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Davin Valkri posted:Did proper mechanically-backed genre emulation really only happen in the 2000s? It feels weird hearing about stuff like that Indiana Jones example in an age where Apocalypse World, Monsterhearts, Leverage, Atomic Robo, and Double Cross are all readily available. Turns out people learn things over two decades. If this wasn't nerd poo poo we would have learned it earlier, but them's the breaks.
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# ? Jul 24, 2014 22:41 |
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# ? Dec 13, 2024 00:42 |
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It didn't just happen in the 00's, but that's when it really became A Thing, ironically growing up alongside D&D 3.x.
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# ? Jul 24, 2014 22:43 |
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One of the finest RPGs for genre emulation was my beloved James Bond 007, published in 1985. Way, way, way ahead of its time. There's also Paranoia and Toon (both 1984).
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# ? Jul 24, 2014 22:55 |
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My personal favorite example of a licenced RPG completely missing the point mechanically was the Ghostbusters RPG, where the example of how to make skill checks was "let's say you wanted to eat a telephone". Of course, that had just as much to do with WEG not understanding what makes things funny, which killed a few of their game lines.
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# ? Jul 24, 2014 22:57 |
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theironjef posted:Yeah, that's so silly. Indy has a crazy ability to just mutter "Well this is an ancient dialect, but I can probably puzzle out the gist." Why take that away from the players who are just trying to play as Indy? Earn your fun, 80s plebes. Don't you mean "are forced to play as Indy?" That strict stock playbook business was so distasteful to me, I wasn't surprised their product tanked. Edit: Speaking of failed game products, I have a copy of The Noir RPG, by Archon Games. As far as I can tell, Archon never made any other products. I have never run it, and only have it because it was given to me as a gift. I recall it being a fairly lackluster book, with a really obnoxious typeface. D6 dicepool + merits/flaws for the system. I'm not sure if it'd be worth doing a writeup for the thread, but I'll give it a solid reread and maybe I'll do that. Green Intern fucked around with this message at 23:09 on Jul 24, 2014 |
# ? Jul 24, 2014 23:01 |
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Evil Mastermind posted:My personal favorite example of a licenced RPG completely missing the point mechanically was the Ghostbusters RPG, where the example of how to make skill checks was "let's say you wanted to eat a telephone". Actually that example owns, but only if you realize WEG was secretly adapting the Real Ghostbusters animated series.
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# ? Jul 24, 2014 23:08 |
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Evil Mastermind posted:My personal favorite example of a licenced RPG completely missing the point mechanically was the Ghostbusters RPG, where the example of how to make skill checks was "let's say you wanted to eat a telephone". Yep, nice example in there of Peter sitting down and trying to eat a phone. Also there's a bit where it describes him going on a date, rolling poorly, and eating his tie. Lovely, especially given that I can't see Venkman wearing a tie. Edit: GIS suggests he did sometimes. Seems wrong, like a traced drawing of an eggbeater. Doesn't fit in my brain. Probably not his either, maybe that's why he eats it.
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# ? Jul 24, 2014 23:09 |
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I can forgive the Ghostbusters RPG for a multitude of sins for basically being the game that invented Plot/Brownie/Drama/Hero etc etc points as a -thing-.
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# ? Jul 24, 2014 23:13 |
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unseenlibrarian posted:I can forgive the Ghostbusters RPG for a multitude of sins for basically being the game that invented Plot/Brownie/Drama/Hero etc etc points as a -thing-. [Ask] Me about early-1980s RPGs.
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# ? Jul 24, 2014 23:16 |
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Davin Valkri posted:Did proper mechanically-backed genre emulation really only happen in the 2000s? It feels weird hearing about stuff like that Indiana Jones example in an age where Apocalypse World, Monsterhearts, Leverage, Atomic Robo, and Double Cross are all readily available. Weeeeelll... Call of Cthulhu mechanically emphasised how boned you were, does that count? But, as Mr. Maltose says, like computer games, designers have slowly been learning better ways of doing things.
