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Honestly, I've gone from my previously stated opinion to "oh, she was just misframing this whole thing" to "actually a random trans woman ranting about her personal RPG bugbear shouldn't have exploded into something relevant to the Industry thread in the first place". That isn't a major event, that's a normal thread on rpg.net. Or any given Friday in any Discord server I'm in. In conclusion, Vox Valentine posted:Twitter should be destroyed.
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May 1, 2024 22:01
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dwarf74 posted:Wait wait wait. Agreed. Tomkin has a vision for how the game is supposed to work, a hell of a lot of playtest experience with these mechanics, and he's being explicit about why the rules are the way they are. My only disagreement with how it's presented is that (3) ought to be a little longer, and include something to the effect of, "If you do this, it's going to cause unintended consequences. Be mindful when you make changes to the system." Jimbozig posted:Is it a difficulty option, though? It's not clear from the text that's what it is or does. Like, absolutely it might be. My first thought was that it might help keep certain kinds of players from ruining the game despite themselves (e.g. hoarding potions type of thing). But difficulty setting is plausible, too. Like I've been saying, just a brief explanation of why a player might or might not choose this option would make the whole issue moot. It's not as clear to readers who aren't familiar with the base system, but people who have played Starforged and then bought this expansion for it will absolutely know it's a difficulty option, and one that has sweeping impacts on the game. To put it in terms that might be more familiar to the audience in this thread, it's very much like if Apocalypse World said "You can't ever have more than +5 to your rolls, between your stats and your moves. Unless you want to, in which case, go for it." This isn't being flippant, that's a close comparison in terms of what it does to the math of the core dice mechanics. Anyone who's played AW or one of its close variants (Masks, etc) to the end of a campaign knows what happens when the characters start maxing out: the things they're good at becomes basically impossible to fail, and this very deliberate design choice pushes the campaign toward its conclusion somewhere between sessions 8-12 on average. It's part of what makes Apocalypse World so compelling: it has a narrative arc built into its mechanics, and you can't escape it. Ironsworn/Starforged characters roll 1d6+[stat and adds] and compares the result to a pair of d10s: if you get higher than both d10s, you have a full success; if you're higher than one of the d10s, you have a partial; if you're lower than both, you fail. Your stats are hard-capped at +3 (and only one of them can even reach +3), and what the default Sundered Isles rules are saying is, in addition to your stat of (maximum +3), you can get up to +3 more from your character's special abilities ("assets"). Thus, 1d6+6 for a range of 7-10 (you can never roll higher than 10) compared to a pair of d10s, and you have to beat - not just equal, but exceed - at least one of them for a success. You're almost assured to succeed at that point, though never guaranteed, and you're quite likely to succeed unconditionally. Taking the cap off of adds from assets starts tilting that even more strongly toward "you will succeed without complications / consequences almost every time," though the cap of 10 on the d6 means there's always some risk. One of the key phrases in Tomkin's excerpt there is that "you've worked hard to acquire your assets" - what's going unstated there, because experienced players already know it, is that getting enough assets that you have more than three that could all apply to the same roll would take A Long Time, or it would mean you're hyper-specializing basically from chargen onward. What this rule is essentially saying is, "If you want your character to be so badass at the one or two things you've invested heavily in, that they will virtually never fail a roll and will usually succeed without any consequence whatsoever, remove the cap on bonuses from your assets." So yes, in one sense it's a difficulty setting. But in another sense it's a meaningful hack of a game that wants "success with a complication" to always be on the table. Edit: Lurks With Wolves posted:Honestly, I've gone from my previously stated opinion to "oh, she was just misframing this whole thing" to "actually a random trans woman ranting about her personal RPG bugbear shouldn't have exploded into something relevant to the Industry thread in the first place". That isn't a major event, that's a normal thread on rpg.net. Or any given Friday in any Discord server I'm in. I yearn for the days when RPG discussion took place on Anywhere But Twitter And Discord, it's so awful.
