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A HUNGRY MOUTH posted:PeterWeller you're being kind of mean and I have no idea why. Because Zak just took advantage of his friend to sway an argument on dice notation. It was lovely of me to say, "too dumb to understand basic multiplication," and for that I apologize.
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May 31, 2012 02:49
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Scrape posted:Edit: the whole "past history" thing is true but how can a dude move past it if he can't even make a simple post without provoking a bunch of vitriol? That's a valid question, how is he supposed to move on? Well, the thing is... I don't know that he actually accomplishes anything with these posts. Is he persuading anyone? The whole thing seems like some kind of doomed crusade to Defend OSR's Honor or to Set Right The Mistruths or some poo poo, even setting aside his grating conversational style which is somewhere between a caricature of a pompous professor and one of those old DOS mock-psychiatrist programs. DO YOU UNDERSTAND WHAT I HAVE SAID? I WILL REPEAT IT. He doesn't seem capable of a legitimate dialogue, he just engages in this stilted one-sided pedagoguery. He should probably move on by, you know, moving the gently caress on, because he's not accomplishing whatever the hell he's trying to accomplish here. I'm willing to humor the idea that Zak is, in fact, a brilliant 6-dimensional thinker and we just don't get it but the incompatibility remains.
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May 31, 2012 02:50
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Scrape posted:Yeah, Zak is grasping at straws to defend an obvious legacy mechanic but two pages of nitpicky bullshit isn't funny, and I thought that this thread was for having a laugh at OSR's expense. A laugh. Listen, I call 'em as I see 'em. Most everyone who posts here is going off their own experience. And when they say "This happened in my game and it was horrible" then I believe them. They don't have a reason to lie about that. That happened and it gave them ideas about how games work and they are here now because of experiences like that. All I can talk about is what I myself have seen at game tables. (Some of which is up there in this thread.) And what I have read on the internet--which is pretty much a thousand examples of pretty much every single kind of thing that could go wrong going wrong in every kind of game for every kind of person ever born ever. So, yeah, I am going to talk from personal experience and I am going to expect people to believe it. I don't have a big dog in the 2-8 fight, like I said: I throw out old mechanics and ideas all the time because they aren't useful-- I just happened to have thought about a thing I noticed that I and other people were doing that made that make sense for us. So I have to go on that, not some imagined platonic gamers-eye-view. This thing is tiny but if we are talking about tiny differences, that's what I noticed. If we can't do that, basically nobody gets to say anything. All you have is personal experience. If you think I'm lying when I say what I have observed, you'll have to do a way better job of giving me a reason to lie about it. The assumption that I would even bother seems to come from some pervasive assumption that liking any old edition of D&D triggers a hormone that causes you to like things about it that make your own life worse. Kobolds? gently caress them. Save vs. Death Ray? I don't care. But 3-18 for a 2-handed sword against size L--I can see why someone would do that
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May 31, 2012 02:52
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Here, let's grog to make this better Other than yourself, who are your favorite designers? That’s a tough question, because I haven’t played very many games in the last 10 years. I have to say that I still respect the work Jim Dunnigan did decades ago. Of the modern designers, I would say that the Siadek brothers and their Battlestations game are a favorite, and that Ken Burnside’s 3d game system is truly elegant (even if 3d games are basically unplayable due to complexity). If you could come back as a wargame (dress), what game would it be? The Federation Commander equivalent of F&E, with plastic spaceship toys. What are you most vain about? I don’t know that I am vain. I certainly don’t care much about my appearance, my hair, or my weight. Favorite game you did not design? Panzerblitz. What's for breakfast? Aunt Jemima microwave french toast. McDonald’s (biscuits and gravy, or bacon-egg-cheese biscuit). The country breakfast at the Bowling Alley. Favorite place to shop? I’m a guy. I don’t shop much. Maybe an Army Navy store. What piece of art would you most like to own? Something very, very expensive so I could sell it. What current trends would you like to see disappear? Clicky-base. Favorite trend of all time? Hexes and die cut counters. Worst trend of all time? Collectible card games.
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May 31, 2012 03:02
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Gau posted:Here, let's grog to make this better Haha, who is this?
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May 31, 2012 03:03
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Gau posted:What piece of art would you most like to own? This makes me more sad than it should.
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May 31, 2012 03:05
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S.J. posted:Haha, who is this? Steven V. Cole, President, CEO, Chief of Design, Chief Engineer, Deal Maker, and Marketing Director of Amarillo Design Bureau.
