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Now I wish there was an ep where Peggy got really into 40K.
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Jun 15, 2021 17:54
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KingKalamari posted:I feel like we're getting caught up in the minutia of the "if" editions of D&D allow for mechanical variation within monster design, when I'm more trying to get at the philosophy of "how" it tries to achieve these things. There seem to be certain, unique philosophies that have motivated the mechanical design and lore of D&D since it's creation that have become such an ingrained part of the experience that they're sort of taken for granted or go unexamined and I'm trying to better understand and articulate what these philosophies are. I think what you're pointing to is that D&D has long had distinct monster hierarchies that quickly convey to knowledgeable players the relative challenge level of the enemies they're facing. You have the classic kobold-goblin-orc-hobgoblin-gnoll-bugbear progression, the skeleton/zombie-ghoul-ghast-wight progression, and the white-black-green-blue-red dragon progression. But as Arivia notes, this isn't a game design philosophy that precludes stronger, sneakier, or smarter goblins. It's instead, as Elephant Parade points out, a way to use fluff to indicate mechanical information to players. Also, just like AD&D would go on to introduce more AC6 armors than just the ahistorical ring mail, it would go on to introduce more 1/2, 1, and 1+1 HD humanoid monsters than just goblins, orcs, and hobgoblins. You get stuff like gibberlings and xvarts who aren't very mechanically distinct from kobolds or goblins, but fill the same mechanical niche with some different fluff. I don't think D&D has ever had a consistent philosophy for mechanical variation within monster design beyond "characters should face new and more challenging monsters as they gain levels."* BECMI and AD&D have the "for every X goblins, there are Y chiefs with [these buffs] and Z shamans who cast [these spells]" thing. 3/.5E has adding class levels to the basic monster templates. 4E and 5E have subtypes with distinct stat lines like "goblin sapper" and "orc warchief". *And I think this is a pretty great design philosophy and one of the keys to D&D's success. On a simply aesthetic level, it provides an excuse to produce fun reading material about new monsters. But it also makes GMing easier. One of the challenges I face when writing scenarios for games that don't have this sort of monster progression is creating challenging and interesting combat encounters as the party progressed. I can get to a point where my choices are between scaling up the opponents (these orcs or thugs or corpo security operators are better equipped and trained than the previous ones), increasing the number of opponents, which can get untenable depending on the system, or basically just doing what D&D does and introducing new and more difficult enemy types (goblins are replaced by orcs and uruk-hai, storm troopers are replaced by death troopers and dark troopers, Scavs are replaced by Tyger Claws and Maelstrom). Now obviously, enemy type and number aren't the only tools for making more challenging and interesting combat encounters, and combat encounters don't need to be so central to the game like they are in D&D. Circumstances and the environment are also important tools for creating encounters, but they should be something you're using all along, not just back-pocketing for later "levels". My current homebrew campaign using the SWD6 rules is way less combat focused than the Star Wars SWD6 campaign I ran just before it, but I think that is in part due to combat encounters getting more rote and repetitive as the Star Wars party got stronger.
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Jun 27, 2021 21:24
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Leperflesh posted:We have a science and philosophy of RPGs thread, as well as D&D threads for recent editions; you might enjoy exploring these design decisions in depth with others interested in doing that in one of those places, since it's not really about the game industry? Oops. Forgot what thread I'm in. KingKalamari posted:This is a good explanation and I think helps me to pin down the sort of philosophical x factor I've been trying to articulate: What I've been trying to define as a design philosophy is really more a case of designers losing the thread of design philosophy. I'll reply to this in the correct thread.
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Jun 27, 2021 23:02
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mellonbread posted:The Ghostbusters RPG is a perfect example of why. It may be a long forgotten RPG by a defunct author, but the Ghostbusters IP is owned by a powerful and litigious multinational corporation. There's a website dedicated to hosting all of WEG's D6 Star Wars rules. The only two books they don't have are the 1E Rulebook and Sourcebook that Fantasy Flight is currently reprinting as a collector's set. So I think if you can get away with hosting PDFs of out-of-print Star Wars books, you can probably get away with hosting Ghostbusters books.
