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Ghost Leviathan posted:Basically the problem with all the RPG theory is that it's literally all invented by some greasy weirdo going 'And that's why my game is good and everything I don't like is terrible' and utterly useless for any other purpose than that. That's too harsh. In the heyday of the Forge they did some good work unpacking assumptions about the way people play RPGs and helping find ways to explain what did or didn't work for them. Ron Edwards tried really hard to talk about S/G/N were not labels for gaming systems, they were ways to describe what a person was in to during what IIRC he called an "instance of play." I still think that's relevant. Unfortunately it got caught up in identity politics and marketing and poo poo while design mostly continued to stagnate.
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Mar 29, 2024 03:37
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Illusionism sounds like something a fat turn of the century Southern politician would angrily accuse his opponent of. All "My turncoat foe on the other side is guilty of hooliganism! Of illusionism! Of obstructicating the factules of this admininistration's fine ethics! And most heinously of all his peach cobbler leaves a great deal to be desired!" theironjef fucked around with this message at 03:51 on Mar 29, 2024 |
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Mar 29, 2024 03:48
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I thought it was one of the core spell lists in the 1E PHB.
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Mar 29, 2024 03:48
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Zorak of Michigan posted:That's too harsh. In the heyday of the Forge they did some good work unpacking assumptions about the way people play RPGs and helping find ways to explain what did or didn't work for them. Ron Edwards tried really hard to talk about S/G/N were not labels for gaming systems, they were ways to describe what a person was in to during what IIRC he called an "instance of play." I still think that's relevant. Unfortunately it got caught up in identity politics and marketing and poo poo while design mostly continued to stagnate. Ron Edwards may have said that GNS were primarily about creative agendas in play rather than types of systems, but he also talked about how some games (especially oWoD) were “incoherent” for mixing G, N, and S instead of being focused on one or another of them - that was what he was talking about with the notorious “brain damage” thing.
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Mar 29, 2024 04:03
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Farg posted:whats the proper MLA format for citing a forum post I don't think this is MLA necessarily, but this is how one of my posts was cited in the bibliography of this academic work:  Jeffrey A. Tolbert, "The Sort of Story That Has You Covering Your Mirrors: The Case of Slender Man," in Slender Man Is Coming: Creepypasta and Contemporary Legends on the Internet, eds. Trevor J. Blank and Lynne S McNeill (Utah State University Press, 2018) 49 the citation I wrote is in CMS style
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Mar 29, 2024 04:56
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So this is how our posts will be cited by the cockroach xeno-archaeologists!
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Mar 29, 2024 05:03
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Silver2195 posted:Surely that's not Illusionism, just normal railroading that the players are fine with? I thought that the reason Illusionism was called that was because the GM creates the illusion that player decisions and/or the dice matter, even though they actually don't. Normally, Edwards' -isms were about group creative agendas, not just things the GM did. But honestly, they were so badly defined that who knows, really. However, I don't think it was ever a matter of the GM decieving the players in a one-way fashion - basically because most GMs can't do that. It's very hard to do and social circumstances can make it an absurd idea (eg, it would imply that if you have a group where the players take turns GMing, all of them would think "well when I'm GM I totally fool them, but all the other players when GMing really make my decisions matter?") Having checked, Edwards actually said this: Ron Edwards posted:Illusionism is sometimes read as malicious deception, but that negative reading is misplaced. I think that a shared agreement "to be deceived" is typically involved, i.e., what I described before as the players not wanting to look behind the black curtain, and everyone being happy that the curtain is there. When that happens, Illusionism is functional, primarily because no element of the Social Contract is being threatened or violated. Silver2195 posted:Pathfinder modules, especially Adventure Paths, tend to be fairly linear - necessarily so in the case of the longer Adventure Paths. But I don't think they're particularly prone to Illusionism in the sense of encouraging GMs to deceive players (at least not the PF2 ones). There was one bit in Age of Ashes that was criticized for going into that kind of territory, with an NPC encountered in two different places in a hexcrawl scenario - normally they would be the same guy, but if he died (probably at the hands of the players) at the first place they encountered him, they would instead encounter his identical twin at the other place. But I think James Jacobs specifically acknowledged criticism of that bit and said they would never do something like that again. That was a bit duff (I've run that hexcrawl and I switched it out for his ghost instead of his identical twin) but the example was not what happens in the hexcrawls as the glue between them. A typical AP for PF2 or PF will consists of a number of steps, each of which is one of several recognizable subgames, that the players are shuttled between. There is no option not to do those subgames. In that particular case, for example, there is no option not to even go to the forest where they encounter that NPC, or to just wait for him to leave (APs love to have the PCs arrive just as something starts and never consider that they might just turn back and come back when it's done)
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Mar 29, 2024 06:36
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Nessus posted:So this is how our posts will be cited by the cockroach xeno-archaeologists! that's correct, Chicago Style citations are only used by subhuman cockroach monsters
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Mar 29, 2024 10:13
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I’d encourage folks to go find some of the podcast interviews Edwards has done over the years. Whatever you may think of his conclusions, hearing him speak leaves no doubt that the guy is as close to a scholar of the art form as we have now that Stafford is gone, up there with Vincent Baker. Genuinely a fascinating guy who thinks deeply about the subject in a structured, thoughtful way. Also cantankerous, but considering what became of his efforts - which is to say, being wildly misinterpreted for decades - he’s probably earned it.
