|
Jimbozig posted:If you're looking for what is inspiring the D&D designers these days, I think you need to look at videogames in addition to novels. Properties like Diablo, Warcraft, and Fallout have had such a huge influence on the culture of fantasy that they would have to go in a new Appendix N. Nothing will ever encompass this hobby better then the hilarious failure of the Dragon Age tabletop game. After being handed an absurdedly successful IP guaranteed to bring new people into the hobby with a system that could be almost directly ported into tabletop gaming, Green Ronin proceeded to create a boring D&D retroclone with nothing in common with the actual Dragon Age games, didn't advertise it anywhere, and basically only sold it in specialized markets.
|
#
?
Jan 16, 2015 04:17
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 25, 2024 22:29 |
|
|
ProfessorCirno posted:Nothing will ever encompass this hobby better then the hilarious failure of the Dragon Age tabletop game. After being handed an absurdedly successful IP guaranteed to bring new people into the hobby with a system that could be almost directly ported into tabletop gaming, Green Ronin proceeded to create a boring D&D retroclone with nothing in common with the actual Dragon Age games, didn't advertise it anywhere, and basically only sold it in specialized markets. Isn't this basically the same thing that happened with the Diablo and Warcraft games? d20 
|
|
#
?
Jan 16, 2015 04:26
|
|
|
Quarex posted:I enjoyed the Tor read-through of everything in Appendix N, particularly when they discovered a good half of the influences are either irredeemably vile or eye-rollingly dull by modern standards...though it is equally interesting that some of the lesser-known stuff apparently resonates so well still now. ProfessorCirno posted:Nothing will ever encompass this hobby better then the hilarious failure of the Dragon Age tabletop game. After being handed an absurdedly successful IP guaranteed to bring new people into the hobby with a system that could be almost directly ported into tabletop gaming, Green Ronin proceeded to create a boring D&D retroclone with nothing in common with the actual Dragon Age games, didn't advertise it anywhere, and basically only sold it in specialized markets.
|
|
#
?
Jan 16, 2015 04:41
|
|
|
P.d0t posted:Isn't this basically the same thing that happened with the Diablo and Warcraft games? The d20 Warcraft game still has Vancian casting, its incredible.
|
|
#
?
Jan 16, 2015 05:08
|
|
|
gradenko_2000 posted:The d20 Warcraft game still has Vancian casting, its incredible. Kurieg apparently was/is doing up an F&F for it, so those of us in #hoard got to hear all about it.
|
|
#
?
Jan 16, 2015 05:11
|
|
|
ProfessorCirno posted:Nothing will ever encompass this hobby better then the hilarious failure of the Dragon Age tabletop game. After being handed an absurdedly successful IP guaranteed to bring new people into the hobby with a system that could be almost directly ported into tabletop gaming, Green Ronin proceeded to create a boring D&D retroclone with nothing in common with the actual Dragon Age games, didn't advertise it anywhere, and basically only sold it in specialized markets. Is there a reason behind this terrible, terrible decision?
|
|
#
?
Jan 16, 2015 09:42
|
|
|
TRADITION! No, really, that's how RPG adaptations were done in the 80s and the 00s, so it's only logical that we follow the well-trodden path. It became part of the "corporate culture" of rpgs and it would take actual critical thinking to break out of. Green Ronin, the Dragon Age RPG publisher specialized in making uninspired D&D-lookalikes out of notable IPs like ASoIaF, Glenn Cook and even D&D itself. I kid you not, one of their main lines is "d20 D&D, but more d20-er". Even Blue Rose, their attempt at making a romantic fantasy RPG (an idea I sooo want somebody to do justice, as it has potential, the literature genre is huge) ended up as D&D bean-counting, now with talking animal races, which predictably failed to expand the hobby. It is not surprising they couldn't kick the habit with DA either.
|
|
#
?
Jan 16, 2015 11:21
|
|
|
Honestly, I think it's more out of not actually caring about the IP and just having an OSR vanity project someone wanted to release - with the IP making a great excuse for it. All of Dragon Age's mechanics scream "the name came second." The marketing (or complete lack thereof) and tiny release only in small markets equally screams "I don't want this to be mainstream." It clicks together completely once you remember this happened right as the OSR was trying to make themselves look like the next big thing in gaming. To be frank, either answer is the most tabletop gaming thing. Being given a hugely successful IP and squandering it completely without ever actually caring because gently caress you, I don't care, I have my OWN vanity project / tradition that must be upheld at all costs? Welcome to traditional games! We actually hate success!
|
|
#
?
