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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. Right now it's a question of how much further it's going to go, things like Starfinger show that they want to expand but their business model itself really limits how much they can change what they're working with unless they want to flip the coin on whether or not they'll win an edition war of their own making
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Feb 15, 2018 17:38
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Arivia posted:Starfinder has been stupid successful for them, so don't expect much change. Anything besides anecdotal on that? Only thing I can find is some anecdotal stuff about them being sold out places, which means anything from raging demand to a small print run or small order sizes
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Feb 15, 2018 17:54
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Arivia posted:Starfinder in Paizo's own words sold out very quickly in general. Their entire print run was gone, not just of the core rulebooks but auxiliary stuff too. Paizo quickly ran a second print run including things they don't normally do second printings of, like the first two volumes of the Dead Suns adventure path. This is not their usual second printing setup for even staple Pathfinder books - they rushed it ASAP. Yeah, it's just impossible to find out the size of their printings so that info by itself is basically meaningless; okay, they sold out, but they could have had five book print run so...
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Feb 15, 2018 19:11
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Arivia posted:It's not. We don't need objective numbers, we can conclude that it was profitable and a success because of Paizo's reach, presentation, and their statements on the matter. You might not be familiar with Paizo's releases, but they don't do five copy print runs, and they sell through much more than that. So the question is if Starfinder is a good enough success to keep Paizo going on this model and your argument is that they say they're doing awesomely so that must mean it's true? These are the people that brought us Pathfinder Online - they're very good in their niche, but they're not flawless deities of business. And honestly their current market is gonna continue shrinking bit by bit unless they do try different stuff - so they'll either shrink with their market or try to change. Though yeah my money would be on shrinking with the market opposed to changing, too.
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Feb 15, 2018 21:37
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Arivia posted:It's been mixed sometimes, sure, but Paizo's design team has consistently gone on the record as having a better eye for things than you'd think. They've been pretty upfront about how they're carrying 3.5 baggage they deliberately didn't eject for compatibility reasons in the first edition of Pathfinder, and that they can do better. This is their chance to fix that, and being aware of the actual issues with their system is a good step. I don't know what this means. They have a 'better eye for things'? What are some of these things? Hit me with some awesome design decisions they've eyed. As for being upfront about carrying 3.5E baggage that is a regular laugh riot. They took 3.5E and released a houseruled version of it, this isn't that they're carrying baggage they can't eject for 'compatibility' this is baggage they are carrying because they packed it and continue to include it in everything they do.
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Mar 10, 2018 04:18
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Xae posted:A ton of balance is dependent on the GM. Okay but no. In the first instance, you're going to see (smart) casters dominate the majority of fights still and then slowly taper off but still be very effective. A single decently placed control or damage spell and an encounter is guaranteed for the party. Meanwhile, if it's a 2-3 encounter day they can just unload like a jilted Zeus all over the place until smoking craters are all that remain. quote:And the balance issues don't become super blatant until fairly high level. And this is wrong unless you count "after level 4" as fairly high level. Even at level 1 most casters pull ahead simply in the options available department, and the gap widens as levels give more tricks. It's not as bad as 3E, but seriously the balance issues are there from level 1. Unless you're primed to see them as just part of the game, I guess.
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Mar 10, 2018 18:18
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Arivia posted:No, it's true. Better content, better system, better designers. 5e is the dregs of pretty much everything and it really, really shows. I asked before but I'll ask again; what are these good design choices that Paizo's devs have made? I get it's easy to rag on 5E, it's a bad game, but... 5E actually tried to address the 3.5E baggage that you excuse Pathfinder for clinging to pathologically. Like they actually tried, with mixed success for sure, but that is far more than Pathfinder has done in the ten years they've run their show. Also the Spellplague was the best thing to happen to the ridiculously overburdened with DMPC Realms and it was improved roughly a million times by dumping (insert your favorite lovely overpowered character from a lovely FR book here) into an incinerator.
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Mar 10, 2018 18:24
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Xae posted:I didn't know that "encounter design impacts game balance" was a controversial statement. It's not that, it's that "encounter design is haaaaard" is a terrible excuse. 4E gets brought up a lot but... seriously, it fixed the multiple encounters thing because now people had about as many resources per person to deal with issues - so a Fighter is going roughly as strong as a Wizard at the same point in the adventuring 'day'. And it's not even the only system that 'fixes' this issue, but bad design apologists like to pretend it's some insurmountable obstacle that D&D could never possibly get past.
