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Asimo posted:Flying Buffalo, maybe? Even if they're much more wargaming than ttRPG, and mostly only exist out of inertia these days. You know, when I typed "FGU" I meant Flying Buffalo. FGU really doesn't count. Mea culpa.
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Jun 8, 2015 13:11
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Flying Buffalo deserves more credit than it gets for basically inventing the CYOA format with its solos. Like T&T solo adventures predate all the Judge's Guild and D&D-published solo modules (Including the one in the Red Box), and the CYOA and Fighting Fantasy series. Or maybe not credit but "Condemnation". It's a hard call.
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Jun 8, 2015 13:46
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Yeah, Buffalo Castle was released in '76. It was first in the pack by quite a margin. Speaking of Palladium and licensed RPGs, there were quite a few licensed properties before TMNT in '85. They weren't the first company to make it their focus--that would be Chaosium. They were certainly influential and got a lot of people into the hobby. (Although the Rifts ads in Marvel comics probably brought in more.) The first licensed RPG was supposedly Dallas. But from what I've heard, Dallas was really more of a card-based game with a freewheeling negotiation phase, not a roleplaying game as we would think of it. Though the way narrative RPGs have come back around to being scenario-based and having a set endpoint, you might. (Just to head this off at the pass, the game was not a "Who shot J.R." murder mystery. He's a playable character.)
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Jun 8, 2015 14:03
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Flying Buffalo gets a pass from me because I loved their old CityBook line. Also because of their website, which is loving amazing.quote:This page last updated May 30, 2015
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Jun 8, 2015 14:12
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Earliest licensed RPGs? Heritage Games had early licenses to Star Trek and John Carter, producing Star Trek: Adventure Gaming in the Final Frontier and John Carter: Warlord of Mars in 1978. I think they're the first licensed RPGs OD&D had Conan and Lankhmar stuff in a 1976 supplement (Gods, Demigods and Heroes), which might make it the first licensed material in an RPG. It was later expanded to Deities and Demigods for AD&D in 1980 (dropping Conan but adding Lovecraft and Elric stuff). SPI had a weirdly fascinating RPG-boardgame for their own adaptation of John Carter Warlord of Mars in 1978. Their also-weird Dallas game was 1980. Call of Cthulhu (by Chaosium) was 1981, as was Stormbringer. Chaosium also did Thieves' World (1981), Elfquest (1984), Ringworld (1984), and Prince Valiant (1985) Other notable licenses: Star Trek (by FASA) was 1982 James Bond 007 (by Avalon Hill) was 1983 Marvel Super Heroes (by TSR) was 1984 Indiana Jones (by TSR) was 1984 DC Heroes (by Mayfair) was 1985 Middle Earth Role Playing (by Iron Crown) was 1985 Dr Who (by FASA) was 1985 Conan (by TSR) was 1985 Star Wars (by West End) was 1987 TMNT was 1985 and Robotech was 1986, so Palladium was kind of late to the game as far as licensed RPGs go. FMguru fucked around with this message at 14:34 on Jun 8, 2015 |
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Jun 8, 2015 14:29
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TSR did Warriors of Mars (a Chainmail style game) in 1974, but they never had the rights. Did they actually have the rights to the Leiber and Howard stuff when they used it? Heritage's licensed games were weird. From what I've read they were more like Chainmail style games that measured the stats of individual heroes, with maybe some notes for roleplaying literally stapled onto the end of the book. There's a surprising amount of stuff from the first several years of the hobby that prompts examining the boundaries between board games, wargames, RPGs, and CYOA books. MERP is kind of an odd duck because ICE released a series of MERP campaign books before the corebook was released.
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Jun 8, 2015 15:09
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Very possibly so with Leiber- they did the Lankhmar/ boardgame back in '76 and his stuff was the only stuff not removed from later re-releases of Deities and Demigods, for example. (They had to drop Melnibone and Cthulhu stuff because Chaosium threatened to sue. Howard, not so much.