Jan 16, 2015 12:37
|
|
|
Littlefinger posted:I kid you not, one of their main lines is "d20 D&D, but more d20-er". Are you talking about True20?
|
|
#
?
Jan 16, 2015 12:39
|
|
|
P.d0t posted:Isn't this basically the same thing that happened with the Diablo and Warcraft games?
|
|
#
?
Jan 16, 2015 13:21
|
|
|
gradenko_2000 posted:Are you talking about True20? Yes. Don't get me wrong, it's a neat improvement on d20 in a lot of aspects. It's d20-er in the sense that it seems better as a generic system than the original (they used a version of it for Blue Rose and Mutants & Masterminds, too). But it is still, at the end of the day, a D&D variant and that shows that many at Green Ronin may have thought that rpgs=D&D. (Which may, or may not, have unconsciously followed them when they tried to move out of the d20 paradigm to 'innovate' with DA. Hard to say.)
|
|
#
?
Jan 16, 2015 13:32
|
|
|
It's worth nothing the Dragon Age RPG is not a d20 game, it uses 3d6. Funny enough, I've been getting into Will Wheaton's show, Tabletop, and I recently watched the Dragon Age RPG episode. In the interview with the game dev, the dev admitted that Bioware had the trpg in production before the game was finished and they didn't get to play the game itself until the trpg was going into layouts. They were also told by Bioware that commissioning a trpg because the concept was fitting with "the old school style" of the video game they were making. It feels to me these two factors had a lot to do with how the game turned out. The one's commissioning the product apparently used the term "old school style" to describe the video game and their idea behind commissioning a trpg and they didn't get to work off anything other than documents until release. The fact it was a commissioned piece probably has something to do with it too. If you make something too experimental, they might question your decision to make the product "risky." Doing something plain, boring, and "traditional" is going to be viewed by the commissioner as the safer option and the one they are more likely to be pleased by. Obviously, you can't be too generic or you run the risk of being too safe and annoying them that way, but DA:TRPG does seem to try to diverge enough and, at the same time, not too much from tradition.
|
|
#
?
Jan 16, 2015 13:35
|
|
|
To be honest, what are you going to do with DA even if you tried? An overrated boring fantasy not-Europe where mages outclass everyone? Sounds like D&D to me.
|
|
#
?
Jan 16, 2015 13:43
|
|
|
Blue Rose actually came before True20- it getting turned into a generic system is at least partly down to "Goddamn, if we release this as a generic system maybe Nisarg/Pundit will shut the gently caress up already." (As at the time he was constantly flooding the Blue Rose boards with bitching about romantic fantasy tropes and how it should have been a generic system without the built in setting) Which shows they didn't know him very well, as releasing a generic version just made him insufferable "I was right" forever.
|
|
#
?
Jan 16, 2015 14:04
|
|
|
Covok posted:The one's commissioning the product apparently used the term "old school style" to describe the video game and their idea behind commissioning a trpg and they didn't get to work off anything other than documents until release. Yeah, you can't really except Bioware's licensing crew from the way the Dragon Age TRPG turned out. It's not like Bioware is unaware of TRPGs and their mechanics, and Dragon Age itself was a callback to Baldur's Gate and the other old Infinity Engine games. Having it be an old-school design isn't necessarily a bad idea, but implementation is everything. Illvillainy posted:To be honest, what are you going to do with DA even if you tried? An overrated boring fantasy not-Europe where mages outclass everyone? Sounds like D&D to me. But their elves are different!
|
|
#
?
Jan 16, 2015 14:14
|
|
|
Yeah, when I think of Dragon Age, I think of randomly generating stats, high PC mortality, and fighters having no abilities at all.
|
|
#
?
Jan 16, 2015 14:14
|
|
|
Okay so it needs to be an extra generic 13th Age.
|
|
#
?