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May 31, 2012 03:06
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If the game is well designed and balanced, it shouldn't actually matter that much which weapon they pick. (assuming they don't go full on pants on the head and take dagger for their barbarian instead of something that your casual movie goer would expect a barbarian to use) That is the point of a well designed game. Someone who puts little thought (or a whole bunch of bad thought) into their character ought to end up with something playable. Something that they can sit at the table and use and feel like they are of at least average use. Because they didn't fall into a trap. So I guess my point is that if how you order the weapons table matters, then something is seriously wrong with the system.
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May 31, 2012 03:07
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Gau posted:Steven V. Cole, President, CEO, Chief of Design, Chief Engineer, Deal Maker, and Marketing Director of Amarillo Design Bureau. Haha, those clicky-base Star Trek ships sold pretty loving well.
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May 31, 2012 03:08
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This thread gets incredibly goony every time Zak S shows up, it's starting to get weird. Also, everything after OD&D should have been renamed something slightly different because it's not real D&D. Piestrio posted:Call of Cthulhu is my gold standard for how games should evolve over editions. quote:I agree. Lets just drag this whole thing back to OD&D. Piestrio posted:Tragically, you can't un-poo poo the bed. quote:I know, right? Instead of D&D dying pure decades ago, we have people still playing these bastard versions. Piestrio posted:Well Gygax had it right.
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May 31, 2012 03:09
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quote:I know, right? Instead of D&D dying pure decades ago, we have people still playing these bastard versions. Holy loving poo poo is this for real? This sounds too much like sarcasm to believe, but...
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May 31, 2012 03:10
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S.J. posted:Haha, those clicky-base Star Trek ships sold pretty loving well. Yeah, he is pretty pissed about it. Apparently solid pewter miniatures just don't have the same weight in the industry as they used to!
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May 31, 2012 03:10
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Gau posted:Yeah, he is pretty pissed about it. Apparently solid pewter miniature just don't have the same weight in the industry as they used to! The best pun 
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May 31, 2012 03:11
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S.J. posted:Holy loving poo poo is this for real? This sounds too much like sarcasm to believe, but... I'm pretty sure the unnamed guy is being sarcastic, yeah.
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May 31, 2012 03:12
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Rasamune posted:I'm pretty sure the unnamed guy is being sarcastic, yeah. Thank God. Reading this thread has killed my ability to read sarcasm on the internet.
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May 31, 2012 03:13
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S.J. posted:Holy loving poo poo is this for real? This sounds too much like sarcasm to believe, but... The unnamed guy is Jonas Albrecht, who is a cool dude that should come to grognards.txt like he said he would already. Anyway, it's just a name, right? Therefore, my favourite edition should be recognised as the only real D&D. Piestrio posted:
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May 31, 2012 03:19
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Thanks to Foo for this beautiful gem There are some gamers who like to enjoy the content, they play through the game and enjoy it, and there are others who are super-competitive and like to beat everyone else. It's like, if you give them a choice - they can either gently caress the prom queen for 10 points, or stab themselves in the dick for 11 points - most of them will choose to stab themselves in the dick, because although it's not as fun
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May 31, 2012 03:20
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What 
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May 31, 2012 03:21
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Ettin posted:Jonas Albrecht Please tell me this is his real name. This is the best name. (Would be better if it was Johannes, but it's still got legs.)
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May 31, 2012 04:04
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Xiahou Dun posted:Please tell me this is his real name. It is his RPGnet name! I don't know. In related news, Piestrio ate a 7-day ban and ragequit RPGnet, then immediately ran to turn it into RPGsite nerd cred.
