trad Games hive mind is right now. Okay. I'm pointing out that you're hive-minding and I don't see why. Because you're a butt.
|
|
#
¿
Mar 24, 2015 17:57
|
|
|
White gets to go first? Of course it does. 
|
|
#
¿
Mar 25, 2015 01:03
|
|
|
You don't hit punch until you're leaning right, you're doing it wrong.
|
|
#
¿
Mar 25, 2015 04:40
|
|
|
NinjaDebugger posted:It's actually worse than this in Worm, Wildbow eventually clarified that it's essentially the tinker version of a Manton limit that they can't make stuff that can be maintained by non-tinkers. The designs in their heads are deliberately sabotaged, and in Eden's perfect world, that was different. Tinkers could do less, but their tech could be mass produced. It's not unusual as a limit in some superhero settings, particularly post-modern ones, that super-inventions are essentially a manifestation or extension of one's powers and can't be reproduced by others, since those powers are generally unique in nature. (This also explains their ability to generally flout the laws of science.) Wild Cards did this for some characters, IIRC, wayyy back in the day.
|
|
#
¿
Mar 25, 2015 23:00
|
|
|
Sion posted:Megagames are great. Makes me think of the National Strategy Decision Making Game. I've never played, but I had friends who once swore by it and did it every year.
|
|
#
¿
Mar 30, 2015 02:07
|
|
|
Thomamelas posted:I'm gonna try to run a forum based Megagame around the Washington Naval Treaty. I'm curious if I'll get enough players but I'm gonna give it a try. The main issue with trying to do historical megagames is just getting a large number of people people who have a good historical understanding. It's why the war college doesn't do them, even though there's a lot of call for them - finding 30-40 people that genuinely know the facts necessary historical event is tough! It's probably also the main issue with historical RPGs, even ones that are loose with the facts. Helical Nightmares posted:Fantasy Iron Chef is a great idea. Already way ahead of you folks. 
|
|
#
¿
Mar 31, 2015 04:55
|
|
|
Comrade Gorbash posted:Definitely true. Maybe something that's more of a broad-strokes reskinning of it so the historical aspects aren't as critical? Yeah. Even so, I was recently working on a semi-historical pirate game and it's still so easy to get buried on the massive amount of information we have on the era. History is a rabbit hole and it's easy to get sucked down it, but much harder to make it presentable to all your friends.
|
|
#
¿
Mar 31, 2015 05:29
|
|
|
Carrasco posted:Mutants & Masterminds 2e had a pretty good anime book, but that might just be my fond memories of Mutants & Masterminds talking. Mecha & Manga was a real mess rules-wise, tho. I think it's probably one of the worst M&M rules supplements outside of Gimmick's Guide to Gadgets? It has a lot of things that were just system-breaking or just set bad rules precedents.
|
|
#
¿
Apr 1, 2015 03:47
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ May 10, 2024 04:08 |
|
|
fosborb posted:Imagine a DM with 4 secret dry erase panels on the edge of a cliff It doesn't seem like you could easily draw on it while it's standing up? That just seems clunky. Do you walk around the screen to write something? I guess it would be better to let players mark a map, but... it doesn't seem like the most practical feature. Still, there aren't many customizable GM screens like that. Pinnacle and Studio 2 make a similar product for $20+, though it has fewer panels. Ettin posted:Uh yeah, I'm the Dungeon Master. Did you mug Winson Paine and take his old avatar? Because that looks familiar. or did you finally eat him to gain his power
|
|
#
¿
Apr 1, 2015 06:31
|
|