TG Chat Thread 2017

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

Flavivirus: Dec 14, 2011; The next stage of evolution.

Mr.Misfit posted:

Set those bars high for everyone!

I plan on finishing and sending out a playtest draft of a new RPG within a month, get my Exalted game started again after a Christmas hiatus, deliver a kickstarter, and try to work out how to do all that while dealing with the demands of a 7-week old baby. Probably a little ambitious :sludgepal:

# ¿ Jan 1, 2017 18:20

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ¿ May 6, 2024 11:12

Flavivirus: Dec 14, 2011; The next stage of evolution.

Jimbozig posted:

Real advice: don't let yourself use the baby as an excuse for not doing the things you need to do. Babies are really, really easy compared to toddlers. They get consistently harder and harder for about 3 years before they finally plateau and eventually start to get easier. So instead of thinking of this as a uniquely difficult time, get used to thinking of this as the easiest time you are going to have for the next few years.

Sorry if that sounds bleak, but I've had 3 kids and that's how all of them have been for me. And the good news is that they also get more fun as they get more difficult. (Except for when they randomly turn into screaming monsters for a few months for no apparent reason. That part isn't fun, but it does end.) And one day you will have a smart little kid playing games with you and chatting like a real human.

Oh yeah, I'm well aware that as far as children go babies are p. much the easiest to handle - they can't even move under their own power, and their needs are very simple. Really looking forward to the time the little prawn starts chatting to us though :unsmith:

# ¿ Jan 1, 2017 20:44

Flavivirus: Dec 14, 2011; The next stage of evolution.

I mean, you could easily make the argument that because every group interprets a game text in their own particular way they're playing related-but-distinct games. That interpretation layer between the rules and what actually happens in play is what's key to RPGs, in my opinion: outside of the most strict storygames, every RPG requires some level of interpretation and rulings outside what's in the text. From the moment you add an element that wasn't in the book, however minor, and that addition has an impact on your play experience, you've drifted from the text.

So you can't really point at a group and say they're playing the game wrong, unless there's discord within the group; instead, the most you can do is point out where they've diverged from the basic game.

# ¿ Jan 9, 2017 17:27

Flavivirus: Dec 14, 2011; The next stage of evolution.

Zandar posted:

One of the major strengths of Apocalypse World was that it told you why the system worked the way it did, and the ways in which changing certain assumptions would break things without reworking other parts of the game.

Agreed with this - IMO it's a mistake to try and provide a full and complete ruleset that forces people to play the right way, when instead you could just explain the reasoning behind something and allow them to make whatever allowances they need to in order to hit the desired play experience.

# ¿ Jan 9, 2017 17:31

Flavivirus: Dec 14, 2011; The next stage of evolution.

https://boingboing.net/2017/01/10/bombshell-report-trump-paid-t.html

# ¿ Jan 11, 2017 11:53

Flavivirus: Dec 14, 2011; The next stage of evolution.

FactsAreUseless posted:

I need recommendations for two-player board games (or games that work well with two players) that don't take up a ton of space.

Patchwork! The app's pretty good for it, which takes up even less space. Splendour is pretty good 2p too.

# ¿ Jan 21, 2017 22:03

Flavivirus: Dec 14, 2011; The next stage of evolution.

I'm running a horror one-shot for my wife's birthday set in an arctic research station. There's some standard things to bring in - The Thing, At The Mountains of Madness, etc - but I was wondering if people here had any ideas for awful things that might be happening in an isolated, freezing research station?

# ¿ Feb 19, 2017 11:52

Flavivirus: Dec 14, 2011; The next stage of evolution.

Father Wendigo posted:

The station slowly begins bleeding into different realities after the station links up with an unidentified satellite. It starts with simple things, like a TAB cola machine appearing (or disappearing) in the mess hall, the PA system is only good for playing Soviet-era elevator music, the beds in the bunkhouse being replaced with office desks. Then rooms begin changing layout, seemingly at random; the same door you just walked through won't take you back to the room you were previously in. Shambling piles of flesh that look like half-formed crew members (PCs) start appearing, followed by impossibly flat carnivorous beings who look like manta rays that just seem to appear out of nothing. The crew needs to figure out that they need to get outside and disable the satellite uplink before the station is completely pulled into another dimension.