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May 31, 2012 04:42
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I can totally see putting down "2-12" alongside "2d6" when it comes to stuff like weapons and the like, especially once you get into adding a bunch of other modifiers, because quite frankly giant piles of dice notation CAN be confusing. It's what leads to the idea that the 3e rogue was super awesome powerful because he can totally throw down 6d6 as a sneak attack, whereas the fighter is only limited to 1d12+30. I think most players will in fact view "6d6" and "6-36" differently. It does create something of a loop problem though - the more variants of weapons you have, the more useful it is to put what they do in plain type rather then dice notation, but the more cumbersome it becomes to do so. Again, I'm not saying "6-36" should replace "6d6," I'm saying it could go next to it. Or just don't have abilities that throw down thirty dice at once, and don't use a million types of die, that also gets the job done. Basically having only dice notation is useful if you do not need to be able to eyeball the range instantly, if you're using a mechanic that changes the range by altering the number of dice, or if it's only one die. 1d12 is pretty drat easy to figure out, after all. This really works best if you use all of the above - 4e martial classes that utilize [W] for example are a great example of this. A greataxe does 1d12, a dagger does 1d4, so it's really obvious which is better, and [W]2 and [W]3 means you change around how many of those 12's you throw. Best of all, even with [W]2 or 3, you don't really need to know multiplication to know the greataxe is better then the dagger. On the other hand, if a monster has 5d8 hit points as compared to a different monster that has 4d10, that's really loving annoying to try and eyeball. Blah blah multiplication, no, look, I'm not really big on doing lots and lots of math in games. On the other hand, a monster having 5-40 health is equally worthless, because maybe I'm not a GAMING UBERMENSCH, but I'm not going to know what that rolls on seeing it. So having both I think is useful, and quite frankly it really doesn't take up all that much room. ...Or just don't give monsters random hit die that all have to be rolled up, because it's a pain in the rear end and in my opinion doesn't really add anything. It's amazing how many problems are solved by "Stop using a million die for no goddamn reason."
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May 31, 2012 04:45
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Ettin posted:It is his RPGnet name! I don't know. RPGsite seems to be nothing more then a mix of boo hoo RPGnet, let me tell you why 4e is literally the devil, and this is why I hate black people. I have frankly gotten bored of it.
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May 31, 2012 04:47
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ProfessorCirno posted:...Or just don't give monsters random hit die that all have to be rolled up, because it's a pain in the rear end and in my opinion doesn't really add anything. This is the heart of the issue. I think D&D has long had a fetish for minor variations in dice throwing. 2d6 vs 1d12 damage die weapons, d6s vs d8s, no one cares, can we just have a few weapon sizes or tiers and differentiate by properties already?
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May 31, 2012 05:15
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Honestly if everything used d6s I wouldn't care one whit. e: By which I mean, there are more interesting ways to differentiate weapons than their damage die. If the game uses different types of dice, though, I do like the idea of having a few tiers to differentiate damage/properties, and then flavor your weapon as you see fit (honestly, that was my biggest "Bwuh?" when I first read CoC -- the weapons list is ridiculously detailed for no really good reason).
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May 31, 2012 05:19
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Zak S posted:My blog's not called "Playing D&D With People Who All Graduated High School". I will tell you right now, if I tell Kimberly Kane she's got a 3d6 weapon or a 4d4 spell she will not know which does more damage. All the other bullshit aside: The difference between the two is half a point of damage on average, so I don't think this is actually all that illustrative as an example. Unless that's the point? idk anymore man
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May 31, 2012 05:28
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LincolnSmash posted:Honestly if everything used d6s I wouldn't care one whit. http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3485203
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May 31, 2012 05:29
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LincolnSmash posted:Honestly if everything used d6s I wouldn't care one whit. CoC is one of those games that is absolutely a product of its time, and somehow the clunky mechanics never got updated. I love the hell out of that game but that damage table is so out of place. To be fair, though, that's why the good lord gave us Trail of Cthulhu.
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May 31, 2012 05:30
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speaking of everything using D6s, hit dice were annoying when I played Basic. I started with 3.5 where monster health would be printed as a standard dice expression like 1d8+1 (5HP) for a goblin. Then Basic came along with their STREAMLINED RULESET and just said Goblin: HP: 1 1 what. 1d8,d4,d6? Just 1 HP? Am I expected to just know that? As it happens, I am. In the book, it explained that the number was in d6s unless otherwise noted. Am I supposed to reroll HP for each monster in each encounter? Is the above dice expression too complex? Basically what I am saying is things can be too simple. Also, things should be like what I started with in every respect.
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May 31, 2012 05:32
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Wow, I did not expect my offhand comment to spark another roundtable rant. I had thought about starting it as a thread on RPGnet. Zak S posted:Did you guys skip the part of my post where I described how if you're scanning a long column of weapon damage numbers if it's a range you only have to look at one column whereas if it's a die arrangement you have to look at two columns and then multiply out? So, regarding what I initially said about ACKS Proficiencies system: At some point, designers recognized that Skills (defined here as "you are good at Basketweaving, make a Basketweaving check to weave baskets") and what D&D calls feats (which create exceptions to the design) occupy separate design spaces, and separated them accordingly. I don't understand how mashing them together again makes anything easier for anybody. It isn't a phenomenon unique to D&D; Talislanta had skills-packaged-with-a-feat until 5th edition separated them into Perks. Sometimes I think that people just want to roll back the timeline of game design to some particular point in time so that they can call themselves an innovative game designer for making a game that builds on, say, 1983 Mentzer D&D, nevermind that that's been done over and over, years before. I understand the desire to have a modernized muscle car. But if you want a souped-up '65 Mustang, why not put a 2012 engine into it instead of a 1967 engine?