Jan 16, 2015 14:20
|
|
|
unseenlibrarian posted:Blue Rose actually came before True20- it getting turned into a generic system is at least partly down to "Goddamn, if we release this as a generic system maybe Nisarg/Pundit will shut the gently caress up already." (As at the time he was constantly flooding the Blue Rose boards with bitching about romantic fantasy tropes and how it should have been a generic system without the built in setting) Which shows they didn't know him very well, as releasing a generic version just made him insufferable "I was right" forever.  goddamn, I like True20. That such toxic figures hold influence in the hobby is pretty scary.
|
|
#
?
Jan 16, 2015 14:22
|
|
|
Alien Rope Burn posted:But their elves are different!
|
|
#
?
Jan 16, 2015 14:29
|
|
|
ProfessorCirno posted:Yeah, when I think of Dragon Age, I think of randomly generating stats, high PC mortality, and fighters having no abilities at all. Well, I seem to recall savescumming a lot in that Dragon Age: Origins, and warriors are flat-out the worst class with trap options and abilities that actually undermine their core competency. It could be all the time I spent throwing warriors into battle and casting Littlefinger posted:Take a harder look. The situation of the city elves, at least, is exactly a fantasy not-Europe analogue of a certain group's plight in the Middle Ages. I was being facetious. "Our elves are different!" is the tagline of just about any heartbreaker setting worth its salt.
|
|
#
?
Jan 16, 2015 14:46
|
|
|
Illvillainy posted:To be honest, what are you going to do with DA even if you tried? An overrated boring fantasy not-Europe where mages outclass everyone? Sounds like D&D to me. Dragon Age setting-wise does some interesting things with familiar concepts. It's not really trying to reinvent the wheel, though. So if you're coming from a position of "I like traditional fantasy settings with elves and dwarves and dudes in robes waving around sticks to throw fire at people", then you're probably going to have fun with it. Because, yes, their elves are different. But, yeah, if you consider those things boring from the get go it's probably not for you. "Sounds like D&D" is not even an unfair comment. As a franchise, though, it's got very little to do with the kind of D&D that DA RPG seems to be trying to emulate. For one thing, it's got randomised character generation. The primary draw for most Bioware RPGs is that you build and customise your own protagonist -- DA RPG right off the bat limits your ability to do this by making you generate your stats randomly. The game puts no particular emphasis on interparty relationships or roleplaying, despite that being the other major draw for Dragon Age games. A major pervasive theme in the setting is that you have to do something horrible and/or dangerous in order to obtain any kind of special power -- the RPG rules ignore this. There's not even a Fantasy Flight Warhammer 40k style "bad things might happen if you do magic" mechanic in place. It's a system built for "you are random assholes who materialised out of nowhere going into this random dungeon because that is what the game is about" stories, whereas the source material is more like "you are very specific assholes with complicated backstories and relationships to one another going into this very specific dungeon because of larger story reasons." It's just not easy to tell the kind of stories that the Dragon Age is in the business of telling in DA RPG, and you don't need to agree that Thedas is a good setting to see that. The designers made no effort to try and reflect the ways people engage with the videogames in their tabletop adaptation.
|
|
#
?
Jan 16, 2015 14:46
|
|
|
Gazetteer posted:Dragon Age setting-wise does some interesting things with familiar concepts. It's not really trying to reinvent the wheel, though. So if you're coming from a position of "I like traditional fantasy settings with elves and dwarves and dudes in robes waving around sticks to throw fire at people", then you're probably going to have fun with it. Because, yes, their elves are different. But, yeah, if you consider those things boring from the get go it's probably not for you. "Sounds like D&D" is not even an unfair comment. Also, there's literally no mechanical or narrative consequences for speccing blood mage in da:o, and the social mechanics are typical gamesoft "EVERYONE IN PARTY ORBITS THE MAJESTIC SUN THAT IS THE MUTE PC MUTHFUCKA AND SHALL NOT INTERACT OUTSIDE OF MISERABLE EXCUSES OF PARTY BANTER." There's not many mechanics that give DA any identity in itself really is what I'm saying.
|
|
#
?