Ooh I like this one. Not that I'm not in favour of the slow burn style too, but I have a strict time limit thanks to baby so need something that can escalate quickly!

# ¿ Feb 19, 2017 18:46

Flavivirus: Dec 14, 2011; The next stage of evolution.

I had an amazingly good time running the Orpheus line of adventures from White Wolf. You're employees of a corporation that has worked out how to temporarily turn its agents into ghosts by inducing near-death experiences, and of course uses this to make money by spying on people, exorcising hauntings, and tracking down the ghosts of business tycoons to get their account details. Of course as you keep poking the supernatural it starts poking back, and each book escalates the campaign (and character's abilities) in amazing ways.

You have to deal with the oWoD system and quite a bit of it is plot seeds rather than statted out encounters, but it's the best campaign I've ever run.

# ¿ Feb 24, 2017 09:53

Flavivirus: Dec 14, 2011; The next stage of evolution.

Apocalypse World does that quite a bit: the hardholder has to manage their settlement, the hocus has to manage their cult, the chopper manages their gang and so on.

My own Legacy: Life Among the Ruins takes rebuilding after the Apocalypse as its main theme: every player gets a family of survivors to manage and tools to reshape the homeland over the generations. The latest book also added civilisation-style wonders - big projects you work on over long sweeps of time, competing with other players to be the first to complete them.

# ¿ Mar 6, 2017 20:56

Flavivirus: Dec 14, 2011; The next stage of evolution.

Helical Nightmares posted:

For clarification does the core book "Legacy: Life Among the Ruins" have these base building rules? What is the name of the supplement with the civilization-style wonders? Very cool by the way.

So Legacy: Life Among the Ruins has rules for managing your family - growing them over generations, seizing new resources, dealing with their needs etc. It's not quite base building - your family *can* have a base but they can also be scattered across the wasteland's different settlements, or travel nomadically between them. Either way you'll have tools to reshape the world and build your family up.

Mirrors in the Ruins, the newest supplement, is the one with civ-style grand projects. It's got a giant city, an information network, a revolution and a colossal war as its example projects, to try and show the different things the system's good for.

Thanks for your interest!

Rand Brittain posted:

The third edition is broadly better in every way aside from being largely an ugly book, so you should use those rules.

The reason you should buy the second edition is that buying that gives money to Jenna and buying the third edition gives money to EOS, who stole all the money that was supposed to print copies of Chuubo.

(The third edition also involves me. Arivia, you are the most incompetent stalker I have ever had.)

I'd agree 3rd Edition is far better - the project system does a lot to provide direction to the game while keeping players in the driving seat. On the stat side, Persona gives a lot more breadth to Nobles than Realm, and lets you mess with the qualities of your estate as well as its substance in some really fun ways. Treasure's a bit more confusing, but thankfully there's a mini supplement that explains it very nicely. The mini-supplement for Deceivers is also pretty great - it's a shame EOS' incompetence/misbehaviour ran the line into the ground, as I'd liked to have seen more of those supplements.

# ¿ Mar 8, 2017 00:00

Flavivirus: Dec 14, 2011; The next stage of evolution.

So the current humble bundle is streaming-focused and contains an app called FaceRig which seems like it might be pretty awesome for online games even if it skews a little anime:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cbIWRd514-s

Anyone tried it?

# ¿ Mar 22, 2017 12:38

Flavivirus: Dec 14, 2011; The next stage of evolution.

potatocubed posted:

You can play hypercompetent six-year-olds in Burning Wheel.

Also, this is the only circumstance under which I'd play Burning Wheel again.

I still sorta want to play Burning Wheel Babies one of these days.

# ¿ Mar 26, 2017 20:55

Flavivirus: Dec 14, 2011; The next stage of evolution.