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May 1, 2024 22:09
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Lurks With Wolves posted:Honestly, I've gone from my previously stated opinion to "oh, she was just misframing this whole thing" to "actually a random trans woman ranting about her personal RPG bugbear shouldn't have exploded into something relevant to the Industry thread in the first place". That isn't a major event, that's a normal thread on rpg.net. Or any given Friday in any Discord server I'm in.
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May 1, 2024 22:10
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Yeah, framing her as "random" is sorta disingenuous. She's a professional reviewer. She's bigger than I am, and I get listener response in here sometimes.
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May 1, 2024 22:13
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dwarf74 posted:This is a discussion of part of the rpg industry, including an author and a critic, both with substantial-ish audiences, and (potentially) an important topic. It belongs here just fine. Or would have in the chat thread, too, tbh. Objectively, you're right. Subjectively... my opinions on how modern social media shapes interactions for the worse and encourages bad behavior is way too off-topic.
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May 1, 2024 22:15
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theironjef posted:Yeah, framing her as "random" is sorta disingenuous. She's a professional reviewer. She's bigger than I am, and I get listener response in here sometimes.
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May 1, 2024 22:16
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Was gonna make a joke about you posting here, but... this ain't modern, it's Something Awful. I'm posting from the back of a dinosaur.
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May 1, 2024 22:16
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theironjef posted:"This is the work of a coward" It’s ironic that she immediately folds on her statement with caveats given her entire point is that for your authorial voice to be respected you must have full confidence in what you say.
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May 1, 2024 22:17
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dwarf74 posted:You're dead to me, Mr. Podcast Man, until you get around to Powers & Perils. Fine, but I'm just gonna harp on it having one of those "super realistic" character creation processes that makes no sense and takes three hours, plus stealing art from Frazetta. I think there's a copy in my stuff somewhere. Edit: Well hey it was two copies. 
theironjef fucked around with this message at 22:31 on May 1, 2024 |
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May 1, 2024 22:20
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theironjef posted:Was gonna make a joke about you posting here, but... this ain't modern, it's Something Awful. I'm posting from the back of a dinosaur. These old bones will outlive the rest of the internet. I’ll toxx on it.
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May 1, 2024 22:21
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dwarf74 posted:This is a discussion of part of the rpg industry, including an author and a critic, both with substantial-ish audiences, and (potentially) an important topic. It belongs here just fine. Or would have in the chat thread, too, tbh. Belatedly, I think I mostly just went "she has a 'had a tweet go mildly memetic' number of followers" and labeled her a complete rando without thinking about how basically everyone in this industry is a complete rando by social media standards.
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May 1, 2024 22:35
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theironjef posted:Was gonna make a joke about you posting here, but... this ain't modern, it's Something Awful. I'm posting from the back of a dinosaur. As Raven C.S. McCracken would have wanted it.
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May 1, 2024 22:44
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dwarf74 posted:That's more or less exactly what it says, in context, isn't it? There's even a good explanation of why this rule might help, what experience using it provides, and why you may decide not to. Oh lol, I hadn't seen the expanded screenshot. I had only seen the original posted on Twitter. You're right, the preceding paragraphs absolutely explain in some detail why you would want to use the rule. Damnit, serves me right for trusting any screenshot out of context. I still don't think it should have #3 there at all. The fact that these are already explicitly called "guidelines" following that context makes #3 entirely redundant. It is in the nature of guidelines to guide but not restrict. But that's absolutely just a nitpick about presentation. This is not something I would think worthy of calling out. Now I'm just wondering why this example of all things was what sparked off this whole debate. I think it's a useful discussion to have, but a good discussion needs good examples to reference, otherwise it's just people talking past one another! Here I am making three posts about "the author should have done X" and then I see the slightly longer screenshot where the author does precisely X and I feel foolish.