Jan 16, 2015 15:03
|
|
|
Quarex posted:I just found out about this a couple of weeks ago, and it is the first anime I have wanted to watch since like 1997. Glad to hear it is apparently as awesome as it sounds. Galaxy Express 999 and the other works of Leiji Matsumoto are superb, but old. Again, more of a comment about my tastes being ancient in nerd terms than anything else. Yeah, the Tor Appendix N series was great. I especially liked how often they came to totally different conclusions about the same book. My reaction to Three Hearts and Three Lions for example, was way more in line with Mordicai's than Tim's. Yeah there's totally an Appendix N in 5e that isn't bad at all, quibbles about some choices aside. Maybe "Appendix N" isn't the right phrase for what I'm trying to figure out. The reason I asked this, what triggered the conversation with my friend, was that when I was at a convention playing DCC, this subject came up. Since I'm 28, not 40, I tried my best to defend the tastes of kids. Most of the people there were interested in hearing about my limited awareness of what the kids are into except for one grog who just kept snidely bringing up ANIME, like goddamn Bill Cosby shittalking anyone younger than him because they like the rap music instead of jazz. Appendix N is interesting because the influence is much clearer on bits and pieces of things in D&D rather than the game itself and how it plays. The Carnelian Cube is just in D&D. A whole bunch of authors inspired the alignment system, (or are to blame for it) a nod to Jack Vance not only with the magic system, but IOUN stones, Lovecraft, Dunsany, and Michael Moorcock influenced the cosmology, all the Shadow Plane stuff is inspired by the Amber series, Conan, Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser inspired fighters, thieves and later the barbarian class, but not how they play and so on and so on. I've never really played the wargames the original TSR crew were playing at the time but I'm guessing D&D is really a product of those games with "things from our favorite fantasy novels" bolted on. I've always wondered why CS Lewis wasn't in Appendix N, especially considering that Gygax was religious. Because they're children's novels? But John Bellairs is on there, albeit for Face in the Frost instead of one of his better known children's mysteries. Had Gygax just never read them? Did he actively dislike them? Littlefinger posted:Yes. Don't get me wrong, it's a neat improvement on d20 in a lot of aspects. It's d20-er in the sense that it seems better as a generic system than the original (they used a version of it for Blue Rose and Mutants & Masterminds, too). But it is still, at the end of the day, a D&D variant and that shows that many at Green Ronin may have thought that rpgs=D&D. (Which may, or may not, have unconsciously followed them when they tried to move out of the d20 paradigm to 'innovate' with DA. Hard to say.) I think it's more that Green Ronin are a product of the d20 boom rather than seriously thinking that D&D is the only RPG that exists. I like Green Ronin but it's like those episodes of Kitchen Nightmares where Ramsay is called into a restaurant that is dying because the head chef was trained in the 70s and all he can make is Beef Wellington. In my opinion, Mutants and Masterminds and True20 are the best d20 products ever created, in terms of mechanics. Covok posted:The fact it was a commissioned piece probably has something to do with it too. If you make something too experimental, they might question your decision to make the product "risky." Doing something plain, boring, and "traditional" is going to be viewed by the commissioner as the safer option and the one they are more likely to be pleased by. Obviously, you can't be too generic or you run the risk of being too safe and annoying them that way, but DA:TRPG does seem to try to diverge enough and, at the same time, not too much from tradition. ProfessorCirno posted:Yeah, when I think of Dragon Age, I think of randomly generating stats, high PC mortality, and fighters having no abilities at all. I think the staggered boxed set release with months and months in between the boxes has more to do with the relative failure of the Dragon Age RPG than any mechanical considerations. Whether this was an attempt to pay tribute to BECMI or because they blew the release date of Dragon Age and had to push something out despite not being ready or some bizarre combination, who knows. I described the game to a friend and the way it was released gave him pause. Littlefinger posted:Take a harder look. The situation of the city elves, at least, is exactly a fantasy not-Europe analogue of a certain group's plight in the Middle Ages. I remember some critic talking about how because the elves didn't look like Jews - the implication being because of their fair features and light hair - this metaphor fell flat. I was actually quite offended by that. This critic later tried to cover this up by claiming clearly they meant the ears. Lightning Lord fucked around with this message at 15:22 on Jan 16, 2015 |
|
#
?