I will say that when I ran Burning Wheel the wound system lead to a character being out of the game for 6 months as a best case scenario after catching a heavy crossbow bolt to the chest. They ended up making a replacement PC after even divine intervention didn't quite have the power to heal them (players failed the Faith roll).

I'm not particularly a fan - I feel like if your wound mechanics need you to take some downtime you should a) keep the actual time needed flexible and b) try to make it unlikely that only one player wants the downtime and so has to drop out.

# ¿ Apr 6, 2017 07:54

Flavivirus: Dec 14, 2011; The next stage of evolution.

Parkreiner posted:

In fairness, BW does have rules for skill practice during downtime, so it's not as if the rest of the group wouldn't have things to do during the time skip, but I can easily imagine scenarios where just taking six months off from playing "the real game" is not practical.

Yeah, it may have been more a lesson that burning wheel is not good for setups with a strong time pressure.

# ¿ Apr 6, 2017 12:45

Flavivirus: Dec 14, 2011; The next stage of evolution.

Falstaff posted:

No offense, but that's not a very good way to handle it within the system. I always get excited when my character takes a bad wound in Burning Wheel because:

1. If your character is literally out of commission from the wound, then giving the rest of the party a break is a reward since they can then break out the downtime advancement rules. (as Parkreiner mentioned above)
2. This may seem like it leaves the wounded character at a disadvantage. Not so, however, as long as you pick things back up once the character's recovered enough to start doing things again. This is because if your character recovers enough that s/he is ambulatory again, then adventuring in that state means you're going to start advancing VERY quickly thanks to your temporarily low dice pools.

Wounds play into the game's reward systems. I know a lot of players feel like they need to play their characters at 100% health all the time (I used to be one of these, so I understand the mentality), but that just means they're robbing themselves of opportunities.

As I said later, the game's setup was a bad fit for the system. It was a 'we have a few weeks to save the city' sort of thing. In a game with less time pressure, I can see the practice rules - not to mention easy access to difficult tests for the wounded character - making it pretty fun.

# ¿ Apr 6, 2017 18:38

Flavivirus: Dec 14, 2011; The next stage of evolution.

Fuego Fish posted:

Self-promote all you like, I keep telling people to buy my books.

p.s. buy my books

I haven't got around to H:ZD yet (too busy with Persona) but if self-promotion's acceptable I've seen a bunch of people talking about using Legacy: Life Among the Ruins to play H:ZD-inspired games of post-apocalyptic robo-dinosaur hunting. It's an Apocalypse World-powered game with a focus on families of survivors adapting to the new world, and a robot-dinosaur infested wasteland would plug straight in with no hacking required. One of the character playbooks - the Hunter - can even start with a fancy bow for taking down the monsters of the wasteland, and has abilities to identify weaknesses in targets and slice them away before closing in for the kill. Its combat system isn't in-depth - fights are resolved with a single roll, for the most part - but it's got a focus on avoiding danger until you get yourself into a position where your weapons are effective against the enemy, then taking them down. If you're interested, I recently posted an example of character-level play here.

# ¿ Apr 12, 2017 12:19

Flavivirus: Dec 14, 2011; The next stage of evolution.

Fuego Fish posted:

That's the thing, though. H:ZD is so post-apocalypse that it's by no means a wasteland. It's a thriving world that just happens to have giant robots as an integral part of that ecosystem. Humanity has civilisation, admittedly somewhere around the iron age (it's hard to tell when they're adapting machine-parts into weapons), but enough that there's cities and culture, and people who don't have to fight robots to survive.

A large chunk of the game's narrative revolves around human concerns and history. You deal with the aftermath of a civil war, and the social upheaval that has come with it, along with tribal politics and scholars digging up the Old World to find answers. That's what makes the setting so engaging, it's not just a one-trick pony. Even if that trick is hunting giant robots.

I focused on the combat because you called that out as particularly cool, but there's a lot of this in Legacy too - the game is mainly about how the different factions of survivors rebuild and adapt to the new world over generations, and dealing with your homeland's factions and getting their resources for your family is just as big a deal as avoiding the hazards of the wasteland.