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Mar 29, 2024 10:50
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Kestral posted:I’d encourage folks to go find some of the podcast interviews Edwards has done over the years. Whatever you may think of his conclusions, hearing him speak leaves no doubt that the guy is as close to a scholar of the art form as we have now that Stafford is gone, up there with Vincent Baker. Genuinely a fascinating guy who thinks deeply about the subject in a structured, thoughtful way. Also cantankerous, but considering what became of his efforts - which is to say, being wildly misinterpreted for decades - he’s probably earned it. He is a biologist trying to be a humanities scholar while actively avoiding the humanities. He would be less misinterpreted if he actually sat down and engaged with all that. It’s super frustrating to see him fumble through a number of well established concepts because of it. Could have been way more widespread if he had.
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Mar 29, 2024 11:06
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PuttyKnife posted:He is a biologist trying to be a humanities scholar while actively avoiding the humanities. He would be less misinterpreted if he actually sat down and engaged with all that. It’s super frustrating to see him fumble through a number of well established concepts because of it. Could have been way more widespread if he had.
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Mar 29, 2024 14:29
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Zorak of Michigan posted:That's too harsh. In the heyday of the Forge they did some good work unpacking assumptions about the way people play RPGs and helping find ways to explain what did or didn't work for them. Honestly this is just "My game is awesome and here's why" or "I want my game to be better and here's why". When Edwards was talking about Narrativism it was setting out and developing a mission statement (things have moved past him but he was groundbreaking) and it worked well. When he was talking about Simulationism he was clearly mixing several things into something he didn't understand (in part because it was several things) and seemed to think that incoherence (which was in part his lack of understanding) was a bad thing rather than an inevitable side effect of people being different. When he was talking about gamism it was a "hey, those Old School D&D folks are pretty cool. Leave them alone" to a bunch of WoD nerds.
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Mar 29, 2024 16:32
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Not sure if there's a dedicated suggestions thread but I'll try here: I'm looking for a beginner-friendly miniatures game that's not super expensive to get into to play with my wife and I and maybe some friends. Preferably low model count. I've played Gaslands with her which was super fun and that's about it. I have 40k and AoS armies but it's a bit much to get into.
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Mar 29, 2024 17:17
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Kill Team. All I've ever heard is how much better it is than vanilla Warhammer, and you can play it with just a handful of guys.
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Mar 29, 2024 17:22
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a7m2 posted:Not sure if there's a dedicated suggestions thread but I'll try here: I'm looking for a beginner-friendly miniatures game that's not super expensive to get into to play with my wife and I and maybe some friends. Preferably low model count. I've played Gaslands with her which was super fun and that's about it. If you don't want to buy new models, one of the GW skirmish games. If you're okay with either buying new models or using paper dolls on bases, you should absolutely try Moonstone. Picture something like the casts of Labyrinth and Dark Crystal having seven-dimensional rock-paper-scissors duels while the overall match is a multiball version of capture the flag. Rules are free and they've got the aforementioned paper dolls on their downloads page as well. Once your players get the very basics down like "activate in this order, energy uses these little counter doodads," all the stuff they'll need to reference lives on the cards you need to play, which is nice for new folks. Downsides are, you have to enjoy whimsical fantasy sculpts, and they can get a little twee for my tastes sometimes. Sculpts are really nice, but they are resin, and they have the single worst mold-release agent slathered all over them I've ever seen. Still, if you've built an entire GW army, there's nothing there that'll really stop you in your tracks. Here's a short one if you're a pivot to video kinda human: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d_LYb_YV5vk
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Mar 29, 2024 17:47
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I should've said I wanted to stay away from GW stuff altogether but totally not opposed to buying models. I love painting models so I specifically want something not GW because I paint plenty of those already. Moonstone looks interesting!