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Jul 6, 2021 21:28
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mellonbread posted:Are there any sites that currently host this legendary out of print Ghostbusters RPG, without the aforementioned complex tradecraft to avoid the site being taken down? This seems like an easy thing to test. I don't wanna get into  territory, but I just tested it, and the answer is yes.
PeterWeller fucked around with this message at 22:36 on Jul 6, 2021 |
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Jul 6, 2021 22:33
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Pocky In My Pocket posted:By this logic, the 1950's are post apocalyptic For large swaths of Asia, Europe, and North Africa, they were. The bombed and burned-out hellscapes of once great cities are from where we draw much of our post-apocalyptic imagery.
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Jul 7, 2021 17:25
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JMBosch posted:Isn't this just the straight business model of so, so many boardgame Kickstarters with minis? I mean, the smaller and more independent creators probably believe their own hype a lot more, but it is rare for there to be an even halfway decent game under all that plastic. I think it's that and the kickstarter launch model doesn't provide a great deal of time or incentive to make sure your rules are well designed and tested. You're basically selling pre-orders for a product that will only print and ship if it receives enough pre-orders, so it's gotta sell on its initial aesthetic appeal rather than its mechanical depth or replayability.
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Jul 27, 2021 19:01
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Cessna posted:Yeah, there were a lot of things going on there. This is a little inaccurate. The metaplot does not kick off in the original boxed set. The adventure in that, "A Little Knowledge", is just about the PCs escaping an ambushed slave caravan and wandering through the wastes before helping out a dwarf village. The metaplot kicks off in "Freedom", the first module, where the PCs do have to sit through a passage from The Verdant Passage that describes how Rikus throws the Heartwood Spear into Kalak's chest, kicking off the revolution. (Yes, the module literally includes a passage from the novel that the DM is asked to read to the players.) But "Freedom" still gives the PCs a lot of important and interesting stuff to do leading up that moment and following it. The main bulk of the module is about the PCs making allies and enemies among different factions as they try to survive in the slave pens. Then, when the revolution kicks off, Kalak's ritual is still going on, sucking the life force out of everyone in the arena. The gates are blocked, and the PCs are the only people who can get them open and save what is basically the city's entire population because the metaplot characters are busy hunting down and finishing off Kalak. Then "The Road to Urik" works as sort of a prequel to the second novel, The Crimson Legion. In it, the PCs are tasked with working with all those factions they built relationships with in "Freedom" to recruit a free army to fight off the army coming down from Urik to conquer newly-freed Tyr. Once that army is recruited, the PCs are put in charge of its vanguard, and the rest of the module is about them scouting the army's path along the titular road and defeating Urik's vanguard before it can ambush and possibly destroy the free army. And after that, the modules and metaplot basically split. "Arcane Shadows" assumes the party ended up in Urik, presumably by following the events of The Crimson Legion, but otherwise has nothing to do with the Prism Pentad. In it, the PCs are tasked with helping a dude transforming into an avangion escape the city, flee across the wastes, and make it to a sacred grove where he can complete his transformation. None of this has anything to do with the Prism Pentad. Indeed, the Pentad novels never even mention avangions. "Asticlian Gambit"'s title may suggest close links to metaplot character Agis of Asticles, but it's really about going to Gulg and getting in trouble with Gulg's sorcerer queen. Then, "Dragon's Crown", the mega adventure that closes out the original series is all about the PCs stopping a worldwide threat caused by a sinister cabal of psionicists. It's epic and has nothing to do with anything in the Pentad novels. It's important to note that the metaplot in those novels stretches over the course of 10 years, so your own campaign may be long finished before any of the major changes from the novels take place. Now the revised boxed set does present the history revealed in those novels, but I don't think it's fair to say that it and subsequent supplements focused more