Still, that's enough tooting of my own horn :toot:

# ¿ Apr 12, 2017 14:55

Flavivirus: Dec 14, 2011; The next stage of evolution.

Cartoon Violence posted:

So, according to the thread rules this is a place where I can ask a question like this.

I've made a Tabletop RPG. It's mechanically completely finished. And the lore is also completely done, but not all written down yet. I've played through two campaigns using the setting and system with my little group. I'm not looking to sell it, at least not right now. I was wondering, what should I do if I wanted to share this game with goons, or maybe get feedback on how to finish it? Is there a thread for that? Thanks in advance for any answers.

This one's good, or there's the game writing workshop.

# ¿ Apr 15, 2017 19:54

Flavivirus: Dec 14, 2011; The next stage of evolution.

potatocubed posted:

It's basically this. FFG could have put the extra cards in the base set. Maybe it would have jacked the price a bit. But instead they thought they'd gouge anyone who wants to play the game 'seriously' to the tune of three boxes.

So... that'll be another LCG I take a pass on.

Alternatively, if they really prized being able to just pick up and play a particular faction deck (as they did with Netrunner) they could just sell a second box that's the extra copies of all 2- or 1-copy cards. Pretty certain that would sell well enough to be profitable.

# ¿ Apr 20, 2017 12:39

Flavivirus: Dec 14, 2011; The next stage of evolution.

slap me and kiss me posted:

The 200 Word RPG contest closed with over 700 entries. Anyone here put one in for consideration?

Yeah, I put in Parasite Vector and worked with my wife to put in The Holy Mountain. My heart goes out to the judges, though - by my reckoning they'll have to read ~150 entries each for every game to be read by two judges. I'm really impressed with the range of settings, game types, resolution system etc - it's an extraordinary snapshot of 2017 game design.

# ¿ Apr 24, 2017 21:05

Flavivirus: Dec 14, 2011; The next stage of evolution.

Anyone have any recommendations for an online map-drawing program? I'm planning on running some online games soon and it'd work a lot better if the players had some way to collaboratively draw and edit the setting's map.

# ¿ May 17, 2017 13:52

Flavivirus: Dec 14, 2011; The next stage of evolution.

Harrow posted:

I didn't--that was for the game we haven't started yet, not the one we already played. Sorry if that was unclear.

I asked him what his concept is and that's what he replied with. I vetoed it right off the bat. His character in the previous game was a fire elementalist who spent the entire time just teleporting and blowing things up, which was fine. He never put all that much effort in, but he wasn't disruptive, so if he wanted to mostly pay attention in combat and mostly do that by using fire on everything he could, sure.

Honestly, I would, but he's a friend of mine who's perfectly fine in every other scenario so I wanted to give him another chance to come up with a better concept before I said "y'know, maybe this isn't going to work."

Right now his idea is "basically just Rick and Morty" which is significantly more acceptable, at least.

I mean, 'worse Rick and Morty' is exactly where my mind went when you described his first concept so you may not be out of the woods yet.

# ¿ May 22, 2017 16:33

Flavivirus: Dec 14, 2011; The next stage of evolution.

Nuns with Guns posted:

He has the audacity to demand that a photo of himself be used as loving Dracula in the vampire game. Nothing else he does to reshape the oWoD games to fit an image he developed in 1992 should shock anyone

The timeline's a little wrong there - he was picked as dracula for the 20th edition of vampire years before Paradox bought White Wolf. If I remember right they got prominent larpers to pose in costume for the clan photos, and he was picked for the Tzimisce photo. It's more that he's a big-name larper in Sweden who was able to convince his bosses to buy White Wolf and make vampire his day job.

# ¿ Jun 29, 2017 13:24

Flavivirus: Dec 14, 2011; The next stage of evolution.

Reene posted:

having read that blood in the chocolate review I am actually, for real angry at the ennies and this entire loving hobby

One real weird thing - I was selling opposite Raggi at the UK Games Expo a month or so back and every single book on his stall was hardback, full colour, glossy etc, even Blood in the Chocolate. They're either really expensive for a small adventure or he's got a lot of money he's plowing into their production values. Plus, it seems a bit deceptive to sell a book on 'gory horror charlie and the chocolate factory' and then cram it full of Oompa-Loompa gang rapes and sexual violence, though I guess that's basically the LotFP brand at this point.