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Jun 8, 2015 15:19
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Halloween Jack posted:TSR did Warriors of Mars (a Chainmail style game) in 1974, but they never had the rights. Did they actually have the rights to the Leiber and Howard stuff when they used it? They had the rights to Leiber (TSR published a licensed Lankhmar boardgame early on, his stuff stayed in print through all versions of Deities and Demigods, and there was an entire subline of AD&D 2E supplements set in Lankhmar and even its own standalone RPG) but I don't think they ever had rights to Howard (which is Conan only appeared in that one early OD&D supplement and nowhere else). Moorcock and Lovecraft they never had rights to, and had to re-do Deities and Demigods once someone (Chaosium) did get the rights and asserted them. The Wikipedia article on the Heritage games makes them sound like early OD&D clones: wikipedia posted:Character Generation MERP stuff was compatible from the start with their in-print Rolemaster system (Arms Law/Spell Law/Character Law) e: D'oh, TSR did get the rights to Conan in the mid-1980s, and published a couple of AD&D 1E modules for it and eventually it's own (interesting) standalone RPG. FMguru fucked around with this message at 15:48 on Jun 8, 2015 |
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Jun 8, 2015 15:26
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The best thing about Heritage's John Carter game was that your stats and treasure were used to gain "Princess Points" which you rolled at the end of the scenario to see if one character gets to win by marrying a princess.
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Jun 8, 2015 15:46
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Halloween Jack posted:The best thing about Heritage's John Carter game was that your stats and treasure were used to gain "Princess Points" which you rolled at the end of the scenario to see if one character gets to win by marrying a princess.  That's so wonderfully storygamey.
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Jun 8, 2015 16:57
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Evil Mastermind posted:Flying Buffalo gets a pass from me because I loved their old CityBook line. Also because of their website, which is loving amazing. hell it looks pretty good on a phone.
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Jun 8, 2015 17:44
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FMguru posted:TMNT was 1985 and Robotech was 1986, so Palladium was kind of late to the game as far as licensed RPGs go. (OTOH we can criticize how Siembieda just plain didn't seem to understand what Robotech is about, or if he did he was utterly unequipped to actually make an RPG version.)
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Jun 8, 2015 19:37
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Guilty Spork posted:It wasn't that Palladium was especially innovative in terms of doing licensed games in itself, so much as they chose the licenses really well. TMNT and especially Robotech have had more longevity than the vast majority of licensed RPGs. Call of Cthulhu is about the only one that's lasted longer. quote:(OTOH we can criticize how Siembieda just plain didn't seem to understand what Robotech is about, or if he did he was utterly unequipped to actually make an RPG version.)
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Jun 8, 2015 19:48
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TG As An Industry: It's fairly in keeping with the whole Robotech zeitgeist to not really understand what you're doing.
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Jun 8, 2015 19:50
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Robotech is pretty much the poster child for games that are conversions of properties that don't give a single thought to the property's tone. People don't care about what the show's about, they want stat blocks, and lots of them! Hell, a week or two ago I saw someone saying that Fate Core wouldn't be a good match for Star Trek because FC doesn't have detailed rules for gear. Because as we all know one of the big things in Trek is the difference between a phaser and a disruptor pistol.
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Jun 8, 2015 20:18
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FMguru posted:
Sort of, yeah. MERP was a simplified version of Rolemaster ( six stats rather than ten, four armor types rather than twenty, etc), and it wasn't too hard to kludge the two together, especially given the rather piecemeal approach to "codification" , "authority" , and "game balance" that Rolemaster has always had. They would include the rules for both systems in their supplements. There might be only one or two that don't. And honestly, a lot of MERP supplements were just expanded back story and world building for places that Tolkien didn't touch on much like the Harad, with little to no stat blocks or crunchy rules. You could use them for any system. They would often include a number chart for conversions into AD&D and Runescape as well, though not by name ("3-18 and 2-12 systems"). Evil Mastermind posted:Robotech is pretty much the poster child for games that are conversions of properties that don't give a single thought to the property's tone. People don't care about what the show's about, they want stat blocks, and lots of them! Oh dear god this! When I think about Tolkien, I think about doing a lot of manual computing and calculating, then cross referencing a different chart to see the specific damage inflicted upon the orc I've just struck with my Hand Axe against his Chain Shirt.
