Absurd Alhazred posted:

Yeah, really impressive stuff, isn't it? Really wish I could read some of those old zines for myself.

KingKalamari posted:

...Now that I think about it, why does he have a fanbase to begin with? His only real contribution to the scene mostly involved throwing money at other, more competent people and being an rear end in a top hat.

KingKalamari posted:

Is there, like, an in-lore explanation for why it's a cube specifically? Or is that seen as one of those obviously self-evident questions like "Why is the ocean near the shore?"?

FirstAidKite posted:

Anyone read any interesting new rpg books lately

Tosk posted:

So I have only occasionally lurked this forum on SA, despite being a massive roleplaying nerd and at this point reasonably experienced tabletop gm as well, but I was recently pontificating nostalgically and wondered if forum play-by-post roleplaying was ever very popular in this community? I mean of the purely creative writing-based variety, as I see there are a number of play-by-post games running, but more inclined towards mechanics and incorporating actual game elements. Recently I was thinking about how I used to do a lot of that kind of roleplaying as a teenager, and how it seems like it was such a weird and mid-to-late 2000s thing that the Internet captured, as all the forum roleplays I know of are dead or dying, except for a few run in specific very popular fandoms that always get an influx of new players, and it seems like something that could have existed on SA at some point over its history.

Sorry if this is off-topic. I tried to use the search engine to find any mention of this stuff and only found a few random posts in a previous incarnation of this thread.

Nessus posted:

This Web thing seems a little like it has the same word for multiple things, but it also reminds me of Fallen London in a way.

Pocky In My Pocket posted:

Or homebrew a 5e hack of it

Leperflesh posted:

I think what most people really want out of a western-themed thing is to gun-sling, talk in a drawl, stare down an outlaw, rob a train, protect a prospecting claim, and get deputized.

GimpInBlack posted:

The basic mechanic is straightforward enough, it's a dice pool system where you take your two highest-rolling dice, add a proficiency, compare to a DC. After that, though, it gets... well. Some highlights from the DTRPG preview:

• Attributes are made up of dice, which form the pool that you roll. But the number and size appears to be arbitrary--the example given is that you could have a Strength of "5d8 and 2d10."
  
• Difficulty values are in whole numbers, but skill ranks add decimals to your result (e.g. if you roll a 12 and have 7 points in a skill, you have a result of 12.7).
  
• Dice that explode in an inexplicably counterintuitiveextremely dumb way (a d8 that explodes adds a new d10 to your dice pool, a d10 adds 2d12, and a d12 adds a d20). The reason you don't just get another die of the same size like every other exploding dice system ever is that these are explicitly added to your dice pool, not the total of the exploding die, and thus are still subject to the "only keep the two highest" rule. Yes, that means that your "exploded" d8 has an 80% chance of being worthless.
  
• Any 1s rolled subtract from your result, continuing the "the more dice you have, the more likely you are to kneecap yourself" trend of Storyteller et al.
  
• A skill list with sixty four skills.
  

Now, granted, I'm going off of nothing but the basic mechanics overview preview, maybe the full book explains some of these decisions or has extra permutations that make them make more sense, but nothing in the basic rules inspires me with any confidence or desire to spend money on it. The impression I get isn't so much a heartbreaker in the sense of "the author has only ever played D&D and has no conception that there are other ways to design an RPG," but it feels like a designer who is so terrified of being perceived as ripping off other games (or maybe just so focused on being "innovative") that they've made a bunch of frankly bizarre and inexplicable decisions in an attempt at novelty.

LatwPIAT posted:

What’s a metaphorical cop?

Rockman Reserve posted:

Is Flesh and Blood worth looking into at all if I crave a card game dude basher and think all the stuff they’ve bolted onto Magic since Planeswalkers just makes it more obvious how much of the game is mired in design from 30 years ago?

Hostile V posted:

Pay the Price

That Old Tree posted:

fool of sound posted:

Nope, it's called 'the Gathering', like juggalos.

Antivehicular posted:

Holy balls, that initiative system is loving garbage. Definitely a system-killer for sure.

Megazver posted:

Heh. In Into the Odd all attacks the PCs and the monsters make hit, you just roll to see how much damage you deal.

Unfortunately, the one time I signed up to play this game, the GM wanted to run the module called Sleeping Place of the Feathered Swine, which is a cave filled with incredibly contagious mutating former persons now disgusting tumour-creatures that infect you as soon as they hit you.

The GM didn't consider that the combination might not work that well.

hyphz posted:

Anyone know if this guy’s broadcasts are any good? https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/guysclanders/the-practical-guide-to-becoming-a-great-gm

The 5e style layout is a bad sign. I’m guessing it’s not going to cover improvisation or catch 22s.

My Lovely Horse posted:

I feel like the tone of this thing is extremely in the vein of Bloodborne and I think Bloodborne would have been a lesser game if a slew of beta testers had said "the blood thing is really gross, can't it just be runes or spells?"

FirstAidKite posted:

The pdf also included a coupon code for their line of "gaming scents" to really set the mood of any tabletop game night.

ninjoatse.cx posted:

You're being facetious. The part of the rules you're expected to have memorized to play D&D can fit on a single page, and then have room left over.

ninjoatse.cx posted:

You wouldn't memorize all of your abilities or spells before play. I certainly don't have my character abilities memorized by the first time I play (in an unfamiliar system). You just pick what looks good at the time and use the book as reference.

Splicer posted:

Hello I'm Tim and I'm not on fire.

Absurd Alhazred posted:

Like, if this does as well as LotR did, they're, what 3-4 years out from losing the Dr. Who license to Free League, as well?

theironjef posted:

Countblanc posted:

Just to be clear I'm certainly interested in what any given person's GamerFeels are regarding GMless games, but I'm mostly looking to know the broader temperature regarding them in rpg players as a whole. I'm not really keyed into the larger rpg social ecosystem so I really have no clue.

Countblanc posted:

Everywhere, yes. Perhaps excluding the DnD-lifers who just assume every game is DnD but worse.

Splicer posted:

A chunk of this is why I ran my game in TOS. The other thing is that in TOS you're a lot more independent. You pretty much are the federation 90% of the time and there's no zoom chats with admirals putting their input in, just the occasional telegram message with a massive time delay.

Halloween Jack posted:

The Edition Wars taught me that you can't argue the merits of AD&D with AD&D fans, because no one actually plays AD&D.