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Nifara posted:Kevin Crawford is, in my eyes, the uncontested champion of RPG kickstarters. The man never misses a beat and even if you're not someone who goes for his stuff normally you have to admit it's superbly and expertly done, with solid production values and, yes, delivers ahead of schedule. John Wick has impressed me with 7th Sea 2, as well. I don't like some of his mechanics choices, but the products are showing up on time and well done.
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Feb 16, 2018 06:57
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Kai Tave posted:Paizo is a successful RPG company and they're also something of an outlier these days, they aren't a model that anyone else can really hope to replicate since a fair chunk of their success is largely due to unique circumstances. Every successful RPG company has unique circumstances. Only one company got to sign Eastman & Laird before they were millionaires. Only one company figured out how to get punks with literal mohawks to color in multiple-choice character tests. Only one company had just gotten enough money from colored cardboard to buy out TSR when they were failing. I'm not sure that's a meaningful statement. Every exceptional success is an exception by definition. Mors Rattus posted:No one has hard data on Paizo sales of anything, ever, because Paizo doesn't publish that data. They sold several thousand copies of Starfinger at GenCon, at least based on statements they made. senrath posted:Pretty sure it was just that ARB typoed it once and it stuck. I just kept doing it as a typo behind the scenes and was like "You know, there's no way that's any stupider than Starfinder, so to heck with it." I understand why they named it that, but, wow, that's an cringeworthy compound designed for brand recognition and literally nothing else. It really is pretty appalling. Starfinger is better. Never say I didn't do Paizo any favors.
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Feb 16, 2018 08:08
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Slimnoid posted:Their business is build on attracting 3.x grogs, who are very sensitive to change, so yeah Paizo's likely to shrink with their market while pumping out a half-dozen iterations of a 15-year-old system.
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Feb 16, 2018 08:26
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Alien Rope Burn posted:Every successful RPG company has unique circumstances. Only one company got to sign Eastman & Laird before they were millionaires. Only one company figured out how to get punks with literal mohawks to color in multiple-choice character tests. Only one company had just gotten enough money from colored cardboard to buy out TSR when they were failing. I'm not sure that's a meaningful statement. Every exceptional success is an exception by definition. My point is that Paizo can get away with having a more traditional, older style business model of having full time employees, an actual headquarters, etc. because of the circumstances surrounding their establishment as a breakaway RPG publisher. The post which kicked off this tangent about what constitutes a successful RPG business was one that held Onyx Path up as an example of a company "on life support" which is pretty foolish and short-sighted imo, defining success in RPG publishing terms as "has an actual headquarters and full time employees and a CEO" means that nobody except Paizo and WotC qualify as "successful," which is obviously not a very accurate way of looking at how the hobby had transitioned into a different sort of model over the years. No, I doubt that Kevin Crawford brings in as much money as Paizo or WotC do, but claiming that he isn't successful because he does his thing thanks to crowdfunding is wrongheaded, and the same goes for Onyx Path, Arc Dream/Greg Stolze, Evil Hat, etc.
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Feb 16, 2018 08:26
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Simian_Prime posted:Feels like all that’s needed to pull the rug out from Paizo is for Wizards to release a setting that’s explicitly “D&D, but in Space.” Spelljammer revival
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Feb 16, 2018 09:29
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D&D Post-Modern
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Feb 16, 2018 10:49
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rumble in the bunghole posted:Spelljammer revival Starfinder is more dnd but scifi Spelljammer is more high fantasy on the high space waves.
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Feb 16, 2018 12:43
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Kai Tave posted:The post which kicked off this tangent about what constitutes a successful RPG business was one that held Onyx Path up as an example of a company "on life support" which is pretty foolish and short-sighted imo, defining success in RPG publishing terms as "has an actual headquarters and full time employees and a CEO" means that nobody except Paizo and WotC qualify as "successful," which is obviously not a very accurate way of looking at how the hobby had transitioned into a different sort of model over the years. No, I doubt that Kevin Crawford brings in as much money as Paizo or WotC do, but claiming that he isn't successful because he does his thing thanks to crowdfunding is wrongheaded, and the same goes for Onyx Path, Arc Dream/Greg Stolze, Evil Hat, etc. Well, if one were to define a company's success by having a headquarters and a warehouse and full-time employees, Palladium Books would also qualify. Of course, that's more likely an echo of past success than present, so you're right that isn't necessarily an indicator by itself. There are also just RPG companies that make their primary biz outside of RPGs that have traditional business setups, like Fantasy Flight Games and Steve Jackson Games. It is definitely a solid indicator of a certain level of success, but it also requires creating a product that's short on risk, and it's rare to see that in the RPG industry. Also, Wizards of the Coast also employs about as many full-time people on D&D as Evil Hat or Onyx Path does in general. So while D&D has much more in the way of monetary backing, it isn't a huge business as a individual brand.