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May 1, 2024 22:47
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Bottom Liner posted:It’s ironic that she immediately folds on her statement with caveats given her entire point is that for your authorial voice to be respected you must have full confidence in what you say. drat it’s like writing for a produced text that is being formally critiqued has different connotations than writing a Twitter thread in your second language while making the mistake of being trans online. (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)
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May 1, 2024 22:50
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Mr. Maltose posted:drat it’s like writing for a produced text that is being formally critiqued has different connotations than writing a Twitter thread in your second language while making the mistake of being trans online. Uhhhh what are you implying here
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May 1, 2024 22:52
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That saying “Aha! I’ve caught the hypocrite, hoist by her own petard!” because there are additional posts explaining things to people who are acting in bad faith ( which I’m not claiming you are, I’m talking about the responses to the thread on Twitter) is not actually the same as having authorial confidence in a game someone presumably spent time effort and craft into creating and does not need the backfill of “unless you don’t”. Like, these are very disparate circumstances of writing.
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May 1, 2024 23:01
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Her entire thread is based on the “I do this professionally take my authority seriously” so the “she’s just posting on twitter it’s not serious” point doesn’t support her own words. I don’t think a professional critic writing a series of 25+ in depth and very specifically critical tweets is beyond pushback. No one is critiquing her command of the English language, brevity, or anything else related to the platform she chose to post on (and I would have never guessed she wasn’t a native English speaker). Her identity also has nothing to do with the pusback anyone here is raising. If that’s happening on twitter that’s bullshit, but the way you brought it up here 100% read as accusing us of that. Bottom Liner fucked around with this message at 23:14 on May 1, 2024 |
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May 1, 2024 23:10
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Mister Olympus posted:edition war brain is all consuming, everything that bears a resemblance to one of 5e's major failings is a curse 5e directly put on the form Now now, it also has to do with residual enmity towards the OSR, not just 5e
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May 1, 2024 23:11
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But you're claiming that she's insisting that all writing must have this authorial confidence, a thing she never claimed and in fact would probably be a goofass thing to require! She's discussing specifically authorial confidence in the context of authoring a tabletop roleplaying game, not writing a twitter thread, so saying she "Immediately folded" is just not true. And again I'm not saying anyone here is being transphobic but if Striga was a cis dude that thread wouldn't have caused enough of a twitter ruckus to be posted.
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May 1, 2024 23:15
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Mr. Maltose posted:That saying “Aha! I’ve caught the hypocrite, hoist by her own petard!” because there are additional posts explaining things to people who are acting in bad faith ( which I’m not claiming you are, I’m talking about the responses to the thread on Twitter) is not actually the same as having authorial confidence in a game someone presumably spent time effort and craft into creating and does not need the backfill of “unless you don’t”. Oh well at least this is a great example of how "*Posts quote* One must be confident in their writing, not a coward" "Hey" "Oh no not you, other cowards" reads in a sort of ironic way.
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May 1, 2024 23:16
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I'm sorry to have explained myself further?
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May 1, 2024 23:20
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Author in question here. Finally ponying up for that SA tax after lurking for a decade or three. I'm enjoying the conversation! I like to stay out of indie TTRPG drama, so it's a bummer seeing a bunch of folks on my Twitter feed pointing and laughing at something I wrote. I deal with imposter and outsider syndromes enough as it is. But the mild debate here seems pretty well-reasoned, and I suppose I need to take my occasional lumps. Scanning the past few pages, it seems like most folks have sussed out the specific bit of text in a fairly good fashion. The extra context makes the intent fairly clear, and playtesters seemed to grok the intent without issue. It's also just a bit of a cheeky "hey, I needed a third rule for my 'Rule of 3'". Would I have considered presenting it differently if I knew it'd be lambasted on Twitter for the front-half of a week? Yeah, probably. But my game expansions are essentially toolkits of options, so there tends to be occasional reminders when something is extra-especially subject to whatever works at your table. Edit: and now the stupid newbie avatar caps off my week of shame. Oh, well. Shawn Tomkin fucked around with this message at 23:23 on May 1, 2024 |
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May 1, 2024 23:20
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Hey, I have some friends I'm trying to convince to play a GMless run of Starforged. Nice to see you here.