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Mar 29, 2024 18:07
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Frostgrave (get 2nd ed) has low mini count and you can use any minis you want from any company Mantic has some small skirmishy minis games such as Deadzone, Firefight, Vanguard, and Hellboy There's a bunch of games in the sort of crossover minis/boardgame space, if you'd like to not deal with making terrain? Deadzone sits in that spot for example but there's many more There are tons of historical games, do you want to have skirmishy or small army battles between little soldiers? Every historical era and location is explored and while there's a nerd chasm ten miles deep you can fall into, there's accessible streamlined games for beginners too
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Mar 29, 2024 18:30
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a7m2 posted:I should've said I wanted to stay away from GW stuff altogether but totally not opposed to buying models. I love painting models so I specifically want something not GW because I paint plenty of those already. How do you feel about Marvel and or Star Wars? Because Crisis Protocol and Shatterpoint are both relatively active, small model count skirmish games with very nice detailed figures.
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Mar 29, 2024 18:45
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I love the models but haven't played a game of Frostgrave. when's Ghost Archipelago Crewmen 2 (this time lady sailors)
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Mar 29, 2024 19:03
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theironjef posted:How do you feel about Marvel and or Star Wars? Because Crisis Protocol and Shatterpoint are both relatively active, small model count skirmish games with very nice detailed figures. Not a fan of Marvel but Star Wars I don't mind. I'll definitely check out Shatterpoint. I hear X-Wing is good too Also it doesn't really matter if it's got an active player base, I'm likely only playing this with my wife and maybe a friend or two. Leperflesh posted:Frostgrave (get 2nd ed) has low mini count and you can use any minis you want from any company Almost missed this post. OK, I'll check out Frostgrave. Deadzone seems interesting too. I have some terrain but making more can be a hassle. Is there a good accessible historical game for ancient China?
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Mar 29, 2024 19:41
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a7m2 posted:Not sure if there's a dedicated suggestions thread but I'll try here: I'm looking for a beginner-friendly miniatures game that's not super expensive to get into to play with my wife and I and maybe some friends. Preferably low model count. I've played Gaslands with her which was super fun and that's about it. The indy miniatures game thread you are looking for is here: https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3253037 The OP is in process of being updated as I understand it. You've got good advice here already with Kill Team, Frostgrave, etc.. I was going to recommend Gaslands Refuelled but you've already played it! If you are looking for force against force you may want to take a look at One Page Rules, specifically Grimdark Future. If you are looking for skirmish games with PvP and coop options, take a look at what Osprey has on offer, specifically from authors Ash Barker (Last Days-zombies wargame) and Patrick Todoroff (Zona Alfa-STALKER wargame). I would be remiss if I didn't mention my personal favorite author Ivan Sorensen who created 5 Parsecs from Home (scifi) and 5 Leagues from the Borderlands (fantasy) adventures/skirmish/solo games published by Modiphius. The above wargames are usually available in pdf through WargameVault. Ominous Jazz posted:I love the models but haven't played a game of Frostgrave. when's Ghost Archipelago Crewmen 2 (this time lady sailors) You know, I was sort of curious about this myself and I was looking for news about Crewmen 2 by North Star Miniatures (their manufacturer) and after some googling I came up with nothing.  For those who don't follow the most inexpensive plastic miniatures around, Frostgrave and Stargrave have boxed sets at about $27 to $30 for 20 plastic miniatures and you will have bits left over.
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Mar 29, 2024 20:02
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AND all their bits are interchangeable (for the most part). There's cat people in star grave
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Mar 29, 2024 20:10
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I like Shatterpoint a lot because the core box is genuinely two full armies and terrain. Not like two minimum points armies that you'd never field in a real tournament, the game's teams are all made of two groups of a leader, secondary, and support each, and you get four of those groups in the box.
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Mar 29, 2024 20:14
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Helical Nightmares posted:The indy miniatures game thread you are looking for is here: https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3253037 The OP is in process of being updated as I understand it. Thanks! How is 5 Parsecs from Home? I've never played a solo game like this before. The only solo RPG I've played was 1000 year old vampire which I liked but it seems very different.
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Mar 29, 2024 20:18
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a7m2 posted:OK, I'll check out Frostgrave. Deadzone seems interesting too. I have some terrain but making more can be a hassle. Is there a good accessible historical game for ancient China? I'm not qualified to say, but the goons in the historicals thread definitely are.