on history than the world. The revised boxed set expanded the world massively, introducing two new city states, each with its own neat gimmick (one is actually a front for a secret city state created by its sorcerer king who had a change of heart and became an avangion), and a bunch of new regions to explore, including an entire Kreen empire threatening the Tyr region from the northeast. "Windriders of the Jagged Cliffs" and "Mind Lords of the Last Sea" focused on areas strongly linked to the history, but they detailed those parts of the world very well. I don't think your Pendragon analogy is too far off because the revised boxed set did move DS away from being a sort of "sword and sandals" setting to something more weird. I'd say it's like picking up a pulp adventure game thinking you're gonna get Hyboria, but instead you get Barsoom or Pelucidar. Splicer posted:IIRC the 4e setting starts with that one sorcerer king having just been killed offscreen and contained epic destinies including "become a new sorcerer king" Yeah, the 4E box is set right after Tyr is freed from Kalak. KingKalamari posted:2e era Dark Sun's incredible aversion to allowing PCs to influence the setting in any way cannot be overstated. I know I've ranted about this on the forum before, but the module "Valley of Dust and Fire" basically existed for the sole purpose of preventing PCs from ever possibly attempting to kill The Dragon of Athas. It outlines a hidden city deep within the Silt Sea where The Dragon lives that's surrounded by miles and miles of terrain so mechanically hostile that even a high level party of PCs are likely to die before getting within 100 miles of the city, outlines the city as being filled with gently caress-you murder traps and contingency measures set up by The Dragon and then in the last few paragraphs it straight up tells teh DM that if their players have somehow managed to bypass all of this bullshit and are in a position to legitimately kill The Dragon they should just pull a Deus Ex Machina out of their rear end to keep The Dragon alive. It's that mixed messaging Cessna mentioned again. "Valley of Dust and Fire" is a sourcebook that came out after the "Dragon Kings" rulebook introduced rules for "epic level" PCs. It's clearly written as a challenge for PCs who've become avangions, dragons, elemental lords, and the like, but then yeah, if those PCs actually do make it through all the insane challenges, it chickens out and asks the DM to keep the Dragon alive to preserve precious canon. I don't think it's fair to say Dark Sun possessed an "incredible aversion" to PCs influencing the setting. There are 3 epic adventures entirely divorced from the metaplot that have major consequences for the setting. The previously mentioned "Dragon's Crown" involves a plot to basically destroy psionics and drive all kreen insane as a side effect. "Black Spine" is all about stopping a Githyanki invasion. And "City by the Silt Sea" introduces Dregoth, a "main villain" who can take the Dragon's place in a campaign set after the Prism Pentad novels. And "Dragon Kings" is about PCs gaining incredible power to influence the setting. Halloween Jack posted:Uh anyway like I was saying Dark Sun 4e was very good It really is, but the best version of the setting is still that presented in the original boxed set. "The Wanderer's Journal" is maybe the best setting guide TSR ever produced (maybe even better than "A Grand Tour of the Realms", which I still think is the best FR primer). It's just oozing with atmosphere and style. It contains very little in the way of specific location details like maps and demographic numbers, but it sets the mood so well, and it really takes its time to describe the peoples and cultures of Dark Sun.
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Aug 12, 2021 16:18
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Nessus posted:I've had the idea of a sort of Warring States Star Wars setting a few times, something were you have a range of galactic powers and the resulting interesting fringe/border zones, allowing for more easy borrowing from martial-arts and similar fiction as well. For bonus points, you can have Jedi without having a Unified Singular Jedi Order - there would be Jedi monasteries no doubt, and perhaps doctrinal touchstones, but they would be behaving like conflicting monastic sects, rather than what we have mostly seen in the film. The SWD6 campaign I ran did the familiar "you are other rebels doing other important things while the movies happen in the background" setup, but if I run another one, I'm thinking I'd do something like this. Have the political conflict be more nuanced and divorced from the Light v Dark Manichean morality, but still ask the players to approach the setting with the same moral clarity that they would in a more traditional SWD6 campaign.