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# ? Jul 24, 2014 23:17 |
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I think I talked about this a thread or two ago when we were discussing Paranoia 5th Edition, but when it got right down to it WEG's writers didn't see the difference between dark comedy, intelligent comedy, or slapstick. Everything got dumped into that category eventually. There's a Paranoia 5th module that I swear to god reads like an episode of Family Guy. unseenlibrarian posted:I can forgive the Ghostbusters RPG for a multitude of sins for basically being the game that invented Plot/Brownie/Drama/Hero etc etc points as a -thing-.
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# ? Jul 24, 2014 23:17 |
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Evil Mastermind posted:I think I talked about this a thread or two ago when we were discussing Paranoia 5th Edition, but when it got right down to it WEG's writers didn't see the difference between dark comedy, intelligent comedy, or slapstick. Everything got dumped into that category eventually.
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# ? Jul 24, 2014 23:20 |
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Evil Mastermind posted:I think I talked about this a thread or two ago when we were discussing Paranoia 5th Edition, but when it got right down to it WEG's writers didn't see the difference between dark comedy, intelligent comedy, or slapstick. Everything got dumped into that category eventually. Ray Stantz, being targeted by a ghost that fails to slime him but rolls a ghost die in the failure, gets slimed anyway, flies out a window, bounces off an awning, then another, flies through a window, and lands in the hot tub of a linebacker, frightening off his date. It is implied that he then gets beaten up. It really is the cartoon, only with less Slimer. The Brownie Points were a decent mechanic, though they were sort of awkward to use (the book seemed to emphasize using them to bargain down the penalties of being seriously wounded), and that Ghost Die did nothing but gently caress up the players. It was literally just a big ol' gently caress you mechanic that the players had to roll, every single time.
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# ? Jul 24, 2014 23:21 |
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OD&D was pretty good at emulating playing in Dying Earth. I mean that's a really narrow genre, but it does emulate it well.
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# ? Jul 24, 2014 23:24 |
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FMguru posted:Paranoia 1E/2E modules from the 1980s are some of the most brilliant comedy RPG writing this hobby has ever seen. theironjef posted:Ray Stantz, being targeted by a ghost that fails to slime him but rolls a ghost die in the failure, gets slimed anyway, flies out a window, bounces off an awning, then another, flies through a window, and lands in the hot tub of a linebacker, frightening off his date. It is implied that he then gets beaten up. It really is the cartoon, only with less Slimer. The Brownie Points were a decent mechanic, though they were sort of awkward to use (the book seemed to emphasize using them to bargain down the penalties of being seriously wounded), and that Ghost Die did nothing but gently caress up the players. It was literally just a big ol' gently caress you mechanic that the players had to roll, every single time.
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# ? Jul 24, 2014 23:30 |
JamieTheD posted:Weeeeelll... Call of Cthulhu mechanically emphasised how boned you were, does that count? But, as Mr. Maltose says, like computer games, designers have slowly been learning better ways of doing things. Besides that by the rules as written, you can roundhouse kick Deep Ones. ENWorld told me so. E: vvv Well yeah, that's all true. Darth Various fucked around with this message at 08:03 on Jul 25, 2014 |
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# ? Jul 24, 2014 23:32 |
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Darth Various posted:Besides that by the rules as written, you can roundhouse kick Deep Ones. ENWorld told me so. Nice. I'd forgotten about that... But still... Read a book? Go insane. Cast magic? Go insane. Use a magic gubbins? Most likely go insane, possibly get injured/cursed/zambified as well. See a monster? Go insane, and die horribly to anything nastier than a Deep One, because even LAW Rockets bounce off, and the players refuse to believe this (Yes, okay, I stole that bit from Knights of the Dinner Table, but "Scream of Kachoolu" was pretty spot on.) Meet Great Cthulhu? 1d10 people every combat round instantly die, everyone goes insane, and his attacks do about five times more damage than you'll ever have hitpoints. Did I mention I love CoC? Because I love CoC.