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Mar 10, 2018 20:09
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And even if they were like an MMO taunt or whatever how is that any sillier than the gentlemen's agreement that monsters will engage a metal wall while an artillery piece in a bathrobe stands ten feet further back?
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Mar 10, 2018 20:32
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Xae posted:I guess it depends on what you expect a GM to do. This is really disingenuous; limiting the powers of casters is not just as easy as throwing in the right monsters and even if you tried to do that the encounter rules themselves are hot garbage that - just like 3.X - require a pretty significant investment to start churning out regularly good results with. So that's what people talk about when they slam a game like 3.5 or 5E for this poo poo. It's not because the issues literally stop the game from functioning, it's that the issues exist at all because they really really don't have to anymore.
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Mar 10, 2018 21:08
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Warthur posted:In the context of an entertainment product then if people like some aspect of a game, and have fun with it, and say they would find the game less fun if it were taken away, and in fact walk away from versions of the game that don't include it, it seems rich to call it "objectively bad". Subjectively bad? Sure. Bad for a large section of the audience? Sure. Objectively bad? No. Okay so you're not so tight on the words 'objective' and 'subjective' so let me clear this up - people can subjectively like a game, that's within their rights, but because they do like the game does not mean that the game cannot be also objectively a bad game because it presents itself deceptively to the people playing the game.
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Mar 10, 2018 23:24
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gradenko_2000 posted:A lot, and I mean a lot of what we'd come to know of 3rd Edition combat was adapted from AD&D 2e's Combat & Tactics. That probably didn't make the medicine go down any better if it wasn't a widely circulated/played/used book, but it was all there if you looked for it. So 2E AD&D had the player's options books that were very polarizing and morphed into 3E and 3E had Bo9S (and Star Wars: Saga to be fair) that was similarly polarizing and morphed into 4E and 4E had Essentials which was, again, polarizing and turned into 5E we must now put bets on what 5E release will be turned into 6E.
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Mar 11, 2018 08:44
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One Shot's response was amazing and while not every allegation deserves that level of scrutiny it should be what companies go for in serious allegations. Green Ronin is going further in the exact other direction. And Nicole seems to be using her own trauma as a shield for how she handled the whole thing while also putting forward a blanket refusal to discuss the situation, combined with this thing they want to make standard that seems to repeat GR and Lindroos' earlier 'but what about the falsely accused' crap but in actual codified rules. Rules that keep the same bullshit level of opaqueness and uncertainty that made this whole situation worse to begin with. Are they trying to be terrible here?
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Mar 14, 2018 18:01
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Alien Rope Burn posted:The thing is, I don't doubt Lisa Stevens means what she says. She pretty clearly objected to to sexual harassment when she was at Wizards. But I feel like she's also demonstrated a certain blindness to the faults and failures to those she's close to. I'm not saying that to excuse Paizo or Stevens, mind. Being earnest and effective are two different things. I honestly don't know. I'm not familiar with her time at WotC except in the vaguest way, but from what I'm seeing it looks like another person who says they're against the vague concept of sexual harassment but isn't really that against the actual practice of sexual harassment
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Mar 27, 2018 20:02
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Kurieg posted:To a certain extent, he did learn how to fight from the guy who kicked someone so hard he can never walk again. Gaara vs. Rock Lee sort of highlights that he is capable of pretty scary powerful stuff so it is 100% correct to be scared of Rock
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Mar 30, 2018 01:14
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Yes, but Old Toph.
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Mar 30, 2018 15:47
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FordCQC posted:Yeah but Bleach is like a whole 'nother level of anime tits. I stopped watching Bleach when the tiny child comedy sidekick character, turns out, had giant anime tits all along actually. Same as the goddamn cat.