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Jun 8, 2015 20:40
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To be fair to Tolkien and MERP, that was par for the course for licensed games for a long, long time. Mechanical support for genre/setting/milieu/whatever emulation didn't spring from barren ground in the 90s, but it popped up in the form of individual rules that were few and far between. I talked to an elderly grognard who runs his own shop and loves MERP best of all fantasy games. He patiently explained that they didn't try and didn't expect to emulate Tolkien; the goal was to be able to play game/ruleset X in Middle-Earth.
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Jun 8, 2015 20:44
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Well, the idea of putting tone in RPGs wasn't really a huge thing back when Robotech or Rolemaster-LotR were made. Technically speaking it's still a pretty recent idea.
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Jun 8, 2015 20:44
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Literally just started a MERP game last night for shits, and yeah, I had to be pretty clear that this is basically 80's D&D but with more charts and lots of Tolkien words on top. They really did an amazing job with their setting information, for the time, but it's just so much cruft for actually running most games, and then Gandalf's spell list is a bunch of elemental iterations of magic missile peppered amongst rope tricks and food conjuring. Those goddamn maps, though. Still some of the coolest looking fantasy maps ever. 
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Jun 8, 2015 21:27
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Plague of Hats posted:Literally just started a MERP game last night for shits, and yeah, I had to be pretty clear that this is basically 80's D&D but with more charts and lots of Tolkien words on top. They really did an amazing job with their setting information, for the time, but it's just so much cruft for actually running most games, and then Gandalf's spell list is a bunch of elemental iterations of magic missile peppered amongst rope tricks and food conjuring.
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Jun 8, 2015 21:44
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Morgoth has 666 for his attack bonuses, after all.
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Jun 8, 2015 21:54
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Plague of Hats posted:Morgoth has 666 for his attack bonuses, after all.
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Jun 8, 2015 21:58
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One good thing MERP and Rolemaster have going for them is the dynamic combat turn, something I wish more modern games would adapt. Rather than rolling for initiative, then going person to person while everyone else checks their phones or flips through books, it goes through phases based on what action is being performed (Magic, Missile, Movement, Melee), and everyone acts simultaneously, only rolling for initiative if there is a dispute (who hits first in melee, or to see if you can run past someone before they block the doorway, for example). It's more complicated than "Your turn, now your turn, now your turn", but it keeps people engaged a lot better because you're waiting a lot less for things to do. I like Rolemaster, as much as I bitch about it. It's the only game I play in real life currently, though that has as much to do with my current group as anything else. But it really requires a different mindset than, say, FATE or *World, or even 4E. But you can also see where 3E stole a lot of it's ideas about skills and character customization. It's where Monte Cook cut his teeth in the late 80s/early 90s, if that tells you anything.
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Jun 8, 2015 21:59
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Does Empire of the Petal Throne not count as licensed since M.A.R. Barker was actually involved?unseenlibrarian posted:Flying Buffalo deserves more credit than it gets for basically inventing the CYOA format with its solos. Like T&T solo adventures predate all the Judge's Guild and D&D-published solo modules (Including the one in the Red Box), and the CYOA and Fighting Fantasy series. Evil Mastermind posted:Flying Buffalo gets a pass from me because I loved their old CityBook line. Also because of their website, which is loving amazing.
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Jun 9, 2015 03:02
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Quarex posted:Does Empire of the Petal Throne not count as licensed since M.A.R. Barker was actually involved?
