TG Chat Thread 2018: Please welcome our new mod, Count Strahd von Zarovich

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Traditional Games > TG Chat Thread 2018: Please welcome our new mod, Count Strahd von Zarovich

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Evil Mastermind: Apr 28, 2008

I may actually be able to finally get Fragged Empire and BitD to the table in a few months! Go me!

# ¿ Jan 2, 2018 02:50

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# ¿ May 10, 2024 02:38

Evil Mastermind: Apr 28, 2008

Paranoid Dude posted:

Who on Earth complains about people not dressing well for a game of DnD or Fate?

Given that the person talking about this says that having to "smell good" to game, I'm guessing the OP there conflates "dressing well" with "wearing clothes that have been laundered since the last time you wore them".

e: also what Weirdo said

# ¿ Jan 3, 2018 02:58

Evil Mastermind: Apr 28, 2008

Zomborgon posted:

The former; I too have not played BitD, so any corrections on the following are appreciated.

The majority of the time, clocks aren't ticking to things the players want to have happen. A clock is usually something like "the guards realized that something's up", "the fire spreads to the whole building", or "the foreman gets back to his office".

# ¿ Jan 7, 2018 18:35

Evil Mastermind: Apr 28, 2008

hyphz posted:

That�s where I tend to trip up though. How can anything �flow from the fiction� if it�s not written yet?

You know that when people say "follow the fiction", they mean the stuff that's happening in-game as it's being played, right?

quote:

If the existing fiction says there�s a trap on that door, fine, it�s risky to open it. But you can�t �follow the fiction� to know when it is time to make up a trapped door.

Of course you can. I, as the GM, think to myself "this would be an interesting point to have a trapdoor/it makes sense for there to be a trapdoor here". Then the players, who are playing along with me, accept that.

I'm honestly curious why you think that can't be done.

# ¿ Jan 7, 2018 22:26

Evil Mastermind: Apr 28, 2008

hyphz posted:

In the case of a �trapdoor� which is just an interesting potential feature which is explorable without direct cost, yes, sure.

Okay then I misread.

quote:

But I said a �trapped door�, a door protected by a trap. That�s going to cause attrition and damage to the PCs.

Yes, that is the job of a GM, to put challenges in front of the players. It's kinda the point. The GM sets up obstacles and challenges between the characters and their goal, and it's up to the players to figure out how to overcome and circumvent them. The whole idea is to see how the players do this.

quote:

My making it up is arguably a bad thing for the players.

Yes, because that's the GM's job. To create bad things for the characters to overcome.

quote:

If I�m going to do so �when it�s interesting� then one day the success of a heist will depend on it not being interesting, and the players will thus be rewarded for playing so that it isn�t.

You know, hyphz, when you say things like this it really makes me think you've never actually played an RPG. Because this makes no sense at all.

If I'm understanding what you're saying, you think that if I only create obstacles when they'd be "interesting", then the players will try to avoid "interesting" situations because that way I won't throw obstacles in their way, right?

Except that the players also want interesting obstacles. That's where the fun of a game comes from: dealing with the back-and-forth of dealing with obstacles and being clever in overcoming them.

# ¿ Jan 7, 2018 22:45

Evil Mastermind: Apr 28, 2008

hyphz posted:

The players would like their PCs to walk out carrying an armload of magic artefacts. If they aren't interested in that, what's the point in playing?

AH. I think we may have found the source of the overall issue here.

Have you ever asked the players what they want out of the game? Because I'm guessing that's not going to be the answer for most people. You're assuming the universal win condition for RPGs is "get all the stuff" and trying to use that as the idea for all the games you run.

But the thing is: that's not the universal win condition. You can't apply D&D Thinking to games that aren't D&D and expect it to work.

# ¿ Jan 8, 2018 20:02

Evil Mastermind: Apr 28, 2008

hyphz posted:

Right. Now wind back to context. Are these things which would happen in the normal way if this was just a conversation?

Yes, because players can actually be okay with accepting negative consequences.