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Apr 11, 2018 19:44
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gourdcaptain posted:Pinnacle's response to this: https://www.pegforum.com/forum/main-forum/9095-savage-rifts%C2%AE-changes-in-duties More than that, it sounds like he voluntarily removed himself only from that position. They flat-out say that they're gonna go to him whenever they think they 'need' to, so it really looks as if they're removing a paper title but keeping him on the drat payroll. edit: Also looking at it again the topic is just 'Changes in Duties' too which is even more hilariously mealy-mouthed. Dude's not (publicly) Brand Manager anymore, that's it. Darwinism fucked around with this message at 23:03 on May 2, 2018 |
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May 2, 2018 21:42
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spectralent posted:A cool friend of mine pointed out a lot of post-jojo shonen is basically a fantasy wizard duel where you're introducing facts about a superpower to counter your opponent's facts until one of you gets trapped being unable to bullshit out of an opening. Only post-jojo?
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May 25, 2018 08:36
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Doc Aquatic posted:It's my understanding (Though, admittedly, not one backed up by a whole lot of research) that shonen fighting manga originally owed a lot more to martial arts stories rooted in wuxia stuff, where there was an emphasis on styles and techniques. You can see a lot of this in Jojo parts 1 and 2 where the ripple is treated as a style multiple people can use and develop techniques within. I mean, somewhat fair, but even the first run of Jojo was a pretty crazy ramping up of stakes and introduction of absurd powers and counters to absurd powers and the villain returning from a frigging decapitation to try and steal the protagonist's body Also I'd argue the original Dragon Ball did the fantasy wizard duel thing sometimes only much more subdued (until DBZ when it was forced to be the forefront)
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May 25, 2018 20:07
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Countblanc posted:even DBZ was only "wizard battles" in the sense that they shot energy lasers, everyone still basically had the exact same toolset but with different names for their otherwise basically identical energy attacks, it was much more a battle of technique and strength rather than using your unique power to win fights (with notable exception of Majin Buu) Spirit Bomb and kaioken?
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May 25, 2018 20:20
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Kaioken and Spirit Bomb were literally the only way Vegeta was beaten, they made Goku capable of withstanding Frieza until his other super special technique kicked in and won the fight for him, etc Hell even Raditz was only beaten because Piccolo had everything-proof-shield-piercing-bullets-the-power
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May 25, 2018 20:25
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Leraika posted:It's like those 'who would win in a fight, superman or goku' arguments, only goku's got breasts for no adequately-explained reason Sells slightly more and the people against it don't not buy. It's the Evony principle before the Evony principle was even a thing.
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May 26, 2018 05:18
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moths posted:Ed Greenwood I don't wanna defend the dude but all the behavior I've heard of is very sexual-harassment-but-we-used-to-accept-it and not exactly Weinstein-level, unless there's new stuff I haven't heard of?
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Jun 3, 2018 19:25
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DocBubonic posted:When it comes to Zak harassing people, what kind of evidence do they have that he isn't a harasser? Is it just that they ask him and people friendly with him if he's a harasser? Or do his victims refuse to say anything in fear of more harassment? His preferred method of harassment is by getting other people to attack his target, so there is a layer of deniability in there that, no matter how tenuous, lets other lovely people go, "Aha, but you see it is not absolutely proven that he uses his followers as a weapon because he did not say it outright while under oath."
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Jul 13, 2018 19:28
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It's kinda odd that it would bring up the false equivalence argument, shut it down, but end up sounding like it's waffling because it gives the olive branch of "but we oppose anyone that uses hate speech" like... that's exactly what the lovely people want to hear because yeah now you're admitting that you think 'the radical left' can be 'just as bad.'
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Jul 13, 2018 21:17
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The problem with highlighting the Clinton Foundation specifically is the exact same as saying that there are "bad people on both sides" - because while that can certainly be possibly a factually true statement, that is not what the statement is actually about when it is being made. So when people bring that poo poo up it isn't just to make sure everyone knows everything is poo poo to some degree, it's to drive a completely different message home and we have to be aware of that poo poo nowadays instead of just participating in dogwhistles.
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Jul 15, 2018 22:22
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Yeah modern conservatism is pretty monstrous by default, in no small part because of the outright denial of how firmly rooted in oppression it is.
