Quote from: ggroy;321151As in Erol Otus?

Yup.

Quote from: Melan;321128That's just naysaying. They are little guys just like you, me or the talented Mr. Rouse -- underground comic artists with a genuine love for the game. Why so mean?

Oh, I like them well enough and usually enjoy their comics, but their podcasts and posts about 4e are nothing more than a paid advertising campaign which I find to be unethical.  Ironically, they've done comics in the past that lambasted video game reviewers for taking money under the table to print good reviews.  They've done the same thing here.

Book idea suXXXorz. Cover art r0XXXrZ. 'Nuff said.

Quote from: Spinachcat;321121Every point based RPG and every D20 game had better and worse ways of making certain types of characters.   Min-maxing didn't start with 3e.   People were doing it with Champions in the early 80s.

Yes, but there was a learning curve that was part of mastering the system. One became competent at creating optimized characters by creating and playing characters.

Even the optimization boards at Whizbros, which turned the process up to eleven, were fan-based for the most part.

I think it's the idea that, "Look! It's skill-in-a-can!" that rubs me the wrong way.

Then again, on further reflection strategy guides for games aren't unusual. After all, chess books detailing attacks and defenses have been around for centuries, and one can study for a lifetime to achieve mastery of the game. I suppose my reaction is simply based on the fact that what I know of the games I like came from my own experience in mastering the rules through play. I think I'm having a, "Get off my lawn, you kids!" moment . . .

Heck, many players of Vampire: The Masquerade I know became masters at character optimization.
I know, because I was one of them.

Quote from: Hairfoot;321148It's actually reminiscent of the cartoony style of early D&D artists.  I think it should be encouraged over the super-serious, demi-anime style of 4E so far.

Hehe, +3 backscratcher.

I think that 4e's art style sucks. I really liked 3.5's art style; I prefer serious art over the silly stuff.

Quote from: Kyle AaronI want more art like this.

I would play that game forever. The minis would be cheap as hell, too!

Quote from: Hairfoot;321111It does, however, say, "this game is so unintuitive, so far removed from the processes of imagination and creativity, that we can show you how to "win" it through technical mastery of the game system."

'Nail on the head' there. Simply knowing 1500 pages of rules better than another player is a no win.

Quote from: Benoist;321196Heck, many players of Vampire: The Masquerade I know became masters at character optimization.
I know, because I was one of them.

You know, there is something in the idea of munchkinism in V:tM I find amusing. I'll take a munchkin group over an angsty/gothy group any day, but in that particular game... I don't know, it just sounds funny.

Quote from: SunBoy;321243You know, there is something in the idea of munchkinism in V:tM I find amusing. I'll take a munchkin group over an angsty/gothy group any day, but in that particular game... I don't know, it just sounds funny.

For sure, since VTM was the first Storytelling (so-called) game in existence. It's the one people remember as saying that what mattered was the "plot" and "stories", the anti-munchkinism of role-playing as a True Artform (so-called) and so on, so forth.

It's highly ironic, as a matter of fact, especially since at the time, I was very much into the WW proganda thing and yet was optimizing my characters for the game, and didn't see any oxymoronic behavior going on.

I'm still playing the WoD, because I like the mechanics and the inspiration the games provide, but my games really are my own thing now. I just skip the "ideological" parts of WW's texts today. The best of both worlds, really.

Quote from: mhensley;321166Oh, I like them well enough and usually enjoy their comics, but their podcasts and posts about 4e are nothing more than a paid advertising campaign which I find to be unethical.  Ironically, they've done comics in the past that lambasted video game reviewers for taking money under the table to print good reviews.  They've done the same thing here.

The PA guys have never, in the entire history of the comic or the site, endorsed a product they did not enjoy.  They've even gone out of their way to point out products in the past they've refused to endorse because they found them to be crap, and IIRC, there was one very public moment where they pulled an endorsement, of WoW of all things, when the product wasn't holding up to the original promised standard.  

I have no doubt in my mind that the PA guys are indeed enjoying 4e, even if perhaps the podcast is a bit of a stunt initially. If they weren't they wouldn't keep working on it.  

