Quote from: Gabriel2;740667Do you remember which ones?  I've never tried to point balance any of the original Techbook designs.

Oooooh you are asking me about a book I haven't opened in almost two decades  Also I don't have a Mekton 2 core rulebook anymore, so I'm not sure I could explain it.  I think the way they figured command armor on the various designs was completely at odds with how it should have been...like, going through their own formulas on the book vehicles you'd arrive at the most nutzoid values versus what they had written down.

I think they fixed it in Operation Rimfire for the mecha that appear in that module along and MTS...

(Also, O:R is one of the most gorgeous gaming products released up to that point, and may be still...I really should buy another copy again some day...stupid hoarding syndrome of mine).

Quote from: Caesar Slaad;740603Cthulhutech. Until its take on religions.

Chtulhutech.  Until I got to the rules...

Quote from: thedungeondelver;740677Oooooh you are asking me about a book I haven't opened in almost two decades  Also I don't have a Mekton 2 core rulebook anymore, so I'm not sure I could explain it.  I think the way they figured command armor on the various designs was completely at odds with how it should have been...like, going through their own formulas on the book vehicles you'd arrive at the most nutzoid values versus what they had written down.

I think they fixed it in Operation Rimfire for the mecha that appear in that module along and MTS...

(Also, O:R is one of the most gorgeous gaming products released up to that point, and may be still...I really should buy another copy again some day...stupid hoarding syndrome of mine).

No worries.  I don't doubt that there are calculation errors there.  The one that gave me fits wasn't the Techbook, though.  It was Mecha Manual One.  That one was an interrim product which was years after Techbook but about a year before Z Plus, and used a hybrid of the rules of both.  I remember trying to match steps on the designs in that one and pulling on my hair a lot.  Good times!    

Command armor is always kind of flakey.  It doesn't look like it, but there are some nuances that crop up when you've got it designed and that really cause a lot of "wait, what?" moments.

And yes, Mekton Operation Rimfire is plenty sweet.

I don't understand the problem. The game has in-setting racism.  That can be a touchy subject, so they throw in a blurb about making sure the players are cool with things.  And there's the social skill modifiers.

What's wrong?

Oh, here's another one: Axis & Allies Miniatures.  At first I was like "Sweet!  Easy point-of-entry historicals game!"  Then I saw what they were doing with the scale and had no intention of fixing, and some of the ridiculous rules issues they had no intention of fixing, and that they ignored a friend of mine who is a good scratch programmer who offered to build them a computer game around it for recognition...and I was like..."Er...no."

Quote from: thedungeondelver;740702Oh, here's another one: Axis & Allies Miniatures.

Ooh, yeah, that went from awesome to suck damn fast.

Quote from: Black Vulmea;740706Ooh, yeah, that went from awesome to suck damn fast.

Ohh yeah it did.  Massed Flamethrower troops bringing B17s down

What.

The fuck.

Quote from: thedungeondelver;740727Ohh yeah it did.  Massed Flamethrower troops bringing B17s down

:jaw-dropping:   :banghead:    :jaw-dropping:

Quote from: Ravenswing;740756:jaw-dropping:   :banghead:    :jaw-dropping:

It was sad to see.  Early on the devs were very engaged with the community.  People would note scale problems; for example the US towed 57mm anti-tank gun was a faint splinter of plastic mounted on a huge, $.25 piece sized base, the not-much-larger PaK38 was on a $.50 sized base which the miniature literally hung over the edges of, and the devs would say "Right, sorry about that, we will fix that in the next revision..."

and shit wouldn't get done (but we were told that since so many had been made, it was a matter of weeding them out of the system via sales, so, whatevs).

well...

It just kept getting worse, until when they finally introduced aircraft.  The Spitfire was clearly an ME109 in Allied paint.  Like, people in the forums would call it the "Messerspit".

Then the rules started getting more and more fucked up.  I can't recall, there was a rule for embarking troops firing from a vehicle or something that basically made zero sense, so when folks went to the devs on the AH/Wizards forum and said "Oh, hey, this doesn't work, will you change it to XYZ?  Because it makes more sense if it works this way." their response was "It doesn't matter if it makes realistic sense to do it that way, play the rule as written."