Jan 16, 2015 15:03
|
|
|
Illvillainy posted:LET ME TELL YOU MORE ABOUT HOW I DON'T LIKE DRAGON AGE My position still remains that the tabletop RPG is not trying to tell the kind of stories that the rest of the franchise does. I guess you're just going to have to disagree if you want, because I have like... zero interest in debating the relative merits of a particular fantasy setting with you. Gazetteer fucked around with this message at 15:21 on Jan 16, 2015 |
|
#
?
Jan 16, 2015 15:18
|
|
|
Gazetteer posted:Yeah, you kind of communicated your general opinion of Dragon Age pretty effectively in your first post, but thanks for telling me about it again, I guess. We're not actually disagreeing I think as we would both like more effort to go toward considering social mechanics in games, opinon on settings aside.
|
|
#
?
Jan 16, 2015 15:37
|
|
|
Illvillainy posted:I thought I was discussing how the games handled stories, sorry. My original post was facetious as gently caress, I admit. I don't know, seems like me you wouldn't want a party based ttrpg to tell stories in same ways as a modern western-style crpgs as crpgs (esp. BW ones) haven't quite figured out that the "extra special player character" is completely at odds with telling party based stories. It helps to think of the Dragon Age TTRPG as "an RPG set in Thedas" rather than "a perfect adaption of the video games" even if only for that reason, a game oriented around a bunch of jerks controlled by players rather than one jerk controlled by one player who has a bunch of NPCs hang out with him is just going to have a different tone.
|
|
#
?
Jan 16, 2015 15:40
|
|
|
What the Dragon Age TRPG really needed was a system where you have to win all the other PCs over to your side through flagrant bribery. 
|
|
#
?
Jan 16, 2015 16:31
|
|
|
Alien Rope Burn posted:What the Dragon Age TRPG really needed was a system where you have to win all the other PCs over to your side through flagrant bribery. Illvillainy fucked around with this message at 16:57 on Jan 16, 2015 |
|
#
?
Jan 16, 2015 16:54
|
|
|
Littlefinger posted:TRADITION! Hey now let's not get hasty. Green Ronin's aSoIaF rpg was really good, and you're wrong if you think otherwise. It also wasn't d20. Also if you enjoy d0 games the Black Company book was good for replacing Vancian casting and offering the first real mass combat rules for the system.
|
|
#
?
Jan 16, 2015 19:38
|
|
|
PresidentBeard posted:Hey now let's not get hasty. Green Ronin's aSoIaF rpg was really good, and you're wrong if you think otherwise. It also wasn't d20. Also if you enjoy d0 games the Black Company book was good for replacing Vancian casting and offering the first real mass combat rules for the system. I just actually read that post and it's one of the most "my hat of d02 know no limit" things I've ever seen.
|
|
#
?
Jan 16, 2015 20:31
|
|
|
While I haven't actually played the Dragon Age RPG, I am not sure that it is the face of everything wrong with the RPG industry. I went to a panel on the Dragon Age RPG at GenCon last year. While they had some odd views that they defended a lot (no equivalent to a challenge rating system in the books) it seemed like the tie-in with Bioware hadn't been the easiest thing to work with. So, while presumably some of the Bioware team understands how tabletop RPGs work, other people they were working with did not. The example given was talking to an art director about Abominations; the art director sent Green Ronin some pictures and said, "This is what Abominations look like." And GR says, "Okay, this is what they look like in the game, but what if the Abominations looked different and had different stats [in the RPG] based on what kind of demon was involved?" and the art director says, "No... we sent you what they look like already." Green Ronin also mentioned that they can't put anything out about Thedas that hasn't been approved by Bioware and that they can't spoil stuff ahead of the games, so sections on Tevinter got held up, holding up one of the box sets. Basically, it sounded like the license is not the license to print money you might expect it to be.
|
|
#
?