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# ? Jul 25, 2014 00:42 |
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Green Intern posted:Edit: Speaking of failed game products, I have a copy of The Noir RPG, by Archon Games. As far as I can tell, Archon never made any other products. Evil Mastermind posted:I think I talked about this a thread or two ago when we were discussing Paranoia 5th Edition, but when it got right down to it WEG's writers didn't see the difference between dark comedy, intelligent comedy, or slapstick. Everything got dumped into that category eventually. Davin Valkri posted:Did proper mechanically-backed genre emulation really only happen in the 2000s? It feels weird hearing about stuff like that Indiana Jones example in an age where Apocalypse World, Monsterhearts, Leverage, Atomic Robo, and Double Cross are all readily available. Pendragon is another 1985 game deserving mention. PresidentBeard posted:OD&D was pretty good at emulating playing in Dying Earth. I mean that's a really narrow genre, but it does emulate it well.
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# ? Jul 25, 2014 00:43 |
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JamieTheD posted:Nice. I'd forgotten about that... But still... Read a book? Go insane. Cast magic? Go insane. Use a magic gubbins? Most likely go insane, possibly get injured/cursed/zambified as well. See a monster? Go insane, and die horribly to anything nastier than a Deep One, because even LAW Rockets bounce off, and the players refuse to believe this (Yes, okay, I stole that bit from Knights of the Dinner Table, but "Scream of Kachoolu" was pretty spot on.) The weirdest part is that in the source literature humanity won a lot. CoC the game is far more dangerous in some ways. It also reinforced the GM vs. Players mentality.
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# ? Jul 25, 2014 00:56 |
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Oh man I forgot Pendragon is that old. Talk about a game of genre emulation.
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# ? Jul 25, 2014 00:57 |
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Humbug Scoolbus posted:The weirdest part is that in the source literature humanity won a lot. CoC the game is far more dangerous in some ways. It also reinforced the GM vs. Players mentality. Well, for a given value of "won", anyhow. But yeah, the game is decidedly adversarial, and this is unfortunately true of many early systems, because of the wargaming link... Not a lot of designers back then were good with the whole "co-operative storytelling" thing, even though they often paid at least lip service to the idea. Still, even today, horror games can be surprisingly adversarial. I have at least two (both, funnily enough, based on slasher films) where it outright states that every character is going to die. Deadlands was very similar in that respect, in that there were monsters and NPCs, in game, whose entire purpose was "Rocks Fall"... Stone being the prime example, his whole reason for existence being to make sure nobody stops the Reckoners by murdering anyone who could potentially do it, before they get anywhere close to that powerful. Actually, it's very rare to find a good horror RPG (or a good horror DM), to the point where most stories end up as silly as Tales From The Crypt (Total aside: The HBO retellings are pretty much required viewing for anyone doing "camp" horror, and are amusing viewing even without that.)
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# ? Jul 25, 2014 01:27 |
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Hearing about Stone basically single-handedly kept me from playing Deadlands. That is the most ridiculous kind of bullshit in older RPGs, where the game felt it had to protect its own goddamn metaplot. From what? The DM can just write that stupid crap out, and what are the designers going to do, come yell at them?
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# ? Jul 25, 2014 01:30 |
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Halloween Jack posted:If I recall correctly, there were some really shady backstage hijinx in the making of that game. I believe it was a case of "a geek with some money invests it in his dream" and there were shenanigans with writers and artists not getting paid while they blew money on ridiculous poo poo like catered parties at conventions. I would not be surprised. The book just has this feeling of "cut corners" all the way through. I recall a fair few really simple typos that would have been caught if anyone was being paid to give a drat.