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May 1, 2024 23:27
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Personally I got no beef with rule zero or houseruling or ignoring rules or whatever we're calling it. I have my own set of critical beefs, and to me this sort of reads like the critic picked just exactly the wrong time to make the point. Like for me a big one is unnecessarily gendering stuff in a game. Most notably any time a seduction skill or the equivalent mentions "the opposite sex" which is just adding extra words to be needlessly phobic. I call it out when I see it, every time. But like if the language of seduction in a game like Thirsty Sword Lesbians read like "You can use this to seduce women" (I'm very confident it actually doesn't, thought I haven't read it) I'd probably think twice before dashing off to twitter to score my points. To me that seems to be what happened here. She had a general beef, came across just like exactly the wrong specific example to take a shot at, and took the shot anyway.
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May 1, 2024 23:29
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Hey welcome, enjoyed your games a lot and showed them to some friends that were blown away by the concept. Another bit of missing context that is common to the solo RPG niche even more than broader games is that the “pick and choose” idea is much, much more common with players here. People are always mixing entire systems, such as using a DnD system for combat and a PbtA or Ironsworn style game for narrative play, etc.
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May 1, 2024 23:30
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Shawn Tomkin posted:Author in question here. Finally ponying up for that SA tax after lurking for a decade or three. its customary to post a introduction thread in SAD (Something Awful Discussion) if you're a new user btw. It's near the bottom of the subforum list, can't miss it.
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May 1, 2024 23:31
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Bottom Liner posted:Abit of missing context that is common to the solo RPG niche even more than broader games is that the “pick and choose” idea is much, much more common with players here. People are always mixing entire systems, such as using a DnD system for combat and a PbtA or Ironsworn style game for narrative play, etc. One of my personal favorite games is Sentinels the Roleplaying Game, which does not have an out of combat skill system. To me it doesn't matter, I tend to run with a very storygamey crowd and they know exactly how to act out superhero downtime, and whether or not they find anything in the town records building or whatever is going to come down to how they want the story to go. But I do have one table I've run it for who absolutely ground to a halt on it, could not move forward without a skill system, it was like it just broke their very concept of games (I wonder how they'd deal with a game prior to 3e D&D where skills were either not present or clearly marked as optional), but to appease them I just bolted on the skill system from Strike! because it's super simple to remember, and we played just fine.
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May 1, 2024 23:33
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Bottom Liner posted:Uhhhh what are you implying here Part of the extended rambling about social media being the worst I already decided was off-topic is about how trans women are reliably hit harder by the random bursts of pointless outrage that these sites encourage, partially because biases against them (intentional or unexamined), partially it ends up putting them in a position where seeing themselves and others deal with that all the time makes them abrasive and thus easier to form a weirdly angry bubble against. The point is, again, social media sucks and being a trans woman with an actual presence on social media sucks more and I'm going to force myself to leave it at this before I ramble further about off-topic things. (Also, welcome to the forums. Not implying anything about you specifically with this, just the broader dynamics of people at large and how things escalate into drama and callouts and I am very tired.)
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May 1, 2024 23:35
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LatwPIAT posted:GUMSHOE is designed in such a way that it's more difficult to write an investigative scenario where a single, failed roll stops everything dead. If that's a problem you're having, GUMSHOE can be useful, but it's also just a good design practice not to write a scenario such that a single, failed roll stops everything dead--you hardly need GUMSHOE to avoid this pitfall if you already know it's there. This is true but doesn't really affect my point? You're saying GUMSHOE is training wheels, and training wheels make certain types of accidents less likely, and I agree with that; my point is that training wheels also make certain types of trick markedly more difficult, and that's also true of GUMSHOE. (Also, Pelgrane's marketing and breathless GUMSHOE advocates have totally claimed from time to time it eliminates the possibility of oops-full-stop scenario design, rather than merely making it difficult.)