And then finally...yes, massed flamethrowers could be used to bring down aircraft.  During air support phases you picked a target hex, put the attacking AC in it, and made an attack that phase, then removed it.  The opponents got a shot back at the aircraft, but could shoot back with ANYTHING.  Tank guns, rifles, machine guns, antitank guns, bazookas, flamethrowers...anything that could roll damage could be used.  And, again, the devs said "Play the rule as written not the rule as makes sense."

I quit playing A&A minis after that

I will point out a funny thing - I was at a wargames con when the WWII sea battles minis for A&A were released and the Seekrieg guys could barely contain themselves, buying stand after stand of aircraft, and individual ships - and throwing the cards away or telling vendors they didn't want them

Quote from: Old One Eye;740699I don't understand the problem. The game has in-setting racism.  That can be a touchy subject, so they throw in a blurb about making sure the players are cool with things.  And there's the social skill modifiers.

What's wrong?

Because they feel the need to throw a blurb in about it is damn fucking patronising to your market. It shows that the producer has no faith in the ability of the consumer to engage with their product in an adult and informed manner. It pushes to consumer to view the product in a specific manner.

With D&D, you kill things and take their stuff. There is nothing stopping you inverting this conceit. However, with Eclipse Phase you are told not to do things because they are bad and the people you game with might not like it.

Really? You know them? You know their histories, their drives and desires?

I am waiting for the "It will never be published" fair and balanced Jovian EP book. I want to play Jovian's fighting for humanity against these damn uplifts. (being silly now....)

Quote from: thedungeondelver;740766their response was "It doesn't matter if it makes realistic sense to do it that way, play the rule as written."...yes, massed flamethrowers could be used to bring down aircraft...And, again, the devs said "Play the rule as written not the rule as makes sense."

Sure this isn't 4e you're talking about?

Quote from: BarefootGaijin;740771Because they feel the need to throw a blurb in about it is damn fucking patronising to your market. It shows that the producer has no faith in the ability of the consumer to engage with their product in an adult and informed manner.

Quote from: BarefootGaijin;740771It shows that the producer has no faith in the ability of the consumer to engage with their product in an adult and informed manner.

Quote from: BarefootGaijin;740771. . . engage with their product in an adult and informed manner.

A-fucking-men.

At first I was like, "Oooh, Rogue Trader! Finally a space exploration game I have a chance of selling my players on because they dig 40k. And hey, look at that, the system is faintly reminiscent of the wargame, the players have more freedom than most poor saps in the imperium, and they get to control huge numbers of people like the sort of kingdom management game of D&D I never have the opportunity to run."

Then I was like, "Oh right, it's the modern 40k setting, the one where all the wahoooFUN has been squeeze out in favor of ever more grimdark, so there are no identifiable protagonists anywhere. The system rewards you, without irony or humor, for cold-blooded genocide. Character creation is more complicated than 3e, and it turns out the players want to play Han Solo and his wookies, not Grand Moff Tarkin and his flunkies."

Quote from: thedungeondelver;740766Then the rules started getting more and more fucked up.  

Sounds like total ass to play competitively.  

Kinda illustrates why I don't enjoy playing at LGSes, conventions, tournaments, pickup games or any other outside venues.  When you play in those settings, you have to play RAW, and that means you have to put up with bad RAW.

My version of the above story was with Mechwarrior: Dark Age.  I wanted to love the game so much.  I had just gotten into Mage Knight and had been enjoying it.  Mechwarrior was better thematically skinned to my tastes, so I dove into it feet first.

Basically, Mechwarrior had a bad problem that mechs were the worst units you could waste points on.  The game discouraged mechs in battle forces and instead revolved around force builds of large numbers of infantry and one or two tanks.  Then artillery came along, allegedly to stifle the infantry builds, and ended up just making mechs even more worthless.

So yeah, "Mechwarrior" was about anything other than mechs.

It could be houseruled into something fun, but houserules don't work at events.