# ¿ Jan 8, 2018 20:56

Evil Mastermind: Apr 28, 2008

The only winning move is not to have a conversation.

# ¿ Jan 8, 2018 21:44

Evil Mastermind: Apr 28, 2008

You know, hyphz...maybe RPGs aren't for you.

# ¿ Jan 8, 2018 22:04

Evil Mastermind: Apr 28, 2008

hyphz posted:

Pretty much any sane person if you have a game with rules based on fun that thus creates a stupid feedback loop.

No they loving don't and no it loving doesn't. That is what we're trying to explain to you.

Like, if that's how you think RPGs work, whatever, but you don't seem to get that nobody else is thinking that way. You keep acting like players are incapable of enjoying challenges or being okay with character death, despite the fact that everyone is saying otherwise.

Your problem with these games isn't the games, hyphz. It's you.

# ¿ Jan 8, 2018 22:31

Evil Mastermind: Apr 28, 2008

rumble in the bunghole posted:

the rumour is wrong: Nobody enters the house alive. once you cross the threshold your ghost leaves your body and you have to heist it as a ghost, then head back to repossess your comatose body. gently caress that would be a sick heist

"Tonight's heist will be to steal our souls back from the Dimmer Sisters."

gently caress yeah I'd be down for that.

# ¿ Jan 8, 2018 23:41

Evil Mastermind: Apr 28, 2008

Lightning Lord posted:

At some point you have to accept that RPGs are games, with the conventions of games, and the vast majority of people playing them realize and accept that they're games, not Reality Simulators, and respond accordingly.

You'd think that, and yet here we are.

# ¿ Jan 10, 2018 21:24

Evil Mastermind: Apr 28, 2008

LeSquide posted:

Have you gotten to the weird reboot yet?

There's a weird reboot.

The reboot was because of the delay due to the original artist getting arrested for beating his wife.

e: to clarify, the guy got arrested, then kicked off the book.

# ¿ Jan 17, 2018 04:43

Evil Mastermind: Apr 28, 2008

MrFlibble posted:

This seems like the best place to ask - i'm looking to get a folding gaming table for Necromunda / Bloodbowl / Hobbit and 40k. I found this:

https://www.urbanmatz.com/p/237/6-x4-folding-table

Has anyone got any experience with this or know of a better place to get a table? I'm in the UK.

That looks like the type of table they use at the game store I go to, and they're pretty solid.

# ¿ Jan 22, 2018 17:26

Evil Mastermind: Apr 28, 2008

Did I miss the chance to make a "the real gatekeepers were the friends we made along the way" joke?

# ¿ Jan 24, 2018 20:42

Evil Mastermind: Apr 28, 2008

Splicer posted:

It shows how criminally unimaginative and wedded to their system they are

We are talking about a game that was directly derived from a game that had the unspoken design principle "you don't have to change what you're doing and can keep playing 3.x forever", here.

# ¿ Jan 25, 2018 17:32

Evil Mastermind: Apr 28, 2008

One of my favorite things about Abberant was that all the powers were ultimately some form of quantum manipulation, regardless of what the power actually was. Which meant that (for example), if you had the Elasticity power, your body wasn't physically stretching or bending, you were actually warping space directly around your body.

# ¿ Feb 1, 2018 16:18

Evil Mastermind: Apr 28, 2008

I remember one 3rd party 3e book that did have a "Immovable Rod Master" prestige class, but I'll be damned if I could remember what the name of the book was.

# ¿ Feb 19, 2018 22:01

Evil Mastermind: Apr 28, 2008

Ulisses Spiele (the ones behind the new edition of Torg) are publishing a 40k RPG, and the preview is presented as a comic that does a good job showing off the core systems.

http://www.ulisses-us.com/comic/wg-example-p1/

# ¿ Feb 27, 2018 20:40

Evil Mastermind: Apr 28, 2008

I'm still mid-review over in F&F, but I was really impressed with how Ulisses Spiele handled the new edition of Torg, both in terms of updating the old mechanics and the overall presentation. So I'm pretty hopeful for this.