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Jun 9, 2015 03:19
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Plague of Hats posted:Those goddamn maps, though. Still some of the coolest looking fantasy maps ever. Oh goodness yes. I'm a map nerd and a Tolkien nerd, and these hit all the buttons. Have you seen what all those maps make when you put them together? https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B9qwm-rNX9YEX0hUYkZDdzY1Tjg/edit?usp=docslist_api
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Jun 9, 2015 04:32
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Halloween Jack posted:Mechanical support for genre/setting/milieu/whatever emulation didn't spring from barren ground in the 90s, but it popped up in the form of individual rules that were few and far between. Evil Mastermind posted:Well, the idea of putting tone in RPGs wasn't really a huge thing back when Robotech or Rolemaster-LotR were made. Technically speaking it's still a pretty recent idea. It's just the persistent problem of nerds having issues understanding how themes and genre work in media means that games like those tended to have limited runs or fade from public consciousness while stuff like Rolemaster, Traveller, and other crunchy and genre-ignoring games tended to be the ones that got the most attention and support over the years. Quarex posted:Flying Buffalo is pretty amazing. I feel like they, and Tunnels & Trolls, kind of suffer from having been such early knockoffs; later knockoffs got more attention and respect. Though Tunnels & Trolls hardly did itself any favors by openly rolling its eyes at Dungeons & Dragons' tonal seriousness (even though, well, that should just mean they were 30 years ahead of their time). I suppose the fact that Tunnels & Trolls is still being updated might suggest its lifespan has not been so bad after all. Asimo fucked around with this message at 05:37 on Jun 9, 2015 |
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Jun 9, 2015 05:35
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Being able to consume and then command knowledge of some arcane bullshit has been a hallmark of the nerd since before the hobby, so it's hardly surprising that games full of arcane bullshit were lifted up on
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Jun 9, 2015 05:49
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Asimo posted:Honestly, there were a lot of rules light and genre-emulating games even in the early and mid 80's, stuff like Toon or Teenagers from Outer Space, TfOS and its sequel, Star Riders, had the amazing rule where success was graded on a bell curve. If you did too well at something, it was basically just as bad as if you had failed. You fix the toaster so well that it becomes artificially intelligent and flies off to create a new race of toaster people. You are so charming that every person in the vicinity is attracted to you and starts demanding your attention. You drive so fast that you end up at your destination, but were going so fast that it's two days in the past. They even included a sample character who had all 12s for stats to be given to players who whined too much about how weak their characters seemed. Genre emulation via mechanical support at its finest! And in such a rules lite system, to boot...
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Jun 9, 2015 06:53
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Don't forget other elements to it, like how characters didn't die, they just had a stress ("bonk") counter that got depleted and left them unconscious, running around in a useless panic, fleeing for their lives, or other suitably hilarious outcomes. And the game was very specific that 'damage' could be inflicted by verbal attacks, taunts, failing sporting events, or whatever else. And then there's the to-hit rules which explicitly included the possibility of friendly fire...  I did a review of it in F&F sometime last year (I think...) and rereading it was really illuminating. If it came out today it would fit right in alongside FAE or some other similar rules-light modern game, and the only thing that really marks it as an 80's product is the lack of a centralized single mechanic. I could pull it out and run it raw quite happily. Pondsmith was a genius at game mechanics and it's a shame that he mostly got forgotten after Fuzion and Cyberpunk 3 failed.
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Jun 9, 2015 07:19
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Asimo posted:Honestly, there were a lot of rules light and genre-emulating games even in the early and mid 80's, stuff like Toon or Teenagers from Outer Space, and even a few more complex games like Marvel Super Heroes and Ghostbusters made clear attempts at genre emulation, if with mixed success. RPG rules are a technology of sorts and there's been a lot of innovation over the past twenty years or so, but people were definitely trying.
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Jun 9, 2015 10:44
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Asimo posted:It's just the persistent problem of nerds having issues understanding how themes and genre work in media This is something that I have heard more than once here in the SA forum and would like to understand a bit more especially since I feel that I am part of the problem, since I usually only understand the theme of a piece of media' when it is very obvious or it is spelled out for me. What makes you say that? Could you give me an example? How does one simulate themes in an RPG? I immagine genere conventions are easier to simulate once you have located them.
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Jun 9, 2015 12:03
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paradoxGentleman posted:How does one simulate themes in an RPG? I immagine genre conventions are easier to simulate once you have located them. The exact same way you enforce/simulate genres, i.e. through mechanics. Is one of the themes of your game scarcity? Have mechanically-enforced scarcity and mechanics that revolve around scarcity and addressing scarcity (cf. AW's barter system, rules for hardholds/gangs/congregations and general theme).
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Jun 9, 2015 12:21
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paradoxGentleman posted:What makes you say that? Could you give me an example? It's almost impossible to not see it once you recognize the pattern.For a more concrete and horrible example, think of those nerds that take the "death star explosion was ewok genocide" joke as a serious argument.
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Jun 9, 2015 13:10
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I think the clearest example of mechanics enforcing theme is in Dread, the Jenga tower horror game. Dread is about horror, tension, and death being around every corner. An unpredictable tower that gets more and more likely to fall as time goes on mechanically should make the players feel tension. A Jenga tower doesn't fit a power fantasy or space opera, even though you could force it into a game like that, but slots into a horror game nicely.