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Mar 29, 2024 20:59
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a7m2 posted:Thanks! How is 5 Parsecs from Home? I've never played a solo game like this before. The only solo RPG I've played was 1000 year old vampire which I liked but it seems very different. I like 5 Parsecs from Home quite a bit, but as I recall some posters have disagreed saying the combat resolution mechanic is too simple, and the enemy AI is too undefined. I'll elaborate. The combat resolution mechanic for shooting is as follows: 1) Roll a 1d6 and add the Combat Skill of the Shooter 2) Target is within 6 inches and in the open; Successful to hit is 3+ 3) Target is within weapon range and in the open OR within 6 inches and in cover; Successful to hit is 5+ 4) Target is within weapon range and in Cover; Successful to hit is 6+ Some people find this too simple. I have found it swift and punchy for the number of miniatures on the table (10-20 on average). Regarding the criticism that the enemy AI is too undefined, I'll post an excerpt from the book and you can make your own decision. quote:Enemy Movement In addition to Cautious, Aggressive and Tactical; there are details for Rampaging, Defensive, Beast and Guardian enemies movement on page 43. It's interesting you mention 1000 Year Old Vampire, because 5 Parsecs can have a journaling aspect to it if you want to go that route. Personally I find 5 Parsecs to be a great story generator for the characters of your crew. The youtube channel Me, Myself and Die! features a voice actor (Trevor Devall) narrating his live solo play of 5 Parsecs and that can give you an idea of how things go. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E23tj_vkQnk&t=9s Also I have written up a narrative based on the details rolled on the charts and tables in 5 Parsecs and come up with a story for the triumphs and tragedies of my crew which I've documented on my blog starting here: https://nightmarethoughts6.blogspot.com/2021/10/5-parsecs-from-home-review.html Before I move on, let me admit my bias; I am on Ivan Sorensen's discord and have communicated with him. He is very accessable. If you are looking for a more roleplaying scenarios bent to your wargaming, let me also recommend Rangers of Shadow Deep (fantasy) by Joseph A. McCullough (of Frost/Stargrave fame). And tenatively When Nightmares Come (modern supernatural investigation) which was released yesterday by Patrick Todoroff. I say tenatively because I am still reading the book, but what I have read so far detailing a mechanical bridge between the roleplaying and wargaming parts of the game has been very interesting, and dare I say innovative? Also I am going to shill for Zona Alfa, the STALKER wargame, because I've enjoyed it playing PvP and I need to play more of it. My write up for that is here: https://nightmarethoughts6.blogspot.com/2022/05/zona-alfa-preparing-for-excursion-into.html https://nightmarethoughts6.blogspot.com/2022/05/zona-alfa-entering-zone-airdrop.html
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Mar 29, 2024 21:33
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Are there good prepainted minis for D&D? I should've bought my friends' old Heroclix and 3e minis when I had the chance.
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Mar 29, 2024 21:52
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Halloween Jack posted:Are there good prepainted minis for D&D? I should've bought my friends' old Heroclix and 3e minis when I had the chance. Personally I like the WizKids Wardlings line. They include a young adult in a particular class plus a pet/familiar. I think the prepainted D&D miniatures are too expensive. If pressed, I would also go to ebay and look for old Mage Knight (Heroclix) miniatures.
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Mar 29, 2024 22:12
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Leperflesh posted:Frostgrave (get 2nd ed) has low mini count and you can use any minis you want from any company I'll second Frostgrave. It's very accessible; to start with my friends and I played it with a mixture of minis from various board games and scenery made out of boxes and stacks of books, and it still played great. Levelling up your wizard and their gang between skirmishes is cool. The wandering monster stuff is neat, especially if you have a bunch of big impractical Kickstarter stretch goal minis lying around that never get used in the game they were made for (I finally got the t-rex from the batman game to the table)
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Mar 30, 2024 09:32
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PuttyKnife posted:He is a biologist trying to be a humanities scholar while actively avoiding the humanities. He would be less misinterpreted if he actually sat down and engaged with all that. It’s super frustrating to see him fumble through a number of well established concepts because of it. Could have been way more widespread if he had. He also falls into the completionist categorisation trap. Here's X different descriptions /and everything falls into them/. That's how you get "clearly defined category", "clearly defined category", "ehhhh everything else" which is GNS in a nutshell. Again in my earlier post I realised I was falling into that trap and deliberately backed away. That he's an old biologist doesn't surprise me because that's also the old school, tree of life prescriptivist biology thinking. Modern biologists talks about them the same as we're talking about him. e: Oh he didn't invent the term. e2: OK the more I'm reading this the worse John Edwards looks tbh. Splicer fucked around with this message at 17:28 on Mar 30, 2024 |
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Mar 30, 2024 12:50
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a7m2 posted:Not sure if there's a dedicated suggestions thread but I'll try here: I'm looking for a beginner-friendly miniatures game that's not super expensive to get into to play with my wife and I and maybe some friends. Preferably low model count. I've played Gaslands with her which was super fun and that's about it. https://mobileframezero.com/mfz/
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Mar 30, 2024 13:11
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I think sometimes people tend to discuss illusionism as like a platonic idea, but i do think in general it's best to try to respect players' decisions when you let them make them. If you give them a choice of A or B, they do need to be different, but it's also incumbent on you to give them an idea of what the differences could be, or at least enough information to have some idea as to what's different.