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May 1, 2024 23:38
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theironjef posted:One of my personal favorite games is Sentinels the Roleplaying Game, which does not have an out of combat skill system. To me it doesn't matter, I tend to run with a very storygamey crowd and they know exactly how to act out superhero downtime, and whether or not they find anything in the town records building or whatever is going to come down to how they want the story to go. But I do have one table I've run it for who absolutely ground to a halt on it, could not move forward without a skill system, it was like it just broke their very concept of games (I wonder how they'd deal with a game prior to 3e D&D where skills were either not present or clearly marked as optional), but to appease them I just bolted on the skill system from Strike! because it's super simple to remember, and we played just fine. Also, to continue a diversion that's at least about RPGs, I do have one complaint about how Sentinels handles non-combat: as a game, it has the self-awareness and awareness of its genre to know that there are going to be the occasional plot-important political ball or an issue that's just THE TRIAL OF THE FLASH and they should be modeled using the same resolution system as fights when they come up, but not enough awareness to make sure people have interesting things to do mechanically in those fights. It could honestly be fixed by writing a few pages on how to run social/mental challenges like fights and how to recontextualize powers to make them fit those types of scenes, but it still feels like a hole. (And again, that shows that this isn't necessarily just an old vs new thing, because what I described is basically applying a Fate fractal model to a relatively crunchy system for comic book action instead of a relatively simple generic pulp action system.)
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May 1, 2024 23:45
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Lurks With Wolves posted:(And again, that shows that this isn't necessarily just an old vs new thing, because what I described is basically applying a Fate fractal model to a relatively crunchy system for comic book action instead of a relatively simple generic pulp action system.) Plus they're also both relatively new. Honestly I just don't find myself missing non-combat content when I'm playing it. I hadn't given thought to the bigger moments in comics history that aren't combat focused, and don't know exactly how I'd handle something like Trial of the Flash, beyond that it had an absolute ton of fights happening both around and during the trial itself, so it could easily be the backdrop while all the Rogue's Gallery are going absolutely ham on trying to ruin Flash in the fore. All that Pied Piper mind controlling the mayor and Kadabra using magic on the jury stuff could make sense recontextualized as a series of cleanup fights for various JL members. Definitely food for thought though.
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May 1, 2024 23:54
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I didn't realize they wrote a manifesto in the replies and the mind blowing 180 to accuse someone of being a coward until they show up and then immediately backing down is incredible 10/10 no notes
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May 2, 2024 00:01
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Hey that's just updating your beliefs based on evidence. If you call someone a coward and they show up, guess they aren't a coward.
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May 2, 2024 00:04
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why does some Twitter rando posting like a penny arcade blog post about an indie game even rate as discussion material
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May 2, 2024 00:10
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mellonbread posted:Hey that's just updating your beliefs based on evidence. If you call someone a coward and they show up, guess they aren't a coward. if you yell "come out and face me, coward" and the person does in fact come out and face you, does that mean your challenge was retroactively not directed at them? food for thought
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May 2, 2024 00:11
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Farg posted:why does some Twitter rando posting like a penny arcade blog post about an indie game even rate as discussion material dwarf74 posted:This is a discussion of part of the rpg industry, including an author and a critic, both with substantial-ish audiences, and (potentially) an important topic. It belongs here just fine. Or would have in the chat thread, too, tbh. Same reason basically: she's a somewhat prominent game critic apparently, and the subject of her criticism is a common and relevant topic about games.
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May 2, 2024 00:25
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Kestral posted:
Monkey's paw curls a finger, Google+ starts back up
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May 2, 2024 00:27
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I mean that's like the fourth person to ask that, so maybe we do need to sit down as a group and itemize exactly how famous someone has to be before their opinion about a thing that happens in games or the games industry becomes worthy of discussion. Let's start the bidding at... those people that post youtube videos about how to play as Megaman in 5e D&D. Do you have to be more or less famous than them before you are not a rando and your topic can be bothered with by us, the intelligentsia?
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May 2, 2024 00:29
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Tendales posted:Monkey's paw curls a finger, Google+ starts back up google+ rocked rip
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May 2, 2024 00:29
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Maybe we shouldn't look too closely or we'll have to grapple with the possibility that there isn't an industry at all. Just a bunch of hobbyists with varying delusions of grandeur that periodically get victimized by the publishing industry.
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May 2, 2024 00:37
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