Quote from: Piestrio;664135I suppose in theory that's true but IME I've never had a long combat in an RPG provide more fun than a short one and as importantly I've never had a long RPG combat provide more fun than a similar length board or minis game.

I'm completely different, I find pure wargames especially of modern (i.e. post 80s) design boring, poorly designed, and worst- pointless they lack context or lasting impact in a greater RPG campaign.

Quote from: Piestrio;6641352 hours of pathfinder combat is no where near as fun as two hours of battletech.

They'd be the same for me, both are abalative damage systems with no connection to reality which in turn results in unrealistic and (worse) unappealing tactics at best.

Hate them both.

Quote from: Piestrio;6641352 hours of 4e combat is nowhere near as fun as two hours of FASA Star Trek: TCS

TCS was a RPG system, however same comments as above. Hated both.

Quote from: Piestrio;6641352 hours of HERO combat is nowhere near as fun as two hours of Warmachine.

I'll take 2 hours of HERO combat over any modern wargame, especially the 'beer and pretzels games like Warmachine, 40K or any of that type. I'd rather go to the Dentist than play games that simple and poorly designed.

Quote from: Sacrosanct;663913I've seen this argument a lot, especially in regards to Next.  There is this pervasive argument that any attempt by Next to emulate AD&D (or B/X or even 3e for that matter) is purely nostalgic, and not based on good design.

The pissy complaints that Next is only catering to nostalgia comes from three, often overlapping sources:

1) Bitter 4E fans.
2) System-matters wanks on RPGnet
3) People young enough to have only played WotC D&D who don't know any better.

The Next designers are certainly designing a game to appeal to the modes of play that were more common in the TSR era. That is, accessible, fast combat, no need for system mastery, focused on in-game decisions rather than char op and tactical mastery.

It isn't nostalgia to cater to that play style, as it's still a perfectly good way to play. And no doubt WotC has concluded that it's in fact a better mode of play for a business model desperate to make D&D more accessible to a broader audience.

Quote from: vytzka;664133What's typically described as good game design by people obsessed with the concept is stuff I tend to find orthogonal to my fun at best. So, don't really give a shit?

There's that too. They simply can't grasp the notion that different people like different things - they take it as an article of religious faith that game design is like engineering bridges and software systems. And they lack the imagination to consider anyone playing D&D in anything but a mechanics-first, meta-game, WoW fashion.

Quote from: gleichman;664208I'll take 2 hours of HERO combat over any modern wargame, especially the 'beer and pretzels games like Warmachine, 40K or any of that type. I'd rather go to the Dentist than play games that simple and poorly designed.

HERO combat is pretty fun. And I could see myself having a lot of fun playing HERO as a wargame (this is your dude, this is my dude, lets fight). Tons of fun actually.

But that's not what I find fun in an RPG, so in the context of a role-playing game I'd find that same situation dreadful.
 
It'd be like playing an RPG and then breaking out the x-box for 2 hours of X-com. Sure I like x-com and all but it's not what I signed up for.

Quote from: Piestrio;664286HERO combat is pretty fun. And I could see myself having a lot of fun playing HERO as a wargame (this is your dude, this is my dude, lets fight). Tons of fun actually.

But that's not what I find fun in an RPG, so in the context of a role-playing game I'd find that same situation dreadful.

The only pure wargames I play now days are online, and then only because my son wants me to.

I need context (i.e. a RPG campaign) for the battles, and I need the battles to be interesting (i.e. a wargame to resolve them). One without the other is not worth doing in my mind.

Quote from: Piestrio;664135I suppose in theory that's true but IME I've never had a long combat in an RPG provide more fun than a short one and as importantly I've never had a long RPG combat provide more fun than a similar length board or minis game.

2 hours of pathfinder combat is no where near as fun as two hours of battletech.

2 hours of 4e combat is nowhere near as fun as two hours of FASA Star Trek: TCS

2 hours of HERO combat is nowhere near as fun as two hours of Warmachine.

That kind of fun, rules driven "challenges", is much better provided by any number of war/board games.

For me it kind of depends, I'd say - I like longer (well, let's say 2h is a long combat, yes?) combats in, say, Warhammer, RuneQuest/BRP, and Aces & Eights (well, mostly because A&8s targeting system is just so much fun thanks to that little gadget ). Mostly because often a longer combat means quite a few participants. I didn't enjoy a long combat in Savage Worlds, on the other hand, where at some point it's basically waiting until you get that lucky roll, as everyone runs out of ideas what trick to RP now.

That said, I admit I enjoy some granularity (and brutality*) to my combat.

*yeah, even in Superheroes games, though obviously less so. What can I say, Spawn, Darkness & Hellblazer are still my favourite comics. That said I'd also like to try someday a "classic" Supers game.

Is 'lack of meaningful choice' also code for 'lack of trap options'?  Because that could be a cause for it, too.  If there's no cryptic codex of rules, then there's not much for the Spike types to use to feel superior to the Timmy types.

Quote from: Rincewind1;664303For me it kind of depends, I'd say - I like longer (well, let's say 2h is a long combat, yes?) combats in, say, Warhammer, RuneQuest/BRP, and Aces & Eights (well, mostly because A&8s targeting system is just so much fun thanks to that little gadget ). Mostly because often a longer combat means quite a few participants. I didn't enjoy a long combat in Savage Worlds, on the other hand, where at some point it's basically waiting until you get that lucky roll, as everyone runs out of ideas what trick to RP now.

That said, I admit I enjoy some granularity (and brutality*) to my combat.

*yeah, even in Superheroes games, though obviously less so. What can I say, Spawn, Darkness & Hellblazer are still my favourite comics. That said I'd also like to try someday a "classic" Supers game.

You might like this then.