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Mar 30, 2024 13:27
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Seconding Mobile Frame Zero, that game rules. I've heard good things about its starship combat version too, but I haven't played it yet.
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Mar 30, 2024 21:03
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Splicer posted:The "illusionism" thing made me go OK has he never heard of "suspension of disbelief"? Because this is a clear subset of that. Also like... "illusionism" is either derived from or is at least evocative of "illusion of choice" which is riddled with negative connotations, so either he did that deliberately or he has no understanding of the importance of neutral-as-possible language. Like earlier when I was talking about lego and kitbash I was going to say lego and duplo,because the pieces are bigger. But then I realised the obvious implications of labeling two things with <brand> and <brand for kids> so I thought a illusion of choice is definitely the reference. it's, e.g., giving the party two doors, and whichever one they look at first is the fake one. it's honestly nbd imo, what actually matters is that the players feel like they're not being cheated, I think the *world commandment of the gm needing to be fans of the players hits the point much better.
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Mar 30, 2024 21:33
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sebmojo posted:illusion of choice is definitely the reference. it's, e.g., giving the party two doors, and whichever one they look at first is the fake one. it's honestly nbd imo, what actually matters is that the players feel like they're not being cheated, I think the *world commandment of the gm needing to be fans of the players hits the point much better. It looks like some guy originally used the phrase "illusionist" to describe himself doing it, whether whoever extended this to "illusionism" fell into the former or the latter I dunno.
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Mar 30, 2024 22:17
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I got the vibe that it's mixed in with 'I had fun with this game, therefore the game is good' and how it's ruining people's fun to point out that the game itself can still suck but be fun with a good group, and that's not a reason to recommend the game in itself.Splicer posted:That he's an old biologist doesn't surprise me because that's also the old school, tree of life prescriptivist biology thinking. Modern biologists talks about them the same as we're talking about him. Yyyeah, not surprised it comes from that mix of 'never question the wisdom of the elders' and 'everything obviously fits in all these neat little boxes we've already made' nerd instincts. Reminds me of some of the problems TVtropes has, ha. People start seeing the categories as more important than the actual topic, and twist things to fit those categories even when they no longer serve a valid purpose.
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Mar 31, 2024 02:46
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Splicer posted:Do you have lego This is cool. I have access to a lot of high quality knock-off lego for cheap so I might pick this up
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Mar 31, 2024 14:45
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Panzeh posted:I think sometimes people tend to discuss illusionism as like a platonic idea, but i do think in general it's best to try to respect players' decisions when you let them make them. If you give them a choice of A or B, they do need to be different, but it's also incumbent on you to give them an idea of what the differences could be, or at least enough information to have some idea as to what's different. That's where you run into the other side though. Getting the information balance right without a bit of higher level "railroading" can be very difficult. You might decide that the PCs can intercept the McGuffin's convoy on the freeway; or they can prevent it being loaded at the docks; or they can attack the ship at sea. Or maybe they come up with some other approach. And that will affect the parts of the system used, it'll affect skill checks and the framing of the scene, and so on. But ultimately the structure, that the PCs engage in some kind of conflict and probably end up getting the McGuffin, is not subject to choice. Because if player choices can result in that not happening, like say it turns out that the docks are far too heavily defended for the PCs to actually make any difference there, then either the PCs know that and don't make those choices, or they don't know that and end up feeling they've been screwed over - and, paradoxically, like they've been railroaded!
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Mar 31, 2024 18:03
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Maybe no matter how you try to persuade them they don't care about the McGuffin and they want to do other stuff instead.
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Mar 31, 2024 19:49
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YggdrasilTM posted:Maybe no matter how you try to persuade them they don't care about the McGuffin and they want to do other stuff instead. Other stuff like, run their own game, hopefully. Premise rejection is fine, but you’d better be ready to step up if you’re not going to engage with the concept / structure of the game.
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Mar 31, 2024 20:41
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