TG Chat Thread 2017

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Traditional Games > TG Chat Thread 2017

Asimo: Sep 23, 2007

*slams door open, panting for breath*

Did an anime TTRPG discussion start and nobody mentioned Teenagers From Outer Space??

Seriously it's thirty year sold and still better than most of the modern attempts, at least for comedy-style gaming.

Asimo fucked around with this message at 00:43 on Jan 7, 2017

# ¿ Jan 7, 2017 00:38

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# ¿ Apr 28, 2024 23:54

Asimo: Sep 23, 2007

Well it's still pretty great. :colbert:

# ¿ Jan 7, 2017 00:44

Asimo: Sep 23, 2007

Ewen Cluney posted:

BESM: A game designed by a man who likes anime far more than he likes game design.

The key to understanding BESM is knowing that Mark MacKinnon loves Amber Diceless and doesn't believe that game designers have any power to help with things like game balance.

Well that explains a whole hell of a lot.

And I don't hate BESM I guess, but 1e was kind of super light so the balance didn't matter. 2e is where it kind of got a bit crunchier and wound up a rolling disaster due to it, and 3e made things even crunchier and a bit better balanced by the time it actually came out we already had stuff like Mutants & Masterminds 2e that handled the same design space a lot better and it was basically obsolete from the get go.

# ¿ Jan 7, 2017 04:39

Asimo: Sep 23, 2007

oriongates posted:

If you ever want to feel really charitable towards the tri-stat system, take a look at BESM d20. They manage to combine the worst elements of tri-stat and d20 design.

I wouldn't say this was the... worst d20 adaptation but it's certainly close to it, and there's only gems like the Aberrant d20 port and such that rival its badness. It's even more hilarious to put it alongside Mutants & Masterminds, and the two together make a good object lesson about the benefits of just going OGL instead of straight d20...

# ¿ Jan 7, 2017 05:35

Asimo: Sep 23, 2007

At least one of the writers for it was super into incest fetish stuff too. Which also makes some of it make so much more sense. :gonk:

# ¿ Jan 8, 2017 02:49

Asimo: Sep 23, 2007

There's an argument to be made that having a wide roster of characters with clear archetypes but relatively shallow personalities and backstories lets people inject their own personal idea and theories and make fan media to their tastes without being "wrong", and as a result the casts are ironically much more appealing than you'd get from a more niche or lore-heavy characters. I mean I'm not sure this inherently leads to porn or that discouraging it is counterproductive :geno:

but it's not entirely a unknown phenomenon either, and you see a similar strategy with the big sprawling rosters in LoL and other MOBAs and such.

To be vaguely on topic, a similar phenomenon is probably why stuff like WoD splats or the like in RPGs tend to be pretty well received even today, if they're maybe not the best for the game in the long run. Giving a rough hook to latch onto and wrap ideas around can sometimes be easier than trying to think up a character from scratch.

# ¿ Jan 20, 2017 11:23

Asimo: Sep 23, 2007

It managed the amazing task of getting put on maintenance mode before even getting officially released. Impressive really.

# ¿ Feb 4, 2017 05:15

Asimo: Sep 23, 2007

The object lesson is that when you have a team that can barely design tabletop games this does not count as qualification to design video games. Especially the genre of video games that has arguably the hardest and most elaborate coding, hardware, and network requirements from the business end. If they measured their expectations and did a Neverwinter Nights clone it... okay probably would have still sucked, but at least have been doable and much easier to expand. But that wouldn't have gotten the fabulous WOW-level subscription gravy train Dancey was clearly envisioning.

# ¿ Feb 6, 2017 08:45

Asimo: Sep 23, 2007

Ferrinus posted:

I just want fighters to get dailies back! gently caress!

I just want Warlords. :colbert:

Less smarmy, the class really was the perfect addition to the game, emulated a shitload of fantasy hero archetypes that previous editions didn't really capture well, and had a lot of fun potential concepts and mechanics. And seeing it basically discarded before 4e was even halfway through it's life due to Mearls' dumb grog bullshit is aggravating.

# ¿ Feb 13, 2017 08:33

Asimo: Sep 23, 2007

SunAndSpring posted:

How is Mutants and Masterminds? Might be doing a superhero game soon so I'm looking into picking that up. I read Masks and that's a little too specialized towards relationships and not general punch-man stuff.

It has the usual issue of point-buy super hero games where it's not that hard to find broken combinations if the GM isn't paying attention (anything that summons extra minions or whatever, for example), but it's a lot better than most and avoids a lot of the usual crunchy supers game rule pitfalls (it doesn't allow multiple attacks per round, etc). There's almost nothing of D&D left in it besides "roll d20+x versus target number" and almost all the complexity is in chargen, it's really simple to actually run. There's some weird swingyness in combat due to the damage save mechanic, but it works well overall and the game's pretty generous with hero points (reroll options) if need be. The effects-based power creation can be confusing for people/groups who aren't used to that sort of design, but if you played Masks that probably isn't an issue.