Quote from: mcbobbo;664306Is 'lack of meaningful choice' also code for 'lack of trap options'?  Because that could be a cause for it, too.  If there's no cryptic codex of rules, then there's not much for the Spike types to use to feel superior to the Timmy types.

I don't think so. I know lots of 4e fans who were happy to see the "trap" options from 3.x go away.

They just see RPGs like boardgames or computer games. Viewed through that lens complaining about "lack of choice" makes sense; Who would want to play a FPS video game with only one weapon? or an RTS with only one unit type? Or a board game with only one way to go (ala Candy Land)?

It's not that they're stupid/evil/etc... it's just that they have failed to see what makes RPGs unique and fun in the first place and so they judge them based on the criteria of other games.

Quote from: The Traveller;663928If you're going to make this a thing, fuckwit, I will reciprocate.

I'm only eight posts in and this thread is already turning out to be a rousing good time!

Quote from: Piestrio;664135I suppose in theory that's true but IME I've never had a long combat in an RPG provide more fun than a short one and as importantly I've never had a long RPG combat provide more fun than a similar length board or minis game.

2 hours of pathfinder combat is no where near as fun as two hours of battletech.

2 hours of 4e combat is nowhere near as fun as two hours of FASA Star Trek: TCS

2 hours of HERO combat is nowhere near as fun as two hours of Warmachine.

That kind of fun, rules driven "challenges", is much better provided by any number of war/board games.

Swap the boardgames for videogames and thats me..

2 hours of Pathfinder combat is nowhere as fun as 2 hours of Jagged Alliance 2.

2 hours of 4e combat is nowhere as fun as 2 hours of Valkyrie Chronicles.

2 hours of HERO combat is nowhere as fun as 2 hours of XCom Enemy Unknown.



Oh, and 2 hours of Shadowrun hacking is nowhere as fun as 2 hours of hacking in Uplink ( or in Netrunner cardgame, by the way).

Quote from: gleichman;664207It could be nothing else, no common ground- no common language. It's why I refused to take part.

You have no idea.  No idea.  This was the equiv of the end of the housing bubble for 4E, when people were still fighting for it at any cost despite the lack of underpinning.  And there was a decent conversation going on about immersion and dissociative/associative mechanics and working through som language as a group, then the crew touting the recent clusterfuck of WotC would not hear it.  thousands of posts later....

*shudder*

Quote from: Rincewind1;664303For me it kind of depends, I'd say - I like longer (well, let's say 2h is a long combat, yes?) combats in, say, Warhammer, RuneQuest/BRP, and Aces & Eights (well, mostly because A&8s targeting system is just so much fun thanks to that little gadget ). Mostly because often a longer combat means quite a few participants. I didn't enjoy a long combat in Savage Worlds, on the other hand, where at some point it's basically waiting until you get that lucky roll, as everyone runs out of ideas what trick to RP now.

That said, I admit I enjoy some granularity (and brutality*) to my combat.

*yeah, even in Superheroes games, though obviously less so. What can I say, Spawn, Darkness & Hellblazer are still my favourite comics. That said I'd also like to try someday a "classic" Supers game.

Granularity is a good term and a good concept.  We have a few more rolls in our combat system than some, but many of them are the players (and NPCs and foes) using their various skills, which makes things more cinematic.  Some combats might hit that 2 hour point (especially now that some of the players have been playing their characters for years), but some of our best and most interesting combats have been in that 1.5-2hr mark.

Not to mention, after the pcs have really learned how my skill hell system works, they start taking advantage.

Quote from: Haffrung;664222They simply can't grasp the notion that different people like different things

The same could easily be said for players on all sides of every fence. This site is no better about the bullshit "if you enjoy something that way, you are wrong and just don't GET RPGs, man" (you will notice that this has been said repeatedly in this thread).

How about we all play RPGs however we enjoy it, and stop acting like we or anyone else is wrong for having fun their own way.

Quote from: Emperor Norton;664823The same could easily be said for players on all sides of every fence. This site is no better about the bullshit "if you enjoy something that way, you are wrong and just don't GET RPGs, man" (you will notice that this has been said repeatedly in this thread).

How about we all play RPGs however we enjoy it, and stop acting like we or anyone else is wrong for having fun their own way.

I don't have any problem with people enjoying different styles of RPGs. But when it comes to D&D, it's the RPGNet-System Matters-4E crowd who go around saying other editions are objectively broken. Check out all the posts on RPGNet where 4E fans full of nerdfury claim the Next team is designing a game only Mike Mearl likes. And anyone who claims to actually like the style of D&D Next is aimed at are dismissed as delusional or confounded by nostalgia. It's only a matter of time until we see the term 'brain damaged' come out.

People who see games only in terms in formulas and analytic optimization tend to have a stark and unbending attitude towards these things. I have shelves full of eurogames, so I understand exactly what appeals to them and why they have problems with various editions of D&D (all of them, actually). But it's frankly tiresome seeing a bunch of people who always hated D&D until 4E came out claiming that people who like other editions, or who are enjoying Next, can only be impaired by nostalgia. I accept why people might want to play 4E ; I've never seen anyone who dislikes 4E claim it was a terrible game - only one they wouldn't want to play. The System Matters crowd doesn't make such distinctions.

Quote from: silva;664727Swap the boardgames for videogames and thats me..

2 hours of Pathfinder combat is nowhere as fun as 2 hours of Jagged Alliance 2.

2 hours of 4e combat is nowhere as fun as 2 hours of Valkyrie Chronicles.

2 hours of HERO combat is nowhere as fun as 2 hours of XCom Enemy Unknown.



Oh, and 2 hours of Shadowrun hacking is nowhere as fun as 2 hours of hacking in Uplink ( or in Netrunner cardgame, by the way).

X-Com is almost as fun as Sex.