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Aug 12, 2021 17:54
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Cessna posted:Back in the 90s the metaplot of Dark Sun dictated what would be published. If you wanted info on something that had been superseded by the uber-NPC-driven metaplot, too bad. I think if that were the case, we would not have got the Dragon Kings sourcebook. quote:You are correct - sorry, first published adventure, not first boxed set. (Hey, the published adventure was in a box too!) I'll have you know that was a slipcase, not a box!  quote:Sure, but it assumes that the Pentad novels went down as written, period. You don't get any say or real influence on the events - the uber-NPCs are moving the main events of the world, and you're either along for the ride doing things to support them or you're off in pre-written and railroaded corner. Sure, the overall setting does. It's metaplot after all. But like I said, after the first two novels and first two modules, the two lines proceed entirely independently of each other. The remaining three novels don't even take place in the overall metaplot until after the events of the remaining three adventures. The second series of adventures are even more disconnected from the novels. Really, aside from having to watch Rikus throw the Heartwood Spear into Kalak in "Freedom" and maybe leading the vanguard of Tyr's army in "The Road to Urik" there aren't any places where the PCs will feel like second fiddles to the important NPCs because they're only going to know what those important NPCs go on to do if they read the novels. And while that moment in "Freedom" where the DM is told to read some paragraphs from The Verdant Passage to the players is maybe the best example of metaplot turning PCs into spectators outside the WoD, I think focusing on it really discounts how much important poo poo the PCs do in that module. There would be no free city of Tyr if not for the actions of the PCs. Literally the entire population of the city is in that arena having their souls sucked out to power Kalak's ritual (that doesn't end when he gets speared). The PCs are the characters who unblock the entrances to the arena and help the population escape and survive. Without them, it'd just be the dead city of Tyr. I can't argue that the modules aren't "pre-written and railroaded" (although aside from ensuring the PCs get enslaved and the arena sequence, "Freedom" is mostly open RP encounters that can be approached in any order), but I think that's an entirely different problem with published adventures that is only tangentially related to metaplot. I'd also note that the metaplot ends with the Prism Pentad and release of the second boxed set. The metaplot drastically affects the setting and kills off 4 of the SKs and the Dragon, but the second boxed set introduces all sorts of new threats along with a few new SKs. There is tons of poo poo for PCs to do and feel rightfully important for doing.
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Aug 12, 2021 19:05
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Cessna posted:That's true. 100% of all Dark Sun adventures and supplements weren't entirely predicated on the PCs supporting the NPCs only, but there's no denying that the NPCs were the major movers and shakers of the world. But players were also provided with rules to make them the major movers and shakers of the world. It's that mixed messaging you talked about. quote:Heh, yeah. At one point I owned everything in the line, but I sold it all off years ago.  I have almost the entire line, and I ain't ever getting rid of it.quote:In Beyond the Prism Pentad the PC's mission is to guard Sadira's stuff while she goes off to fight Rajaat. That's not second fiddle; they aren't even part of the orchestra. Fair point. I meant specifically the first two module series with that comment. I regard Beyond the Prism Pentad as less of an adventure and more of a tiny filler sourcebook for people who really really gave a poo poo about those novels and needed to know right away how they ultimately affected the world. Like the only people who'd play that adventure are the exact kind of people who'd be hyped about its contents. quote:Bolding mine. Okay, yeah, that's a fair way to look at it. My point was that there is a lot more to "Freedom" than just watching Rikus chuck a spear. But you're right that the published story goes on whether or not the PCs are successful. But isn't that the case with basically any series of linked adventures whether or not they're part of a metaplot? Subsequent adventures will need to assume at least some level of success on the PCs part. I'd also note that after "Road to Urik" the first two series of adventures essentially do ditch the metaplot entirely.