I rather enjoy it, I've played in and run campaigns in it for years, but it has its faults and I can see why some folks wouldn't like it.

# ¿ Feb 13, 2017 20:50

Asimo: Sep 23, 2007

gradenko_2000 posted:

https://twitter.com/machineiv/status/832477423899783168

Ettin and Alien Rope Burn, you guys are all right for wading into that.

What an insecure, pathetic little gently caress. You're running out of communities to fool, Zak. :munch:

# ¿ Feb 17, 2017 11:43

Asimo: Sep 23, 2007

FMguru posted:

A much better gameline than you'd think. Mike Pondsmith was the main designer.

These two statements are likely highly related.

# ¿ Feb 23, 2017 04:46

Asimo: Sep 23, 2007

Plutonis posted:

All WoTC settings suck rear end except Eberron and Dark Sun

I was going to argue, but... nah you're right. There was way more crazy experimentation during the latter TSR days, even if it was done out of desperation. You'd never see something completely insane like Spelljammer or Planescape in a modern D&D game, or even the weirder parts of Mystara.

# ¿ Feb 23, 2017 14:17

Asimo: Sep 23, 2007

Plutonis posted:

Oh yeah Spelljammer was cool

Spelljammer was objectively horrible. The rules were inconsistent and punitive, the writing was atrocious, the setting and tone was never really kept quite consistent between supplements or even within the same book, the big setting crossover push was ham-fisted and painfully awkward, anbd the core box introduced all sorts of fun cosmology ideas that were promptly ignored.

I love it dearly.

# ¿ Feb 23, 2017 17:40

Asimo: Sep 23, 2007

God, imagine a 4e Spelljammer with a ship design and combat system as robust as 4e's combat. :smithicide:

# ¿ Feb 23, 2017 17:53

Asimo: Sep 23, 2007

Halloween Jack posted:

I actually really like Mystara.

Mystara is like 60% forgettable generic fantasy tolkein crap and 40% absolute amazing. There was unusual character options in some of the supplements that haven't really been repeated in D&D since (Immortals, anyone?), let alone various craziness like flying continents and crashed spaceships and basically everything to do with the hollow world and its divine T-rex creator.

# ¿ Feb 23, 2017 18:10

Asimo: Sep 23, 2007

Alien Rope Burn posted:

encounter design

This is something most RPGs in general are really bad at, let alone just adventure books. It's like pulling teeth trying to find out what sort of enemies and setups make for a good matchup, and that's assuming the game isn't something like Exalted where an individual fight could be anywhere from trivial to impossible depending on character builds. If I ever put serious thought into writing up an RPG, figuring out the match for matchups is going to be a super high priority.

# ¿ Feb 24, 2017 05:45

Asimo: Sep 23, 2007

Alignment is a mechanic for defining army factions in a wargame and the fact it somehow continues to persist in D&D nearly forty years later speaks to a deep intellectual rot within the hobby.

# ¿ Mar 11, 2017 06:52

Asimo: Sep 23, 2007

Kwyndig posted:

Semi-serious answer, kill the mind flayer because they eat human brains, gently caress the beholder because I'm curious how that would even work, and marry the red dragon because fire-breathing spouse with shapeshifting, spell-casting ability, and mad treasure.

i'm reasonably certain this is an anime genre these days

# ¿ Mar 21, 2017 16:28

Asimo: Sep 23, 2007

Reene posted:

Dark Sun seems fine if fantasy apoc is your poo poo (it is my poo poo)

like all good ideas though (Mage, Shadowrun) it's a decent to good setting married to mechanics that are absolute dogshit

Apparently you missed that 4e Dark Sun existed. :getin:

Honestly even 2e dark sun was easily one of the best settings for the line and had a lot of tweaks to try and make the game fit the themes better. But then the revised box set came out after the horrible horrible novel trilogy. Let's not talk about that.

# ¿ Apr 16, 2017 00:45

Asimo: Sep 23, 2007

Unfortunately all that potentially interesting stuff was basically a footnote on the map, and most of the actual revised line spent most of the time on loving space halflings and horrible adventures all done in cheaply-printed books with horrible art and two-inch margins. :geno:

# ¿ Apr 16, 2017 08:04

Asimo: Sep 23, 2007

Doctor Spaceman posted:

The Mjolnir bit is from an issue that hasn't been released yet but from everything else he's written recently he comes across as short-sighted and privileged rather than outright alt-right.

After 2016 I don't think there's appreciable difference between the two there. It's pretty obviously a very shallow slide from one to the other, especially for isolated nerd media sorts.

# ¿ Apr 24, 2017 08:25

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# ¿ Apr 28, 2024 23:54

Asimo: Sep 23, 2007

Tuxedo Catfish posted:

Everything in the second post is absolutely true

Everything SMG says is true.

He just says it in absolutely horrible ways, incessantly, to people who wouldn't be open to hearing it. I'm not sure if this is a good or a bad gimmick, but it's interesting enough.

# ¿ May 21, 2017 10:53

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