Jan 16, 2015 20:33
|
|
|
Illvillainy posted:Also, mechanics for telling fellow party members to not be so whiny and have a foursome with you. Wait a munite, what DA needs is badly thought out PbtA rules! It might as well have them considering its sister series, Mass Effect, has a set of its own. Sionak posted:While I haven't actually played the Dragon Age RPG, I am not sure that it is the face of everything wrong with the RPG industry. This confirms my suspicions a tad when they said "we were given documents to work off of and didn't get to play the game until our own was in layouts." When I heard that, even though the episode of Tabeltop was good, I knew I would never buy the thing. It just suggests a very divorced design process where they were getting kept in the dark. Not that they're innocent in all of this and there is no telling how much information they were given and, hell, it being a retroclone vanity project of a dev is still very possible, but it just all suggests to me that this liscense was not easy to make a viable product for. Edit: I think the main issue a game like Dragon Age or Mass Effect would have being ported to a trpg is that both games have an engaging, interactive stories with mechanics to support them and very tactical combat that rewards player skill and ability. Being video games, a lot of the bookkeeping and heavy lifting of trying to accommodate both elements can be handled by a computer and the speed of things can be handled effectively in both regards due to the direct control the devs have over scenarios. I'm not saying it's impossible in TRPGS, but it is much harder and a lot of things don't cleanly port over from one medium to the other. Covok fucked around with this message at 21:22 on Jan 16, 2015 |
|
#
?
Jan 16, 2015 21:17
|
|
|
Illvillainy posted:I thought I was discussing how the games handled stories, sorry. My original post was facetious as gently caress, I admit. I don't know, seems like me you wouldn't want a party based ttrpg to tell stories in same ways as a modern western-style crpgs as crpgs (esp. BW ones) haven't quite figured out that the "extra special player character" is completely at odds with telling party based stories. I am saying "this tabletop RPG is very divorced from anything most Dragon Age fans actually liked about the games", and it feels like you just keep repeating "well I didn't like the things that those fans liked." I am reasonably sure that we are disagreeing here, since you seem to want to have a conversation about how you don't like the videogames and I am talking about how I don't think the tabletop RPG is a good adaptation of them. "This Star Wars RPG doesn't let me do cool action moves like in the movies." "Yeah, well, I thought the action in the movies was dumb." Sionak posted:While I haven't actually played the Dragon Age RPG, I am not sure that it is the face of everything wrong with the RPG industry.
|
|
#
?
Jan 16, 2015 21:41
|
|
|
Covok posted:It might as well have them considering its sister series, Mass Effect, has a set of its own. I've seen a few AW hacks for Mass Effect, but this is by far the best and most complete.
|
|
#
?
Jan 16, 2015 21:58
|
|
|
While I'm sure Bioware has plenty of the blame, if Green Ronin is saying Dragon Age couldn't be good because they lacked monsters rather then because none of the game mechanics followed up on giving you the experience then quite frankly yes, that is tabletop gaming dot txt. They made a bland retroclone with no link to the IP, and then said Bioware was bad because they couldn't split off from the IP even more to give you more baddies to kill. None of that touches on their complete lack of advertisement or how they didn't sell in any major markets, either.
|
|
#
?
Jan 16, 2015 22:08
|
|
|
Illvillainy posted:Wait a munite, what every setting needs is badly thought out PbtA rules! FTFY
|
|
#
?
Jan 16, 2015 22:24
|
|
|
PresidentBeard posted:Hey now let's not get hasty. Green Ronin's aSoIaF rpg was really good, and you're wrong if you think otherwise. It also wasn't d20. Also if you enjoy d0 games the Black Company book was good for replacing Vancian casting and offering the first real mass combat rules for the system. I haven't said or implied it (or Dragon Age) was d20, I don't get where that came from. Littlefinger fucked around with this message at 00:25 on Jan 17, 2015 |
|
#
?
Jan 17, 2015 00:16
|
|
|
I have more fun with badly thought out PbtA than any other badly thought out port/hack. Not like a lot of fun, but more than d20, and I'm not big on gurps. It's there any other system that gets half-rear end setting ports regularly?
|
|
#
?
Jan 17, 2015 00:41
|
|
|
Loki_XLII posted:I have more fun with badly thought out PbtA than any other badly thought out port/hack. Not like a lot of fun, but more than d20, and I'm not big on gurps. It's there any other system that gets half-rear end setting ports regularly? FATE.
|
|
#
?
Jan 17, 2015 01:00
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 25, 2024 22:29 |
|
|
To be fair, though, the bad Fate games are coming nearly exclusively from one company.
|
|
#
?
Jan 17, 2015 01:33
|
|