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Aug 12, 2021 20:10
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KingKalamari posted:That's fair enough, and I'll amend my initial statement to better express the point I wanted to make: The aversion 2e-era TSR had to allowing PCs to influence the setting outside of what is specifically prescribed in the modules cannot be overstated. As you say; there's definitely room for PCs to impact the setting through the course of the modules, but the designers often went out of their way to prevent PCs from impacting the setting in ways that would interfere with their tie-in novels and future supplements, which I felt was a needlessly restrictive and short-sighted philosophy. Okay, yeah. With that I entirely agree. For all their flaws, I can commend the 5E modules I've played and read for giving the PCs a lot of room to make the setting their own. I can't imagine a TSR era adventure just giving the party a scroll of Tarrasque summoning(!!!) like Rime does. quote:It reminds me of the original line of Dragonlance modules for 1e. They gained a reputation for being "railroady" for the time, but reading through them today it seems like a lot of that was due to the heavy amount of support the designers included for people to just play as the actual characters from the novels for some reason? Maybe I'm just out of touch, but it feels like there's not that much of a market among D&D's playerbase for people who would want to just re-enact the plot of an existing property from the perspective of one of the characters? The modules are a lot more open if the party is using their own characters, but I feel like the amount of support they provide for "re-enact the plot of the novels exactly" just shows a weird disconnect between the designers and the assumed desires of the players. Those modules are in a weird place because while they are entirely focused on the PCs playing the pregens who appear in the novels, they also have so many ways in which they can diverge from the novels. And some of those ways lead to more exciting situations. For example, in the novels, Takhisis is defeated by getting Berem to hug a column. In the module, that's one way she can be defeated, but you can also rock up with some titular dragonlances and gently caress her poo poo up Huma style. What makes their focus on the pregens even weirder is that they started coming out before the novels did. So if you picked up "Dragons of Despair" when it first came out, it's clearly encouraging you to play as, say, Raistlin, and you don't even know who the gently caress he is aside from the paragraph on the back of the card. I want to meet the people who played Raistlin and Caramon as high-fiving bros and are totally upset about how they are characterized in the novels.
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Aug 12, 2021 20:35
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Cessna posted:I regret selling it, but at the time I didn't have space and needed money. I may pick up the 4th edition book for nostalgia at some point. I feel that. I should've said "I'm never getting rid of it again." I spent about 5 years and more money than I care to think about reassembling the FR and DS collections I sold off in my 20s. Arivia posted:That is AWESOME. Agreed, that is awesome. Too awesome to be called metaplot. And yeah, DL is where all this metaplot stuff begins. It's also maybe the first multimedia "experience" in gaming. There were the modules, the novels, and a little later, the silver box SSI games. You could enjoy the same story in 3 different ways! It's why ever RPG line had to have novels in the 80s and 90s. It's maybe why so many movies and properties got tie-in video games. I even hold DL slightly responsible for putting a major plot point from the last SW movie into a Fortnite event. I've never read those Avatar modules, but from everything you and others have said about them, it sounds like they make that "read this passage from the novel" part in "Freedom" seem like it ain't poo poo.
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Aug 12, 2021 21:52
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Absurd Alhazred posted:Yeah, contrast this in terms of a supplement treadmill with the non-Advanced D&D line of Gazetteers which would open up a new part of Mystara with what's up there and what kind of new classes you might get and have fun! I don't think that was conditional on what adventures you had in the previous sections of the world it detailed. And then in the AD&D version of the setting, they went ahead and moved the timeline ahead 10 years and resolved all the fun conflicts that were set up for PCs.  FMguru posted:The first metaplot was actually the classic Traveller RPG. There was a big setting-changing event (the Fifth Frontier War) that played out in real time in the pages of the JTAS magazine (as a series of breaking news stories) and when it was over the modules that were published afterwards had to take into account the changes in the setting (like borders moving and star systems changing ownership) caused by the FFW event. This would have run 1981-4. Oh yeah, I think I remember you mentioning that the last time metaplot came up around here. KingKalamari posted:It's a real shame the modules ended up mostly being remembered for the metaplot and railroading as they have some loving rad set pieces in them. Seriously, I really want to lift Xak Tsaroth and Pax Tharkas and run these as stand-alone adventure locations. Agreed. Those modules include some of the coolest dungeons, and I loved how they're mapped.
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Aug 12, 2021 22:21
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moths posted:It's frustrating to have your word choice overshadow your ideas. I feel you, but remember, the only way you can convey those ideas is through the words you choose.
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Aug 31, 2021 18:21
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KingKalamari posted:Weren't the ownership rights on Dragonlance a little bit more complicated? I know that Wizards basically has ownership of the rights to the Forgotten Realms setting provided they abide by the terms set in the initial acquisition agreement they made with Greenwood (Which, funnily enough, is probably the reason FR has become the default setting for 5e since that contract specifies Wizards has to publish a minimum number of Forgotten Realms supplements per year to retain said ownership), but I think Weiss and Hickman retained a greater degree of ownership of the Dragonlance setting through Sovereign Press and would need to be involved in official uses of the setting? They made the setting as part of a large team under contract for TSR. If anything, the ownership should be even less complicated. They licensed the setting for 3E materials under the OGL, but WotC ended the licensing agreement around the time 4E was in the works.