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Jun 9, 2015 14:19
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Asimo posted:Honestly, there were a lot of rules light and genre-emulating games even in the early and mid 80's, stuff like Toon or Teenagers from Outer Space, and even a few more complex games like Marvel Super Heroes and Ghostbusters made clear attempts at genre emulation, if with mixed success. RPG rules are a technology of sorts and there's been a lot of innovation over the past twenty years or so, but people were definitely trying. FMguru posted:Paranoia is an interesting example because it was so wonderfully thematic and gonzo from the beginning, but the first edition ruleset was the clunkiest simulationist wargame thing you ever saw (legal-case rule organization, elaborate skill trees, weapon-versus-armor matrices, having to keep track of five different kinds of resource points for each character, etc.). They cleaned it up a lot in the second edition, but the tension in the first edition (between RPGing's past and it's future) is fascinating. It's interesting to look at Paranoia and Ghostbusters together because they were made by the same company (West End Games) around the same time (GBI and Paranoia 2nd Edition were both released in 1987), but were completely different in terms of tone. Paranoia 2e perfected the idea of a darkly comedic dystopia. Death was swift yet meaningless, everything was controlled by an insane computer (which was a real-life fear at the time, believe it or not), and the idea of people not being allowed to to know certain things was carried over to the idea that your character could be killed because the character's player knew the rules. Ghostbusters, on the other hand, had almost zero tone to match the movie. Yeah, it was a rules-lite system, but there were mechanics that made no sense such as most characters not being able to carry both a proton pack and a PKE meter or ghost trap without taking encumbrance penalties or toppling over. What was worse, though, was that the only people who knew how to write comedy were the Paranoia 2e team. Outside of them nobody at WEG knew how to write comedy. The comedy in Ghostbusters, for the most part, is pretty dry and character-based. In the RPG, it's pretty much all ~WACKY~ or monkey-cheese stuff. One piece of equipment is the beach kit, which guarantees you'll have fun at the beach. That's the joke. The example they give for skill use is "let's say you want to eat a telephone". Stuff like that. WEG had a huge problem with tone in their "comedy" games outside of Paranoia 2e. They had a Men In Black RPG that had a similar problem of going for cheap laughs and goofiness when the first movie got a lot of comedy from the contrast between the insane things the characters had to deal with and how they just treated it like a day job. The (rightly) despised Paranoia Fifth Edition removed anything remotely satirical and went straight for Epic Movie style "reference" jokes. I'm just gonna go ahead and  myself now because that's a lot of angry words about comedy in my RPGs.
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Jun 9, 2015 14:26
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paradoxGentleman posted:This is something that I have heard more than once here in the SA forum and would like to understand a bit more especially since I feel that I am part of the problem, since I usually only understand the theme of a piece of media' when it is very obvious or it is spelled out for me. Take the Tolkien example we were talking about above. Lord of the Rings is, for all the orcs and magic and horror, a book about resisting temptation and choosing to do the right thing. Tolkien stresses over and over that possession of the Ring is a Bad Thing, that even in the hands of a very good person like Gandalf it would turn out just as poorly as if Sauron had it. In the short term, it seems like using it would be helpful, that it could be used for good, but it will corrupt everything it touches, tear friends apart, and turn people into paranoid monsters like Gollum. This is why Gandalf and Galladriel both refuse to take it, why Boromir nearly attacks Frodo to steal it, etc. And it's why Sam is the big hero of the book, because he can hold onto the Ring for a little while, then reject it, because he knows how to resist its temptations and lies. MERP ignored all of this, and treated the world as just another fantasy land for having adventures in. It's chockful of magical equipment for looting and use. This isn't wrong, per se, as Bilbo and Frodo have Sting and wear Elven chain, the reforging of Andúril is a major plot point, etc. But when every orc commander is carrying a magic sword, it devalues how mysterious and strange magic equipment is supposed to be. When every party has a magician, Gandalf becomes just the big boss magician, rather than this bizarre and strange archangel sent by the gods to fix the world. It plays no differently than a campaign set in Forgotten Realms or Dragonlance. You end up hording a lot of treasure. It's just some setting trappings draped over the game. Tolkien words rather than D&D ones. This doesn't mean it's not a fun game, because it has its good points, but it really missed the Christian allegory that Tolkien intended. The One Ring, on the other hand, was much more concerned