I did find this interesting, however, from a recent newspost:  

QuoteOne of the things that makes Dungeons & Dragons so appealing to me is that it has, somehow, retained its illicit nature. I don't want to dredge it up in its totality, but my mother never knew that I played it, and the very core of that experience - where we began to explore, as a group, campaign-wide themes and more robust characterizations - was Dark Sun.

And now, it's coming back.

Modularity - perhaps the key principle of Fourth Edition - wasn't a concern at all, back then. If you wanted character portability, you played Palladium or Gurps. I have to admit that part of me liked how filthy everything was in D&D, by comparison - shimmed in sans caulk, rough seams everywhere, with prodigious lengths of duct tape officiating any number of unlikely systemic marriages. The post-apocalyptic Dark Sun epitomized this concept, with its warring schools of magic, two alternate forms of clerical magic, a truly bizarre path for character advancement beyond level 20, and (for a very long time) a world whose history that was almost completely unknown. The more they told of that history, the less I liked it. Funny how that works.

The new system has the capability to describe the blasted world of Athas with much greater precision, oh, but that filth.  I will miss those jutting mounds of junk, where such treasure hides.

(CW)TB out.

So maybe Tycho's starting to realize what he's missing.  

Quote from: Benoist;321245I'm still playing the WoD, because I like the mechanics and the inspiration the games provide, but my games really are my own thing now. I just skip the "ideological" parts of WW's texts today. The best of both worlds, really.

Exactly. The last Vampire campaign I played (more than a year ago) was something like that, and it was actually really cool. Downside was, there was one (possibly two) of the other players that were all about that "what matters is the exploration of the inhuman psychology" crap, so they ended up with characters that not only sucked system-wise but also were totally boring, because they were trying to play a different game.

One of these days I need to do a thread/blog post about the WoD games and their disconnects.

The books initially start with one idea of how it should roughly be played, yet the games usually give a different vibe, and of course the playerbase has an entirely different one. And the inspirational fiction usually goes in a totally different direction from that.

This is probably why Promethean is the best WW setting book, yet its also the least popular and most vocally hated.

Its everything WW games have strived to be from the start, yet the playerbase totally rejects it.

(A close second is Changeling, and the playerbase fucks it up more than anything.  Though the books do a decent job of helping the borking along.  Yet it almost works in a sad form of irony that covers the human condition ALL too well.  


SPOILERS:  in Changeling you are effectively humans who were abused which made you a Changeling and you escaped from a mixture of heaven and hell.  The people who did this to you were subjected to the same thing you were.  They just got powerful.  You return and basically fuck up doing all the Machiavellian bullshit that ruins the entire gamut of White Wolf RPGs.  And many proceed to then perpetuate the cycle of abuse heaped on them.  Just like in our real world, so many victims of abuse then abuse someone else usually in exactly the same way instead of saying NO MORE.  WHAT HAPPENS TO ME HAPPENS TO NOBODY ELSE, IT ENDS NOW, they do it to others.  )

I also need to write why being a WW character is usually the polar freaking OPPOSITE of awesome.  Especially Vampires which have gotten this idealistic fetish now thanks to Anne Rice and now that crazy Mormon chick who wrote Twilight instead of being a mixture of monster to be feared or wretch to be pitied.

Quote from: Captain Rufus;321347One of these days I need to do a thread/blog post about the WoD games and their disconnects.
(...)
I also need to write why being a WW character is usually the polar freaking OPPOSITE of awesome.

[OT]
Please do! I would very much like to read your thoughts on that matter!
[/OT]

Quote from: Benoist;321245For sure, since VTM was the first Storytelling (so-called) game in existence. It's the one people remember as saying that what mattered was the "plot" and "stories", the anti-munchkinism of role-playing as a True Artform (so-called) and so on, so forth.

(Actually, Prince Valiant by Greg Stafford described itself as a "Storytelling" game a few years earlier, but it never made the waves that VtM did.)

Before anyone else goes labeling the Penny Arcade guys as shills, they should know that they are the same guys who let Paizo use one of their creations for free, to stat it up for one of their Pathfinder products and make it OGC material.