# ¿ Feb 27, 2018 20:58

Evil Mastermind: Apr 28, 2008

Lemon-Lime posted:

Someone sell me on Fragged Empire. How complex is it? How's the balance? Are any of the supplements any good?

http://projects.inklesspen.com/fatal-and-friends/evil-mastermind/fragged-empire/

# ¿ Mar 5, 2018 16:48

Evil Mastermind: Apr 28, 2008

I just like the fact that you can be a space pirate who's also a published a well-respected scientific paper on quasars.

# ¿ Mar 5, 2018 19:26

Evil Mastermind: Apr 28, 2008

Protag Archive adds four new races, more character options, and a bunch of organizations PCs can ally with. Antag Archive is basically a monster manual that also includes bad guy organizations and locations.

They're both good, but if you just wanted one I'd go with Antagonist's Archive just to cut down on the GM bad-guy-stating overhead.

Aeternum is basically grid-based Soulsbourne, complete with respawning mechanics and a heavy focus on melee combat.

# ¿ Mar 5, 2018 21:07

Evil Mastermind: Apr 28, 2008

Just to point out: the Fragged Empire PDF is currently on sale for $12 on DriveThru.

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/151898/Fragged-Empire--Core-Rule-Book

# ¿ Mar 5, 2018 22:59

Evil Mastermind: Apr 28, 2008

Lemon-Lime posted:

All of the books except Seas are 33% off in the GM sale, even.

And now Seas is today's Deal of the Day for $10, so there you go!

# ¿ Mar 6, 2018 17:04

Evil Mastermind: Apr 28, 2008

food court bailiff posted:

Is the Fragged HACK official errata...thing worth looking into?

If you want to bring in subsystems from the new settings into Empire itself, yes. It's mainly porting the Outpost town building system and mass combat rules from Kingdom and the reworked Stealth rules.

# ¿ Mar 6, 2018 17:53

Evil Mastermind: Apr 28, 2008

DalaranJ posted:

Is this true? I always assumed that (us) storygamers were considered the snobs of RPGs.
I�m dangerously close to making a beer metaphor here.

Let's put it this way: there are people who are upset that PF2's streamlining of mechanics is "dumbing the game down".

# ¿ Mar 7, 2018 20:10

Evil Mastermind: Apr 28, 2008

Hel posted:

I wonder if it would be worth it for any podcast to just bundle up old episodes in " season" torrents or something to make it easier for new listeners to get the whole archive when catching up. Well not torrents since afaik that's not phone friendly but still.

We Hate Movies hosts their back catalog on a Google Drive folder, and make it private to people who support their patreon at a certain level (which also gets new exclusive content, which is nice).

# ¿ Mar 18, 2018 05:33

Evil Mastermind: Apr 28, 2008

Foglet posted:

Yes, those are both good (can't wait to see the finalized version of Lancer since I'm usually not too keen on investing much effort into games still under constructon), but my current go-to mecha game is Remnants, even with its specific postapoc setting.

Pieces of Peace posted:

This game looks rad as hell, somehow I missed EM�s original F&F, and it was on sale along with its expansion books. Thanks!

At the risk of sounding egotistical, I'm always so happy when people find new good games because of me. :3:

# ¿ Mar 21, 2018 03:50

Evil Mastermind: Apr 28, 2008

Otherkinsey Scale posted:

"Giant Dwarf"

# ¿ Mar 24, 2018 16:35

Evil Mastermind: Apr 28, 2008

Alien Rope Burn posted:

What is it like to still be a Valve fan these days? It must hurt so much.

I'm still honestly amazed that there's still anyone out there who still cares about Half-Life 3.

# ¿ Mar 30, 2018 01:35

Evil Mastermind: Apr 28, 2008

Robotic Folksinger posted:

the concept of "non-coercive mind control".

Goddammit why did you remind me of this? I'd managed to forget all about it! :argh:

# ¿ Apr 4, 2018 17:49

Evil Mastermind: Apr 28, 2008

Hiro Protagonist posted:

Has anyone played the Lightseekers TCG? A bunch of channels I'm subscribed to started posting a bunch of stuff about it, and at this point, I'm curious.