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# ? Jul 25, 2014 01:39 |
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Humbug Scoolbus posted:The weirdest part is that in the source literature humanity won a lot. CoC the game is far more dangerous in some ways. It also reinforced the GM vs. Players mentality. The broader mythos has seen a lot of authors with different attitudes toward the canon. CoC picks up a few bits from Lumley and others (Cthonians, for example), though his mythos stories end up involving the good twins of various Great Old Ones and going far more toward adventure pulp than weird tales of decay and despair, and while CoC definitely leans toward the sole, batshit survivor school of endings, it's capable of some thematic flexibility. Compare the Blood Brothers adventure books (with 3D action!) to Horror on the Orient Express, to the Dreamlands supplements. Night10194 posted:Hearing about Stone basically single-handedly kept me from playing Deadlands. That is the most ridiculous kind of bullshit in older RPGs, where the game felt it had to protect its own goddamn metaplot. From what? The DM can just write that stupid crap out, and what are the designers going to do, come yell at them? Nah, we're all nerds. They just take the passive aggressive route and assume that you're following along, predicating everything on metaplot progression. If they blow it up, or decide something is too good for players to have, they can just skip those parts going forth. Bieeanshee fucked around with this message at 01:51 on Jul 25, 2014 |
# ? Jul 25, 2014 01:48 |
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Green Intern posted:I would not be surprised. The book just has this feeling of "cut corners" all the way through. I recall a fair few really simple typos that would have been caught if anyone was being paid to give a drat. I quoted a bunch of stuff here, but it was too much. Long story short, developer Jack Norr just tears into the company in this RPGnet thread. Somebody loving explain to me why I remember RPG business gossip from years ago, but I can't find my football. Also: quote:Archon owner Lisa Mann e-mailed me one day after I wrote a Usenet post about Noir. She offered me a job writing fiction for one of their anthologies. Based on a Usenet post. They threw a party at the GAMA trade show, featuring ice sculptures and free cigars. You have to do this.
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# ? Jul 25, 2014 04:11 |
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Halloween Jack posted:Uh, er, hm. I wouldn't say that. Really? It seemed to have a similar murderhobo and random magic killing you for no reason. Unless I'm misremembering how the Dying Earth stories actually ran. It's been a long time since I read any of them. So if I'm completely misrepresenting them my bad.
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# ? Jul 25, 2014 05:02 |
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PresidentBeard posted:Really? It seemed to have a similar murderhobo and random magic killing you for no reason. Unless I'm misremembering how the Dying Earth stories actually ran. It's been a long time since I read any of them. So if I'm completely misrepresenting them my bad. It could run Liane, but not Cugel.
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# ? Jul 25, 2014 05:15 |
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Davin Valkri posted:Did proper mechanically-backed genre emulation really only happen in the 2000s? It feels weird hearing about stuff like that Indiana Jones example in an age where Apocalypse World, Monsterhearts, Leverage, Atomic Robo, and Double Cross are all readily available. Just as has been already mentioned, there was sort of a sea change in the late 90's/early aughts where people really started to look at the "metagame" of and started more actively making mechanics and designs that would naturally guide players towards RPing within the theme of the game. It's not surprising that this has a pretty heavy correlation with the downfall of "generic" systems like GURPS. Evil Mastermind posted:Of course, that had just as much to do with WEG not understanding what makes things funny, which killed a few of their game lines. Evil Mastermind posted:I think I talked about this a thread or two ago when we were discussing Paranoia 5th Edition, but when it got right down to it WEG's writers didn't see the difference between dark comedy, intelligent comedy, or slapstick. Everything got dumped into that category eventually.
