TG November Chat Thread!

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Traditional Games > TG November Chat Thread!

Dr. Quarex: Apr 18, 2003; I'M A BIG DORK WHO POSTS TOO MUCH ABOUT CONVENTIONS LOOK AT THIS

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I know this was in last month's thread, but up until today when I caught up on it I had literally never heard a bad thing said about Deadlands other than "Lost Colony was dumb" or "Reloaded is better," so I was sort of legitimately shocked to see people hating on it. Even beyond the people I gamed with, it seems like basically every gamer I have ever mentioned it around loves it. It is probably still my favorite system, even all these years later (and even though I understand mechanically the Savage Worlds version is more elegant).

Though I suppose given that my traditional gaming group and I are all Yankees and would have never gone to the South in-game for the same reason we would not go to the South out-of-game, that might explain why we never encountered/thought about the Confederate bullshit. We understood in theory that the Civil War never ended, but that just kind of seemed like a backdrop to telling the actual interesting party-level stories. Its practical impact on our games was "the dollar is not a totally national currency. The end." We always tell people Deadlands is "Wild West Cthulhu where you MIGHT not die in the campaign" which I suppose indicates how little interest we have in the comparatively mundane real-life aspects of the game world, like the Confederacy.

I do understand the Native American concerns though, and I could never bring myself into play a native as a result of the context of the "noble savage." But one of my favorite characters was a Muslim Blessed/Shaman, which felt like an interesting way to engage with those mechanics. And to demonstrate that nowhere do the rules say those two things are incompatible.

# ¿ Nov 5, 2014 15:07

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# ¿ Apr 29, 2024 07:50

Dr. Quarex: Apr 18, 2003; I'M A BIG DORK WHO POSTS TOO MUCH ABOUT CONVENTIONS LOOK AT THIS

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Yeah for my dissertation research I had the pleasure? of looking through Strom Thurmond's Senatorial Archives and...whew. He had helped the President of the Confederate Heritage Organization or something revise his speech for the centennial of the Secession, and I pretty much wanted to throw up reading through it, talking about how the North would probably be spending the next four years lying about how the Civil War was about slavery. Ugh.

# ¿ Nov 6, 2014 01:15

Dr. Quarex: Apr 18, 2003; I'M A BIG DORK WHO POSTS TOO MUCH ABOUT CONVENTIONS LOOK AT THIS

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Yes but only 10 years away from the Mad Scientist Supreme Court releasing Desegregation Gas in Neo-Arkans

# ¿ Nov 6, 2014 19:47

Dr. Quarex: Apr 18, 2003; I'M A BIG DORK WHO POSTS TOO MUCH ABOUT CONVENTIONS LOOK AT THIS

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Davin Valkri posted:

Sounds like a pretty genteel place! Tell us how it goes!

Yeah, this sounds pretty interesting. Also sort of like the gaming equivalent of the New World Order!

# ¿ Nov 7, 2014 05:12

Dr. Quarex: Apr 18, 2003; I'M A BIG DORK WHO POSTS TOO MUCH ABOUT CONVENTIONS LOOK AT THIS

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Evil Mastermind posted:

Boston, MA on March 6-8

Holy poo poo they're already almost sold out.

I am more amazed that for the first time ever they are not ACTUALLY sold out by the time I hear about them. Not that I can buy tickets with my work computer, though, so they may as well be sold out.

I will just convince myself that PAX is not really that cool

# ¿ Nov 13, 2014 14:56

Dr. Quarex: Apr 18, 2003; I'M A BIG DORK WHO POSTS TOO MUCH ABOUT CONVENTIONS LOOK AT THIS

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Rockopolis posted:

How much of this is from RPG's roots as a more narrowly focused adaptation of Wargaming? That the tradions come from moving blocks of soldiers as much as they do from teling stories.

Wait what are you responding to here?

Regardless literally every single person in this subforum (except the poker weirdos) should read Jon Peterson's "Playing at the World" because it is a goddamn masterwork. Also would be the least interesting book ever for someone interested in neither tabletop gaming nor the people involved in its development since ~1790 (the people who evolved Parcheesi and Chess before that point do not really get much biography fortunately/unfortunately).

Finally seeing all the connecting threads from basic military wargames to Dungeons & Dragons was such an amazing experience. Particularly when you see how the original Dungeons & Dragons itself was mocked by the grognards for being dumbed down for babbys and not being nearly verisimilitudinous enough :haw:

Edit: Also thank you, reminding me about the lines at PAX helped discourage me. As did reminding me that the owners were terrible people, even though there is a chance they actually "get it" now.