with the grind of overland travel. It much better simulated the pace of traveling from place to place, worrying about food and water, not losing hope. It ties the characters together explicitly in the character creation phase, so you know exactly how they relate to one another. There is a system for characters falling into misery, and being tempted over to Sauron's side. You'll need to be aware of the moral choices you make during game play. You can overcome the Shadow by singing to raise your spirits, or crafting something beautiful, for example. And the game cannot be played without the characters working together to overcome obstacles, because you won't have the die pools to do so. These are things that one could do in MERP, but there are concrete benefits to doing them in TOR. Maybe we know how our characters came together or maybe we don't; it's not an explicit phase in character creation. I can't aid someone in MERP; the closest I can come is setting a basketball pick during movement in combat to try and get someone off an ally. I can't grant someone permission to spend a Fellowship Point to get more Hope; the closest I can come is saying "Get out of the way, you're in the radius of my fireball". MERP is just D&D. TOR has a system for resisting temptation that it takes very seriously. So yeah, definitely easier to do once you've located the themes, but that isn't too hard once you know how to look for them. Here's the simple version: just ask yourself while watching or reading "What are the choices the heroes making? How about the villains? Are they being rewarded for them? Are there consequences? Does the work seem to say that this is good or bad, despite those consequences?" and you're halfway there.
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Jun 9, 2015 15:27
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No need to grog-smiley it up, EM, that's a great post about comedy. There were good things both about the MIB and Ghostbusters RPG for comedy - both had good advice on how to create a scenario for them for example, but yeah. You play the threat to the Earth straight, and the hapless entrepreneurs (Ghostbusters) or officious authorities (Men in Black) bring the comedy by being who they are. Character based comedy is where it's at, but so few games really emphasize the role of setups, straight men, or other comedic elements to help the players be funny. A bunch of RPG people on my Google+ feed teased Guardians of the Galaxy as "this is a RPG group which is comedically tormenting its DM, who is trying to run a serious space adventure" and my mind just boggled. To run a funny game, the DM should almost always be serious, since the world should be grounded before the comedy starts to lift off.
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Jun 9, 2015 15:39
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JDCorley posted:No need to grog-smiley it up, EM, that's a great post about comedy.  The thing about a comedy RPG is that you can't really mechancize comedy. It needs to come through in the setting presentation more than anything else. Like with Paranoia. Everyone has a security clearance, but that's not the joke. The joke of security clearances is that you can be chasing a traitor, and he suddenly slams a door behind him that's above your security clearance. Now you're stuck: you can't open the door because it's above your security clearance and you'll get terminated, but if the traitor gets away you'll fail your mission and get terminated. Yet despite all that, technically speaking getting terminated isn't that big a deal because you have clones available. One adventure had a "super-high-tech experimental stealth vehicle" that just turned out to be a golf cart with a speaker constantly blaring "YOU DO NOT SEE THIS VEHICLE OR ITS INHABITANTS BY ORDER OF THE COMPUTER." But with the way the world of Alpha Complex is set up, it actually works. Or, as a simpler example, this:  Unfortunately, people latched onto the non-parody or catch-22 parts and it turned into bad puns and Bouncy Bubble Beverage jokes and new players getting their characters killed because they legitimately didn't know something about the setting. Thank god for XP edition, is all I'm saying. There's a great quote by John Cleese that I wish I could find again that boiled down to "comedy happens when your brain tries to reconcile two completely incompatible ideas at the same time."
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Jun 9, 2015 16:05
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Evil Mastermind posted:WEG had a huge problem with tone in their "comedy" games outside of Paranoia 2e. They had a Men In Black RPG that had a similar problem of going for cheap laughs and goofiness when the first movie got a lot of comedy from the contrast between the insane things the characters had to deal with and how they just treated it like a day job. The (rightly) despised Paranoia Fifth Edition removed anything remotely satirical and went straight for Epic Movie style "reference" jokes. Evil Mastermind posted:The thing about a comedy RPG is that you can't really mechancize comedy. It needs to come through in the setting presentation more than anything else.
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Jun 9, 2015 17:00
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