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Sep 29, 2021 19:17
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I think giving safe harbor to U-boats was probably an even bigger giveaway. Honestly, after all the Nazis did for Franco and the Nationalists in the Spanish Civil War, I've always found it remarkable how little Fascist Spain did to aid the Axis powers.
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Nov 18, 2021 18:42
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mellonbread posted:It's because the Nazis put Wilhelm Canaris in charge of recruiting Spain into WW2. He had been a strong supporter of German involvement in the Spanish Civil War, but by 1940 he was disgusted with the Reich and working to clandestinely sabotage it using his position as chief of military intelligence. Nobody knows exactly what he said to Franco, but based on the outcome (Spain not formally joining the war) it's safe to assume he either sandbagged or actively sabotaged the talks. Oh wow. That's really interesting. You know of any good books or docs on the subject?
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Nov 18, 2021 20:01
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mellonbread posted:This paper from my alma mater has some good discussion of why the plan for a joint invasion of Gibraltar (the primary thing the Nazis wanted from Spain) never went anywhere. It's a bit dated (written in 1958 when Franco was still alive and ruler of Spain) so IDK if it's been superseded by more recent sources. Thank you very much!
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Nov 19, 2021 19:15
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Halloween Jack posted:Yes, but this is true of D&D generally. Yeah, Mystara's a setting with no Orientalism or race essentialism going on.
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Dec 14, 2021 22:56
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TK_Nyarlathotep posted:Tell that to Gee Dubs Why don't we ask them their thoughts on the subject. GW posted:There are no goodies in the Warhammer 40,000 universe. Link: https://www.warhammer-community.com...esponse,+Nov+19
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Dec 15, 2021 18:02
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Xiahou Dun posted:I'm not a giant lore nerd, but my impression was the original conception was very much not this and was about as biologically deterministic as you could get. Like the whole point of Drizzt was that he was the equivalent of a cat learning calculus, walking on its hind legs and abstaining from knocking poo poo off a table. The Dark Elf trilogy made it pretty clear that Drizzt was not the only good person in Menzo. His sister Vierna was decent and loving until the Lolth cult drilled that out of her, and that process left her basically insane with bitterness. His father Zaknafein is who first showed him to question the teachings of Lolth, and he sacrificed himself so Drizzt could escape. What made Drizzt special was that he got out.
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Dec 15, 2021 18:20
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Absurd Alhazred posted:That only started being published in the 1990s. If you're looking for an original conception, it's going to be at least as far back as 1977's AD&D Monster Manual. I should've been more clear that I was specifically responding to XD's characterization of Drizzt.
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Dec 15, 2021 18:39
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Toph Bei Fong posted:In retrospect, there's a big dose of "Men Going Their Own Way" in the early Drizzt novels: Yeah, that's generally fair, though I think the first quote glosses over Vierna to make its point stronger. Xiahou Dun posted:And also I should've been more clear that I didn't mean Drizzt specifically so much as the added nuance that was introduced in the series of books about him, and was just being flip to emphasize the juxtaposition and not to get communicate specifics. (Partially because my entire exposure to Drow fluff was from reading that stuff in middle school and even 13 year old goth me bounced off the fluff.) Yeah, I feel you. I was really just "well actually"-ing you about Drizzt because I am unrepentant fan of that stuff. Bottom Liner posted:That message is good but there’s a reason why everyone was also like “well maybe don’t spend decades portraying them all like heroes?” There’s a clear disconnect between their words above and their art direction. I agree to some extent, but every faction's art has them looking like the supreme badasses of the setting.