# ¿ Jul 6, 2017 10:59

Flavivirus: Dec 14, 2011; The next stage of evolution.

FMguru posted:

Interesting tidbit from Chaosium: apparently the Japanese version of Call of Cthulhu outsells the English-language version.

(Michael O'Brien is the VP of Chaosium)

https://plus.google.com/+MichaelOBrienMOB/posts/d5gsLGpEShg

From what I hear it's because actual play recordings (or Replays) of are huge in Japan, to the point that some groups are hiring professional voice actors to act through their sessions, and Call of Cthulhu happened to be the game that lead the charge. Now a significant proportion of kids are watching CoC actual play on NicoNicoDouga as they go to school, CoC is selling out, and there's a ton of variants published (like the high school romance version When Our Eyes Met, a SAN Check).

# ¿ Jul 25, 2017 15:24

Flavivirus: Dec 14, 2011; The next stage of evolution.

Antivehicular posted:

I really wish designers wouldn't do in-text advertisements/references for stuff unless it has a release date locked in and imminent. Putting ads in the main text of the game is irritating enough, but I'm willing to accept it if the book in question really will be out in two months; if it's "look for a future cool thing!" and said cool thing shows no sign of existing, however... don't waste your page space and my time.

Irritation brought to you by the Masks softcover, which has about a quarter-page ad for new expansion playbooks coming out soon, honest! Some of these playbooks did come out. Others were released with extensive revision and didn't match what was advertised. Others are, as far as I can tell, purely theoretical. And this deserved space in the book, right in the core text, not even on a back page or something?

Still better than Exalted 3e, which devoted a two-page art spread to 'here's some future splats, we're not even going to tell you what they are or what their deal is'.

# ¿ Aug 11, 2017 08:38

Flavivirus: Dec 14, 2011; The next stage of evolution.

Cease to Hope posted:

still blows my mind that someone is septupling down on defending the german immigrant worker rape gang adventure, let alone that it exists and won an ennie

God, I hadn't even thought of that element. I think pseudo-Germany is lotfp's default setting so I think it's more an unfortunate implication as opposed to the module's for sure deliberate grossness, but still...

# ¿ Aug 23, 2017 08:11

Flavivirus: Dec 14, 2011; The next stage of evolution.

unseenlibrarian posted:

Maybe the one time they played it was RAW fight with Irontooth in Keep on the Shadowfell, which could straight up murder a party.

The only character death I ever saw in 4e was during that module, so it seems plausible. Some bastard with a sling straight up crit the party warlock down to his instant death value, though it was our first time playing 4e so we may have got that wrong.

# ¿ Sep 20, 2017 21:45

Flavivirus: Dec 14, 2011; The next stage of evolution.

FMguru posted:

The closest thing they have is "they get to do that damage all day", which is meaningless in practice because the party's adventuring day always when the spellcasters run low on prepared spells.

Changing topics: It's been more than a month since Green Ronin announced they were going to produce a full account of their relationship with CA Suleiman, complete with the world's most detailed timeline. I guess that has been shipped out to the ol' memory hole.

Not to mention Frog God games had a Humble Bundle deal, and Matt MacFarland is still plugging away at his kickstarter and is on the board of the Indie Game Developers Network with no acknowledgement of the accusations to either group. :sigh:

Looks like things are going to blow over, as the more cynical posters always predicted.

# ¿ Dec 11, 2017 08:12

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ¿ May 6, 2024 11:12

Flavivirus: Dec 14, 2011; The next stage of evolution.

potatocubed posted:

Can anyone recommend me a virtual tabletop which has a robust engine for handling cards? Roll20 doesn't do what I need it to, and my stopgap of implementing a random card draw engine in a Google spreadsheet is kinda slow.

Tabletop simulator has great card deck support, though it's not the best interface for playing RPGs.

# ¿ Dec 30, 2017 17:04

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