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Jul 15, 2018 23:07
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FMguru posted:Hobbies, by definition, are kind of expensive. Want to get into golf? Or woodworking? Or photography? Or SCUBA diving? Or mountain biking? Stamp collecting? Music production? A current -gen gaming console and a couple of AAA titles? Skiing? Civil War reenacting? Ever price a good set of chef's knives and copper-bottomed pans? Or buy season tickets for a sports team? All of this costs money, usually quite a bit. Okay but this is not paying $500 to get an experience that $500 alone will get you, this isn't a SCUBA set allowing you to actually submerge for a while or a mountain bike + airfare to the mountains or whatever. This is a $500 version that basically just throws bells and whistles onto the less expensive version. This is more like if I was a cooking hobbyist and someone told me I had to buy ~hanzo steel~ instead of just a good enough pretty inexpensive knife - it's my hobby, sure, but it's a really dumb and bad choice driven by a culture of privilege that emphasizes expensive things for the sake of expensive things. A much better direct comparison is video game 'deluxe' edition bullshit that is getting just as out of hand as this crap, and is also an example of ridiculous privilege that is also damaging to that industry.
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Aug 15, 2018 18:30
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NachtSieger posted:How the gently caress isn't the FC book a blast to read? The mechanics are fun as poo poo to read about and use in play. I have never played FC but, at this point in my life, the very idea of digging into another 3.x system just is the exact opposite of fun no matter how good it is. Whether or not the system itself is amazingly wonderful it sounds like just another 3.x game whose fans will often lavish it with praise because of some sort of perceived underappreciation.
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Oct 28, 2018 18:31
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I want to point out that the goal discussed isn't perfect rear end in a top hat prevention, it's rear end in a top hat mitigation. So a few people being willing to pony up the effort/ required isn't really the point, it's that most people bounce off that barrier to entry.
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Oct 31, 2018 06:18
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whydirt posted:I didn’t know who Schmorky was before this discussion No but you see something something Shmorky was bad and thus SA is bad and therefor it's always okay for me, personally, to not confront problematic people in my chosen hobby because it'd be like super uncomfortable. Why should I be responsible for the people I choose to associate with! That's not fair at all! Obviously what is fair would be no one ever criticizing me for knowingly participating in a hosed up community. That is what will lead to healthier communities, after all; never actually confronting the bad elements.
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Nov 2, 2018 04:22
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I'm just wondering, are books on my kindle worthless too?
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Nov 6, 2018 21:44
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That Old Tree posted:Oh man, Raggi's nonpology is almost literally "I'm sorry I got caught." Because pretending to make the effort is enough for a lot of people who might otherwise wring their hands and still buy to still buy and feel better about it because he said he didn't like the Bad Thing, what more can anyone expect
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Nov 12, 2018 17:41
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From my exposure to it about 95% or more of the OSR had their political views ossify about the same time their taste in game design did, so that explains a fair amount
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Nov 21, 2018 00:36
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clockworkjoe posted:In actual RPG industry news, the Ennies have started rolling out some new rules. Podcasts are up first. Podcasters who submit must compile a 15 minute montage of best clips from their show: http://www.ennie-awards.com/blog/rules-change-update-podcasts/ The Ennies are a formalized popularity contest more than a TTRPG contest and from everything I've seen every judge's mind is made up by the time they're announced, so they're just being sorta honest about how much attention they'll be paying
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Dec 6, 2018 07:04
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ProfessorCirno posted:Quite frankly, the Lovecraftian monsters aren't terrifying because they don't even know what they're doing. Real world monsters absolutely know. It's the egocentrism thing. Lovecraftian horrors being capable of wiping out humanity without even knowing is a personal insult to our (superior, western) civilizations, how dare they not appreciate this wondrous edifice.
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Dec 7, 2018 23:11
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Kurieg posted:He's had the mouth on one side of his face, yes, but he hasn't had an actual snout like that key art looks to be giving him. Honestly I think the most unsettling thing is the backlit hairs on the headspikes Are they flesh-lumps with long hairs running down them lengthwise? Are they just made of hair? What the gently caress is going on this year?
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Dec 10, 2018 20:54
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ravenkult posted:He sounds like a jackass Kid got bullied because his dad was too drat unoriginal to think of another name and resented it for a long time, also sounds like he didn't profit from his name being used, seems sort of reasonable to me?
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Dec 14, 2018 08:22
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Gygax himself seems to have been a fairly chill dude that just wanted people to play elfgames. Aside from that bit about screwing Arneson.
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Dec 17, 2018 05:20
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