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Dec 15, 2021 19:04
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NGDBSS posted:There's what GW says (and earnestly wants to believe they're doing), and then there's what GW does. I believe them when they say the Imperium should be satirical, but too often the published material fails to realize that goal and instead accidentally glorifies it. It's not just in the art (though TK_Nyarlathotep posted two good examples), but also in the writing about how frequently Imperial soldiers are just Hard Men Making Hard Choices (where all of the choices are bad), the marketing that put a Space Marine statue outside GW's headquarters, and even the product listings that are always majority Imperium and plurality Space Marines. I don't think it's fair to draw a say/do distinction here. Releasing an official statement telling fascists to gently caress off is GW doing something. And it's not just playing lip-service to the idea that the Imperium of Man is meant satirically. I don't see how one can read even just basic overviews of the factions and not come away with the idea that the Imperium of Man is absurd and awful and no future worth living in. But as LF points out, they're trying to sell you figures of these factions so you'll play them in their game. And that game is an over-the-top wargame. So you're going to get situations where they're depicting members of these factions as heroic and even admirable, which can contradict and undermine that satire. GW has painted themselves into a corner there, but I don't think it's fair to characterize that as an endorsement of fascism. As for marketing focusing on marines, well marines are the most iconic and popular faction in the game, so they're going to be at the center of marketing. The only real solution to all this is to not play 40K, or if you do, play as the Harlequins because clown ninjas are beyond reproach. 
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Dec 15, 2021 20:04
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I think it's also, "my people's empire was actually a good empire." See British people with "but trains and schools!" or American people with "what empire? we just spread freedom."
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Dec 27, 2021 20:07
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Subjunctive posted:I generally don’t bet on activist investors getting their way, but a re-independent WotC might be interesting. My main take-away from this is thinking that spinning off the most profitable division of a company would improve that company's health and bottom line is just further proof that capitalism is a failed scheme.
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Feb 17, 2022 15:22
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NC Wyeth Death Cult posted:I think the thinking is that it would improve stock prices long enough for them to sell. The health and bottom line of the company after that doesn't matter. Yeah, I was being a bit facetious there. Adun posted:It’s not really about improving Hasbro’s health. The idea is there are some people to want to invest in a fast growing collectible card company (Wizards) and some people who want to invest in a toy company (Hasbro ex-Wizards) and that the two separately are worth more than the sum of the parts Thanks, this makes sense and doesn't seem so odious.
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Feb 17, 2022 20:23
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long-rear end nips Diane posted:The best part about the GW video is that, according to some leaks that have accurately predicted basically everything to come out this and most of last year, it's not a prank. Nuns with Guns posted:Games Workshop is insisting the Squats are real and legit now btw: https://www.warhammer-community.com/2022/04/02/what-april-fools-the-41st-millenniums-next-faction-is-real-heres-a-model-to-prove-it/ The April Fool's Joke being "haha, you thought this was an April Fool's joke" is the funniest thing GW has ever done.
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Apr 2, 2022 16:46
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TheDiceMustRoll posted:Anyway was it really Deadlands? I thought this poo poo started with Dragonlance or whatever. I remember reading the Prism Pentad and kind of That last part didn't happen. The big rainstorm they created at the end just means the desert now suffers from occasional flash floods and crazy thunderstorms.
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Apr 7, 2022 14:25
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that the setting introduction novels also solved many of the major problems with the setting and killed off all of the major villains and also killed SatanHitler and made the planet not a desert anymore
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Hostile V posted:It's not specifically Deadlands, just when I think of the three properties most specifically responsible for the metaplot boom it's Pinnacle, GW and White Wolf. Also Ham Fantasy famously had Storm of Chaos, where the idea was that for very spurious plot reasons the latest Chosen Avatar of Chaos would emerge from the north, stomp all of Russia into the ground, and then have a big plot fight that would probably result in the Empire being shattered and Chaos' forces creating a new grim age of fear and struggle as the world moved closer to apocalypse. Players did not like this; it relied heavily on plot fiat and GW saying so, and it was a living tourney type game so the overwhelming response to running the scenarios officially was Chaos losing because people didn't want the plot happening and also Chaos wasn't very good at the time. What ends up happening is the big battle for the empire occurring is derailed mid fight by a bus full of orks deciding to beat the tar out of the Chosen Avatar and then running away hooting and hollering about how much they kick rear end. I think GW's attempts at metaplot come after the big boom of metaplot in the 90s. And for all the fuckery involved in that Archaeon the Everchosen campaign, GW did solicit player input and did make use of that player input. Archaeon didn't shatter the Empire. The status-quo was preserved like the players wanted it to be. Now, yes, they did come back to it a decade later and just reuse their plan to smash WHFB and launch AoS without any player input, but that's still well after all the D&D, White Wolf, and FASA metaplots had their peaks.