# ¿ Nov 13, 2014 19:08

Dr. Quarex: Apr 18, 2003; I'M A BIG DORK WHO POSTS TOO MUCH ABOUT CONVENTIONS LOOK AT THIS

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Burning Man sells out, too? drat man, I am not sure what I would do if Gen-Con started being able to sell out. Probably still go anyway and refuse to accept my fate.

# ¿ Nov 13, 2014 19:45

Dr. Quarex: Apr 18, 2003; I'M A BIG DORK WHO POSTS TOO MUCH ABOUT CONVENTIONS LOOK AT THIS

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Evil Mastermind posted:

Well, GenCon is also spread out over multiple buildings (unlike PAX, which is entirely in the Boston Convention Center) so occupancy isn't as much of a concern.

e: You know what, this shouldn't be in this thread. Sorry.

Well it is not as though any other thread makes more sense for ConChat. At least until The Turn Of The New Year when I make the annual Gen-Con thread unless some young whippersnapper beats me to it.

grassy gnoll posted:

Oh, good, maybe you know. How'd the guy from Gallipoli live another seventy years after getting shot in the back like that?

The bullet combined with the spooky Theremin resulted in him being catapulted unconscious forward in time. Ultimately he was unsure which world he preferred.

# ¿ Nov 14, 2014 20:11

Dr. Quarex: Apr 18, 2003; I'M A BIG DORK WHO POSTS TOO MUCH ABOUT CONVENTIONS LOOK AT THIS

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LongDarkNight posted:

We used to have a local conventions thread a couple of years ago. I was thinking about starting another one. Is there interest?

I am one of the people who posted in that thread (as long as that was the "regional conventions thread") so my interest is not that surprising, but I absolutely love conventions and would be all about it.

# ¿ Nov 15, 2014 19:26

Dr. Quarex: Apr 18, 2003; I'M A BIG DORK WHO POSTS TOO MUCH ABOUT CONVENTIONS LOOK AT THIS

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Mors Rattus posted:

Well, the thing about Traveller is that making characters is the most fun you can have playing Traveller.

This even holds true for the PC adaptations.

Though to be fair the character creation is SO FUN that I have a hard time imagining how the subsequent game could match the joy.

There is probably some lesson to be learned here about how their character creation process was the first accidental effort at a modern game mechanic/style for which I know no term. Randomized collaborative storytelling? Crunchy Storygaming?

# ¿ Nov 16, 2014 19:31

Dr. Quarex: Apr 18, 2003; I'M A BIG DORK WHO POSTS TOO MUCH ABOUT CONVENTIONS LOOK AT THIS

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Is this a dangerous question? Time to find out!

What do these RPGs that focus on these easily-fetishized Japanese subjects excel at that makes them compelling targets for modification? Even as someone who did have an anime phase in the sense that I liked Akira and Dragon Half, and then tried and failed to find more anime at the local mall, and then almost immediately lost interest, all in the span of a week, I have a hard time understanding what could possibly make an RPG about Japanese maids a good system for adapting to other things. What I learn from Googling it is that it is rules-light, so I guess there is that, but I am pretty sure from reading this subforum that other rules-light games also exist.

If this is as simple as "we like anime" then fair enough, given that if I had a post-apocalyptic system that I loved I might well be tempted to try to revise it for other related systems even when there would be some other more obvious choice just because I was so into the theme/feel.

# ¿ Nov 16, 2014 20:58

Dr. Quarex: Apr 18, 2003; I'M A BIG DORK WHO POSTS TOO MUCH ABOUT CONVENTIONS LOOK AT THIS

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Thanks for the Maid explanations; I actually am kind of interested in checking it out now that I know it has an amazing "random things happen" section, since I am nothing if not into gaming for the random tables.

Evil Mastermind posted:

Alternately, get him one of these.

Is this a Goon project? The existence of grenades as toggles by itself does not necessarily guarantee it, but the existence of grenades as the only alternatives to the normal toggles makes me wonder. These are awesome, regardless--even MY WIFE is already coming up with uses for one! Even though they are all for things like make-up or planner supplies :smith:

# ¿ Nov 19, 2014 00:59

Dr. Quarex: Apr 18, 2003; I'M A BIG DORK WHO POSTS TOO MUCH ABOUT CONVENTIONS LOOK AT THIS

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zen death robot posted:

Then again I don't really understand why IRC exists when you can just start a Steam Group up and use the group chat there instead.