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Feb 16, 2018 15:03
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whydirt posted:Where did the meme of calling it Starfinger come from? The Legion of Superheroes villain, obviously 
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Feb 16, 2018 15:20
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I think interpreting it as a James Bond pun offers the best advice. Starfinger It’s the brand The brand with the Midas touch But you mustn’t touch
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Feb 16, 2018 16:50
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hell yeah new thread. now im technically caught up
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Feb 16, 2018 17:30
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Simian_Prime posted:Feels like all that’s needed to pull the rug out from Paizo is for Wizards to release a setting that’s explicitly “D&D, but in Space.” Back in the 4e days I was working on a bit of a homebrew thing for D&D in space. A lot of it was quite fun to stat up but I may have gone a smidge overboard in trying to figure out if it was feasible to do zero-G combat. One of these days I'll rework that setting into a system less trashy than D&D. It had some quirky fun bits included, with an overall more "industrial" sort of feel than your standard Spelljammer stuff. Basically a magitech kind of thing, I suppose.
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Feb 16, 2018 18:39
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Fuego Fish posted:Back in the 4e days I was working on a bit of a homebrew thing for D&D in space. A lot of it was quite fun to stat up but I may have gone a smidge overboard in trying to figure out if it was feasible to do zero-G combat. I was able to brute Force 3D combat with a die showing relative elevation to a fixed point (the dragon they were all fighting), but it was clunky
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Feb 17, 2018 02:11
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Elizabeth Mills posted:I was able to brute Force 3D combat with a die showing relative elevation to a fixed point (the dragon they were all fighting), but it was clunky 3D wasn't the issue, it was the whole momentum thing. I got about two iterations into this subsystem for pushing off walls and stuff when I thought "hang on this is needlessly complex".
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Feb 17, 2018 07:46
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Rigged Death Trap posted:Starfinder is more dnd but scifi Which could also be fun, but I was imagining more of a sci-fi bent to it. Hell, now that I think of it, the Far Future of the Forgotten Realms could be a fun, goofy setting. A second Avatar War allows the gods to take off the brakes on Toril’s overall tech level. With the Weave being pushed out into outer space, and many of the fallen gods still controlling parts of the planet as petty tyrants, there’s impetus now to explore the stars. Magic is harnessed to explore the stars. Elminster’s a cyborg now. That sort of thing. You’ve got a setting with instant marketability, and even the janky 5e ruleset is still better than Starfinger. Simian_Prime fucked around with this message at 09:20 on Feb 17, 2018 |
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Feb 17, 2018 08:29
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Fuego Fish posted:3D wasn't the issue, it was the whole momentum thing. I got about two iterations into this subsystem for pushing off walls and stuff when I thought "hang on this is needlessly complex".
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Feb 17, 2018 11:56
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Goa Tse-tung posted:D&D Post-Modern Deonstructivist Hero Poststructural Hero Intertextual Hero Semiotic Hero Pastiche Hero
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Feb 17, 2018 18:27
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Goa Tse-tung posted:D&D Post-Modern Dungeons & Doom Patrol
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Feb 17, 2018 18:33
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Fuego Fish posted:3D wasn't the issue, it was the whole momentum thing. I got about two iterations into this subsystem for pushing off walls and stuff when I thought "hang on this is needlessly complex". 3d movement with zero g inertia would be extremely weird when put onto a grid without a computer running the calculations.
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Feb 17, 2018 22:53
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Xelkelvos posted:3d movement with zero g inertia would be extremely weird when put onto a grid without a computer running the calculations. Yeah, I figured that out fairly fast, so I just sort of handwaved in some artificial gravity stuff to the setting and made a "freefall" status that made you immobile while doubling forced movement effects as a quick hack, as well as some minor magic item "magnetic boots" type footwear to make you immune.
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Feb 17, 2018 23:15
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Surely some game has rules for that. I'm thinking about how to abstract it out right now and I'm pretty sure I could work something out.
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Feb 18, 2018 02:05
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Goa Tse-tung posted:D&D Post-Modern 
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Feb 18, 2018 06:10
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3d movement in and of itself isn't hard. It's the inertia that's hard. First off, assume everyone can air brake unless they do the equivalent of a dash where they get extra movement. Every hit/attack has knockback and recoil based on die or damage or something. Bouncing off of stuff voluntarily, should just be part of movement with a movement bonus equal to Str modifier but maybe be a feat or something. Involuntary bouncing should just be up to someone and just move in some direction away from the initial movement. idk what else is necessary
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Feb 18, 2018 06:35
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Xelkelvos posted:3d movement with zero g inertia would be extremely weird when put onto a grid without a computer running the calculations. Even just 2D-based vector movement in a TT game gets really ugly, much less 3D- I've seen several games do it but I can't think of one that did it gracefully. It's a gimmick that's best abstracted unless your name completely centers around it.