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Apr 7, 2022 16:25
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TheDiceMustRoll posted:ah ok I feel you there. I generally liked the setting more when its history was, "most people are illiterate and the SKs aren't going to share any details of how they gained power, so  "The post-Prism Pentad stuff did have some cool bits, though, that really added to the science/weird fantasy vibes, like Saragar, the City by the Last Sea, which was this paradisical remnant of the before times ruled by psions who had implanted their minds in obsidian spheres before the Cleansing Wars had ruined everything and had gone mad and paranoid in the millennia since. It had all sorts of Vic and Blood and Beneath the Planet of the Apes vibes going on.
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Apr 8, 2022 15:26
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MonsieurChoc posted:Yeah, I want to be excited but I remember how The Ravenloft redo was rather nice. Granted, they only detailed about a dozen of the "over thirty" domains included, but those dozen were some excellent updates to old domains and some new ones. Rutibex posted:Spelljammer has its own issues as a D&D setting. I've honestly never got it to work as well as a grounded campaign. Giving the PCs a spaceship and access to the whole world really limits what you can do with logistics and random encounters and dungeons. If you want to run Spelljammer as its own setting as opposed to an addition to other settings or a side jaunt from a larger campaign, you really want to get your hands on The Astromundi Cluster. That was TSR's answer when they realized they had invented a bunch of cool ships but only a handful of interesting places to take them. Froghammer posted:The current season of Dimension 20 has been running Star Wars 5e and so far the ship combat seems fine? The biggest innovation is that the ship is treated more as its own character, complete with its own stats and share of the party loot That's how WEG's D6 Star Wars handled it.
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Apr 21, 2022 23:47
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5e's campaign settings have been so far, Eberron excepted.
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MonsieurChoc posted:I mostly liked it, and some of the new ones were great (like the Eberron Ghost Train), but I'm still irked they decided to make every Domain an Island of Terror. I feel you there.
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Apr 21, 2022 23:55
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Leperflesh posted:This is literally the first pitch for any version of Pathfinder that has genuinely peaked my interest. Same. That's the kind of goofy skeleton action I crave.
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Jun 3, 2022 00:03
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Libertad! posted:You're forgetting old white vampires like Strahd. He ain't white, honey. He dead.
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Jun 4, 2022 16:23
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Imagine being lectured on professionalism by some dude LARPing as the villainous record exec from every other musician's biopic.
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Jun 8, 2022 18:22
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Magnetic North posted:I've been reading this and all it reinforces to me is that there are sooooo many people who are suuuuuper famous that I've neeeever heard of. "suuuuuper famous" does not describe any of the people this thread has been about today.
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Jun 9, 2022 23:36
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Coolness Averted posted:Heavy advertising I'd imagine. I don't remember seeing forgotten realms, but all the other top 5 settings had extensive ads in comic books back in the day. Hell, I bet forgotten realms even did too, but it's just way more generic so doesn't stick out in my head like the vampire with a damsel or the samurai fighting a minotaur in a foggy valley. Forgotten Realms even had its own comic for a bit there (Dragonlance too). Cessna posted:It was the 80s, everyone wanted to play a ninja. Yeah, I wonder if that chart is a little misleading about OA's success as a setting--how many people bought and used that book because they wanted to set adventures in Kara Tur versus how many people bought and used that book because they wanted to include ninjas and kung-fu in whatever other setting they were using.
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Jul 21, 2022 17:58
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admanb posted:That'll be at least part of the appeal of any setting, though. I'm sure plenty of people played in Eberron, but I'm guessing at least as many just played Artificers and Warforged in their existing games. Yeah, that's a good point. But also, the setting part of Oriental Adventures is secondary to the mechanics in a way that Eberron or, say, Dark Sun isn't. There are about 5 pages covering Kara-Tur out of the entire 144 page book.
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Jul 21, 2022 21:18
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