C'mon now, using ~25-year-old technology to chat is kind of awesome, you know it

Though the only reason I would use it personally other than "as a lark" is because I still know people I have been talking to for over 20 years whose real names I have either never known or long since forgotten. I could probably find them out, but c'mon, it is way more fun to ask C.C.Catch how he is doing than tracking him down on Facebook under his real name.

No honestly the only reason I would use IRC besides as a comedy lark is because dozens of people I have been talking to online for over 20 years are people who I only know by their handles. I mean, if I want to go talk to Chuck Biscuits about the sweet guitar samples he used on "Sad Man's Groove" in 1995, I am going to talk to Chuck Biscuits on IRC, not find out his real name and track him down on Facebook. That would just be embarrassing.

Benagain posted:

Man let's talk about Our GMing Failures and what we've learned from them.

I was the first person in our area to get my hands on and run Arcana Unearthed (no, that is not the GM failure by itself, believe it or not). I knew that some people wanted to try it out, and even though I had never gamemastered before at all, I figured this was a good opportunity to start. I talked to about a dozen people to see who was interested, and only a few people said they would definitely come if I ran, and most everyone else was like "eh, could be interesting" so I assumed they were not coming. So of course all but one of the 12 people I invite actually showed up, against all odds and against the Gamer Reliability Index. I would have had a hard time running a system I barely knew for the first time for 4 people, let alone 11, and of course that was literally my first time running anything. I have absolutely no idea why nobody walked out, though I suppose giving them an actually-burned-in-real-life map of the area they were exploring got them vaguely interested in what was to come (nothing any better than the prop, certainly). I think by the end of the one-shot I gave up and had the Akashic accidentally figure out how to use a teleportation device that plunged them into a realm of everlasting fire. Or maybe it was everlasting centaurs. I do not remember.

# ¿ Nov 24, 2014 00:54

Dr. Quarex: Apr 18, 2003; I'M A BIG DORK WHO POSTS TOO MUCH ABOUT CONVENTIONS LOOK AT THIS

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Aw dammit man I really wanted to talk about how people play the same system for decades and now we are on to homebrew insanity

Wait--I BET THE TWO CAN WORK TOGETHER

I remember the blatant Vampire live-action knock-off* I played at Gen-Con 1997, "Society in Shadow." Despite being a game whose primary innovation and reason to exist was "the use of drawing a randomly-colored marble out of a back for conflict resolution," the game had apparently been going on for years and was run at dozens of other conventions, all because these people apparently did not want to accept that maybe they should just be playing Vampire instead.

I admit I almost did not post this, but then I found that they are STILL AROUND IN 2014 and drat if their webpage is not named for the fact that you draw a marble out of a bag for conflict resolution. You know what, I am starting to think I missed the boat by not becoming one of these people in 1997

*_{well, calling it a blatant knock-off when someone who literally just copied and pasted Vampire is a topic of discussion seems a little unfair, at least they just took the same ideas and rewrote the game instead}

# ¿ Nov 26, 2014 04:14

Dr. Quarex: Apr 18, 2003; I'M A BIG DORK WHO POSTS TOO MUCH ABOUT CONVENTIONS LOOK AT THIS

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Fuego Fish posted:

Out of curiosity, what would people say are the best examples of setting books? Ones that are either light on mechanics or lack them entirely, just with the setting information laid out in an interesting, readable way. Any setting books with premade adventures incorporated as well would be pretty nice.

No limits on system or anything, I'll even take agnostic. I know that GURPS books are generally considered to be the cream of the crop, but I was honestly looking for something that was less about a genre and more about a specific world. Most GURPS books tend to be a bit broad in scope, which isn't a bad thing but it's not what I'm looking for here.

Please nobody suggest any Forgotten Realms books because I plan on reading this stuff and I'd rather not hate myself for it.

The setting described in the HōL books is literally the only setting I can ever remember particularly finding interesting enough to warrant purchasing a book.

Though I suppose I also somehow did end up with Dark Ages Vampire :smith:

# ¿ Nov 27, 2014 03:01

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# ¿ Apr 29, 2024 07:50

Dr. Quarex: Apr 18, 2003; I'M A BIG DORK WHO POSTS TOO MUCH ABOUT CONVENTIONS LOOK AT THIS

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The real fun thing to wonder is what recent nerdy things are going to suddenly be pop-culture relevant out of nowhere in a few years.

Besides the obvious that "Happy Birthday, Robot" is going to be the top show on FOX in 2021.

Edit: Neo-FOX

# ¿ Dec 1, 2014 02:27

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Traditional Games > TG November Chat Thread!