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# ? Jul 25, 2014 05:41 |
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Halloween Jack posted:I quoted a bunch of stuff here, but it was too much. Long story short, developer Jack Norr just tears into the company in this RPGnet thread. Holy crap, that's impressive sleuthing. I'll start my reread this weekend. Might take a bit to actually get some content down for the thread. Edit: Read that rpgnet thread, and now I understand the true horror of Archon. Also someone laments the "erstwhile vilification of Kevin Siembieda," which makes me laugh. Thanks for the information. I'll incorporate at least some of it into my writeup somehow. Green Intern fucked around with this message at 12:10 on Jul 25, 2014 |
# ? Jul 25, 2014 11:12 |
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Asimo posted:Just as has been already mentioned, there was sort of a sea change in the late 90's/early aughts where people really started to look at the "metagame" of and started more actively making mechanics and designs that would naturally guide players towards RPing within the theme of the game. It's not surprising that this has a pretty heavy correlation with the downfall of "generic" systems like GURPS. Except that FATE is a generic system. PDQ is a generic system. Savage Worlds, while intended for a genre, is still a generic system. Unisystem, GURPS 4th... While designers have learned how to do thematic gaming better, it is nowhere near true that "generic" systems have undergone a downfall... If anything, they've had an upturn.
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# ? Jul 25, 2014 12:53 |
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Rifts Mercenaries Part 6: " In natural form, she appears as a large jaguar-woman, still attractive in a furry way." Crow's Commandoes Covert ops and counter-terrorism... wait, does Rifts even have conventional terrorism that isn't literally terrifying monsters? I suppose it must it just feels odd. In any case, this is the surgical strike team that likes to catch folks with their pants down. Because they use black uniforms and armor, sometimes they're confused for Coalition troopers, embarassingly. Not as much discussion or fiction here, so we're moving on to the team itself. Crow, Leila, Wilheim
Green, Sonya, Kinoshi, Curtis
Then we have adventure "ideas". There's Scarecrows, where the PCs are charged with protecing a noble from one of Crow's infiltrators (like Sonya or Kinoshi). Or the PCs are recruited to help Crow infiltrate, but it turns out to be a trap laid by the Coalition. Or maybe the noble is possessed by a demon and everything goes to hell! Then we have King of the Mountain, where a daughter of a rich dude is captured by bandits. The bandits are holed up in a well-defended mountain community. One possibility is that the girl somehow related to the PCs and they go to save her, but Crow's Commandoes are also on the job and might butt heads. Or maybe the girl wasn't kidnapped, but fled to her new boyfriend, and her father is lying to get Crow's Commandoes to drag her back. Next: Bad Boys 3: Ex-Coalition Edition
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# ? Jul 25, 2014 13:07 |
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Asimo posted:I will never get the love for WEG that still lingers in the RPG community. Having played a lot of them back when they were contemporary, their games were always horrible. I guess a slick presentation, excellent presentation, and big-name licenses go a long way. Of course, when they lost the Star Wars licence and all the good Paranoia writers left, that's when things started falling apart. JamieTheD posted:Except that FATE is a generic system. PDQ is a generic system. Savage Worlds, while intended for a genre, is still a generic system. Unisystem, GURPS 4th... While designers have learned how to do thematic gaming better, it is nowhere near true that "generic" systems have undergone a downfall... If anything, they've had an upturn.
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# ? Jul 25, 2014 13:27 |
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Evil Mastermind posted:'s not so much generic systems as 90's generic systems, which were more about modeling EVERYTHING you might conceivable want to do mechanically. You still see lingering bits of that mindset nowadays, though, in things like crafting skills or people worrying about the difficulty in moving up a hill. I even like GURPS and have played more of it than D&D but I'll agree that it needs yet another edition (one free of direct Steve influence) and some trimming. Its particular balance of crunch ended up working for me more than other crunchy systems usually do.