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May 31, 2012 05:36
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You guys shouldn't be doing something others have done before. How dull. d5s all the way. 
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May 31, 2012 05:38
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I've been following it. So much cool (and some weird). Meikyuu Kingdom...one day I will play it. Scrape posted:To be fair, though, that's why the good lord gave us Trail of Cthulhu. I can never get a good consensus on GUMSHOE. There's no overt hate for it that I'm aware of, but I've also heard a lot of "meh" along with the good. Anything by Laws I'm kind of wary of (especially after reading HeroQuest 2e, which still confuses me because of super-contradictory GM advice and procedures), but GUMSHOE seems like it might be better.
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May 31, 2012 05:42
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Gau posted:Yeah, he is pretty pissed about it. Apparently solid pewter miniatures just don't have the same weight in the industry as they used to! And apparently mass producing resin miniatures is super hard. Also please send in any marketing suggestions you may have for ADB. They got a Facebook page and are apparently stumped as to what to do next.
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May 31, 2012 05:49
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May 31, 2012 05:50
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Zak S posted:The assumption that I would even bother seems to come from some pervasive assumption that liking any old edition of D&D triggers a hormone that causes you to like things about it that make your own life worse. Kobolds? gently caress them. Save vs. Death Ray? I don't care. But 3-18 for a 2-handed sword against size L--I can see why someone would do that ProfessorCirno posted:RPGsite seems to be nothing more then a mix of boo hoo RPGnet, let me tell you why 4e is literally the devil, and this is why I hate black people. LincolnSmash posted:I can never get a good consensus on GUMSHOE. There's no overt hate for it that I'm aware of, but I've also heard a lot of "meh" along with the good.
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May 31, 2012 05:51
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Well to be honset I've never run straight Gumshoe but Trail of Cthulhu focuses tightly on the information-gathering aspects of the game, while CoC always SAYS that is what PCs do but then gives all those fiddly damage charts and whatnot. I've had great luck instilling the CoC atmosphere using Trail but I wouldn't say it's my favorite system for anything else, of course. It's really good at what it's supposed to do, though, and that makes it a good game in my book. Worth reading at the very least. Edit: what Halloween Jack says is true, but combat doesn't come up much in most cthulhu games, so it works better there.
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May 31, 2012 05:54
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I want to play a really lazy guy in the energy-over-underoos armor who just rolls out of bed with a battleaxe, a pair of boxers and a half-formed plan and is like "ALRIGHT. Time to kill stuff." *bwoop*
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May 31, 2012 05:55
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CoC is weird--it has a lot of stuff that is totally outside what I want or need in a Lovecraftian horror game (detailed weapons list f'r'example--and stats for monsters you will seriously never kill) but the underlying system--BRP--is actually perfect if you're an experienced GM and want to hack together some new game--Lovecrafty or otherwise--in an hour. BRP is overbuilt for any one game, but that overbuild makes it really good for any new kind of human-scale one-shotty type genre you'd wanna throw together. I have played so many different kinds of games with BRP with just the thinnest coating of hack--scifi, fiasco-ish stuff, whatever. BRP should be given free to any GM after their third GMing anniversary.
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May 31, 2012 06:02
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Well I always hated the d% mechanic but I thought it worked for the dusty lovecraftian theme. It's pretty system-generic so I'll give you that.
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May 31, 2012 06:06
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Scrape posted:Well I always hated the d% mechanic but I thought it worked for the dusty lovecraftian theme. It's pretty system-generic so I'll give you that. It is slightly weird to roll-under but newbies grasp the scale immediately and that's awesome. If somebody has a +3 to hit, they're like "is that good?" whereas if they're at 57% they know where they stand because the ceiling is obviously 100. Plus it's easy to modify a roll and to modify a skill slightly based on a class or race or background. In D&D you have to do everything in chunks of 5% which add up pretty fast.
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May 31, 2012 06:10
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yep, that's some cleavage all right
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May 31, 2012 06:29
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