I tried it at PAX East, and I enjoyed it. The whole idea of the cards being long-term effects that change as they tick down is a cool idea that makes you think a few turns ahead in a different way than in most TCGs.

For those who haven't seen it, the main card is the "Buff", which looks like this:

At the start of your turn, every Buff you have rotates counter-clockwise, which changes the number in the upper-left corner. Then the Buff activates, and the effect triggers using the number in the corner, with "X" meaning "zero". If the card rotates to a blank corner or goes through a full rotation, it's discarded.

So the above card does nothing on its first turn, deals 2 damage on the next two turns, then is discarded on the fourth turn (assuming its card text isn't triggered).

e: oh, and buffs activate in the order they were played, so you do have to respect an order of operations when you're triggering effects.

Evil Mastermind fucked around with this message at 19:44 on Apr 9, 2018

# ¿ Apr 9, 2018 19:42

Evil Mastermind: Apr 28, 2008

Ewen Cluney posted:

Also I like how he said that when he first started publishing in 2000, stores would ask him why it wasn't d20. Two years later, they had so much unsold product that they would ask, "It's not d20, is it?"

I've said before that there's two local-ish game stores that still have shelves of d20 product they're never going to sell because they won't reduce the price on any of it.

And it's so obvious to everyone that nobody's going to touch that poo poo. People weren't going to touch it five years ago, they're sure as poo poo not going to touch it now. Just knock everything down to a buck a pop for a month or two, then just get rid of it. It's not going to make you a profit, but it's not like that poo poo is ever going make a profit at this point anyway.

# ¿ Apr 11, 2018 21:10

Evil Mastermind: Apr 28, 2008

Splicer posted:

The best part about stories like this is shelf space isn't free. A shelf full of bullshit is a shelf full of lost sales of whatever else you could have put up there. An appreciable part of their monthly rent is going toward storing unsorted recycling.

One of these stores has a loving ton of old out-of-print RPGs and board games, all still being sold for original list price. Which is both good and bad.

But this store also carries zero current indie games. No stand-alone indies, nothing Powered by the Apocalypse, not even a loving Fate Core book. Nothing. I think the closest they have is LotFP.

# ¿ Apr 11, 2018 22:23

Evil Mastermind: Apr 28, 2008

Yeah, it's a small independently owned store. Citadel Games in Connecticut. They don't even have an actual web site.

# ¿ Apr 11, 2018 23:09

Evil Mastermind: Apr 28, 2008

alg posted:

How many FLGS stock indie RPGs? My store carries many mainstream RPGs and will order any RPG I ask, but doesn't really stock many indie games outside of 13th age and NBA. Most RPGs sit on the shelf for months outside of 5E.

Modern Myths in Massachusetts is very heavily invested in indie RPGs, to the point where I think they have more indie stuff than D&D.

Unfortunately, they're two hours away from me.

# ¿ Apr 12, 2018 17:10

Evil Mastermind: Apr 28, 2008

Splicer posted:

e: ARB and EM do you mind if I cross-post your posts to the BWM thread?

Sure. What thread is that?

# ¿ Apr 12, 2018 21:18

Evil Mastermind: Apr 28, 2008

I know this should go in the deals thread, but this year's ConTessa bundle is up. $20 gets you a pile of stuff.

Complete games include Crytomancer, Doctor Who, Fear Itself, that N.E.W. game EnWorld put out, an Sharp Swords & Sinister Spells. There's also a book of adventures for the not-terrible new edition of Torg, some adventures, and both books for the Hot Springs Island hexcrawl setting, which I've heard good things about.

# ¿ Apr 25, 2018 00:20

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# ¿ May 10, 2024 02:38

Evil Mastermind: Apr 28, 2008

I've run Blades for six, and it still works despite the usual large group problems.

# ¿ Apr 26, 2018 11:59

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Traditional Games > TG Chat Thread 2018: Please welcome our new mod, Count Strahd von Zarovich

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