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Feb 18, 2018 08:36
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potatocubed posted:Yeah, Paizo are a pretty interesting case because they're clearly in the business of selling RPGs, not designing RPGs. They've twigged that a good product is less important to the bottom line than a good sales engine, and they're riding that train as far as it'll go. Well, and there's the Adventure Path stuff. I'm pretty sure there's a substantial number of people who stick with Pathfinder entirely because (a) GMing for a crunchy game is hard, (b) having literally years' worth of start-to-end content available makes that way easier, and (c) most players are stuck with whatever system the GM wants to use. Dr. Quarex posted:Bricolage Hero more, please
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Feb 18, 2018 10:44
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Alien Rope Burn posted:Even just 2D-based vector movement in a TT game gets really ugly, much less 3D- I've seen several games do it but I can't think of one that did it gracefully. It's a gimmick that's best abstracted unless your name completely centers around it. Fragged Empire?
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Feb 18, 2018 15:29
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Mors Rattus posted:Fragged Empire? Fragged Empire just delays maneuvering to loosely simulate the difficulties in vector-based movement, but it's not a "true" vector-based movement system where you're tracking both thrust and vector at all times. It's a good compromise, tho.
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Feb 18, 2018 16:55
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Alien Rope Burn posted:Even just 2D-based vector movement in a TT game gets really ugly, much less 3D- I've seen several games do it but I can't think of one that did it gracefully. It's a gimmick that's best abstracted unless your name completely centers around it. It works better in games where you don't track movement and position down to the 5' square. Conan, for example, just has "zones" and you are generally 0 (in melee), 1 (maybe in melee if you're really big or have extreme reach), 2, or 3 zones away from your enemy. The exact size of a zone is highly variable and dependent on how easy movement might be... so it could be individual rooms in a house, or an open clearing the size of a football field might only have 4 zones in it. Defining zones in 3d isn't much harder than 2d, particularly since miniatures and a board aren't entirely necessary, and at that point you can have characters deliberately moving from zone to zone if they can, or drifting through zones by momentum if they can't. Or just go full-blown theater of the mind, gently caress it. Leave the fully-simulated 3d zero-g tactical combat to computer games.
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Feb 19, 2018 05:52
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It helps that, so long as there are a maximum of three ships in the combat, you can represent everything on a 2d plane.
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Feb 19, 2018 05:58
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Kurieg posted:It helps that, so long as there are a maximum of three ships in the combat, you can represent everything on a 2d plane. Now add orbital mechanics...
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Feb 19, 2018 06:00
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doesn't Traveller assume space combat is done with Newtonian physics?
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Feb 19, 2018 10:36
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In terms of space combat, I do like that Rogue Trader handwaves a lot of it by saying that combat is more along the lines of traditional naval combat and that your actions do take a lot of time. It's generally assumed that you're doing all of these things that might involve vectors/3D space but in the long run just turn out to be modeled best in the typical 2D format. Instead of worrying about physics and vectors you get to focus on doing more interesting things, like riling up the crew with motivational speeches, pulling a Scotty in the engine room and getting 'just that much more out 'o 'er cap'n', using your spooky psychic powers to explode ordinance inside the enemy vessel before it gets to fire them, and in general just focusing on the broader level of things that you can do as part of naval combat. This is a setting where you can fight literal space whales too, so I'm pretty OK that it doesn't try to go too hard for verisimilitude.
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Feb 19, 2018 17:33
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Someday I'd like to see mechanics for space combat more along the lines of the Culture novels, where it's resolved from light minutes away in the dark of space, largely with invisible weapons, and executed unimaginably fast from unbelievably powerful ship Minds.
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Feb 19, 2018 17:38
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Fred Hicks talking about the effect streaming has on game sales (particularly TAZ's recent Monster of the Week game): https://twitter.com/fredhicks/status/965631462124015616
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Feb 19, 2018 18:55
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Ugh, I can't believe people are still falling for Fred Hicks's obvious scam of combining audience engagement with prompt and cheerful customer service.
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Feb 19, 2018 19:01
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What is SA TG's opinion, of Fred Hicks's opinion, of gun control??
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Feb 19, 2018 20:36
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Bedlamdan posted:What is SA TG's opinion, of Fred Hicks's opinion, of gun control?? It probably doesn't go far enough. 
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Feb 19, 2018 21:09
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LatwPIAT posted:It probably doesn't go far enough. I think that guns, like tornados, are beyond human power.
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Feb 19, 2018 21:21
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Being a person who rarely enjoys watching other people play games, I often forget that streaming exists. The idea of it outpacing conventions for modern game-selling is interesting though, just a sign of a changing world. I'd still rather go to a gaming convention than watch a stream, generally speaking, but most of the time I choose to do neither of those things and buy my games based on
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Feb 19, 2018 22:35
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If I can get an impression of how a game works without having to go to a convention full of sweaty neckbeards to play it then hell yeah I'm going to watch a stream of it.
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Feb 19, 2018 23:17
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