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# ? Jul 25, 2014 14:36 |
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Halloween Jack posted:It appears that that's okay with Siembedia, and that Palladium's first priority isn't to innovate, or to grow their brand, but to provide a living for the handful of full-time employees who have been there for 20+ years. He would certainly like for the movie and video game deals to take off, but he's not going to risk his more-or-less comfortable living to do that, much less to bring the game-as-written in line with the game as he supposedly plays it himself. (I believe Malcolm Sheppard approached them about doing a spin-off game that would use a much simpler version of the system that was still fully compatible, and they declined.) What I did was send a kind of elevator pitch with this in mind: I would write, design, layout and co-publish an RPG with them that used a revision of Palladium's house system in exchange for a decent royalty. The idea was that Palladium could get these design assets for *nothing* and if they didn't like them, could dump them, *and* would get a product they didn't have to pay for (and if it had gone further, I would suggest get printed on a PoD regime). I would even hire my own artists and editors. In return, I would get Palladium branding, fulfillment and fan access, most of which costs them nothing, because it's valuable enough to take that risk on. Now to be fair, AlexM over there is very accessible and said no upon initial contact, so it's not as if they got the whole spiel I was prepared to provide. As for the Palladium system itself, it has some definite gems in its easy action-adventure focus, and how it asks for minimal abstraction in narrating action. (One punch=1 die roll!) It has a bunch of issues, too, but I think it would be possible to develop a great game working from what's there. Some of the individual games have moments of brilliance, and Kevin S knows his comic book-style SF and even stuff he didn't write benefits from that kind of creative direction. I mean, something like Guardians of the Galaxy is totally Palladium.
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# ? Jul 25, 2014 14:58 |
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One thing I do like about GURPS is how the level of crunch is entirely up to the GM. Probably the most accurate appraisal of the system that I've heard is that it isn't really so much a system as a box of lego bricks for you to build a system out of.
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# ? Jul 25, 2014 15:21 |
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hectorgrey posted:One thing I do like about GURPS is how the level of crunch is entirely up to the GM. Probably the most accurate appraisal of the system that I've heard is that it isn't really so much a system as a box of lego bricks for you to build a system out of. They've tried to change that in the last few years with the Dungeon Fantasy and Monster Hunter lines, which are roughly analogous to buying a LEGO kit that you can make into an X-Wing or a Camaro or what-have-you. It's a valiant effort, but doesn't really play to GURPS' strengths which are largely in insanely flexible character creation. Infinite Worlds or Transhuman Space did far better jobs of that, but just didn't sell enough.
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# ? Jul 25, 2014 15:46 |
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kaynorr posted:They've tried to change that in the last few years with the Dungeon Fantasy and Monster Hunter lines, which are roughly analogous to buying a LEGO kit that you can make into an X-Wing or a Camaro or what-have-you. It's a valiant effort, but doesn't really play to GURPS' strengths which are largely in insanely flexible character creation. Infinite Worlds or Transhuman Space did far better jobs of that, but just didn't sell enough. Man I thought that was about the Capcom Monster Hunter games and I got all excited.
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# ? Jul 25, 2014 16:11 |
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WEG also had one of the best modern conflict board wargames in AirCav and a bunch of good historical board wargames. I wasn't really a fan of the D6 system, but I did like TORG.
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# ? Jul 25, 2014 16:16 |
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Evil Mastermind posted:Man I thought that was about the Capcom Monster Hunter games and I got all excited. You could probably do Capcom Monster Hunter without too much effort, because close-range melee/ranged combat with lowtech weapons is one of those things that GURPS does really well. The only real jarring part is that like most tabletop RPGs the numbers don't get really big, so you can't slowly whittle down the health of a giant bag of hitpoints. It would be about avoid attacks and making a lot of low-chance hits until someone gets lucky. Another of GURPS virtues is that a single hit can have a lot of knock on effects such as shock, knockdown, limb crippling, etc. - so the nature of the fight slowly changes as you make significant hits.
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# ? Jul 25, 2014 16:16 |
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# ? Dec 13, 2024 00:42 |
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Humbug Scoolbus posted:WEG also had one of the best modern conflict board wargames in AirCav and a bunch of good historical board wargames. I wasn't really a fan of the D6 system, but I did like TORG. Actually, there were three companies: I forgot that guy who bought out their IP in the 2000s and tried to relaunch it, only to become the dictionary definition of a nerd with a dream and a line of credit but less than zero business sense. What a trainwreck that was.
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# ? Jul 25, 2014 16:28 |